LIFE

OF

WILLIAM BLAKE

WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS



BY

ALEXANDER GILCHRIST

A NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION

ILLUSTRATED FROM BLAKE'S OWN WORKS

WITH ADDITIONAL LETTERS AND A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II

PHAETON PRESS

NEW YORK

1969

    CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.

SELECTIONS

EDITED BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI

POETICAL SKETCHES
• Introductory Note.. .. .. 1
• Song. My silks and fine array. . . . . 3
• Song. Love and harmony combine. . . . . 4
• Song. I love the jocund dance. . . . . 5
• Mad Song. The wild winds weep. . . . . 6
• Song. How sweet I roamed from field to field . .. .. 7
• Song. Memory, hither come. .. . . 8
• To the Muses. Whether on Ida’s shady brow . .. .. 9
• To the Evening Star. Thou fair-hair’d angel of the Evening . .. .. 10
• To Spring. O thou with dewy locks who lookest down . .. .. 11
• To Summer. O thou who passest thro’ our valleys in . .. .. 12
• Blind-Man’s Buff. When silver snow decks Susan’s clothes . .. .. 13
• King Edward the Third (Selections from).. .. . . 16

SONGS OF INNOCENCE.
• Introductory Note.. .. .. 27
• Introduction. Piping down the valleys wild . .. .. 29
• The Shepherd. How sweet is the shepherd’s sweet lot . .. .. 30
page: vi  
• The Echoing Green. The sun does arise . .. .. 31
• The Lamb. Little lamb, who made thee? . .. .. 32
• The Little Black Boy. My mother bore me in the southern wild . .. .. 33
• The Blossom. Merry, merry sparrow! . . .. . 34
• The Chimney-Sweeper. When my mother died I was very young . .. .. 35
• The Little Boy Lost. Father, father, where are you going? . .. .. 36
• The Little Boy Found. The little boy lost in the lonely fen . .. .. 36
• Laughing Song. When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy . .. .. 37
• A Cradle Song. Sweet dreams form a shade . .. .. 38
• The Divine Image. To mercy, pity, peace, and love . .. .. 40
• Holy Thursday. ‘Twas a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean . .. 41
• Night. The sun descending in the West . .. .. 42
• Spring. Sound the flute!. .. . . 44
• Nurse’s Song. When the voices of children are heard on the green . .. .. 45
• Infant Joy. I have no name. .. . . 46
• A Dream. Once a dream did weave a shade . .. .. 47
• On Another’s Sorrow. Can I see another’s woe . .. .. 48
• The Voice of the Ancient Bard. Youth of delight, come hither . .. .. 50

SONGS OF EXPERIENCE.
• Introduction. Hear the voice of the bard. . .. .. 51
• Earth’s Answer. Earth raised up her head . .. .. 52
• The Clod and the Pebble. Love seeketh not itself to please . .. .. 53
• Holy Thursday. Is this a holy thing to see . .. .. 54
• The Little Girl Lost. In futurity . . .. . 55
• The Little Girl Found. All the night in woe . .. .. 57
• The Chimney Sweeper. A litle black thing among the snow . .. .. 59
• The Sick Rose. O Rose, thou art sick . .. .. 60
• Nurse’s Song. When the voices of children are heard on the green . .. .. 60
• The Fly. Little Fly. .. . . 61
• The Angel. I dreamt a dream! What can it mean? . .. .. 62
• The Tiger. Tiger, tiger, burning bright . .. .. 63
• My Pretty Rose Tree. A flower was offered to me . .. .. 64
page: vii  
• Ah! Sunflower. Ah! Sunflower! weary of time . .. .. 64
• The Lily. The modest rose puts forth a thorn . .. .. 65
• The Garden of Love. I laid me down upon a bank . .. .. 65
• The Little Vagabond. Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold . .. . 66
• London. I wander through each charter’d street . .. .. 67
• The Human Abstract. Pity would be no more . .. .. 68
• Infant Sorrow. My mother groaned, my father wept . .. .. 69
• Christian Forbearance. I was angry with my friend . .. .. 69
• A Little Boy Lost. Nought loves another as itself . .. .. 70
• A Little Girl Lost. Children of the future age . .. .. 71
• A Cradle Song. Sleep, sleep, beauty bright . .. .. 73
• The Schoolboy. I love to rise on a summer morn . .. .. 74
• To Tirzah. Whate’er is born of mortal birth . .. .. 76

THE BOOK OF THEL.. .. .. 77

IDEAS OF GOOD AND EVIL.
• Introductory Note.. .. .. 85
• The Birds. Where thou dwellest, in what grove . .. .. 89
• Broken Love. My spectre around me night and day . .. .. 90
• The Two Songs. I heard an angel singing . .. .. 93
• The Defiled Santuary. I saw a chapel, all of gold . .. .. 94
• Cupid. Why was Cupid a boy?. .. . . 95
• The Woman taken in Adultery. The vision of Christ that thou dost see . . 96
• Love’s Secret. Never seek to tell thy love . .. .. 98
• The Wild Flower’s Song. As I wandered in the forest . .. .. 99
• The Crystal Cabinet. The maiden caught me in the wild . .. .. 100
• Smile and Frown. There is a smile of love . .. .. 102
• The Golden Net. Beneath a white thorn’s lovely May . .. .. 103
• The Land of Dreams. Awake, awake, my little boy! . .. .. 104
• Mary. Sweet Mary, the first time she was ever was there . .. .. 105
• Auguries of Innocence. To see a world in a grain of sand . .. .. 107
• The Mental Traveller. I travelled through a land of men . .. .. 112
• In a Myrtle Shade. To a lovely myrtle bound . .. .. 118
• William Bond. I wonder whether the girls are mad . .. .. 119
page: viii  
• Scoffers. Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau . .. .. 121
• The Agony of Faith. “I see, I see,” the mother said . .. .. 123
• Daybreak. To find the western path . .. .. 124
• Thames and Ohio. Why should I care for the men of Thames ?. .. .. 124
• Young Love. Are not the joys of morning sweeter . .. .. 125
• Riches. Since all the riches of the world . .. .. 125
• Opportunity. He who bends to himself a joy . .. .. 126
• Seed Sowing. Thou hast a lapful of seed . .. .. 126
• Barren Blosom. I feared the fury of my wind . .. .. 127
• Night and Day. Silent, silent night . .. .. 127
• Love and Deceit. Love to faults is always blind . .. .. 128
• Couplets and Fragments. .. .. 129
• Epigrams and Satirical Pieces on Art and Artists. . . .. 132

PROSE WRITINGS.
• Introductory Note. .. .. 137
• Descriptive Catalogue. .. .. 139
• Public Address. .. .. 164
• Memoranda by Blake of his mode of Engraving. .. . . 178
• Sybilline Leaves—
  • On Homer's Poetry. .. ..179
  • On Virgil. .. ..180
  • The Ghost of Abel. .. ..181
• A Vision of the Last Judgment. .. .. 185
• Note upon Blake's Engraved Designs .. .. . . .. .. 203
  Note: Appendix materials unrelated to DGR are omitted from the transcription.
  • Illustrations of the Book of Job.
  • Songs of Innocence and Experience.

ANNOTATED CATALOGUE OF BLAKE'S PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS.

By William Michael Rossetti.
• Introductory Note. .. .. 205
page: ix  
• List I. Works in Colour.
  • Section a. Dated Works. .. .. 207
  • Section b. Undated Works, Biblical and Sacred. . 235
  • Ditto Ditto Poetic and Miscellaneous. . . .. 245
• List II. Uncoloured Works.
  • Section a. Dated Works. . .. .. 2255
  • Section b. Undated Works, Biblical and Sacred. . 264
  • Ditto Ditto Poetic and Miscellaneous. . . .. .. . 267
• List III. Works of Unascertained Method.
  • Biblical and Sacred .. .. .. 275
  • Poetic and Miscellaneous .. .. .. 275
  • Items from the Sale Satalogues of Mr. George Smith . .. .. 276
  • Items from the Catalogue of an Exhibition of Blake's Works in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, U.S.A. . .. .. 276
• Accounts between Blake and Mr. Butts.. .. .. .. .. . 278
• List of Engravings.
  • Works designed as well as engraved by Blake.. .. .. 279
  • Works engraved, but not designed by Blake.. .. .. 281
  • Works designed, but not engraved by Blake.. .. .. 283
• List of Writings.. .. .. .. .. 283
• Prospectus by Blake issued in 1793.. .. .. 285
• Descriptive Notes of the Designs to Young's “Night Thoughts,” by Frederic James Shields.. .. ..289
• Essay on Blake by James Smetham.. .. ..309
• In Memoriam F. O. Finch, by Samuel Palmer.. .. ..353
• Memoir of Alexander Gilchrist, by Anne Gilchrist.. .. ..357

   

• I give you the end of a golden string:
• Only wind it into a ball,
• It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate,
• Built in Jerusalem wall.

   

• My silks and fine array,
• My smiles and languished air,
• By love are driven away.
• And mournful lean Despair
• Brings me yew to deck my grave:
• Such end true lovers have.

• His face is fair as heaven
• When springing buds unfold;
• Oh, why to him was’t given,
• 10Whose heart is wintry cold?
• His breast is Love’s all-worshipped tomb
• Where all love’s pilgrims come.

• Bring me an axe and spade
• bring me a winding-sheet;
• When I my grave have made,
• Let winds and tempests beat:
• Then down I’ll lie, as cold as clay.
• True love doth pass away!

 

• Love and harmony combine
• And around our souls entwine,
• While thy branches mix with mine
• And our roots together join.

• Joys upon our branches sit,
• Chirping loud and singing sweet;
• Like gentle streams beneath our feet,
• Innocence and virtue meet.

• Thou the golden fruit dost bear,
• 10I am clad in flowers fair;
• Thy sweet boughs perfume the air,
• And the turtle buildeth there.

• There she sits and feeds her young;
• Sweet I hear her mournful song:
• And thy lovely leaves among,
• There is Love: I hear his tongue.

• There his charm’d nest he doth lay,
• There he sleeps the night away,
• There he sports along the day,
• 20And doth among our branches play.

 

• I love the jocund dance,
• The softly-breathing song,
• Where innocent eyes do glance,
• Where lisps the maiden’s tongue.

• I love the laughing vale,
• I love the echoing hill,
• Where mirth does never fail,
• And the jolly swain laughs his fill.

• I love the pleasant cot,
• 10I love the innocent bower,
• Where white and brown is our lot,
• Or fruit in the mid-day hour.

• I love the oaken seat
• Beneath the oaken tree,
• Where all the old villagers meet,
• And laugh our sports to see.

• I love our neighbours all,
• But, Kitty, I better love thee:
• And love them I ever shall,
• 20But thou art all to me.

 

• The wild winds weep,
• And the night is a-cold;
• Come hither, Sleep,
• And my griefs unfold!
• But lo! The Morning peeps
• Over the eastern steeps,
• And rustling birds of dawn
• The earth do scorn.

• Lo! to the vault
• 10Of paved heaven,
• With sorrow fraught,
• My notes are driven:
• They strike the ear of night,
• Make weep the eyes of day;
• They make mad the roaring winds,
• And with tempests play.

• Like a fiend in a cloud
• With howling woe
• After night I do crowd,
• 20And with night will go;
• I turn my back to the East
• Whence comforts have increas’d;
• For light doth seize my brain
• With frantic pain.

 

• How sweet I roamed from field to field,
• And tasted all the summer’s pride,
• ’Till I the Prince of Love beheld,
• Who in the sunny beams did glide!

• He show’d me lilies for my hair,
• And blushing roses for my brow;
• He led me through his gardens fair,
• Where all his golden pleasures grow.

• With sweet May dews my wings were wet,
• 10And Phœbus fired my vocal rage;
• He caught me in his silken net,
• And shut me in his golden cage.

• He loves to sit and hear me sing,
• Then, laughing, sports and plays with me;
• Then stretches out my golden wing,
• And mocks my loss of liberty.

 

• Memory, hither come,
• And tune your merry notes;
• And, while upon the wind
• Your music floats,
• I’ll pore upon the stream
• Where sighing lovers dream,
• And fish for fancies as they pass
• Within the watery glass.

• I’ll drink of the clear stream,
• 10And hear the linnet’s song;
• And there I’ll lie and dream
• The day along:
• And, when night comes, I’ll go
• To places fit for woe;
• Walking along the darkened valley
• With silent Melancholy.

 

• Whether on Ida’s shady brow,
• Or in the chambers of the East,
• The chambers of the sun that now
• From ancient melody have ceased;

• Whether in Heaven ye wander fair,
• Or the green corners of the earth,
• Or the blue regions of the air,
• Where the melodious winds have birth;

• Whether on crystal rocks ye rove
• 10Beneath the bosom of the sea,
• Wandering in many a coral grove;
• Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry;

• How have you left the ancient love
• That bards of old enjoy’d in you!
• The languid strings do scarcely move,
• The sound is forced, the notes are few.

 

• Thou fair-hair’d angel of the Evening,
• Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
• Thy brilliant torch of love; thy radiant crown
• Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
• Smile on our loves; and whilst thou drawest round
• The curtains of the sky, scatter thy dew
• On every flower that closes its sweet eyes
• In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
• The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
• 10 And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon
• Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
• And then the lion glares through the dun forest.
• The fleeces of our flocks are covered with
• Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence.

 

• O thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down
• Thro’ the clear windows of the morning, turn
• Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
• Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

• The hills do tell each other, and the listening
• Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned
• Up to thy bright pavilion: issue forth,
• And let thy holy feet visit our clime!

• Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds
• 10 Kiss thy perfumèd garments; let us taste
• Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
• Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.

• O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
• Thy softest kisses on her bosom, and put
• Thy golden crown upon her languish’d head
• Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee.

 

• O thou who passest thro’ our valleys in
• Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat
• That flames from their large nostrils! Thou, O Summer!
• Oft pitched’st here thy golden tent, and oft
• Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld
• With joy thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.

• Beneath our thickest shades we oft have heard
• Thy voice, when noon upon his fervid car
• Rode o’er the deep of heaven. Beside our springs
• 10 Sit down, and in our mossy valleys; on
• Some bank beside a river clear, throw all
• Thy draperies off, and rush into the stream!
• Our valleys love the Summer in his pride.

• Our bards are famed who strike the silver wire;
• Our youths are bolder than the southern swains;
• Our maidens fairer in the sprightly dance;
• We lack not songs, nor instruments of joy,
• Nor echoes sweet nor waters clear as heaven,
• Nor laurel wreaths against the sultry heat.

 

• When silver snow decks Susan’s clothes,
• And jewel hangs at th’ shepherd’s nose,
• The blushing bank is all my care,
• With hearth so red and walls so fair;
• ‘ Heap the sea-coal, come, heap it higher,
• ‘ The oaken log lay on the fire.’
• The well-washed stools, a circling row,
• With lad and lass, how fair the show!
• The merry can of nut-brown ale,
• 10The laughing jest, the love-sick tale:
• ’Till, tired of chat, the game begins,
• The lasses prick the lads with pins;
• Roger from Dolly twitched the stool,
• She falling, kissed the ground, poor fool!
• She blushed so red, with side-long glance
• At hob-nail Dick who grieved the chance.
• But now for Blind-man’s Buff they call;
• Of each incumbrance clear the hall!

• Jenny her silken ’kerchief folds,
• 20And blear-eyed Will the black lot holds;
• Now, laughing, stops, with ‘Silence! Hush!’
• And Peggy Pout gives Sam a push.
• The Blind-man’s arms, extended wide,
• Sam slips between;—O woe betide
• Thee, clumsy Will!—but tittering Kate
page: 14  
• Is penned up in the corner strait!
• And now Will’s eyes beheld the play,
• He thought his face was t’other way.
• Now, Kitty, now! what chance hast thou!
• 30 Roger so near thee trips!—I vow
• She catches him!—then Roger ties
• His own head up, but not his eyes;
• For thro’ the slender cloth he sees,
• And runs at Sam, who slips with ease
• His clumsy hold; and, dodging round,
• Sukey is tumbled on the ground!
• See what it is to play unfair!
• Where cheating is, there’s mischief there.
• But Roger still pursues the chase,—
• 40‘He sees! he sees!’ cries softly Grace.
• O Roger, thou, unskill’d in art.
• Must, surer bound, go through thy part!

• Now Kitty, pert, repeats the rhymes,
• And Roger turns him round three times;
• Then pauses ere he starts—But Dick
• Was mischief-bent upon a trick:
• Down on his hands and knees he lay,
• Directly in the Blind-man’s way—
• Then cries out, ‘Hem!’ Hodge heard, and ran
• 50 With hood-winked chance—sure of his man;
• But down he came.—Alas, how frail
• Our best of hopes, how soon they fail!
• With crimsom drops he stains the ground,
• Confusion startles all around!
• Poor piteous Dick supports his head,
• And fain would cure the hurt he made;
• But Kitty hastens with a key,
• And down his back they straight convey
• The cold relief; the blood is stay’d,
• 60And Hodge again holds up his head.

• Such are the fortunes of the game;
• And those who play should stop the same
• By wholesome laws: such as,—all those
• Who on the blinded man impose
• Stand in his stead. So, long a-gone,
• When men were first a nation grown,
• Lawless they lived, till wantonness
• And liberty began to increase,
• 70And one man lay in another’s way:
• Then laws were made to keep fair play.

   

---

• King.. .. . Our names are written equal
• In Fame’s wide-trophied halls; ’tis ours to gild
• The letters, and to make them shine with gold
• That never tarnishes: whether Third Edward,
• Or Prince of Wales or Montacute or Mortimer,
• Or e’en the least by birth, gain brightest fame,
• Is in His hand to whom all men are equal.
• The world of men is like the numerous stars
• That beam and twinkle in the depth of night,
• 10 Each clad in glory according to his sphere:—
• But we that wander from our native seats,
• And beam forth lustre on a darkling world,
• Grow larger as we advance; and some, perhaps
• The most obscure at home, that scarce were seen
• To twinkle in their sphere, may so advance
• That the astonish’d world, with upturn’d eyes,
• Regardless of the moon and those once bright,
• Stand only but to gaze upon their splendour.
• [ He here knights the Prince and other young Nobles.
• Now let us take a just revenge for those
• 20 Brave lords who fell beneath the bloody axe
page: 17  
• At Paris. Noble Harcourt, thanks, for ’twas
• By your advice we landed here in Brittany,
• A country not as yet sown with destruction,
• And where the fiery whirlwind of swift war
• Hath not yet swept its desolating wing.
• Into three parties we divide by day,
• And separate march, but join again at night:
• Each knows his rank, and Heaven marshal all.

 

• King. What can Sir Thomas Dagworth
• Request that Edward can refuse?

• Dagw. I hope
• Your majesty cannot refuse so mere
• A trifle: I’ve gilt your cause with my best blood,
• And would again, were I not now forbid
• By him whom I am bound to obey. My hands
• Are tied up, all my courage shrunk and wither’d,
• My sinews slacken’d, and my voice scarce heard:
• 10 Therefore I beg I may return to England.

• King. I know not what you could have ask’d, Sir Thomas,
• That I would not have sooner parted with
• Than such a soldier as you, and such a friend;
• Nay, I will know the most remote particulars
• Of this your strange petition, that if I can
• I still may keep you here.

• Dagw. Here on the fields of Cressy we are settled,
• ‘Till Philip spring the timorous covey again.
• The wolf is hunted down by causeless fear;
• 20 The lion flees, and fear usurps his heart,
• Startled, astonish’d at the clamorous cock.
Sig. VOL. II. C
page: 18  
• The eagle that doth gaze upon the sun
• Fears the small fire that plays about the fen;
• If at this moment of their idle fear
• The dog seize the wolf, the forester the lion,
• The negro, in the crevice of the rock,
• Seize on the soaring eagle, undone by flight
• They tame submit—such the effect flight has
• On noble souls. Now hear its opposite:
• 30The timorous stag starts from the thicket wild,
• The fearful crane springs from the plashy fen,
• The shining snake glides o’er the bending grass:
• The stag turns head, and bays the crying hounds,
• The crane o’ertaken fighteth with the hawk,
• The snake cloth turn and bite the padding foot.
• And if your majesty’s afraid of Philip,
• You are more like a lion than a crane:
• Therefore I beg I may return to England.

• King. Sir Thomas, now I understand your mirth,
• 40 Which often plays with wisdom for its pastime,
• And brings good counsel from the breast of laughter.
• I hope you’ll stay, and see us fight this battle,
• And reap rich harvest in the field of Cressy,
• Then go to England, tell them how we fight,
• And set all hearts on fire to be with us.
• Philip is plum’d, and thinks we flee from him,
• Else he would never dare to attack us. Now,
• Now is the quarry set! and Death doth sport
• In the bright sunshine of this fatal day.

• 50 Dagw. Now my heart dances, and I am as light
• As the young bridegroom going to be married.
• Now must I to my soldiers, get them ready,
• Furbish our armours bright, new plume our helms,
• And we will sing like the young housewives busied
• In the dairy. Now my feet are wing’d, but not
• For flight, an ‘t please your grace.

• King. If all my soldiers are as pleased as you,
page: 19  
• ‘Twill be a gallant thing to fight or die.
• Then I can never he afraid of Philip.

• 60 Dagw. A rawbon’d fellow t’other day pass’d by me;
• I told him to put off his hungry looks;
• He said: ‘I hunger for another battle.’
• I saw a Welshman with a fiery face:
• I told him that he look’d like a candle half
• Burn’d out. He answer’d he was ‘pig enough
• To light another pattle.’ Last night beneath
• The moon I walk’d abroad when all had pitch’d
• Their tents, and all were still:
• I heard a blooming youth singing a song
• 70He had compos’d, and at each pause he wip’d
• His dropping eyes. The ditty was,—‘If he
• Return’d victorious he should wed a maiden
• Fairer than snow and rich as midsummer.’
• Another wept, and wish’d health to his father.
• I chid them both, but gave them noble hopes.
• These are the minds that glory in the battle,
• And leap and dance to hear the trumpet sound.

• King. Sir Thomas Dagworth, be thou near our person:
• Thy heart is richer than the vales of France;
• 80 I will not part with such a man as thou.
• If Philip came arm’d in the ribs of death,
• And shook his mortal dart against my head,
• Thou’dst laugh his fury into nerveless shame!
• Go now, for thou art suited to the work,
• Throughout the camp; inflame the timorous,
• Blow up the sluggish into ardour, and
• Confirm the strong with strength, the weak inspire,
• And wing their brows with hope and expectation:
• Then to our tent return, and meet the Council.
• [ Exit Dagworth.

---

• 90 Prince. Now we are alone, Sir John, I will unburthen
• And breathe my hopes into the burning air,
Sig. C 2
page: 20  
• Where thousand deaths are posting up and down;
• Commission’d to this fatal field of Cressy.
• Methinks I see them arm my gallant soldiers,
• And gird the sword upon each thigh, and fit
• Each shining helm, and string each stubborn bow,
• And dance unto the neighing of our steeds:
• Methinks the shout begins, the battle burns;
• Methinks I see them perch on English crests,
• 100 And roar the wild flame of fierce war upon
• The thronged enemy. In truth, I am too full;
• It is my sin to love the noise of war.
• Chandos, thou seest my weakness; for strong Nature
• Will bend or break us. My blood like a spring-tide
• Does rise so high to overflow all bounds
• Of moderation; while Reason in her
• Frail bark can see no shore or bound for vast
• Ambition. Come then, take the helm, my Chandos,
• That my full blown sails overset me not
• 110In the wild tempest; condemn my venturous youth
• That plays with danger as the innocent child,
• Unthinking, plays upon the viper’s den:
• I am a coward in my reason, Chandos.

• Chandos. You are a man, my Prince, and a brave man,
• If I can judge of actions; but your heat
• Is the effect of youth and want of use;
• Use makes the armed field and noisy war
• Pass over as a cloud does, unregarded,
• Or but expected as a thing of course.
• 120Age is contemplative; each rolling year
• Doth bring forth fruit to the mind’s treasure house;
• While vacant Youth doth crave and seek about
• Within itself, and findeth discontent;
• Then, tir’d of thought, impatient takes the wing,
• Seizes the fruits of Time, attacks Experience,
• Roams round vast Nature’s forest, where no bounds
• Are set; the swiftest may have room, the strongest
page: 21  
• Find prey; till, tir’d at length, sated and tir’d
• With the still changing sameness, old variety,
• 130 We sit us down, and view our former joys
• As worthless.

• Prince. Then, if we must tug for experience,
• Let us not fear to beat round Nature’s wilds
• And rouse the strongest prey; then if we fall,
• We fall with glory: for I know the wolf
• Is dangerous to fight, not good for food,
• Nor is the hide a comely vestment; so
• We have our battle for our pains. I know
• That youth has need of age to point fit prey,
• 140 And oft the stander-by shall steal the fruit
• Of the other’s labour. This is philosophy;
• These are the tricks of the world; but the pure soul
• Shall mount on wings, disdaining little sport,
• And cut a path into the heaven of glory,
• Leaving a track of light for men to wonder at.
• I’m glad my father does not hear me talk:
• You can find friendly excuses for me, Chandos;
• But, do you not think, Sir John, that if it please
• The Almighty to stretch out my span of life
• 150 I shall with pleasure view a glorious action
• Which my youth master’d

• Chand. Age, my lord, views motives,
• And views not acts. When neither warbling voice
• Nor trilling pipe is heard, nor pleasure sits
• With trembling age, the voice of Conscience, then
• Sweeter than music in a summer’s eve,
• Shall warble round the snowy head, and keep
• Sweet symphony to feather’d angels sitting
• As guardians round your chair; then shall the pulse
• 160Beat slow; and taste and touch, sight, sound, and smell,
• That sing and dance round Reason’s fine-wrought throne,
• Shall flee away, and lease him all forlorn—
• Yet not forlorn if Conscience is his friend.

 

• Sir Walter. Sir Thomas Dagworth, I have been a-weeping
• Over the men that are to die to-day.

• Dagw. Why, brave Sir Walter, you or I may fall.

• Sir Walter. I know this breathing flesh must lie and rot
• Cover’d with silence and forgetfulness.—
• Death wons in cities’ smoke, and in still night,
• When men sleep in their beds, walketh about!
• How many in walled cities lie and groan,
• Turning themselves about upon their beds,
• 10 Talking with Death, answering his hard demands!
• How many walk in darkness, terrors around
• The curtains of their beds, destruction still
• Ready without the door! how many sleep
• In earth, cover’d with stones and deathy dust,
• Resting in quietness, whose spirits walk
• Upon the clouds of heaven, to die no more!
• Yet death is terrible, though on angels’ wings :
• How terrible, then, is the field of death!
• Where he doth rend the vault of heav’n, and shake
• 20 The gates of hell! Oh Dagworth! France is sick:
• The very sky, tho’ sunshine light it, seems
• To me as pale as the pale fainting man
• On his death-bed, whose face is shown by light
• Of sickly taper! It makes me sad and sick
• At very heart. Thousands must fall to-day.

• Dagw. Thousands of souls must leave this prison house
• To be exalted to those heavenly fields,
page: 23  
• Where songs of triumph, palms of victory,
• Where peace, and joy, and love, and calm content
• 30 Sit singing in the azure clouds, and strew
• Flowers of heaven’s growth over the banquet table.
• Bind ardent Hope upon your feet like shoes,
• Put on the robe of preparation,
• The table is prepar’d in shining heav’n,
• The flowers of immortality are blown;
• Let those that fight fight in good steadfastness,
• And those that fall shall rise in victory.

• Sir Walter. I’ve often seen the burning field of war
• And often heard the dismal clang of arms;
• 40 But never, till this fatal day of Cressy,
• Has my soul fainted with these views of death.
• I seem to be in one great charnel-house,
• And seem to scent the rotten carcases!
• I seem to hear the dismal yells of Death,
• While the black gore drops from his horrid jaws;
• Yet I not fear the monster in his pride.—
• But oh, the souls that are to die to-day!

• Dagw. Stop, brave Sir Walter, let me drop a tear,
• Then let the clarion of war begin;
• 50I’ll fight and weep! ‘tis in my country’s cause;
• I’ll weep and shout for glorious liberty.
• Grim War shall laugh and shout, bedeck’d in tears,
• And blood shall flow like streams across the meadows,
• That murmur down their pebbly channels, and
• Spend their sweet lives to do their country service.
• Then England’s leaves shall shoot, her fields shall smile,
• Her ships shall sing across the foaming sea,
• Her mariners shall use the flute and viol,
• And rattling guns and black and dreary war
• 60 Shall be no more.

• Sir Walter. Well, let the trumpet sound and the drum beat;
• Let war stain the blue heavens with bloody banners.
page: 24  
• I’ll draw my sword, nor ever sheath it up,
• Till England blow the trump of victory,
• Or I lie stretch’d upon the field of death.

 

• O Sons of Trojan Brutus, cloth’d in war,
• Whose voices are the thunder of the field,

---

• Your ancestors came from the fires of Troy,
• (Like lions rous’d by light’ning from their dens,
• Whose eyes do glare against the stormy fires,)
• Heated with war, fill’d with the blood of Greeks,
• With helmets hewn, and shields covered with gore,
• In navies black, broken with wind and tide.

---

• They landed in firm array upon the rocks
• 10Of Albion; they kiss’d the rocky shore:
• ‘Be thou our mother and our nurse,’ they said,
• ‘Our children’s mother; and thou shalt be our grave,
• ‘The sepulchre of ancient Troy, from whence
• ‘Shall rise cities, and thrones, and awful powers.’

• Our fathers swarm from the ships. Giant voices
• Are heard from out the hills; the enormous sons
• Of Ocean run from rocks and caves: wild men,
• Naked, and roaring like lions, hurling rocks,
• And wielding knotty clubs, like oaks entangled,
• 20 Thick as a forest ready for the axe.

---

• Our fathers move in firm array to battle;
• The savage monsters rush like roaring fire,
• Like as a forest roars with crackling flames,
• When the red lightning borne by furious storms
page: 25  
• Lights on some woody shore, and the parch’d heavens
• Rain fire into the molten raging sea.

---

• Our fathers, sweating, lean on their spears and view
• The mighty dead: giant bodies streaming blood,
• Dread visages frowning in silent death.
• 30Then Brutus speaks, inspired; our fathers sit
• Attentive on the melancholy shore.
• Hear ye the voice of Brutus:—‘The flowing waves
• ‘Of Time come rolling o’er my breast,’ he said,
• ‘And my heart labours with futurity.
• ‘Our sons shall rule the empire of the sea,
• ‘Their mighty wings shall stretch from east to west;
• ‘Their nest is in the sea, but they shall roam
• ‘Like eagles for their prey. ..

---

• ‘Our sons shall rise from thrones in joy, each one
• 40‘Buckling his armour on; Morning shall be
• ‘Prevented by the gleaming of their swords,
• ‘And Evening hear their song of victory.

---

• ‘Freedom shall stand upon the cliffs of Albion,
• ‘Casting her blue eyes over the green ocean;
• ‘Or, towering, stand upon the roaring waves,
• ‘Stretching her mighty spear o’er distant lands,
• ‘While with her eagle wings she covereth
• ‘Fair Albion’s shore and all her families.’

 

[Engraved 1789.]  

• Piping down the valleys wild,
• Piping songs of pleasant glee,
• On a cloud I saw a child,
• And he, laughing, said to me:

• ‘Pipe a song about a Lamb!’
• So I piped with merry cheer.
• ‘Piper, pipe that song again;’
• So I piped: he wept to hear.

• ‘Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe;
• 10 Sing thy songs of happy cheer!’
• So I sang the same again,
• While he wept with joy to hear.

• ‘Piper, sit thee down and write
• In a book, that all may read.’
• So he vanish’d from my sight,
• And I pluck’d a hollow reed,

• And I made a rural pen,
• And I stain‘d the water clear,
• And I wrote my happy songs
• 20 Every child may joy to hear.

 

• How sweet is the shepherd’s sweet lot!
• From the morn to the evening he strays;
• He shall follow his sheep all the day,
• And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

• For he hears the lambs’ innocent call,
• And he hears the ewes’ tender reply;
• He is watchful while they are in peace,
• For they know that their shepherd is nigh.

 

• The sun does arise
• And make happy the skies;
• The merry bells ring,
• To welcome the spring;
• The skylark and thrush,
• The birds of the bush,
• Sing louder around
• To the bells’ cheerful sound;
• While our sports shall be seen
• 10On the echoing green.

• Old John, with white hair,
• Does laugh away care,
• Sitting under the oak,
• Among the old folk.
• They laugh at our play,
• And soon they all say,
• ‘Such, such were the joys
• When we all—girls and boys—
• ln our youth-time were seen
• 20On the echoing green.’

• Till the little ones, weary,
• No more can be merry,
• The sun does descend,
• And our sports have an end.
• Round the laps of their mothers
• Many sisters and brothers,
• Like birds in their nest,
• Are ready for rest,
• And sport no more seen
• 30 On the darkening green.

 

• Little lamb, who made thee?
• Dost thou know who made thee?
• Gave thee life, and bade thee feed
• By the stream and o’er the mead;
• Gave thee clothing of delight,
• Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
• Gave thee such a tender voice,
• Making all the vales rejoice?
• Little lamb, who made thee?
• 10Dost thou know who made thee?

• Little lamb, I’ll tell thee;
• Little lamb, I’ll tell thee:
• He is called by thy name,
• For He calls Himself a Lamb.
• He is meek, and He is mild,
• He became a little child.
• I a child, and thou a lamb,
• We are called by His name.
• Little lamb, God bless thee!
• 20Little lamb, God bless thee

 

• My mother bore me in the southern wild,
• And I am black, but O, my soul is white.
• White as an angel is the English child,
• But I am black, as if bereaved of light.

• My mother taught me underneath a tree,
• And, sitting down before the heat of day,
• She took me on her lap and kissèd me,
• And, pointing to the East, began to say:

• ‘Look on the rising sun: there God does live,
• 10And gives His light, and gives His heat away,
• And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive
• Comfort in morning, joy in the noonday.

• ‘And we are put on earth a little space,
• That we may learn to bear the beams of love;
• And these black bodies and this sunburnt face
• Are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

• ‘For when our souls have learn’d the heat to bear,
• The cloud will vanish, we shall hear His voice,
• Saying, “Come out from the grove, my love and care,
• 20And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice.” ’

• Thus did my mother say, and kissèd me,
• And thus I say to little English boy:
• When I from black, and he from white cloud free,
• And round the tent of God like lambs we joy;

• I’ll shade him from the heat till he can bear
• To lean in joy upon our Father’s knee;
• And then I’ll stand and stroke his silver hair,
• And be like him, and he will then love me.

 

• Merry, merry sparrow!
• Under leaves so green
• A happy blossom
• Sees you, swift as arrow,
• Seek your cradle narrow,
• Near my bosom.

• Pretty, pretty robin!
• Under leaves so green
• A happy blossom
• 10Hears you sobbing, sobbing,
• Pretty, pretty robin,
• Near my bosom.

 

• When my mother died I was very young,
• And my father sold me while yet my tongue
• Could scarcely cry, ‘Weep! weep! weep! weep!’
• So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep.

• There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,
• That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved; so I said,
• ‘Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head’s bare,
• You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.’

• And so he was quiet, and that very night,
• 10As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight;
• That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,
• Were all of them lock’d up in coffins of black.

• And by came an angel, who had a bright key,
• And he opened the coffins, and set them all free;
• Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing, they run,
• And wash in a river, and shine in the sun.

• Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,
• They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind;
• And the angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy,
• 20He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.

• And so Tom awoke, and we rose in the dark,
• And got with our bags and our brushes to work;
• Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm:
• So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

 

• Father, father, where are you going?
• O do not walk so fast;
• Speak, father, speak to your little boy,
• Or else I shall be lost.

• The night was dark, no father was there.
• The child was wet with dew;
• The mire was deep, and the child did weep,
• And away the vapour flew.

 

• The little boy lost in the lonely fen,
• Led by the wandering light,
• Began to cry, but God, ever nigh,
• Appeared like his father, in white.

• He kissed the child, and by the hand led,
• And to his mother brought,
• Who in sorrow pale through the lonely dale
• The little boy weeping sought.

 

• When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
• And the dimpling stream runs laughing by;
• When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
• And the green hill laughs with the noise of it;

• When the meadows laugh with lively green,
• And the grasshopper laughs in the merry scene;
• When Mary, and Susan, and Emily,
• With their sweet round mouths sing, “Ha, ha, he!”

• When the painted birds laugh in the shade,
• 10 Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread:
• Come live, and be merry, and join with me,
• To sing the sweet chorus of “Ha, ha, he !”

 

• Sweet dreams, form a shade
• O’er my lovely infant’s head!
• Sweet dreams of pleasant streams
• By happy, silent, moony beams!

• Sweet sleep, with soft down
• Weave thy brows an infant crown!
• Sweet sleep, angel mild,
• Hover o’er my happy child!

• Sweet smiles, in the night
• 10 Hover over my delight!
• Sweet smiles, mother’s smile,
• All the livelong night beguile!

• Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
• Chase not slumber from thine eyes!
• Sweet moan, sweeter smile
• All the dovelike moans beguile!

• Sleep, sleep, happy child!
• All creation slept and smiled.
• Sleep, sleep, happy sleep!
• 20While o’er thee doth mother weep.

• Sweet babe, in thy face
• Holy image I can trace;
• Sweet babe, once like thee
• Thy Maker lay, and wept for me!

• Wept for me, for thee, for all,
• When He was an infant small.
• Thou His image ever see,
• Heavenly face that smiles on thee!

• Smiles on thee, on me, on all,
• 30Who became an infant small;
• Infant smiles like His own smile
• Heaven and earth to peace beguile.

 

• To mercy, pity, peace, and love,
• All pray in their distress,
• And to these virtues of delight
• Return their thankfulness.

• For mercy, pity, peace, and love,
• Is God our Father dear;
• And mercy, pity, peace, and love,
• Is man, His child and care.

• For Mercy has a human heart,
• 10 Pity a human face;
• And Love, the human form divine;
• And Peace, the human dress.

• Then every man, of every clime,
• That prays in his distress,
• Prays to the human form divine:
• Love, Mercy, Pity, Peace.

• And all must love the human form,
• In heathen, Turk, or Jew;
• Where mercy, love, and pity dwell,
• 20There God is dwelling too.

 

• ’Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
• Came children walking two and two, in red, and blue, and green :
• Grey-headed beadles walk’d before, with wands as white as snow,
• Till into the high dome of Paul’s, they like Thames’ waters flow.

• O what a multitude they seem‘d, these flowers of London town,
• Seated in companies they were, with radiance all their own:
• The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
• Thousands of little boys and girls raising their innocent hands.

• Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
• 10Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among:
• Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor.
• Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door.

 

• The sun descending in the west,
• The evening star does shine,
• The birds are silent in their nest,
• And I must seek for mine.
• The moon, like a flower
• In heaven’s high bower,
• With silent delight,
• Sits and smiles on the night.

• Farewell, green fields and happy grove,
• 10 Where flocks have ta’en delight;
• Where lambs have nibbled, silent move
• The feet of angels bright;
• Unseen, they pour blessing,
• And joy without ceasing,
• On each bud and blossom,
• And each sleeping bosom.

• They look in every thoughtless nest,
• Where birds are covered warm;
• They visit caves of every beast,
• 20 To keep them all from harm:
• If they see any weeping
• That should have been sleeping,
• They pour sleep on their head,
• And sit down by their bed.

• When wolves and tigers howl for prey,
• They pitying stand and weep;
• Seeking to drive their thirst away,
• And keep them from the sheep.
• But if they rush dreadful,
• 30The angels, most heedful,
• Receive each mild spirit,
• New worlds to inherit.

• And there the lion’s ruddy eyes
• Shall flow with tears of gold:
• And pitying the tender cries,
• And walking round the fold:
• Saying: ‘Wrath by his meekness,
• And by His health, sickness,
• Are driven away
• 40From our immortal day.

• ‘And now beside thee, bleating lamb,
• I can lie down and sleep,
• Or think on Him who bore thy name,
• Graze after thee, and weep.
• For wash’d in life’s river,
• My bright mane for ever
• Shall shine like the gold,
• As I guard o’er the fold.’

 

• Sound the flute!
• Now ’tis mute;
• Birds delight,
• Day and night,
• Nightingale
• In the dale,
• Lark in sky,—
• Merrily,
• Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

• 10Little boy,
• Full of joy;
• Little girl,
• Sweet and small;
• Cock does crow,
• So do you;
• Merry voice,
• Infant noise;
• Merrily, merrily to welcome in the year.

• Little lamb,
• 20 Here I am;
• Come and lick
• My white neck;
• Let me pull
• Your soft wool;
• Let me kiss
• Your soft face;
• Merrily, merrily we welcome in the year.

 

• When the voices of children are heard on the green,
• And laughing is heard on the hill,
• My heart is at rest within my breast,
• And everything else is still.
• Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
• And the dews of night arise;
• Come, come, leave off play, and let us away
• Till the morning appears in the skies.

• No, no, let us play, for it is yet day,
• 10And we cannot go to sleep;
• Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
• And the hills are all covered with sheep.
• Well, well, go and play till the light fades away,
• And thou go home to bed.
• The little ones leaped, and shouted, and laugh’d,
• And all the hills echoèd.

 

• ‘I have no name;
• I am but two days old.’
• What shall I call thee?
• ‘I happy am,
• Joy is my name.‘
• Sweet joy befall thee!

• Pretty joy!
• Sweet joy, but two days old.
• Sweet joy I call thee:
• Thou dost smile.
• I sing the while,
• Sweet joy befall thee!

 

• Once a dream did weave a shade
• O’er my angel-guarded bed,
• That an emmet lost its way
• Where on grass methought I lay.

• Troubled, ’wilder’d, and forlorn,
• Dark, benighted, travel-worn,
• Over many a tangled spray,
• All heart-broke, I heard her say:

• ‘O, my children do they cry,
• 10 Do they hear their father sigh?
• Now they look abroad to see,
• Now return and weep for me.’

• Pitying, I dropp’d a tear:
• But I saw a glow-worm near,
• Who replied, ‘What wailing wight
• Calls the watchman of the night?

• ‘I am set to light the ground,
• While the beetle goes his round.
• Follow now the beetle’s hum,
• 20 Little wanderer, hie thee home!’

 

• Can I see another’s woe,
• And not be in sorrow too?
• Can I see another’s grief,
• And not seek for kind relief?

• Can I see a falling tear,
• And not feel my sorrow’s share?
• Can a father see his child
• Weep, nor be with sorrow fill’d?

• Can a mother sit and hear,
• 10An infant groan, an infant fear?
• No, no! never can it be!
• Never, never can it be!

• And can He, who smiles on all,
• Hear the wren, with sorrows small,
• Hear the small bird’s grief and care,
• Hear the woes that infants bear?

• And not sit beside the nest,
• Pouring Pity in their breast?
• And not sit the cradle near,
• 20Weeping tear on infant’s tear?

• And not sit both night and day,
• Wiping all our tears away?
• Oh, no! never can it be!
• Never, never can it be!

• He doth give His joy to all:
• He becomes an infant small,
• He becomes a man of woe,
• He doth feel the sorrow too.

• Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
• 30 And thy Maker is not by:
• Think not thou canst weep a tear,
• And thy Maker is not near.

• Oh! He gives to us His joy,
• That our griefs He may destroy:
• Till our grief is fled and gone
• He doth sit by us and moan.

 

• Youth of delight! come hither
• And see the opening morn,
• Image of Truth new-born.
• Doubt is fled, and clouds of reason,
• Dark disputes and artful teazing.
• Folly is an endless maze;
• Tangled roots perplex her ways;
• How many have fallen there!
• They stumble all night over bones of the dead;
• 10 And feel—they know not what save care;
• And wish to lead others, when they should be led.

   

• Hear the voice of the bard,
• Who Present, Past, and Future sees;
• Whose ears have heard
• The Holy Word
• That walked among the ancient trees,

• Calling the lapsed soul,
• And weeping in the evening dew;
• That might control
• The starry pole,
• 10And fallen, fallen light renew!

• O Earth, O Earth, return!
• Arise from out the dewy grass!
• Night is worn,
• And the morn
• Rises from the slumberous mass.

• Turn away no more;
• Why wilt thou turn away?
• The starry floor,
• The watery shore,
• Is given thee till the break of day.

 

• Earth raised up her head
• From the darkness dread and drear,
• Her light fled,
• (Stony dread!)
• And her locks covered with grey despair.

• ‘Prisoned on watery shore,
• Starry jealousy does keep my den
• Cold and hoar;
• Weeping o’er,
• 10I hear the father of the ancient men.

• Selfish father of men!
• Cruel, jealous, selfish fear!
• Can delight,
• Chain’d in night,
• The virgins of youth and morning bear?

• Does spring hide its joy,
• When buds and blossoms grow?
• Does the sower
• Sow by night?
• 20Or the ploughman in darkness plough?

• Break this heavy chain,
• That does freeze my bones around!
• Selfish, vain,
• Eternal bane,
• That free love with bondage bound.’

 

• Love seeketh not itself to please,
• Nor for itself hath any care,
• But for another gives its ease,
• And builds a heaven in hell’s despair.

• So sang a little clod of clay,
• Trodden with the cattle’s feet;
• But a pebble of the brook
• Warbled out these metres meet:

• ‘Love seeketh only Self to please,
• 10To bind another to its delight,
• Joys in another’s loss of ease,
• And builds a hell in heaven’s despite.’

 

• Is this a holy thing to see,
• In a rich and fruitful land,
• Babes reduced to misery,
• Fed with a cold usurious hand?

• Is that trembling cry a song?
• Can it be a song of joy,
• And so many children poor?
• It is a land of poverty!

• And their sun does never shine,
• 10And their fields are bleak and bare,
• And their ways are fill’d with thorns:
• It is eternal winter there.

• For where’er the sun does shine,
• And where’er the rain does fall,
• Babes should never hunger there,
• Nor poverty the mind appal.

 

• In futurity,
• I prophetic see,
• That the earth from sleep
• (Grave the sentence deep)

• Shall arise, and seek
• For her Maker meek;
• And the desert wild
• Become a garden mild.

• In the southern clime,
• 10Where the summer’s prime
• Never fades away,
• Lovely Lyca lay.

• Seven summers old
• Lovely Lyca told.
• She had wandered long,
• Hearing wild birds’ song.

• ‘Sweet sleep, come to me
• Underneath this tree;
• Do father, mother weep?
• 20Where can Lyca sleep?

• ‘Lost in desert wild
• Is your little child.
• How can Lyca sleep
• If her mother weep?

• ‘If her heart does ache,
• Then let Lyca wake;
• If my mother sleep,
• Lyca shall not weep.

• ‘Frowning, frowning night,
• 30 O’er this desert bright
• Let thy moon arise,
• While I close my eyes.’

• Sleeping Lyca lay
• While the beasts of prey,
• Come from caverns deep,
• View’d the maid asleep.

• The kingly lion stood
• And the virgin view’d,
• Then he gambol’d round
• 40O’er the hallow’d ground;

• Leopards, tigers, play
• Round her as she lay,
• While the lion old
• Bow’d his mane of gold,

• And her breast did lick,
• And upon her neck,
• From his eyes of flame,
• Ruby tears there came;

• While the lioness
• 50Loos’d her slender dress,
• And naked they conveyed
• To caves the sleeping maid.

 

• All the night in woe
• Lyca’s parents go
• Over valleys deep,
• While the deserts weep.

• Tired and woe-begone,
• Hoarse with making moan,
• Arm in arm, seven days
• They tread the desert ways.

• Seven nights they sleep
• 10 Among shadows deep,
• And dream they see their child
• Starved in desert wild.

• Pale thro’ pathless ways
• The fancied image strays
• Famished, weeping, weak,
• With hollow piteous shriek.

• Rising from unrest,
• The trembling woman prest
• With feet of weary woe;
• 20 She could no further go.

• In his arms he bore
• Her, armed with sorrows sore;
• Till before their way
• A couching lion lay.

• Turning back was vain,
• Soon his heavy mane
• Bore them to the ground;
• Then he stalk’d around,

• Smelling to his prey,
• 30But their fears allay
• When he licks their hands
• And silent by them stands.

• They look upon his eyes
• Filled with deep surprise;
• And wondering behold
• A spirit arm’d in gold.

• On his head a crown,
• On his shoulders down
• Flow’d his golden hair.
• 40 Gone was all their care.

• ‘Follow me,’ he said,
• ‘Weep not for the maid;
• ‘In my palace deep,
• ‘Lyca lies asleep.’

• Then they followèd
• Where the vision led,
• And saw their sleeping child
• Among tigers wild.

• To this day they dwell
• 50In a lonely dell,
• Nor fear the wolvish howl
• Nor the lion’s growl.

 

• A little black thing among the snow,
• Crying ‘weep! weep!’ in notes of woe
• Where are thy father and mother? Say:—
• ‘They are both gone up to the church to pray.

• ‘Because I was happy upon the heath,
• ‘And smil’d among the winter’s snow,
• ‘They clothed me in the clothes of death,
• ‘And taught me to sing the notes of woe.

• ‘And because I am happy and dance and sing,
• 10‘They think they have done me no injury,
• ‘And are gone to praise God and His Priest and King,
• ‘Who make up a heaven of our misery.’

 

• When the voices of children are heard on the green,
• And whisperings are in the dale,
• The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,
• My face turns green and pale.

• Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down,
• And the dews of night arise;
• Your spring and your day are wasted in play,
• And your winter and night in disguise.

 

• O Rose, thou art sick!
• The invisible worm
• That flies in the night,
• In the howling storm,

• Has found out thy bed
• Of crimson joy,
• And his dark secret love
• Does thy life destroy.

 

• Little Fly,
• Thy summer’s play
• My thoughtless hand
• Has brushed away.

• Am not I
• A fly like thee?
• Or art not thou
• A man like me?

• For I dance,
• 10And drink, and sing,
• Till some blind hand
• Shall brush my wing.

• If thought is life,
• And strength, and breath;
• And the want
• Of thought is death;

• Then am I
• A happy fly,
• If I live,
• 20Or if I die.

 

• I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?
• And that I was a maiden Queen
• Guarded by an Angel mild:
• Witless woe was ne’er beguil’d!

• And I wept both night and day,
• And he wip’d my tear away;
• And I wept both day and night,
• And hid from him my heart’s delight

• So he took his wings, and fled;
• 10 Then the morn blush’d rosy red.
• I dried my tears, and arm’d my fears
• With ten thousand shields and spears.

• Soon my Angel came again,
• I was arm’d, he came in vain;
• For the time of youth was fled,
• And grey hairs were on my head.

 

• Tiger, Tiger, burning bright
• In the forests of the night,
• What immortal hand or eye
• Framed thy fearful symmetry?

• In what distant deeps or skies
• Burned that fire within thine eyes?
• On what wings dared he aspire?
• What the hand dared seize the fire?

• And what shoulder, and what art,
• 10Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
• When thy heart began to beat,
• What dread hand formed thy dread feet?

• What the hammer, what the chain,
• Knit thy strength and forged thy brain?
• What the anvil? What dread grasp
• Dared thy deadly terrors clasp?

• When the stars threw down their spears,
• And water’d heaven with their tears,
• Did he smile his work to see?
• 20Did He who made the lamb make thee?

 

• A flower was offer’d to me,
• Such a flower as May never bore,
• But I said, I’ve a pretty rose tree,
• And I passed the sweet flower o’er.

• Then I went to my pretty rose tree,
• To tend her by day and by night,
• But my Rose turned away with jealousy
• And her thorns were my only delight.

 

• Ah! Sunflower! weary of time,
• Who countest the steps of the sun;
• Seeking after that sweet golden prime
• Where the traveller’s journey is done;

• Where the Youth pined away with desire,
• And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
• Arise from their graves, and aspire
• Where my sunflower wishes to go.

 

• The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
• The humble sheep a threat’ning horn:
• While the Lily white shall in Love delight,
• Nor a thorn, nor a threat, stain her beauty bright.

 

• I laid me down upon a bank,
• Where Love lay sleeping;
• I heard among the rushes dank
• Weeping, weeping.

• Then I went to the heath and the wild,
• To the thistles and thorns of the waste;
• And they told me how they were beguil’d,
• Driven out, and compelled to be chaste.

• I went to the Garden of Love,
• 10And saw what I never had seen;
• A Chapel was built in the midst,
• Where I used to play on the green.

• And the gates of this Chapel were shut,
• And ‘thou shalt not,’ writ over the door;
• So I turned to the Garden of Love
• That so many sweet flowers bore.

• And I saw it was filled with graves,
• And tombstones where flowers should be,
• And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
• 20 And binding with briars my joys and desires.

 

• Dear mother, dear mother, the Church is cold,
• But the Alehouse is healthy, and pleasant, and warm;
• Besides, I can tell where I am used well;
• The poor parsons with wind like a blown bladder swell.

• But if at the Church they would give us some Ale,
• And a pleasant fire our souls to regale,
• We’d sing and we’d pray all the livelong day,
• Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.

• Then the Parson might preach, and drink, and sing,
• 10And we’d be as happy as birds in the spring,
• And modest Dame Lurch, who is always at Church,
• Would not have bandy children, nor fasting, nor birch.

• And God, like a father, rejoicing to see
• His children as pleasant and happy as He,
• Would have no more quarrel with the Devil or the Barrel,
• But kiss him, and give him both drink and apparel.

 

• I Wander through each charter’d street,
• Near where the charter’d Thames does flow,
• And mark in every face I meet
• Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

• In every cry of every man,
• In every infant’s cry of fear,
• In every voice, in every ban,
• The mind-forg’d manacles I hear.

• How the chimney-sweeper’s cry
• 10Every blackening church appals,
• And the hapless soldier’s sigh
• Runs in blood down palace walls.

• But most, through midnight streets I hear
• How the youthful harlot’s curse
• Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,
• And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.

 

• Pity would be no more
• If we did not make somebody poor,
• And Mercy no more could be
• If all were as happy as we.

• And mutual fear brings Peace,
• Till the selfish loves increase;
• Then Cruelty knits a snare,
• And spreads his baits with care.

• He sits down with holy fears,
• 10And waters the ground with tears;
• Then Humility takes its root
• Underneath his foot.

• Soon spreads the dismal shade
• Of Mystery over his head,
• And the caterpillar and fly
• Feed on the Mystery.

• And it bears the fruit of Deceit,
• Ruddy and sweet to eat,
• And the raven his nest has made
• 20In its thickest shade.

• The gods of the earth and sea
• Sought through nature to find this tree,
• But their search was all in vain:
• There grows one in the human Brain.

 

• My mother groaned, my father wept,
• Into the dangerous world I leapt,
• Helpless, naked, piping loud,
• Like a fiend hid in a cloud.

• Struggling in my father’s hands,
• Striving against my swaddling bands,
• Bound, and weary, I thought best
• To sulk upon my mother’s breast.

 

• I was angry with my friend:
• I told my wrath, my wrath did end.
• I was angry with my foe:
• I told it not, my wrath did grow.

• And I watered it in fears
• Night and morning with my tears,
• And I sunnèd it with smiles
• And with soft deceitful wiles.

• And it grew both day and night
• 10 Till it bore an apple bright,
• And my foe beheld it shine,
• And he knew that it was mine,

• And into my garden stole
• When the night had veil’d the pole;
• In the morning, glad, I see
• My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

 

• ‘Nought loves another as itself,
• ‘ Nor venerates another so,
• ‘Nor is it possible to thought
• ‘A greater than itself to know.

• ‘And, Father, how can I love you
• ‘Or any of my brothers more?
• ‘I love you like the little bird
• ‘That picks up crumbs around the door.’

• The Priest sat by and heard the child;
• 10 In trembling zeal he seiz’d his hair,
• He led him by his little coat,
• And all admired the priestly care.

• And standing on the altar high,
• ‘Lo! what a fiend is here,’ said he,
• ‘One who sets reason up for judge
• ‘Of our most holy Mystery.’

• The weeping child could not be heard,
• The weeping parents wept in vain,
• They stripp’d him to his little shirt,
• 20 And bound him in an iron chain,

• And burned him in a holy place
• Where many had been burned before;
• The weeping parents wept in vain.
• Are such things done on Albion’s shore?

 

• Children of the future Age,
• Reading this indignant page,
• Know that, in a former time,
• Love, sweet love, was thought a crime.

• In the age of gold,
• Free from winter’s cold,
• Youth and maiden bright,
• To the holy light,
• Naked in the sunny beams delight.

• 10Once a youthful pair,
• Fill’d with softest care,
• Met in garden bright,
• Where the holy light
• Had just removed the curtains of the night.

• Then, in rising day,
• On the grass they play;
• Parents were afar,
• Strangers came not near,
• And the maiden soon forgot her fear.

• 20Tired with kisses sweet,
• They agree to meet
• When the silent sleep,
• Waves o’er heaven’s deep
• And the weary tired wanderers weep.

• To her father white
• Came the maiden bright,
• But his loving look,
• Like the holy book,
• All her tender limbs with terror shook.

• 30Ona! pale and weak,
• To thy father speak;
• Oh the trembling fear,
• Oh! the dismal care
• That shakes the blossoms of my hoary hair!

 

• Sleep, sleep, beauty bright,
• Dreaming in the joys of night;
• Sleep, sleep; in thy sleep
• Little sorrows sit and weep.

• Sweet babe, in thy face
• Soft desires I can trace,
• Secret joys and secret smiles,
• Little pretty infant wiles.

• As thy softest limbs I feel,
• 10Smiles as of the morning steal
• O’er thy cheek, and o’er thy breast
• Where thy little heart doth rest.

• Oh the cunning wiles that creep
• In thy little heart asleep!
• When thy little heart doth wake,
• Then the dreadful light shall break.

 

• I love to rise on a summer morn,
• When birds are singing on every tree;
• The distant huntsman winds his horn,
• And the skylark sings with me:
• O what sweet company!

• But to go to school in a summer morn,—
• Oh! it drives all joy away;
• Under a cruel eye outworn,
• The little ones spend the day
• 10In sighing and dismay.

• Ah! then at times I drooping sit
• And spend many an anxious hour;
• Nor in my book can I take delight,
• Nor sit in learning’s bower,
• Worn through with the dreary shower.

• How can the bird that is born for joy
• Sit in a cage and sing?
• How can a child, when fears annoy,
• But droop his tender wing,
• 20And forget his youthful spring?

• O father and mother, if buds are nipp’d,
• And blossoms blown away;
• And if the tender plants are stripp’d
• Of their joy in the springing day,
• By sorrow and care’s dismay,—

• How shall the summer arise in joy,
• Or the summer fruits appear?
• Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
• Or bless the mellowing year,
• 30When the blasts of winter appear?

 

• Whate’er is born of Mortal Birth
• Must be consumèd with the earth,
• To rise from generation free:
• Then what have I to do with thee?

• The sexes sprang from shame and pride,
• Blown in the morn, in evening died;
• But mercy changed death into sleep;
• The sexes rose to work and weep.

• Thou, mother of my mortal part,
• 10 With cruelty didst mould my heart,
• And with false self-deceiving tears
• Didst bind my nostrils, eyes, and ears,

• Didst close my tongue in senseless clay,
• And me to mortal life betray.
• The death of Jesus set me free:
• Then what have I to do with thee?

 

• Does the Eagle know what is in the pit?
• Or wilt thou go ask the mole?
• Can Wisdom be put in a silver rod?
• Or Love in a golden bowl?

 

• The daughters of the Seraphim led round their sunny flocks,
• All but the youngest: she in paleness sought the secret air
page: 78  
• To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day.
• Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard,
• And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew.
• “O life of this our Spring! why fades the lotus of the water?
• Why fade these children of the Spring, born but to smile and fall?
• Ah! Thel is like a watery bow, and like a parting cloud,
• Like a reflection in a glass, like shadows in the water,
• 10 Like dreams of infants, like a smile upon an infant’s face,
• Like the dove’s voice, like transient day, like music in the air.
• Ah! gentle may I lay me down, and gentle rest my head,
• And gentle sleep the sleep of death, and gentle hear the voice
• Of him that walketh in the garden in the evening time.”

• The Lily of the valley breathing in the humble grass
• Answer’d the lovely maid and said: ”I am a watery weed,
• And I am very small, and love to dwell in lowly vales;
• So weak, the gilded butterfly scarce perches on my head.
• Yet I am visited from heaven; and He that smiles on all
• 20Walks in the valley, and each morn over me spreads His hand,
• Saying, ‘Rejoice, thou humble grass, thou new-born lily-flower,
• Thou gentle maid of silent valleys and of modest brooks;
• For thou shalt be clothed in light and fed with morning manna,
• Till summer’s heat melts thee beside the fountains and the springs
• To flourish in eternal vales.’ Then why should Thel complain?
• Why should the mistress of the vales of Har utter a sigh?”

• She ceased and smiled in tears, then sat down in her silver shrine.

• Thel answer’d: “O thou little virgin of the peaceful valley,
• Giving to those that cannot crave, the voiceless, the o’ertired;
• 30 Thy breath doth nourish the innocent lamb, he smells thy milky garments,
• He crops thy flowers, while thou sittest smiling in his face,
• Wiping his mild and meekin mouth from all contagious taints.
• Thy wine doth purify the golden honey, thy perfume,
• Which thou dost scatter on every little blade of grass that springs,
• Revives the milked cow, and tames the fire-breathing steed.
• But Thel is like a faint cloud kindled at the rising sun:
• I vanish from my pearly throne, and who shall find my place?”

• “Queen of the vales,” the Lily answered, “ask the tender cloud,
• And it shall tell thee why it glitters in the morning sky,
• 40 And why it scatters its bright beauty through the humid air.
• Descend, O little cloud, and hover before the eyes of Thel.”

• The cloud descended, and the Lily bowed her modest head
• And went to mind her numerous charge among the verdant grass.

 

• “O little cloud,” the Virgin said, “I charge thee tell to me
• Why thou complainest not, when in one hour thou fad’st away:
• Then we shall seek thee, but not find. Ah! Thel is like to thee;
• I pass away, yet I complain and no one hears my voice.”

• The cloud then showed his golden head, and his bright form emerged
• Hovering and glittering on the air before the face of Thel.

• “O virgin, know’st thou not our steeds drink of the golden springs
• Where Luvah doth renew his horses? Look’st thou on my youth,
• And fearest thou because I vanish and am seen no more?
• 10Nothing remains. O maid, I tell thee, when I pass away
• It is to tenfold life, to love, to peace, and raptures holy.
• Unseen descending weigh my light wings upon balmy flowers,
• And court the fair-eyed dew to take me to her shining tent:
• The weeping virgin trembling kneels before the risen sun,
• Till we arise, link’d in a golden band, and never part,
• But walk united, bearing food to all our tender flowers.”

• “Dost thou, O little cloud? I fear that I am not like thee;
• For I walk through the vales of Har, and smell the sweetest flowers;
• But I feed not the little flowers: I hear the warbling birds,
• 20 But I feed not the warbling birds, they fly and seek their food:
• But Thel delights in these no more because I fade away,
• And all shall say, without a use this shining woman liv’d,
• Or did she only live to be at death the food of worms?”

• The Cloud reclined upon his airy throne and answer’d thus:

• “Then if thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies,
• How great thy use, how great thy blessing. Every thing that lives,
• Lives not alone nor for itself. Fear not, and I will call
page: 81  
• The weak worm from its lowly bed, and thou shalt hear its voice.
• Come forth, worm of the silent valley, to thy pensive queen.”

• 30The helpless worm arose, and sat upon the Lily’s leaf,
• And the bright cloud sailed on to find his partner in the vale.

 

• Then Thel, astonished, viewed the worm upon its dewy bed.

• “Art thou a worm? image of weakness, art thou but a worm?
• I see thee, like an infant, wrapped in the Lily’s leaf:
• Ah! weep not, little voice, thou must not speak, but thou canst weep.
• Is this a worm? I see thee lie helpless and naked, weeping,
• And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mothers smiles.”

• The clod of clay heard the worm’s voice, and rais’d her pitying head:
• She bow’d over the weeping infant, and her life exhal’d
• In milky fondness: then on Thel she fix’d her humble eyes.

• 10“O beauty of the vales of Har! we live not for ourselves.
• Thou seest me, the meanest thing, and so I am indeed;
• My bosom of itself is cold and of itself is dark,
• But He that loves the lowly pours His oil upon my head,
• And kisses me, and binds His nuptial bands around my breast,
• And says:—‘ Thou mother of my children, I have loved thee,
• And I have given thee a crown that none can take away.’
Sig. VOL. II. G
page: 82  
• But how this is, sweet maid, I know not, and I cannot know;
• I ponder, and I cannot ponder: yet I live and love!”

• The daughter of beauty wip’d her pitying tears with her white veil,
• 20 And said:—“Alas I knew not this, and therefore did I weep.
• That God would love a worm, I knew, and punish the evil foot
• That wilful bruised its helpless form; but that he cherish’d it
• With milk and oil, I never knew, and therefore did I weep.
• And I complained in the mild air, because I fade away,
• And lay me down in thy cold bed, and leave my shining lot.”

• “Queen of the vales,” the matron clay answered; “I heard thy sighs,
• And all thy moans flew o’er my roof, but I have call’d them down.
• Wilt thou, O queen, enter my house? ‘tis given thee to enter,
• And to return: fear nothing, enter with thy virgin feet.”

 

• The eternal gates’ terrrific porter lifted the northern bar;
• Thel enter’d in and saw the secrets of the land unknown.
• She saw the couches of the dead, and where the fibrous root
• Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists:
• A land of sorrows and of tears, where never smile was seen.

• She wander’d in the land of clouds, through valleys dark, listening
• Dolours and lamentations; wailing oft beside a dewy grave
• She stood in silence, listening to the voices of the ground,
• Till to her own grave-plot she came, and there she sat down,
• 10And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit:

• “Why cannot the ear be closed to its own destruction?
• Or the glistening eye to the poison of a smile?
• Why are eyelids stor’d with arrows ready drawn,
• Where a thousand fighting-men in ambush lie,
• Or an eye of gifts and graces showering fruits and coined gold?

• “Why a tongue impress’d with honey from every wind?
• Why an ear, a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in?
• Why a nostril wide inhaling terror, trembling and affright?
• Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy?
• 20Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire?”

• The virgin started from her seat, and with a shriek
• Fled back unhinder’d till she came into the vales of Har.

   

• He. Where thou dwellest, in what grove,
• Tell me, fair one, tell me, love,
• Where thou thy charming nest dost build,
• O thou pride of every field!

• She. Yonder stands a lonely tree,
• There I live and mourn for thee;
• Morning drinks my silent tear,
• And evening winds my sorrow bear.

• He. O thou summer’s harmony,
• 10I have lived and mourned for thee;
• Each day I mourn along the wood,
• And night hath heard my sorrows loud.

• She. Dost thou truly long for me?
• And am I thus sweet to thee?
• Sorrow now is at an end,
• O my lover and my friend!

• He. Come! on wings of joy we’ll fly
• To where my bower is hung on high;
• Come, and make thy calm retreat
• 20 Among green leaves and blossoms sweet.

 

• My Spectre around me night and day
• Like a wild beast guards my way;
• My Emanation far within
• Weeps incessantly for my sin.

• A fathomless and boundless deep,
• There we wander, there we weep;
• On the hungry craving wind
• My Spectre follows thee behind.

• He scents thy footsteps in the snow,
• 10 Wheresoever thou dost go;
• Through the wintry hail and rain
• When wilt thou return again?

• Poor pale, pitiable form
• That I follow in a storm,
• From sin I never shall be free
• Till thou forgive and come to me.

• A deep winter dark and cold
• Within my heart thou dost unfold;
• Iron tears and groans of lead
• 20Thou binds’t around my aching head.

• Dost thou not in pride and scorn
• Fill with tempests all my morn,
• And with jealousies and fears?—
• And fill my pleasant nights with tears?

• O’er my sins thou dost sit and moan:
• Hast thou no sins of thine own?
• O’er my sins thou dost sit and weep
• And lull thine own sins fast asleep.

• Thy weeping thou shalt ne’er give o’er;
• 30 I sin against thee more and more,
• And never will from sin be free
• Till thou forgive and come to me.

• What transgressions I commit
• Are for thy transgressions fit,—
• They thy harlots, thou their slave;
• And my bed becomes their grave.

• Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
• Hath bereaved of their life:
• Their marble tombs I built, with tears
• 40And with cold and shadowy fears.

• Seven more loves weep night and day
• Round the tombs where my loves lay,
• And seven more loves attend at night
• Around my couch with torches bright.

• And seven more loves in my bed
• Crown with vine my mournful head;
• Pitying and forgiving all
• Thy transgressions, great and small.

• When wilt thou return, and view
• 50My loves, and them in life renew?
• When wilt thou return and live?
• When wilt thou pity as I forgive?

• Throughout all Eternity
• I forgive you, you forgive me.
• As our dear Redeemer said:
• ‘This the wine, and this the bread.’

 

• I heard an Angel singing
• When the day was springing:
• ‘Mercy, Pity, and Peace
• Are the world’s release.’

• So he sang all day
• Over the new-mown hay,
• Till the sun went down,
• And haycocks looked brown.

• I heard a Devil curse
• 10Over the heath and the furze:
• ‘Mercy could be no more
• If there were nobody poor,
• And Pity no more could be
• If all were happy as ye:
• And mutual fear brings Peace.
• Misery’s increase
• Are Mercy, Pity, Peace.’

• At his cures the sun went down,
• And the heavens gave a frown.

 

• I saw a chapel all of gold
• That none did dare to enter in,
• And many weeping stood without,
• Weeping, mourning, worshipping.

• I saw a serpent rise between
• The white pillars of the door,
• And he forced and forced and forced
• Till he the golden hinges tore:

• And along the pavement sweet,
• 10Set with pearls and rubies bright,
• All his shining length he drew,
• Till upon the altar white

• He vomited his poison out
• On the bread and on the wine.
• So I turned into a sty,
• And laid me down among the swine.

 

• Why was Cupid a boy,
• And why a boy was he?
• He should have been a girl,
• For aught that I can see.

• For he shoots with his bow,
• And the girl shoots with her eye,
• And they both are merry and glad,
• And laugh when we do cry.

• Then to make Cupid a boy
• 10 Was surely a woman’s plan,
• For a boy never learns so much
• Till he has become a man:

• And then he’s so pierced with cares
• And wounded with arrowy smarts,
• That the whole business of his life
• Is to pick out the heads of the darts

 

• The vision of Christ that thou dost see
• Is my vision’s greatest enemy.
• Thine is the fare of all mankind,—
• Mine speaks in parables to the blind;
• Thine loves the same world that mine hates;
• Thy Heaven-doors are my Hell-gates.
• Socrates taught what Meletus
• Loathed as a nation’s bitterest curse,
• And Caiaphas was in his own mind
• 10A benefactor to mankind.
• Both read the Bible day and night;
• But thou read’st black where I read white.

---

• Jesus sat in Moses’ chair;
• They brought the trembling woman there;
• Moses commands she be stoned to death;
• What was the sound of Jesus’ breath?
• He laid his hand on Moses’ law:
• The ancient heavens in silent awe,
• Writ with curses from pole to pole,
• 20 All away began to roll.
• The earth trembling and naked lay,
• In secret bed of mortal clay,
• And she heard the breath of God
• As she heard it by Eden’s flood:—
page: 97  
• ‘To be good only, is to be
• ‘A God, or else a Pharisee.
• ‘Thou Angel of the Presence Divine,
• ‘That didst create this body of mine,
• ‘Wherefore hast thou writ these laws
• 30 ‘And created Hell’s dark jaws?
• ‘Though thou didst all to chaos roll
• ‘With the serpent for its soul,
• ‘Still the breath Divine doth move,
• ‘And the breath Divine is Love.
• ‘Woman, fear not; let me see
• ‘The seven devils that trouble thee;
• ‘Hide not from my sight thy sin,
• ‘That full forgiveness thou may’st win.
• ‘ Hath no man condemnèd thee?’

• 40‘No man, Lord.’

• ‘Then what is he
• ‘Who shall accuse thee? Come ye forth,
• ‘Ye fallen fiends of heavenly birth!
• ‘Ye shall bow before her feet,
• ‘Ye shall lick the dust for meat;
• ‘And though ye cannot love, but hate,
• ‘Ye shall be beggars at love’s gate.
• ‘What was thy love? Let me see’t!
• ‘Was it love, or dark deceit?’
• 50‘Love too long from me hath fled;
• ‘ ’Twas dark deceit, to earn my bread;
• ‘ ’Twas covet, or ’twas custom, or
• ‘Some trifle not worth caring for.
• ‘But these would call a shame and sin
• ‘Love’s temple that God dwelleth in.’

 

• Never seek to tell thy love,
• Love that never told can be!
• For the gentle wind doth move
• Silently, invisibly.

• I told my love, I told my love,
• I told her all my heart,
• Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears.
• Ah! she did depart.

• Soon after she was gone from me,
• 10 A traveller came by,
• Silently, invisibly:
• He took her with a sigh.

 

• As I wandered in the forest
• The green leaves among,
• I heard a wild-flower
• Singing a song.

• ‘I slept in the earth
• ‘In the silent night,
• ‘I murmured my fears
• ‘And I felt delight.

• ‘In the morning I went,
• 10‘As rosy as morn,
• ‘To seek for new joy,
• ‘ But I met with scorn.’

 

• The maiden caught me in the wild,
• Where I was dancing merrily;
• She put me into her cabinet,
• And locked me up with a golden key.

• This cabinet is formed of gold,
• And pearl and crystal shining bright,
• And within it opens into a world
• And a little, lovely, moony night.

• Another England there I saw,
• 10Another London with its tower,
• Another Thames and other hills,
• And another pleasant Surrey bower.

• Another maiden like herself,
• Translucent, lovely, shining clear,
• Threefold, each in the other closed,
• O what a pleasant trembling fear!

• O what a smile! a threefold smile
• Filled me that like a flame I burned;
• I bent to kiss the lovely maid,
• 20And found a threefold kiss returned.

• I strove to seize the inmost form
• With ardour fierce and hands of flame,
• But burst the crystal cabinet,
• And like a weeping babe became.

• A weeping babe upon the wild,
• And weeping woman pale reclined,
• And in the outward air again
• I filled with woes the passing wind.

 

• There is a smile of Love,
• And there is a smile of Deceit,
• And there is a smile of smiles
• In which the two smiles meet.

• And there is a frown of Hate,
• And there is a frown of Disdain,
• And there is a frown of frowns
• Which you strive to forget in vain.

• For it sticks in the heart’s deep core
• 10 And it sticks in the deep backbone.
• And no smile ever was smiled
• But only one smile alone

• (And betwixt the cradle and grave
• It only once smiled can be),
• That when it once is smiled
• There’s an end to all misery.

 

• Beneath a white thorn’s lovely May,
• Three virgins at the break of day:—
• ‘Whither, young man, whither away?
• Alas for woe! alas for woe!’
• They cry, and tears for ever flow.
• The first was clothed in flames of fire,
• The second clothed in iron wire;
• The third was clothed in tears and sighs,
• Dazzling bright before my eyes.
• 10They bore a net of golden twine
• To hang upon the branches fine.
• Pitying I wept to see the woe
• That love and beauty undergo—
• To be clothed in burning fires
• And in ungratified desires,
• And in tears clothed night and day;
• It melted all my soul away.
• When they saw my tears, a smile
• That might heaven itself beguile
• 20 Bore the golden net aloft,
• As on downy pinions soft,
• Over the morning of my day.
• Underneath the net I stray,
• Now intreating Flaming-fire,
• Now intreating Iron-wire,
• Now intreating Tears-and-sighs.—
• O when will the morning rise!

 

• ‘Awake, awake, my little boy!
• Thou wast thy mother’s only joy;
• Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep?
• O wake! thy father doth thee keep.

• ‘O what land is the land of dreams?
• What are its mountains and what are its streams?
• ‘O father! I saw my mother there,
• Among the lilies by waters fair.

• ‘Among the lambs clothèd in white,
• 10She walked with her Thomas in sweet delight.
• I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn—
• O when shall I again return!’

• ‘Dear child! I also by pleasant streams
• Have wandered all night in the land of dreams,
• But, though calm and warm the waters wide
• I could not get to the other side.’

• ‘Father, O father! what do we here,
• In this land of unbelief and fear?
• The land of dreams is better far,
• 20 Above the light of the morning star.’

 

• Sweet Mary, the first time she ever was there,
• Came into the ball-room among the fair;
• The young men and maidens around her throng,
• And these are the words upon every tongue:

• ‘An angel is here from the heavenly climes,
• Or again return the golden times;
• Her eyes outshine every brilliant ray,
• She opens her lips—‘tis the month of May.’

• Mary moves in soft beauty and conscious delight,
• 10To augment with sweet smiles all the joys of the night,
• Nor once blushes to own to the rest of the fair
• That sweet love and beauty are worthy our care.

• In the morning the villagers rose with delight,
• And repeated with pleasure the joys of the night,
• And Mary arose among friends to be free,
• But no friend from henceforward thou, Mary, shalt see.

• Some said she was proud, some reviled her still more,
• And some when she passed by shut-to the door;
• A damp cold came o’er her, her blushes all fled,
• 20Her lilies and roses are blighted and shed.

• ‘O why was I born with a different face,
• Why was I not born like this envious race?
• Why did heaven adorn me with bountiful hand,
• And then set me down in an envious land?

• ‘To be weak as a lamb and smooth as a dove,
• And not to raise envy, is called Christian love;
• But if you raise envy your merit’s to blame
• For planting such spite in the weak and the tame.

• ‘I will humble my beauty, I will not dress fine,
• 30I will keep from the ball, and my eyes shall not shine;
• And if any girl’s lover forsakes her for me,
• I’ll refuse him my hand and from envy be free.’

• She went out in the morning attired plain and neat;
• ‘Proud Mary’s gone mad,’ said the child in the street;
• She went out in the morning in plain neat attire,
• And came home in the evening bespattered with mire.

• She trembled and wept, sitting on the bed-side,
• She forgot it was night, and she trembled and cried;
• She forgot it was night, she forgot it was morn,
• 40Her soft memory imprinted with faces of scorn.

• With faces of scorn and with eyes of disdain,
• Like foul fiends inhabiting Mary’s mild brain;
• She remembers no face like the human divine;
• All faces have envy, sweet Mary, but thine.

• And thine is a face of sweet love in despair,
• And thine is a face of mild sorrow and care,
• And thine is a face of wild terror and fear
• That shall never be quiet till laid on its bier.

 

• A Robin Redbreast in a cage
• Puts all Heaven in a rage;
• A dove-house filled with doves and pigeons
• Shudders hell through all its regions;
• A dog starved at his master’s gate
• Predicts the ruin of the State;
• A game-cock clipped and armed for fight
• Doth the rising sun affright;
• A horse misused upon the road
• 10Calls to Heaven for human blood;
• Every wolf’s and lion’s howl
• Raises from hell a human soul;
• Each outcry of the hunted hare
• A fibre from the brain doth tear;
• A skylark wounded on the wing
• Doth make a cherub cease to sing.

• He who shall hurt the little wren
• Shall never be beloved by men;
• He who the ox to wrath has moved
• 20 Shall never be by woman loved;
page: 108  
• He who shall train the horse to war
• Shall never pass the Polar Bar;
• The wanton boy that kills the fly
• Shall feel the spider’s enmity;
• He who torments the chafer’s sprite
• Weaves a bower in endless night.
• The caterpillar on the leaf
• Repeats to thee thy mother’s grief:

• The wild deer wandering here and there
• 30Keep the human soul from care:
• The lamb misused breeds public strife,
• And yet forgives the butcher’s knife.
• Kill not the moth nor butterfly,
• For the last judgment draweth nigh;
• The beggar’s dog, and widow’s cat,
• Feed them, and thou shalt grow fat.
• Every tear from every eye
• Becomes a babe in Eternity;
• The bleat, the bark, bellow, and roar,
• 40Are waves, that beat on Heaven’s shore.

• The bat that flits at close of eve
• Has left the brain that won’t believe;
• The owl that calls upon the night
• Speaks the unbeliever’s fright;
• The gnat that sings his summer’s song
• Poison gets from slander’s tongue
• The poison of the snake and newt
• Is the sweat of envy’s foot;
• The poison of the honey bee
• 50Is the artist’s jealousy;
• The strongest poison ever known
• Came from Cæsar’s laurel-crown.

• Naught can deform the human race
• Like to the armourer’s iron brace;
• The soldier armed with sword and gun
• Palsied strikes the summer’s sun;
• When gold and gems adorn the plough,
• To peaceful arts shall envy bow;
• The beggar’s rags fluttering in air
• 60 Do to rags the heavens tear;
• The prince’s robes and beggar’s rags
• Are toadstools on the miser’s bags;
• One mite wrung from the labourer’s hands
• Shall buy and sell the miser’s lands,
• Or, if protected from on high,
• Shall that whole nation sell and buy;
• The poor man’s farthing is worth more
• Than all the gold on Afric’s shore.
• The whore and gambler, by the state
• 70 Licensed, build that nation’s fate;
• The harlot’s cry from street to street
• Shall weave old England’s winding-sheet;
• The winner’s shout, the loser’s curse,
• Shall dance before dead England’s hearse.

• He who mocks the infant’s faith
• Shall be mocked in age and death;
• He who shall teach the child to doubt
• The rotting grave shall ne’er get out;
• He who respects the infant’s faith
• 80 Triumphs over hell and death;
• The babe is more than swaddling bands
• Throughout all these human lands;
• Tools were made and born were hands,
• Every farmer understands.
• The questioner who sits so sly
• Shall never know how to reply;
page: 110  
• He who replies to words of doubt
• Doth put the light of knowledge out;
• A puddle, or the cricket’s cry,
• 90 Is to doubt a fit reply;
• The child’s toys and the old man’s reasons
• Are the fruits of the two seasons;
• The emmet’s inch and eagle’s mile
• Make lame philosophy to smile;
• A truth that’s told with bad intent
• Beats all the lies you can invent.
• He who doubts from what he sees
• Will ne’er believe, do what you please;
• If the sun and moon should doubt,
• 100 They’d immediately go out.

• Every night and every morn
• Some to misery are born;
• Every morn and every night
• Some are born to sweet delight;
• Some are born to sweet delight,
• Some am born to endless night.
• Joy and woe are woven fine,
• A clothing for the soul divine;
• Under every grief and pine
• 110Runs a joy with silken twine.
• It is right it should be so;
• Man was made for joy and woe;
• And when this we rightly know,
• Safely through the world we go.

• We are led to believe a lie
• When we see with not through the eye
• Which was born in a night to perish in a night
• When the soul slept in beams of light.
page: 111  
• God appears and God is light
• 120To those poor souls who dwell in night;
• But doth a human form display
• To those who dwell in realms of day.

 

• 1
• I travelled through a land of men,
• A land of men and women too;
• And heard and saw such dreadul things
• As cold earth-wanderers never knew.

• 2.
• For there the babe is born in joy
• That was begotten in dire woe;
• Just as we reap in joy the fruit
• Which we in bitter tears did sow.

• 3.
• And if the babe is born a boy,
• 10He’s given to a woman old,
• Who nails him down upon a rock,
• Catches his shrieks in cups of gold.

• 4.
• She binds strong thorns around his head,
• She pierces both his hands and feet,
• She cuts his heart out at his side,
• To make it feel both cold and heat.

• 5.
• Her fingers number every nerve
• Just as a miser counts his gold;
• She lives upon his shrieks and cries,
• 20And she grows young as he grows old.

• 6.
• Till he becomes a bleeding youth,
• And she becomes a virgin bright;
• Then he rends up his manacles
• And binds her down for his delight.

• 7.
• He plants himself in all her nerves
• Just as a husbandman his mould,
• And she becomes his dwelling-place
• And garden fruitful seventyfold.

• 8.
• An aged shadow soon he fades,
• 30Wandering round an earthly cot,
• Full fillèd all with gems and gold
• Which he by industry had got.

• 9.
• And these are the gems of the human soul,
• The rubies and pearls of a lovesick eye,
• The countless gold of the aching heart,
• The martyr’s groan and the lover’s sigh.

• 10.
• They are his meat, they are his drink;
• He feeds the beggar and the poor;
• To the wayfaring traveller
• 40For ever open is his door.

• 11.
• His grief is their eternal joy,
• They make the roofs and walls to ring;
• Till from the fire upon the hearth
• A little female babe doth spring.

• 12.
• And she is all of solid fire
• And gems and gold, that none his hand
• Dares stretch to touch her baby form
• Or wrap her in his swaddling band.

• 13.
• But she comes to the man she loves,
• 50If young or old or rich or poor;
• They soon drive out the aged host,
• A beggar at another’s door.

• 14.
• He wanders weeping far away,
• Until some other take him in;
• Oft blind and age-bent, sore distres’d,
• Until he can a maiden win.

• 15.
• And to allay his freezing age,
• The poor man takes her in his arms;
• The cottage fades before his sight,
• 60The garden and its lovely charms.

• 16.
• The guests are scattered through the land;
• For the eye altering alters all;
• The senses roll themselves in fear,
• And the flat earth becomes a ball.

• 17.
• The stars, sun, moon, all shrink away,
• A desert vast without a bound,
• And nothing left to eat or drink,
• And a dark desert all around:

• 18.
• The honey of her infant lips,
• 70The bread and wine of her sweet smile,
• The wild game of her roving eye,
• Do him to infancy beguile.

• 19.
• For as he eats and drinks be grows
• Younger and younger every day,
• And on the desert wild they both
• Wander in terror and dismay.

• 20.
• Like the wild stag she flees away;
• Her fear plants many a thicket wild,
• While he pursues her night and day,
• 80 By various arts of love beguiled.

• 21.
• By various arts of love and hate,
• Till the wild desert’s planted o’er
• With labyrinths of wayward love,
• Where roam the lion, wolf, and boar.

• 22.
• Till he becomes a wayward babe,
• And she a weeping woman old;
• Then many a lover wanders here,
• The sun and stars are nearer rolled;

• 23.
• The trees bring forth sweet ecstacy
• 90To all who in the desert roam;
• Till many a city there is built,
• And many a pleasant shepherd’s home.

• 24.
• But when they find the frowning babe,
• Terror strikes through the region wide:
• They cry—‘the babe—the babe is born!’
• And flee away on every side.

• 25.
• For who dare touch the frowning form,
• His arm is withered to its root:
• Bears, lions, wolves, all howling flee,
• 100 And every tree doth shed its fruit.

• 26.
• And none can touch that frowning form
• Except it be a woman old;
• She nails it down upon the rock,
• And all is done as I have told.

 

• To a lovely myrtle bound,
• Blossoms showering all around,
• O how weak and weary I
• Underneath my myrtle lie!

• Why should I be bound to thee,
• O my lovely myrtle tree?
• Love, free love, cannot be bound
• To any tree that grows on ground.

 

• I wonder whether the girls are mad,
• And I wonder whether they mean to kill,
• And I wonder if William Bond will die,
• For assuredly he is very ill.

• He went to church on a May morning,
• Attended by fairies, one, two, and three;
• But the angels of Providence drove them away,
• And he returned home in misery.

• He went not out to the field nor fold,
• 10He went not out to the village nor town,
• But he came home in a black black cloud,
• And took to his bed, and there lay down.

• And an angel of Providence at his feet,
• And an angel of Providence at his head,
• And in the midst a black black cloud,
• And in the midst the sick man on his bed.

• And on his right hand was Mary Green,
• And on his left hand was his sister Jane,
• And their tears fell through the black black cloud
• 20To drive away the sick man’s pain.

• ‘O William, if thou dost another love,
• Dost another love better than poor Mary,
• Go and take that other to be thy wife,
• And Mary Green shall her servant be.’

• ‘Yes, Mary, I do another love,
• Another I love far better than thee,
• And another I will have for my wife:
• Then what have I to do with thee?

• ‘For thou art melancholy pale,
• 30And on thy head is the cold moon’s shine,
• But she is ruddy and bright as day,
• And the sunbeams dazzle from her eyne.’

• Mary trembled, and Mary chilled,
• And Mary fell down on the right-hand floor,
• That William Bond and his sister Jane
• Scarce could recover Mary more.

• When Mary woke and found her laid
• On the right-hand of her William dear,
• On the right-hand of his loved bed,
• 40And saw her William Bond so near;

• The fairies that fled from William Bond
• Danced around her shining head;
• They danced over the pillow white,
• And the angels of Providence left the bed.

• ‘I thought Love lived in the hot sunshine,
• But oh, he lives in the moony light;
• I thought to find Love in the heat of day,
• But sweet Love is the comforter of night.

• ‘Seek Love in the pity of others’ woe,
• 50In the gentle relief of another’s care,
• In the darkness of night and the winter’s snow,
• With the naked and outcast,—seek Love there.’

 

• Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau,
• Mock on, mock on; ’tis all in vain;
• You throw the sand against the wind,
• And the wind blows it back again.

• And every sand becomes a gem
• Reflected in the beams divine;
• Blown back, they blind the mocking eye
• But still in Israel’s paths they shine.

• The atoms of Democritus
• 10And Newton’s particles of light
• Are sands upon the Red Sea shore
• Where Israel’s tents do shine so bright.

 

• ‘I see, I see,’ the mother said,
• ‘My children will die for lack of bread!
• What more has the merciless tyrant said?’
• The monk sat him down on her stony bed.

• His eye was dry, no tear could flow,
• A hollow groan bespoke his woe;
• He trembled and shuddered upon the bed;
• At length with a feeble cry he said:—

• ‘When God commanded this hand to write
• 10In the shadowy hours of deep midnight,
• He told me that all I wrote should prove
• The bane of all that on earth I love.

• ‘My brother starved between two walls,
• Thy children’s crying my soul appals;
• I mocked at the rack and the griding chain,—
• My bent body mocks at their torturing pain.

• ‘Thy father drew his sword in the north,
• With his thousands strong he is marched forth;
• Thy brother hath armed himself in steel,
• 20 To revenge the wrongs thy children feel.

• But vain the sword, and vain the bow,—
• They never can work war’s overthrow;
• The hermit’s player and the widow’s tear
• Alone can free the world from fear.

• ‘For a tear is an intellectual thing,
• And a sigh is the sword of an angel king;
• And the bitter groan of a martyr’s woe
• Is an arrow from the Almighty’s bow.

• ‘The hand of vengeance found the bed
• 30To which the purple tyrant fled;
• The iron hand crushed the tyrant’s head,
• And became a tyrant in his stead.’

 

• To find the western path,
• Right through the gates of wrath
• I urge my way;
• Sweet morning leads me on;
• With soft repentant moan
• I see the break of day.

• The war of swords and spears,
• Melted by dewy tears,
• Exhales on high;
• 10The sun is freed from fears,
• And with soft grateful tears
• Ascends the sky.

 

• Why should I care for the men of Thames
• And the cheating waters of chartered streams;
• Or shrink at the little blasts of fear
• That the hireling blows into mine ear?

• Though born on the cheating banks of Thames—
• Though his waters bathed my infant limbs—
• The Ohio shall wash his stains from me;
• I was born a slave, but I go to be free.

 

• Are not the joys of morning sweeter
• Than the joys of night?
• And are the vigorous joys of youth
• Ashamed of the light?

• Let age and sickness silent rob
• The vineyard in the night;
• But those who burn with vigorous youth
• Pluck fruits before the light.

 

• Since all the riches of this world
• May be gifts from the devil and earthly kings,
• I should suspect that I worshipped the devil
• If I thanked my God for worldly things.

• The countless gold of a merry heart,
• The rubies and pearls of a loving eye,
• The idle man never can bring to the mart
• Nor the cunning hoard up in his treasury.

 

• He who bends to himself a joy
• Does the wingèd life destroy;
• But he who kisses the joy as it flies
• Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

• If you trap the moment before it’s ripe,
• The tears of repentance you’ll certainly wipe;
• But if once you let the ripe moment go
• You can never wipe off the tears of woe.

 

• ‘Thou hast a lapful of seed
• And this is a fair country.
• Why dost thou not cast thy seed
• And live in it merrily?’

• ‘Shall I cast it on the sand
• And turn it into fruitful land?
• For on no other ground can I sow my seed
• Without tearing up some stinking weed.’

 

• I feared the fury of my wind
• Would blight all blossoms fair and true;
• And my sun it shined and shined,
• And my wind it never blew.

• But a blossom fair or true
• Was not found on any tree;
• For all blossoms grew and grew
• Fruitless, false, though fair to see.

 

• Silent, silent Night,
• Quench the holy light
• Of thy torches bright;

• For, possessed of Day,
• Thousand spirits stray
• That sweet joys betray.

• Why should joys be sweet
• Usèd with deceit,
• Nor with sorrows meet?

• 10But an honest joy
• Doth itself destroy
• For a harlot coy.

 

• Love to faults is always blind,
• Always is to joy incl’d,
• Lawless, winged and unconfin’d,
• And breaks all chains from every mind.

• Deceit, to secrecy inclin’d,
• Moves lawful, courteous and refin’d,
• To everything but interests blind,
• And forges fetters for the mind.

• There souls of men are bought and sold,
• 10And milk-fed infancy, for gold,
• And youth to slaugher-houses led,
• And beauty, for a bit of bread.

   

• I walked abroad on a snowy day,
• I asked the soft snow with me to play;
• She played and she melted in all her prime;
• And the winter called it a dreadful crime.

 

• Abstinence sows sand all over
• The ruddy limbs and flaming hair;
• But desire gratified
• Plants fruits of life and beauty there.

 

• The look of love alarms,
• Because ’tis filled with fire,
• But the look of soft deceit
• Shall win the lover’s hire:
• Soft deceit and idleness,
• These are beauty’s sweetest dress.

 

• To Chloe’s breast young Cupid slily stole,
• But he crept in at Myra’s pocket-hole.

 

• Great things are done when men and mountains meet;
• These are not done by jostling in the street.

 

• The errors of a wise man make your rule,
• Rather than the perfections of a fool.

 

• Some people admire the work of a fool,
• For it’s sure to keep your judgment cool:
• It does not reproach you with want of wit;
• It is not like a lawyer serving a writ.

 

• He’s a blockhead who wants a proof of what he can’t perceive,
• And he’s a fool who tries to make such a blockhead believe.

 

• If e’er I grow to man’s estate,
• O give to me a woman’s fate.
• May I govern all both great and small,
• Have the last word, and take the wall!

 

• Her whole life is an epigram—smack, smooth, and nobly penn’d,
• Plaited quite neat to catch applause, with a strong noose at the end.

 

• To forgive enemies Hayley does pretend,
• Who never in his life forgave a friend.

 

• You say reserve and modesty he has,
• Whose heart is iron, his head wood, and his face brass.
• The fox, the owl, the spider, and the bat
• By sweet reserve and modesty grow fat.

 

• Why of the sheep do you not learn peace?
• Because I don’t want you to shear my fleece.

 

• Here lies John Trot, the friend of all mankind;
• He has not left one enemy behind.
• Friends were quite hard to find, old authors say;
• But now they stand in everybody’s way.

 

• Grown old in love from seven till seven times seven,
• I oft have wished for hell, for ease from heaven.

 

• Prayers plough not, praises reap not,
• Joys laugh not, sorrows weep not.

 

• The Sword sang on the barren heath,
• The Sickle in the fruitful field;
• The Sword he sang a song of death
• But could not make the Sickle yield.

 

• O Lapwing, thou fliest across the heath,
• Nor seest the net that is spread beneath:
• Why dost thou not fly among the corn-fields?
• They cannot spread nets where a harvest yields.

 

• The Angel that presided o’r my birth
• said: “Little creature, formed of joy and mirth,
• Go, love without the help of anything on earth.”

   

• I asked of my dear friend orator Prig:
• ‘What’s the first part of oratory?’ He said: ‘a great wig.’
• ‘And what is the second?’ Then, dancing a jig
• And bowing profoundly, he said:‘great wig.’
• ‘And what is the third?’ Then he snored like a pig,
• And, puffing his cheeks out, replied: ‘A great wig.’
• So if to a painter the question you push,
• ‘What’s the first part of painting?’ he’ll say: ‘A paint-brush.’
• ‘And what is the second?’ with most modest blush,
• 10 He’ll smile like a cherub, and say: “A paint-brush.”
• ‘And what is the third?’ he’ll bow like a rush,
• With a leer in his eye, and reply: “A paint-brush”
• Perhaps this is all a painter can want:
• But look yonder,—that house is the house of Rembrandt.

 

• ‘O dear mother Outline, of wisdom most sage,
• What’s the first part of painting?’ She said: ‘Patronage.’
• ‘And what is the second to please and engage?’
• She frowned like a fury, and said: ‘Patronage.’
• ‘And what is the third?’ She put off old age,
• And smiled like a syren, and said: ‘Patronage.’

 

• Give pensions to the learned pig,
• Or the hare playing on a tabor;
• Anglus can never see perfection
• But in the journeyman’s labour.

• As the ignorant savage will sell his own wife
• For a button, a bauble, a bead, or a knife,—
• So the taught savage Englishman spends his whole fortune
• On a smear or a squall to destroy picture or tune:
• And I call upon Colonel Wardle
• 10To give these rascals a dose of caudle.

• All pictures that’s painted with sense or with thought
• Are painted by madmen, as sure as a groat;
• For the greater the fool, in the Art the more blest,
• And when they are drunk they always paint best.
• They never can Raphael it, Fuseli it, nor Blake it:
• If they can’t see an outline, pray how can they make it?
• All men have drawn outlines whenever they saw them;
• Madmen see outlines, and therefore they draw them.

 

• Seeing a Rembrandt or Correggio,
• Of crippled Harry I think and slobbering Joe;
• And then I question thus: Are artists’ rules
• To be drawn from the works of two manifest fools?
• Then God defend us from the Arts, I say;
• For battle, murder, sudden death, let’s pray.
• Rather than be such a blind human fool,
• I’d be an ass, a hog, a worm, a chair, a stool.

 

• You must agree that Rubens was a fool,
• And yet you make him master of your school,
• And give more money for his slobberings
• Than you will give for Raphael’s finest things.
• I understood Christ was a carpenter,
• And not a brewer’s servant, my good Sir.

 

• Sir Joshua praises Michael Angelo;
• ’Tis Christian meekness thus to praise a foe:—
• But ’twould be madness, all the world would say,
• Should Michael Angelo praise Sir Joshua.
• Christ used the Pharisees in a rougher way.

 

• You call me mad; ’tis folly to do so,—
• To seek to turn a madman to a foe.
• If you think as you speak, you are an ass;
• If you do not, you are but what you was.

 

• I mock thee not, though I by thee am mockèd;
• Thou call’st me madman, but I call thee blockhead.

 

• Thank God, I never was sent to school
• To be flogged into following the style of a fool!

                                        Intended to accompany Blake’s Engraving of the Canterbury

Pilgrimage. William Blake.                

• To Lord Byron in the Wilderness.—What dost thou, here, Elijah?
• Can a Poet doubt the Visions of Jehovah? Nature has no Outline;
• But Imagination has. Nature has no Time; but Imagination has.
• Nature has no Supernatural, and dissolves; Imagination is Eternity.
• Scene.— A rocky Country. Eve fainted over the dead body of Abel which lies near a grave. Adam kneels by her. Jehovah stands above.
• Jehovah.—Adam!
• Adam.—It is in vain: I will no hear thee more, thou Spiritual Voice.
• Is this Death?
• Jehovah.—Adam!
• Adam.—It is in vain; I will not hear thee
• 10Henceforth. Is this thy Promise that the Woman's Seed
• Should bruise the Serpent's Head? Is this the Serpent? Ah!
• Seven times, O Eve, thou hast fainted over the Dead. Ah! Ah!
• (Eve revives.)
page: 182  
• Eve.—Is this the promise of Jehovah? Oh it is all a vain delusion,
• This death and this Life and this Jehovah.
• Jehovah.—Woman, lift thine eyes.
• (A Voice is heard coming on. )
• Voice.—O Earth, cover not thou my blood!
• ( Enter the Ghost of Abel.)
• Eve.—Thou visionary Phantasm, thou art not the real Abel.
• Abel.—Among the Elohim a Human Victim I wander. I am their House,
• Prince of the Air, and our dimensions compass Zenith and Nadir.
• 20Vain is the Covenant, O Jehovah: I am the Accuser and Avenger
• Of Blood; O Earth, cover not thou the blood of Abel.
• Jehovah.—What vengeance dost thou require?
• Abel.—Life for Life! Life for Life!
• Jehovah.—He who shall take Cain's life must also die, O Abel;
• And who is he? Adam, wilt thou, or Eve, thou, do this?
• Adam.—It is all a vain delusion of the all-creative Imagination.
• Eve, come away, and let us not believe these vain delusions.
• Abel is dead, and Cain slew him; We shall also die a death,
• And then—what then? be as poor as Abel, a Thought; or as
• 30This? Oh what shall I call thee, Form Divine, Father of Mercies,
• That appearest to my Spiritual Vision? Eve, seest thou also?
• Eve—I see him plainly with my mind's eye: I see also Abel living!
• Tho’ terribly afflicted, as we also are: yet Jehovah sees him
page: 183  
• Alive and not dead: were it not better to believe Vision
• With all our might and strength, tho’ we are fallen and lost?
• Adam.—Eve, thou hast spoken truly; let us kneel before his feet.
• ( They kneel before Jehovah.)
• Abel.—Are these the sacrifices of Eternity, O Jehovah? a broken spirit
• And a contrite heart? O, I cannot forgive; the Accuser hath
• Entered into me as into his house, and I loathe thy Tabernacles.
• 40As thou hast said so is it come to pass: My desire is unto Cain
• And he doth rule over me: therefore my soul in fumes of blood
• Cries for vengeance: Sacrifice on Sacrifice, Blood on Blood.
• Jehovah.—Lo, I have given you a Lamb for an atonement instead
• Of the transgressor, or no Flesh or Spirit could ever live.
• Abel.—Compelled I cry, O Earth, cover not the blood of Abel.
• (Abel sinks down into the grave, from which arises Satan, armed in glittering scales, with a crown and a spear. )
• Satan.—I will have human blood, and not the blood of bulls or goats,
• And no atonement, O Jehovah; the Elohim live on sacrifice
• Of men: hence I am god of men; thou human, O Jehovah.
• By the rock and oak of the Druid, creeping mistletoe and thorn,
• 50Cain's city built with human blood, not blood of bulls and goats,
• Thou shalt thyself be sacrificed to me thy God on Calvary.
• Jehovah.—Such is my will ( thunders) that thou thyself go to Eternal Death.
page: 184  
• In self-annihalation, even till Satan self-subdued put off Satan
• Into the bottomless abyss whose torment arises for ever and ever.
• ( On each side a Chorus of Angels entering sing the following. )
• The Elohim of the Heathen swore vengeance for Sin! Then thou stood’st
• Forth, O Elohim Jehovah, in the midst of the darkness of the oath all clothed
• In thy covenant of the forgiveness of sins. Death, O Holy! is this Brotherhood?
• The Elohim saw their oath eternal fire; they rolled apart trembling over the
• Mercy-Seat, each in his station fixed in the firmament, by Peace, Brotherhood, and Love
• ( The curtain falls.)
• (1822. W. Blake's original stereotype was 1788.)

‘On the skirt of a figure, rapid and “vehemently sweeping,” engraved underneath (recalling that vision of Dion, made memorable by one of Wordsworth's noble poems) are inscribed these words:—“The voice of Abel's Blood.” The fierce and strenuous flight of this figure is as the motion of one whose feet are swift to shed blood, and the dim face is full of thunder and sorrowful lust after revenge. The decorations are slight, but not ineffective; wrought merely in black and white. This small prose lyric has a value beyond the value of its occasional beauty and force of form; it is a brief, comprehensible expression of Blake's faith seen from its two leading sides; belief in vision and belief in mercy.’

      [ D. G. R.]