"A Maid" = Wantonness? / William Blake Poem

[Ken]

"I Asked a Thief"

I asked a thief to steal me a peach,
He turned up his eyes;
I ask'd a lithe lady to lie her down,
Holy & meek she cries.

As soon as I went
An angel came.
He wink'd at the thief
And smild at the dame--

And without one word said
Had a peach from the tree
And still as a maid
Enjoy'd the lady.

- William Blake, 1863

I basically get what's going on in this ballad:
A guy is unable to convince a thief to steal for him, and a maiden to sleep with him, unlike an (angel?) who comes along and obtains these things with a mere wink and smile. I'm thrown by the 2nd to last line, though:

"And still as a maid"

What does this mean? That she put up no resistance and laid open-armed and in complete compliance, as maids were wont to do?

ps Rather controversial poem, in some ways, featuring a lusting angel.

[Medievalist]

This is one of the not-published-in-his-life poems from the Rosetti ms.

Blake is . . . odd. He had "visions," including one of naked angels in a tree--or something similar.

But this poem is overtly sexual -- think about a peach; thickly furred, with a deep cleft; think about Eliott "Do I dare to eat a peach?" I don't know that the peach is sexual here, but it's at least an Edenic image.

The line in question "And still as a maid," here maid means "virgin"; she was still a virgin--now go back and look at the poem again.

Blake is sort of diffuse, and . . . well. I think he's one of those poets who had LSD trips without needing LSD.

You can't be too literal. You might look through Songs of Innocence and Experience, to get an idea of Blake's general methods.

[Ken]

thanks. That puts the poem in a whole new light.
After my fifth reading of the ballad new questions arise,
to replace other answered ones,
a bit less troublesome now that I'm not taking them strictly literally:

"As soon as I went"

Which seems to mean that he didn't himself witness the angel and his dealings with the virgin and thief. Interesting to contemplate how he came to know of the event, when he wasn't there, if it even was an actual event and not a vision or hypothetical truism.

I've heard of a peach having sexual connotations but didn't recall it here.
It makes sense for him to have used it in this way as talk about sex in his times was one thing but a graphic depiction was quite another, requiring all sorts of proxies to be employed. They still are to an extent in pop music, like "I Want Candy." Will check out more of Blake. I dig diffusenes, though it can be a bit overwhelming.

ps

I ask'd a lithe lady to lie her down,
Holy & meek she cries.

When I read this I though she was being duplicitous.
The seemingly exagerated response and the overall wording led me to this conclusion.
(Remarkable little lines :-)