Pilgrim celebrates the meeting between young Samuel Palmer and the elderly William Blake. The notion underlying the piece is Samuel Palmer visiting the imaginary tomb of William Blake. Although Blake’s iconography is that of a Romantic, his style has a very classical feel to it, so it seemed appropriate to build him a mausoleum in the same vein. The tomb is inhabited by the Ghost of a Flea, probably the most disturbing image Blake ever devised, and Paolozzi’s sculptural response to Blake’s image of Newton. They rather represent psychological opposites, and the latter, being an “hommage” to Blake also makes reference to the nature of the painting in which it is contained. The planetary intervention in the upper part of the piece reflects Palmer’s obsession with the moon. The title evokes Palmer’s regard for Blake and is also a play on Palmer’s name, which derives from a Middle English term for a pilgrim to the Holy Land.