To see a world ....... eternity in an hour. | Auguries of Innocence By William Blake | Eureka Study Aids

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

To see a world .......... eternity in an hour.

Reference
(i) Poem: Auguries of Innocence
(ii) Poet: William Blake
Context
(i) Occurrence: Start of the Poem (Lines 1-4/132)

(ii) Content: This poem is a stark warning about the inevitable consequences for society when there is wanton mistreatment of people and nature. There is a list of situations and auguries about what might happen if these kinds of injustice continue. The poem also expresses Blake's political views about class structures, slavery, and inequality among other things. He condemns oppression and cruelties against the innocent and vulnerable members of society. 

Explanation

     In these lines the poet propagates the concept of "inward and outward infinity of space and eternity of time". Firstly, he suggests to discover macrocosm in microcosm. Scientifically, a grain of sand is not the smallest particle. It consists of billions of atoms. An atom further consists of about a hundred particles like proton, neutron and electron etc and so on. Thus a grain of sand is a whole world itself, having infinity inwards. Secondly, he proposes to see microcosm in macrocosm. To see the whole world of God in a wild flower, we do not need eyesight but sight --- a transcendental sight that allows the individual to see beyond what is visible. Thus infinity can be held in the palm of hand and eternity can be contained in an hour. In short, our imagination can expand infinitesimal things into immensity and diminish gigantic things into miniatures.