William Blake
William Blake (28 November 1757 — 12 August 1827) was a poet and painter who went largely unrecognized during his lifetime, but is now considered a seminal figure in the artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement known as Romanticism[1] or the Romantic age/ara. In the poem “A Little Girl Lost” (1794), he envisages a future where children and adolescents will freely enjoy nudity and love, and the religious condemnation of these pleasures will cause indignation. Blake provided a timeless perspective on love:
Children of the future age,
Reading this indignant page,
Know that in a former time,
Love! sweet Love! was thought a crime.
"A Little Girl Lost," from Songs of Experience (1794).[2]
The above lines form the famous ending of 1st wave MAP Movement scholar-activist Tom O'Carroll's book, Paedophilia: The Radical Case[3] (1980).
Also see his poem The Garden of Love (1794)[4].
See also