“I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man’s,” wrote the poet William Blake (1757–1827) in his book Jerusalem. And he did create a system. In manuscripts of poetry and personal mythology, using a printmaking process he invented, Blake’s words and illustrations intertwine in cosmic coherence. Inspired by visions he’d begun having as a child, Blake held forth on politics, literature, and history, often in immortal verse and with drawings pulled from his private fantasies. “William Blake: Burning Bright,” at the Yale Center for British Art, is a “multisensory experience,” the exhibition’s co-curator Elizabeth Wyckoff says of the more than 100 artworks on view. Yale’s large collection of Blake works is capped by its unique copy of the epic poem Jerusalem. The artist labored on it from around 1804 to 1820, and printed a mere six copies of the work. Yale’s is the only one that he lavishly and completely colored in, painting with watercolor and gold. —Peter Saenger