LIFE

OF

WILLIAM BLAKE,

“PICTOR IGNOTUS”



WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS







BY THE LATE



ALEXANDER GILCHRISTA

OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT LAW;

AUTHOR OF “THE LIFE OF WILLIAM ETTY, R.A.”



ILLUSTRATED FROM BLAKE’S OWN WORKS,

IN FASCIMILÉ BY W. J. LINTON,

AND IN PHOTOLITHOGRAPHY;

WITH A FEW OF BLAKE’S ORIGINAL PLATES.



IN TWO VOLUMES.

VOL. II.



London and Cambridge:

MACMILLAN AND CO.

1863.

[ The Right of Translation is reserved.]

   

POETICAL SKETCHES.
• Introductory Note.. .. .. 3
• Song. My silks and fine array. . . . . 4
• Song. Love and harmony combine. . . . . 5
• Song. I love the jocund dance. . . . . 6
• Mad Song. The wild winds weep. . . . . 7
• Song. How sweet I roamed from field to field . .. .. 8
• Song. Memory, hither come. .. . . 9
• To the Muses. Whether on Ida’s shady brow . .. .. 10
• To the Evening Star. Thou fair-hair’d angel of the Evening . .. .. 11
• To Spring. O thou with dewy locks who lookest down . .. .. 12
• To Summer. O thou who passest thro’ out valleys in . .. .. 13
• Blind-Man’s Buff. When silver snow decks Susan’s clothes . .. .. 14
• King Edward the Third (Selections from).. .. . . 16

SONGS OF INNOCENCE.
• Introductory Note.. .. .. 25
• Introduction. Piping down the valleys wild . .. .. 26
• The Shepherd. How sweet is the shepherd’s sweet lot . .. .. 27
• The Echoing Green. The sun does arise . .. .. 28
• The Lamb. Little lamb, who made thee? . .. .. 29
• The Little Black Boy. My mother bore me in the southern wild . .. .. 30
• The Blossom. Merry, merry sparrow! . . .. . 31
• The Chimney-Sweeper. When my mother died I was very young . .. .. 32
• The Little Boy Lost. Father, father, where are you going? . .. .. 33
• The Little Boy Found. The little boy lost in the lonely fen . .. .. 33
• Laughing Song. When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy . .. .. 34
• A Cradle Song. Sweet dreams form a shade . .. .. 35
• The Divine Image. To mercy, pity, peace, and love . .. .. 36
• Holy Thursday. ‘Twas a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean . .. 37
page: vi  
Note: The order of “The Sick Rose” and “Nurse’s Song” is reversed on this page: in the text,“Nurse’s Song” appears before “The Sick Rose.”
• Night. The sun descending in the West . .. .. 38
• Spring. Sound the flute!. .. . . 40
• Nurse’s Song. When the voices of children are heard on the green . .. .. 41
• Infant Joy. I have no name. .. . . 42
• A Dream. Once a dream did weave a shade . .. .. 43
• On Another’s Sorrow. Can I see another’s woe . .. .. 44
• The Voice of the Ancient Bard. Youth of delight, come hither . .. .. 45

SONGS OF EXPERIENCE.
• Introduction. Hear the voice of the bard. . .. .. 47
• Earth’s Answer. Earth raised up her head . .. .. 48
• The Clod and the Pebble. Love seeketh not itself to please . .. .. 49
• Holy Thursday. Is this a holy thing to see . .. .. 50
• The Little Girl Lost. In futurity . . .. . 51
• The Little Girl Found. All the night in woe . .. .. 53
• The Chimney Sweeper. A litle black thing among the snow . .. .. 55
• The Sick Rose. O Rose, thou art sick . .. .. 56
• Nurse’s Song. When the voices of children are heard on the green . .. .. 56
• The Fly. Little Fly. .. . . 57
• The Angel. I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?. .. .. 58
• The Tiger. Tiger, tiger, burning bright . .. .. 59
• My Pretty Rose Tree. A flower was offer’d to me . .. .. 60
• Ah Sunflower! Ah Sunflower! weary of time . .. .. 60
• The Lily. The modest rose puts forth a thorn . .. .. 61
• The Garden of Love. I laid me down upon a bank . .. .. 61
• The Little Vagabond. Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold . .. . 62
• London. I wander through each charter’d street . .. .. 63
• The Human Abstract. Pity would be no more . .. .. 64
• Infant Sorrow. My mother groaned, my father wept . .. .. 65
• Christian Forbearance. I was angry with my friend . .. .. 65
• A Little Lost Boy. Nought loves another as itself . .. .. 66
• A Little Lost Girl. Children of the future age . .. .. 67
• A Cradle Song. Sleep, sleep, beauty bright . .. .. 68
• A Schoolboy. I love to rise on a summer morn . .. .. 69
• To Tirzah. Whate’er is born of mortal birth . .. .. 70

THE BOOK OF THEL.. .. .. 71

POEMS HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED.
• Introductory Note.. .. .. 76
• The Birds. Where thou dwellest, in what grove . .. .. 78
• Broken Love. My spectre around me night and day . .. .. 79
• The Two Songs. I heard an angel singing . .. .. 81
• The Defiled Santuary. I saw a chapel, all of gold . .. .. 82
page: vii  
• Cupid. Why was Cupid a boy?. .. . . 83
• The Woman taken in Adultery. The vision of Christ that thou dost see . . 84
• Love’s Secret. Never seek to tell thy love . .. .. 86
• The Wild Flower’s Song. As I wandered in the forest . .. .. 87
• The Crystal Cabinet. The maiden caught me in the wild . .. .. 88
• Smile and Frown. There is a smile of love . .. .. 89
• The Golden Net. Beneath a white thorn’s lovely May . .. .. 90
• The Land of Dreams. Awake, awake, my little boy! . .. .. 91
• Mary. Sweet Mary, the first time she was ever was there . .. .. 92
• Auguries of Innocence. To see a world in a grain of sand . .. .. 94
• The Mental Traveller. I travelled through a land of men . .. .. 98
• William Bond. I wonder whether the girls are mad . .. .. 103
• Scoffers. Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau . .. .. 105
• The Agony of Faith. I see, I see, the mother said . .. .. 106
• Daybreak. To find the western path . .. .. 107
• Thames and Ohio. Why should I care for the men of Thames . .. .. 107
• Young Love. Are not the joys of morning sweeter . .. .. 108
• Riches. Since all the riches of the world . .. .. 108
• Opportunity. He who bends to himself a joy . .. .. 108
• Seed Sowing. Thou hast a lapful of seed . .. .. 109
• Barren Blosom. I feared the fury of my wind . .. .. 109
• Night and Day. Silent, silent night . .. .. 110
• In a Myrtle Shade. To a lovely myrtle bound . .. .. 111
• Couplets and Fragments. .. .. 112
• Epigrams and Satirical Pieces on Art and Artists. . . .. 114

PROSE WRITINGS.
• Introductory Note. .. .. 118
• Descriptive Catalogue. .. .. 119
• Public Address. .. .. 144
• Memoranda by Blake of his Modes of Engraving. .. . . 158
• Sybilline Leaves. .. .. 159
• A Vision of the Last Judgment. .. .. 161

APPENDIX.
Note: Appendix materials unrelated to DGR are omitted from the transcription.
• Letters from Blake to Mr. Butts. .. .. 178
• Annotated Catalogue of Blake’s Pictures and Drawings. List I. of Works in Colours.

• Section a. Dated Works. .. .. 201

• Section b. Undated Works, Biblical and Sacred. . 223

• Ditto Ditto Poetical and Miscellaneous. . . .. 232

page: [viii]  
• List II. Uncoloured Works.

• Section a. Dated Works. . .. .. 240

• Section b. Undated Works, Biblical and Sacred. . 223

• Ditto ditto Poetical and Miscellaneous. . . .. .. . 248

• List III. Works of Unascrertained Method.

• Biblical and Sacred .. .. .. 255

• Poetic and Miscellaneous .. .. .. 255

• Accounts between Blake and Mr. Butts.. .. .. .. .. . 256
• List of Engravings.

• Works designed as well as engraved by Blake .. .. .. 257

• Works engraved, but not designed by Blake.. .. .. 259

• Works designed, but not engraved by Blake.. .. .. 261

• List of Writings.. .. .. .. .. 261
• Prospecture by Blake issued in 1793.. .. .. 263
• Engraved Designs by Blake.. .. . . .. .. 265

• The Book of Job.

• Songs of Innocence and Experience.

   

• 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 perfumed 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 chimney-nook 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
• 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,
page: 15  
• 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 chace,—
• 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.

• Now let us take a just revenge for those
• 20 Brave lords who fell beneath the bloody axe
• 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.
• 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.
page: 18  
• 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,
• ‘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 Welchman 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.
page: 19  
Sig. C 2
• 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.

---

• 90 Prince. Now we are alone, Sir John, I will unburthen
• And breathe my hopes into the burning air,
• 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,
page: 20  
• 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
• 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
page: 21  

• 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
• Cowed 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
page: 22  
• 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,
• 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: 23  
• 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
• 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
page: 24  
• 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.’

   

• 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 then 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 I 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 see;
• 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 desarts weep.

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

• Seven nights they sleep
• 10 Among shadows deep,
• And dream they see their child
• Starved in desart 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 feats 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 consumed 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
• 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.
page: 72  
• “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,
page: 73  
• 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 Mel.”

• 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,
page: 74  
• How great thy use, how great thy blessing. Every thing that lives,
• Lives not alone nor for itself. Fear not, and I will call
• 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.’
• 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 bind’st 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:—
• ‘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,
page: 85  
• ‘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 condemned 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;
• 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 eye
• 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;
page: 96  
• 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;
• 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.

• Even, night and every morn
• Some to misery are born;
• Every morn and every night
• Some are born to sweet delight;
page: 97  
Sig. VOL. II. H
• 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.
• 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.
• He rfingers 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.

 

• 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 winged 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.

 

• 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 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.

   

• 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; 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.                       D. G. R.]