Steady rain and a warm southwest wind. Despite the bleak winter dark, the hour feels like April. I have been reading the letters of William Blake. He says to his friend:

I have a thousand & ten thousand things to say to you. My heart is full of futurity. I percieve that the sore travel which has been given me these three years leads to Glory & Honour. I rejoice & I tremble “I am fearfully & wonderfully made”. I had been reading the cxxxix Psalm a little before your Letter arrived. I take your advice. I see the face of my Heavenly Father he lays his Hand upon my Head & gives a blessing to all my works why should I be troubled why should my heart & flesh cry out. I will go on in the Strength of the Lord through Hell will I sing forth his Praises. that the Dragons of the Deep may praise him & that those who dwell in darkness & on the Sea coasts may be gatherd into his Kingdom. Excuse my perhaps too great Enthusiasm.

Rain and rain and rain. All the colors have been washed from the sky, the trees, the roofs, but the grass glows like a bed of emeralds in the misty half-light. My heart is full of futurity. Excuse my perhaps too great Enthusiasm. A car flies by, hissing, invisible beyond the trees. The sky is a clouded mirror. The grass swallows rain. I have a thousand & ten thousand things to say to you, but I cannot say any of them.