The lines are from Thomas Gray’s Progress of Poesy. The image is derived from William Blake’s illustration, originally rendered in ink and watercolor over pencil drawing. You can view the original in the Blake Archive at Yale here.

In the beautiful William Blake Tarot of the Creative Imagination, Blake’s vision of Bright-eyed Fancy is borrowed for the 7 of Music, or Fancies; the suit is equivalent to Cups in the familiar version of Tarot. As Ed Buryn, the creator of the William Blake Tarot, explains:

Here I want to stay with the one simple, arresting image. We see the poet-musician strumming his lyre as his muse pours, from a cornucopia, a host of baby-like “fancies” who are bringing him gifts of inspiration. As the fancies flit around him, the poet’s imagination, winged by these emissaries from his muse, produces fresh words and new music.

What a marvelous depiction of the source of creative inspiration! We learn from it to place ourselves where we are ready to receive and co-create. This is different from passive channeling. The poet will be charged and driven by “thoughts that breathe” and “words that burn”. But he is not taking dictation. In heightened awareness, with his passions aroused and his inner senses all in play, his instrument in his hands, he will bring forth new creation. 

Blake’s picture reminds us how closely the creative act resembles the act of giving birth. In a remarkable inversion of our conventional ideas of conception, it is the feminine muse who is inseminating the poet with the “fancies” who resemble babies who are going to be born through him. We are reminded why dreams of having a baby – when something other than rehearsal for a literal birth – are so often about birthing something new in our lives and our world.