Midnight Anxiety: Angered

Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forest of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And, when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?
What the hammer? What the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
- William Blake (1757-1827)

The first stanza came back to me this week with stunning clarity, I just had to look for Blake's poem again, after all these years. The meaning comes to me now in a different light. It tells how the meek can be ferocious, the kind... unforgiving, the understanding... vengeful. Man is capable of both.

Beware the good but deadly heart...
For he can wield the might that will smite all his oppressors...