“Muse Circe Reclaims Her Lucre”: 5 new “Next Line, Please” prompts

For our next round, write a poem using as your point of departure one of the following five “Proverbs of Hell” by William Blake (pictured left).. Your poem may, by anecdotal means, illustrate or confute the infernal axiom you have chosen. It need not quote the Blake line you chose; you can let your readers guess. Limit 15 lines. Or write a cogent one-paragraph discussion, elucidation, and analysis that brilliantly addresses (or argues with) the line. {Limit 15 lines for the paragraph as well?}

1. Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead.
2. Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
3. The nakedness of woman is the work of God.
4. The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of instruction.
5. Sooner murder an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires.

For the latest column, with a review of the outstanding entries written in response to last monthh's prompt, click here.

“Muse Circe Reclaims Her Lucre”