Of Sting and William Blake
Sting, former frontman for the then-new wave band The Police, released a solo album in 2004 entitled Sacred Love. One of the songs from that album, "Send Your Love," begins with the lyrics:
Finding the world in the smallness of a grain of sand
And holding infinities in the palm of your hand
And Heaven's realms in the seedlings of this tiny flower
And eternities in the space of a single hour
Compare this to four lines from William Blake's "Auguries of Innocence:"
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
When asked about the inspiration for his lyrics on Oprah, Sting had the opportunity to credit William Blake's original poem ... but chose not to do so. Why? We can only guess.
Imitation is, they say, the sincerest form of flattery, but Blake is no longer with us to be flattered. Blake's works are all public domain, so Sting's adaptation is not plagiarism; still, a brief "This was inspired by one of England's greatest mystical poets" could not have hurt.
It is possible, of course, that Sting did not realize his lyrics were so close to Blake's poem. Things we read or hear or see in childhood may remain with us even though we lose touch with their sources, and sometimes we may think we've produced an original thought only to find that someone else had the same thought. The Teacher explains this as, "That which has been is that which will be, And that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun." (Ecclesiastes 1:9) Sometimes it seems as if we are all monkeys at typewriters, unaware of what exactly we are producing.
It is more likely that Sting, a literate and erudite fellow, knows and appreciates Blake's poem, and that he paid homage to it by adapting it to his own use. If only he hadn't been so mysterious about it ... .