I have written this Poem from immediate Dictation, twelve or sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time, without Premeditation and even against my Will; the Time it has taken in writing was thus render’d Non Existent, and an immense Poem Exists which seems to be the Labor of a long life, all produc’d without Labor or Study.

William Blake (1757-1827) English poet, mystic, artist

Letter to his patron Thomas Butts (25 Apr 1803)