Cast off the chains
Of custom and commerce
Step into Blake’s world
Of energy and delight
Where the house is abuilding
The song keeps on singing
The gift is what’s giving
Over and over again
Not doers and makers
Not sellers or takers
But humanity living
In the way of vobiscum
With all flora and
fauna
And rerum as well united as one
Neither subject nor object
Nor by grammar possessed
But of the natural order and
All equally blessed
* * * * * *
This poem is the happy accident of a little Internet searching. This morning I came across a Wikipedia entry that described a verb case, called the passival voice, which was considered proper grammatical usage in English up through the early 19th century. The passival is defined as an intermediate case between the active and passive voice. Sorry to all you grammarians if I have misused terminology - you can read the wikipedia entry here. In any case, it strikes me as a real pity we have lost touch with the passival voice as it comes closer to capturing the way of the natural world.
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