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WILLIAM BLAKE
POET AND MYSTIC
By P. BERGER
Docteur-ès-Lettres
Professor of English Language and Literature in the
Lycée and Lecturer in the University
of Bordeaux.
Authorized Translation from the French by
DANIEL H. CONNER.
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY,
681 Fifth Avenue.
1915.
Dutton
7798
Rhet. Refe.
10-10-192m zm
gen.
Printed in England..
To
EMILE LEGOUIS
Professor at the Sorbonne
In recognition of
His Sympathy and Encouragement.
408646
“Oh ! never rudely will I blame his faith
In the might of stars and angels! . . . .
Delightedly dwells he 'mong fays and talismans
And spirits; and delightedly believes
Divinities, being himself divine."
S. T. COLERIDGE.
NOTE
The Author desires to thank Mr. John Sampson
and the Authorities of the Clarendon Press for per-
mission to quote from the text of The French
Revolution, published-for the first time in the
Oxford Edition (1913) of Blake's Poetical Works.
WILLIAM BLAKE
CONTENTS
I: THE MAN: HIS LIFE
I Introduction
II His Life
III His Character
IV His Visions
II: THE MYSTIC: HIS DOCTRINES
V General Character of his Works and his System
VI Mysticism and its various Forms
VII His Theories-The Work of Demolition-Negation
of the Senses and of Reason
VIII Constructive Work-Imagination and Symbolism
IX
His Universe-The Creation of the World: Spectre
and Emanation-the Fall and Regeneration of
Man
PAGE
3
22
43
48
63
68
76
86
99
X The Four Zoas and their Emanations
128
XI His other Creations, and the Worlds they live in
168
XII His System of Morality
179
XIII The Sources of his Doctrines
198
III: THE POET: HIS WORKS

XIV The Influence of Mysticism upon Poetry-Destruc-
tion of the Poetry of Logic and Reason
211
XV Symbolism in Language
221
XVI The Feelings and the Emotions
238
XVII The Imagination
253
XVIII Chronological Survey of his Work-(i) Prose

Writings
275

xii
CONTENTS
XIX Chronological Survey-(ii) Lyrical Poems
XX Chronological Survey-(iii) The Earlier Prophetic
Books
XXI Chronological Survey-(iv) The Great Prophetic
Books: Vala-Jerusalem-Milton
XXII His Literary Models and his Imitators
XXIII
Conclusion
Bibliography
Chronological Table
Index
PAGE
282
325
343
369
380
PART I
THE MAN: HIS LIFE
B
I: INTRODUCTION
HE name of William Blake immediately suggests, to anyone
interested in art or literature, the idea of an eccentric,
T
a man half out of his senses, who was subject to extra-
ordinary fancies and apocalyptic visions, and who, in his
attempts to give a description of his supernatural dreams which
should be at once poetic and pictorial, reveals himself as a very
notable artist and a very unequal poet; so that we find in his
work beauties of the highest order, side by side with pages that are
almost unreadable.
In this study of Blake we shall consider him almost exclusively
as poet and visionary, disregarding his artistic side except in so far
as it throws light upon his character as a man. We shall examine him
as a strange poetical and psychological phenomenon. We shall try to
define his ideas of the world as we can gather them from his writings,
and to give as comprehensible a description as possible of the universe
that he saw in his visions. Finally, and chiefly, we shall endeavour to
show the influence of the visionary upon the poet, searching his
works for signs of the mystical and imaginative spirit that produced
them, and being thus led to see, in this very characteristic case, the
general effect of mysticism and of prophetic vision upon the poetic
spirit properly so called.
This will therefore be above all an attempt at literary criticism and
psychological analysis. We shall not concern ourselves with the
historical aspect of the case, interesting as this is, nor seek to show
whether Blake was or was not the product of his age and his environ-
ment. We shall look upon him rather as a unique personality, thrown'
by chance, as he would have himself said, out of the world of eternity
into that of space and time, to appear there for an instant and then
return to his true dwelling-place. The time and place of his coming
to earth are of small importance. What do matter are the immortal
words he spoke; and these belong to no country and no age.
It is impossible, however, to understand him properly without
knowing his position with regard to the age he lived in, or seeing
how far he followed and how far he departed from the general course
of its thought. A few general remarks, therefore, brief indications of
4
WILLIAM BLAKE
surroundings and tendencies rather than examinations of facts-will
not be out of place, as an introduction to our study of the man himself.
Blake lived from 1757 to 1827, and the best of his poetical works
were produced between 1782 and 1803. Standing, therefore, on the
threshold of the nineteenth century, he belongs to the period of the
French Revolution, and of the revival of Liberal ideas in England.
From a literary point of view, he comes just at the close of the pseudo-
classical period of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the
rising romanticism. If it were possible to define in so many words
his attitude towards, or his part in, this movement, it could only be
done by calling him the prophet of liberty and imagination, as opposed
to reason and its authority. All through his work he declaims against
logic and reason, and defends the cause of imagination and vision
with their inevitable consequences, absolute liberty and uncontrolled
fancy, in politics as well as in art. To describe the birth of these
ideas in his age, and follow them through the generations that have
felt their influence, would be to write the history of imagination in
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and recount its incessant
conflicts with reason and reality. We can only attempt to sketch the
chief phases of the struggle in broad outline.
Ever since the seventeenth century, reason seems to have been the
ruling power in Europe. The great enthusiasms of the sixteenth
century had long ago died down: men could see no new worlds to
conquer, either on the map of the globe or in the sphere of human
knowledge." Everything has been said, and we come too late.”
The eighteenth century was, consequently, an age, not of creation
but of organisation. Now, what does an organising age need? No
dreams, no fancy, no imagination, but an exact sense of the real, a
logical spirit, a strong and correct judgment-all attributes of reason.
It is reason, therefore, which we find dominating the political as
well as the literary and the social life of the age. In politics, we see
how in France the ministers of Louis XIV were settling the adminis-
tration of the old monarchy, and strengthening its institutions, as
if it were to last for ever. In England, the nation was definitely
ridding itself of absolute monarchy, and, by a series of violent though
carefully calculated changes, establishing for good and all the
constitution which is still in force. This final settlement of their
institutions brought about, in both countries, the absolute rule of
law, and the habit of complete submission, whether willing or
unwilling, to the established order.
INTRODUCTION
5
And we find the same organisation and the same discipline in
things spiritual. The religion of the State, that which was most in
accordance with reason, implanted itself in France, where the
Government repressed all deviations from it, Protestantism and
mystical Quietism as well as the atheistical tendencies that were
beginning to spread. In England, the same victorious warfare was
being waged, though less violently, against all religion that did not
conform to the rule of the established Church, which adopted the
same masterful and contemptuous attitude towards the ruined
remnant of Catholicism, towards the many Puritans, who could only
find the realisation of their dreams in America, and towards the free-
thinkers, who as yet did not dare to make themselves known.
Philosophy, also, was entirely under the influence of reason.
Descartes had made it the sole basis of his system, just as Bacon had
founded his science upon reasoned experience and observation of
reality, and as Locke was to build up all his knowledge of the world
upon the reasoned evidence of the senses. It was actually through
reason that Pascal succeeded in proving the impotence of reason
itself and the rightful supremacy of faith.
And what are we to say of literature properly so called? What
had now become of the creative fancy, the fruitful disorder of the
Renaissance? Where were the freedom and the playful spontaneity
of the sixteenth century poets? Where the complex and exuberant
worlds of Rabelais and Shakespeare? All these had vanished for
ever, giving place to men bent upon organisation and order, who
had cleared the virgin forests, cut away the growing brushwood, and
given us instead the beautiful straight avenues of Versailles and the
well-trimmed groves of Hampton Court. Classicism meant calm
and ordered prose, with its disciplined phrases and chosen words.
It meant reasoned, logical poetry, the flow of imagination checked,
and even the strongest passion moving with the regular rise and fall
of an equinoctial tide, submitting itself to almost mathematical laws,
and perhaps only the more powerful in proportion as it was more
reasoned. Reason was the great mistress, and all literary works
"borrowed from her alone their lustre and their value." And the
same phenomenon occurred in England. Pope's classicism is in no
way inferior to that of Boileau.
The eighteenth century, in this respect, only continues and goes
further than the 17th. It becomes the age of reason triumphant,
¹ Boileau: Art Poétique, Canto I, 1. 37.
6
WILLIAM BLAKE
enjoying the fruits of its victory. Rational principles are established,
never to be disturbed again: nothing remains but to accord them a
blind submission. But, as always happens when the highest point
has been reached, the tendency to decline has already made itself
felt; and faults begin to appear in what had been regarded as per-
fection itself. It cannot be otherwise. To say that a system of laws is
perfect and will remain so for ever, is to condemn the world which
is governed by it to stagnation and death. And so men feel that the
established institutions and systems of government, and even the
established principles of thought, are all insufficient. A state of general
uneasiness and discontent pervades all minds. The machine that
seemed so perfect is no longer so. It must be changed, must perhaps
even be destroyed and remade. We will destroy and remake it : but,
in destroying and remaking alike, we will adopt the same principle,
that of logic and reason.
It is in France that this tendency is most marked, both in politics
and in the movement of ideas. Upon reason and its universal force,
the philosophers founded the sanctity of man and the equality of all.
In the name of reason Voltaire attacked superstitions and abuses,
and Montesquieu proved all laws to be based on logic. In the name
of reason also, Rousseau was to establish his theory of Natural
Religion, to give mankind an educational system, and to create a
new society in all its details. All the directing spirits of the Revolution
were logicians. The principles of liberty, equality and fraternity were
based upon faultless arguments: the revolutionary assemblies under-
mined and built up society according to theorems that were logically
irrefutable. The world was reconstructed by them upon a mathe-
matical base; and the great revolutionary festival of the goddess
Reason was, as it were, a symbolic crowning of the whole eighteenth
century.
England had no part in this destruction or in these triumphs.
Her organisation was too strong for the disturbance to be so much
felt. English home politics in the eighteenth century were only a
series of personal and party quarrels, between Whigs and Tories,
now one and now the other being the winner in their Liliputian
disputes. In these, criticism by pinpricks, schoolboy logic, was all
that was required: malice and satire won the day in argument.
The great events that were occurring outside the country, the
founding of the English Colonial Empire, were for all but a few
misunderstood visionaries like Clive and Warren Hastings-only a
INTRODUCTION
7
matter of figures in the debit and credit accounts of great commercial
companies which had to be supported. So here again we have the
reign of Reason: but here it was the reign of some Byzantine
emperor occupied with petty quarrels ; sometimes only the reign
of an idle and inactive king.
Let us see now how literature and poetry fared under such mental
conditions, in England and in France.
It is remarkable that all the great French writers of the eighteenth
century were writers of prose. What were such poets as Jean-Baptiste
Rousseau, Ducis or Delille, compared with Voltaire, Montesquieu,
Rousseau, Diderot and Buffon? What was even Voltaire's own
poetry compared with his prose, as perfect in quality as it was
voluminous in quantity? And in England it was the same. Certainly,
the English poets were more numerous and more celebrated. The
names of Thomson, Gray, Collins and, later, those of Crabbe and
Cowper, have achieved world-wide fame; and, as for Pope, his
supremacy in poetry can almost be compared with that of Voltaire
in prose. But, if we were obliged to sacrifice either all the poetry or
all the prose of this century, who could have a moment's hesitation
in deciding? The great prose writers crowd upon each other and
dominate their age. We have essayists like Steele and the impeccable
Addison; Swift, with his lashing sarcasm and the matchless power
of his misanthropy. We have the founders of the modern novel:
the precise and lifelike Defoe; Richardson, the depicter of passion,
the simple and domestic Goldsmith; Smollett, so full of movement;
Sterne, eccentric and affected, yet so attractive in his fine, desultory
dialogue; and, above all, Fielding with his keen observation, his
bold realism, his power of witty and fascinating narration, the real
master of the English novel. We have Sheridan, almost the only
English writer of comedy; Johnson, gruff, domineering and argu-
mentative—and many others, the founders of the classic tradition in
English prose.
Further, the poets, even Pope himself, are above all remarkable
for qualities that we admire in writers of prose. Their work rarely
stirs in us what we now call poetic feeling. Their poetry, whether it
be critical, philosophical, narrative or descriptive, is essentially
didactic in character, and almost devoid of lyric beauty. We admire
its ordered logic, the clearness and precision of its phrasing, its wit,
its concise lines that have so often become proverbs, the absolute
correctness and perfect poise which make it a model for style. All
་
8
WILLIAM BLAKE
these are qualities belonging to excellent prose. In these poets, poetic
feeling seems to be nothing but exactly balanced thought adapting
itself to the monotonous rhythm of the lines. Their use of metre is
absolutely according to rule; and it is to them that the beginner
must first go to study English prosody. We find fault with their exact
cadences for being monotonous. They regarded them as perfect:
and how can perfection admit of any variety? But this melody, or
rather this ordered development of lines, only helped them to
concentrate their thought, to press it down with poetry's many
feet," 1
to make their sentences more symmetrical, to give more
force and concentration to their language. For us, rhythm in poetry
means something quite different: its object is to induce in us a
special psychological condition analogous to that which music
produces; a state of readiness for being either lulled to rest by the
dreams of a wandering imagination, or carried away by the blind
force of the emotions which poetry seeks to arouse in us.
These men of the eighteenth century did not want to be lulled to
rest or carried away: what they wanted was to examine everything
dispassionately, to weigh everything in the calm and even balance of
reason. All that life of the soul which is compounded of deep emotions,
imaginative fancies, violent passions that guide and shatter the lives
of men-they thought that all this ought to be kept hidden deep in
each man's heart, and not made a subject for literary treatment.
Should not literature be only a polite relaxation, a matter for drawing-
room conversation or for discussion in an assembly of courteous and
distinguished people? Passion may not be introduced until it has
been calmed and made fit for society: imagination must adopt the
form sanctioned by fashion. As for the soul as it really is, with its
disordered movements, its bleeding wounds, its hungry longings,
its wild dreams, its delirious joys, it must never be allowed to show
itself to a polite and lettered world. Remember the advice that the
most polished man of the age, Lord Chesterfield, gave to his son:
Never laugh only have a courteous smile on your lips. Laughter,
like tears, like everything that comes straight from the bottom of the
heart, is vulgar. Man must clothe his soul's nakedness in court dress;
must check the beating of his heart; so that no one can see his soul
behind the discreetly veiled glance of his eyes, nor guess his passion
except from the slight trembling of his spotless lace ruffle.
Of course, if any writer did desire to bring some element of reality
¹ Montaigne Essays, Book I, chap. 25.
INTRODUCTION
9
into his work, to show a character stripped of the sham trappings of
society, he would be welcomed and admired; but only in the same
way as Gulliver in his cage was admired by the giants. So we see the
Tom Joneses, the Squire Westerns, the Roderick Randoms, the
Uncle Tobys and Widow Wadmans, and even, if necessary, the
naked and repulsive humanity of the sordid Yahoos. But all this is
only a show. The exhibitor himself remains cold and unmoved.
Even if he is a poet, he never lets us see into his own heart; never
allows his imagination to play freely before our eyes.
Not that these writers felt no emotions, or gave no liberty to
their imaginations. But their hatred and their love were expressed
in conventional forms, just as their metaphors and images were all
sanctioned by age and garbed in classical dress. The woods and
fields still had their nymphs and dryads as before, but how changed
now! The ancient Greeks saw the gods all about them, and felt a
personality in each of the forces of nature: Shakespeare heard the
voices of the forest fairies, the songs of Ariel, the quarrels of Oberon
and Titania. The poets of the eighteenth century could no longer
see or hear them. They only knew that there ought to be such things
and so they introduced them. But we can perceive only too clearly
the artificial and laborious character of their creations. The inner
life of their souls is never revealed by any loud or unstudied cry. The
note that they strike has the air rather of being learned from some
manual of social etiquette than of being drawn straight from the
heart. The correct polished style which they compelled themselves
to use weakens the natural force of their feelings and the strength
of their imaginations. Their personality, and with it their lyric genius,
disappears under the external forms imposed by fashion and ordered
by reason. The ancient Muses seem to have departed; and Blake
had good grounds for the lamentation over their absence which he
uttered in one of his earliest poems.
"Whether on Ida's shady brow,
Or in the chambers of the East,
The chambers of the sun, that now
From antient melody have ceas'd;
Whether in Heav'n ye wander fair,
Or the green corners of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air
Where the melodious winds have birth ;
1
10
WILLIAM BLAKE
Whether on chrystal rocks ye rove,
Beneath the bosom of the sea
Wand'ring in many a coral grove,
Fair Nine, forsaking Poetry!
How have you left the antient love
That bards of old enjoy'd in you!
The languid strings do scarcely move!
The sound is forc'd, the notes are few! 1
And yet, even in this forced music and these rare melodies we find
clear indications that poetry is not dead, that fancy, passion, imagina-
tion, individuality, lyric power, have not gone for ever from liter-
ature. Because there have been one or two centuries during which
certain deep, essential instincts of the human soul were considered
unsuitable subjects for literature and poetry, it does not follow that
these instincts are to be excluded for ever. We can no more suppress
them than we can change the nature of the soul. These hidden fires
must some day break forth brightly once more, illuminating the
ashes beneath which they were buried. And the day of their awaken-
ing was already at hand. Already the want of some new creation was
making itself felt; and they alone had the power to create. This new
creation was, in political and social life, first the circulation of the
ideas which produced the Revolution, and then the religious revival
of the nineteenth century: in the life of literature it was Romanti-
cism. Both the one and the other of these movements were caused
by passion and enthusiasm: they were a defiance cast at reason, and
at the authority of established principles.
Imagination and fancy, which show themselves very little in the
literature of the eighteenth century, were nevertheless so much alive
that we see them appearing and springing up in many social pheno-
mena. In France, at the very moment when the doctrines of reason
were all-powerful, had not men already witnessed the birth of Quiet-
ism, that mystic dream of tender souls, that rapturous piety, which
the powerful authority of Bossuet destroyed in the end? Did
not the logician Descartes experience his night of Vision, and
did not Pascal dream of his mystery of Jesus, and give vent to a
sigh of anguish worthy of a Saint Theresa ? But under the authority
of the Church, the dreams of an orthodox religion cannot subsist
long. Even devotion must take a prescribed form, lest it should
¹ Poetical Sketches: To the Muses (1783).
INTRODUCTION
II
disappear. Then we find the mystic imagination passing over to
another sphere. Believers add superstition to their faith; the atheists
make it take its place. Here and there we find exaggerated expres-
sions of it. At first the spiritually-minded hover over the obscure
regions that lie between science and occultism, and the still more
dimly defined phenomena of hysteria and hypnotism. In the begin-
ning of the century, the Convulsionaries of Saint-Médard had visions
and accomplished miracles (1729-1733). Towards the end, all Paris
hastened to Mesmer's marvellous bath, and sought to discover in it
mysterious forces from the great Beyond (1778). Here we have fancy
touching on madness; yet nothing was more popular; and Caglio-
stro, adventurer and half man of science, well knew how to profit
by it, whilst fostering the desires and flattering the illusions of the
crowd (1785). It was an age when freemasonry attracted restless and
searching minds by its quality of mystery, when people believed
almost universally in Sorcery, in the Cabala and in Astrology. The
Cabalist Martinez-Pasqualis originated a set of Initiates in the
lodges (1754). Amongst others, he converted Saint Martin, the
"Unknown Philosopher," who later on was to introduce the works
of Boehme, the mystic German cobbler, into France, and to found
in his turn a fresh esoteric doctrine (1775). And when the prophet
Swedenborg appeared with his lately published Heaven and Hell
(1758), it was snatched up, and commented upon, and discussed;
and many believed in him as in a new Evangelist. To-day we call
such men dreamers and madmen. The age of reason and logic
called them seers and admired them; so greatly did the cravings of
imaginative and mystically contemplative minds find in them their
truest expression, and in their dogmas the completest satisfaction.
As for the stronger minds, for those most occupied by social re-
alities, they were none the less possessors of their share of imagina-
tion. What else were all those projects for the renovation of Society,
those visions of a Europe wrapped in a state of perpetual peace, as
enounced by the Abbé de Saint Pierre (1713); or those of a re-
generated humanity, like Rousseau's idea of mankind in its primitive
state; or of the universal enlightenment of the human mind, as held
by the encyclopaedists—what were they if not dreams supported by
a scaffolding of syllogisms, as if they dared not rise without it? And
the ideal social state of the revolutionists, was not that also a dream
of the millennium? And their cry of Liberty, was it not uttered with
the intense enthusiasm of a dreamer, seeking to realize his visions
12
WILLIAM BLAKE
on the earth? And their equality that cannot be realized, their mystic
brotherhood of nations? A splendid dream, but too unreasonable
ever to become an actual fact. Nevertheless, this mirage of their
dreams attracted them; they surrounded it with close reasoning;
they consecrated their life to it as they would to a religion; they
made a creed of it which left no room for discussion; and they
laboured to realize it with all the power of their passionate enthusi-
asm. Truly their faith was great, and it moved mountains. But events
quickly showed how many of their ideals were pure fancy, bound to
pass away. All the while they believed they were acting as reasonable
and logical men, as if one could couple cold reason to the fire of a
great passion. At bottom they were only wonderful dreamers; and
the goddess Reason, whom they raised on their altars, was their
Supreme Vision, adored under a false name. When once this goddess
was removed, the mystic dream of religion could return to satisfy
the soul; and the churches could again be opened.
This intensity of constrained imagination was much less visible
in literature properly so called. However, it is seen in the taste for
those false modes of construction which the eighteenth century
possessed the artificial ode and idyll, and the pastoral. The icy
raptures of Jean-Baptiste Rousseau, Delille's periphrastic descrip-
tions, the watered Shakespearianisms of Ducis, were but an arid
pasturage for the mind; yet how greedily it absorbed them! The
loves of Estelle or of Galatea charmed the men of letters because they
allowed their imagination to wander over mild idyllic regions, which
reality could never enter and spoil. When all this could be joined to
the description of some real sentiment, as in Manon Lescaut or in
Paul et Virginie, and the feeling of a possible reality, then the imagi-
nation and the heart were satisfied together. When Rousseau dared
to utter the declamatory outcry of his passion; the soul of the
eighteenth century recognized in him all that she had dreamed with-
out daring to express. She felt that she could admire him the more,
in that he had lost nothing of his logical capacities, and that reason
could find herself satisfied in him. It was not his logic, however, but
the sincerity of his enthusiasms, the vigour of his capacity for hate,
the exaltation of a passionate dreamer, that gave him such a power
over souls. There was but one more step to take: to consider reason
no longer as the chief quality of a literary work; to give passion and
imagination a free rein, and to cast off the rules of a too narrow logic.
And that is what the Romantic School was to do,
INTRODUCTION
13
In England, the movement of men's imaginations is less noticeable
in social life, whilst on the contrary it is more remarkable in literature.
It shows itself in certain minds by the recrudescence of various
religious tendencies: in fact, the English protestant mind often
turns to religious mysticism. The principal example is the spiritual
revival which gave birth to Methodism (1738). This was the doing
of Whitefield the mystic (1714-1770), and of Wesley the enthusiast
(1703-1791), a dreamer and at the same time energetic, a man
combining imagination and creative faith with the temperament of
an organiser. Other sects, containing fewer members, were founded
about the same time: the most interesting was that of Swedenborg,
the" New Jerusalem " which still lives to-day. The Swedish visionary
spent much of his time in London, and his principal works, the
Arcana Cœlestia (1749-1766) and Heaven and Hell, had been read
and admired with an even more lively faith than in France. We
shall have to speak again of his doctrine and his influence on Blake.
At this point it is sufficient to note his popularity as a sign of the times.
Shortly afterwards, another initiate, William Law, about whom
also we shall have to speak again, translated the works of Boehme
(1764) into English, and gained a goodly number of adherents to his
doctrine, amongst whom Blake himself was to be found. These are
doubtless (putting aside Methodism, which was widely accepted
and is still very much alive in England) almost unique manifestations
of isolated facts; but they show how little extinct was the mystic
tendency in the English mind.
In the political world we have enthusiasts and dreamers, but
during their lifetime their actual influence on affairs was almost of
no effect. They were the liberals who hailed the dawn of the French
Revolution, those whose theories were so dear to Blake, as later on
they were to Shelley, and whom we shall meet again soon.
As for literature, it is sufficient to note the appearance of the best
known works of the period, to appreciate the growing influence of
the spiritual movement, and the gradual approach of the lyrical
school of poetry. Already there are many descriptive passages in
Thomson (1730), where the poet's imagination glows as it pictures
fine natural landscape, and where only a slight effort is needed to
feel its very soul. Even the slightly artificial declamations of Young
(Night Thoughts, 1743) and Blair's cunningly arranged commonplaces
(The Grave, 1743), suggest, without actually expressing, a whole
world, wherein the imagination can roam freely, such as Blake would
14
WILLIAM BLAKE
show us. We even find a would-be poet, Akenside, as chaste and
elegant as his model Addison, who gives us, in verse, the Pleasures of
Imagination (1744), without succeeding in making us feel them.
Then come the poems of Collins (1747) with their lyrical raptures,
losing the conventional manner more and more, and Gray's famous
Elegy (1751) full of a tender and contemplative sweetness appealing
to both the imagination and the heart.
The sixteenth century's taste for spontaneous poetry appears
again. We get numerous editions of Shakespeare; and imitations of
Spenser at least of his style become fashionable: Shenstone's
Schoolmistress (1742), Thomson's Castle of Indolence (1748) and
Beattie's Minstrel (1771). And at last come works of pure imagination
which the writers hardly dare claim as their own. Percy edits and
arranges the old ballads (1765). Chatterton imitates them, and for a
short time makes people believe in the authenticity of his mediæval
author Rowley (1770); whilst Macpherson excites the enthusiasm
of the entire European world of letters, and introduces quite a
renaissance in poetry under the name of Ossian, a mythical bard-
nebulous, melancholy and imaginative. That these works should be
successful shows that the public mind was ready for them, and that
now was the time for the appearance of the purely imaginative and
passionate poets. There are but two names of great poets that we must
associate with the eighteenth century rather than with the period of
growing romanticism; these are Crabbe and Cowper, both con-
temporaries of Blake. And indeed they (Cowper especially) were
not unworthy to precede the great lyrical poets of the following
century, in the earnestness of their tone, the emotion which they
often allowed to master them, and the pathetic cry that seems to
come from the depths of the soul.
It is at this moment that Blake appears, heralding, with Burns,
the dawn of the romantic school; and this same dawn marks the
beginning of the reign of triumphant imagination. What is character-
istic of the romantic movement is the effort made by poetry to cast
off definitely the influence of logic and the laws of common sense,
in order to escape from reality and to abandon itself to imaginative
phantasy. Imagination will henceforward always take first place,
whether it becomes, as in the case of Victor Hugo, visual and
richly coloured, or produces the sense of a vague and melancholy
dream, such as we find in Lamartine; whether, as in de Musset, it
vivifies and exalts human passion; whether it gives birth to Byron's
INTRODUCTION
15
maledictions and cries of revolt, misunderstood as he was and im-
patient with the age; or the ecstasies of Shelley, lost in the marvellous
visions of his super-terrestrial life, entering into brotherhood with
all that lives and breathes in the universe; or the softer raptures of
Keats as he lingers to contemplate all things that are beautiful;
whether it whirls and flashes with colour in the kaleidoscopic dreams
and mediæval conceptions of Coleridge; or whether, as with
Wordsworth, it penetrates the essence of the simplest objects,
reveals them with the light of the soul, fills us with sympathy for them,
and unites our living soul with the inanimate world.
It is imagination that creates and stimulates the feeling for Nature,
as we understand it; as, among the ancients, it fills the universe with
gods, turns every tree into a dryad and every sound of the forest
into a voice. It is imagination again that reveals to us the soul of
things, and enables us to transform the character of their poetry.
By imagination we are taught to abandon the familiar classics and
to turn our thoughts to the middle ages, so full of clouds and mystery,
where a dream-like atmosphere wraps each conception. It creates
the cultured religion of Chateaubriand and Lamartine, and passing
from the vivid pantheism of Shelley and Keats, it reaches the con-
temporaneous paganism of Swinburne. It is imagination, again, that
intensifies the passions, exalts instead of calming them, and speaks
through the fierce lamentations of Byron, Shelley or de Musset;
till, the heart being calmer now, we reach the profound and tranquil
love-songs of Tennyson and Browning. Finally, it is imagination that
will modify alike the poets' expression and their meaning; that will
change their metaphors, rejuvenate words and give them fresh power,
and finally demand new harmonies, richer and less monotonous, to
accord with the varied passions, the manifold fancies that it calls forth.
But no matter what the part that imagination plays, or its pre-
ponderance in literature, or what liberties it takes in spite of super-
annuated rules or a too rigid logic, it never falls away, in the writings
of the greater romanticists, from the fundamental laws of human
intelligence. Their imagination has shaken off the yoke of a narrow
and despotic reason; but has never forgotten its existence. They
have given a free rein to their inspiration; but they have always
been submissive to the essential rules of their art. Their most
capricious fancy has always found a material expression: it has
never taken a flight into the incomprehensible and the absurd; it
has never lost sight of a living reality.
16
WILLIAM BLAKE
Now, on the contrary, let us imagine a man who, before the advent
of even the romantic school, should have gone further than roman-
ticism was ever to go; who felt intuitively that inspiration and poetic
vision, which had disappeared since Milton, must take complete
possession of literature again; who was seized by an uncontrollable
anger against the despotic nature of reason and common sense; who
would wage fierce war against them, casting them forever into the
waters of oblivion. Imagine a man who, at the moment when classic
art was universally admired, and altars were dedicated to Reason,
dared to proclaim the worthlessness of Greece and Rome, and exalt
the art of the Middle Ages, that Gothic art which is " living form ";
a man who despised logic and common sense, declared his most
fantastic visions to be eternal realities, and regarded them as divine;
who had revived the ancient saying, Credo quia absurdum, and believed
in nothing but what we call absurd; who, with frank assurance,
declared that there is but one truth, that of mystic vision; one God,
poetical insight; one form of worship, that of the imagination;
one ideal only, a liberty without laws.
Let us again imagine this man preaching such doctrines as these,
and applying them to his art with an intensity which was near to
madness, till he robbed his works of their poetry and their art-this
despiser of Reason, this apostle of the absurd, this wandering visionary,
precursor of the Romanticists and more romantic than any of them
this man was William Blake, an absolutely unique personality,
the strange product of his age, and the prophet of the age to come ;
obscure to his contemporaries from his very earnestness, and hardly
comprehensible even to us who have seen in its completeness the
movement of which he represented, in advance, the final and
culminating point.
During the last twenty years of the eighteenth century, Burns
and Blake were the only poets whose lyrical songs recalled the
spontaneity and freedom of the Elizabethan poetry, and who pлo-
claimed unmistakably the tone which was to sound so richly in the
work of the great poets who marked the beginning of the romantic
period.
Both men gave their first poems to the world about the same time.
Blake's Poetical Sketches belong to 1783, the year of Crabbe's Village,
and two years earlier than Cowper's Task. His Songs of Innocence
appeared in 1789, whilst Burns's first poems, in the Kilmarnock
edition, had been read all over England for three years past. There
INTRODUCTION
17
were still nine years to wait before the appearance of the Lyrical
Ballads, which mark the birth of romanticism in poetry.
But these two forerunners of genius were distinct from their age.
They did not draw their inspiration from the same sources as their
contemporaries. They could not have painted the elegant dwellers
of the town, with their veiled ambitions and their false love affairs;
nor could they describe the intrigues of court life, nor grow indignant
over a cultivated corruption which did not touch them. They both
could sing of nature; and they did so. But they were not tired spirits
who sought, as did their contemporaries, to forget the cares of the
world. They could rejoice in nature without contrasting it with the
rush of social life, or seeking to heighten its flavour by some artificially
rustic idyll played by fashionable nymphs and lovers. They could
not linger over the theories dear to the philosophers of their epoch,
nor minutely analyse that abstraction which, as reasonable humanity,
their century knew so well, and which Pope had declared to be the
most proper study for mankind. Neither of them expressed the
thoughts and emotions of others; they sang only for themselves,
and fed their lyrical powers from their own individuality.
Burns found his inspiration in the fields around him, in the
flower trodden under foot, in the field-mouse driven from its nest
by the ploughshare, in the young peasant girl, whose bright eyes
kindled his imagination and inflamed his blood, in the peasants
around him, and their simple homely life. Like the lark, he poured
on all these things the overflow of his exuberant joy, his rapid and
deep affections, his ready enthusiasm. To feel them differently from
his age, he had to live their life, to mix with them intimately, to
become almost one of his native weeds. If he had not been a peasant
and a labourer, his music might have been indistinguishable from
that of the nature-poets of the eighteenth century, who were the
objects of his youthful admiration. He was a great and original poet,
because he was not a littérateur and because he did not write for the
literary world.
Neither was Blake a literary man. His social standing was not
better than that of Burns; his studies never reached a higher plane.
Like him, he remained poor, and, like him in his earlier years, he
was unknown save to a few friends. But unlike Burns, he never
raised himself to the rank of a celebrity: he never frequented the
houses of the aristocracy, nor even those of the poets and great
writers. He lived a solitary life, and cultivated his talents alone and
C
18
WILLIAM BLAKE
for himself. Never like Burns did he fill his lungs with the life-giving
country air, or rejoice to see the wild flowers, or the wide horizons of
a country landscape, whose sun was reflected in his soul. Young girls
with smiling eyes did not share their happiness with him; nor were
his poems sung by troops of village admirers. His atmosphere was
that of crowded London, his horizon, the four bare walls of an en-
graver's workshop; he knew of the fields only that which he could
see on his rare walks round London. The world ignored his existence;
the society in which he lived nearly always showed itself cold, and
often hostile. What he saw in the world about him could give him
no pleasure: everything was mean and prosaic. The daily labour,
by which he satisfied his trifling wants, was more likely to tire and
depress, than to inspire him. He tried to escape it as often as was
possible. He lived alone in the midst of the crowd that jostled him
in the streets. He narrowed his horizons more and more. For him
the outside world was as nothing. He turned completely away from
it, closed his eyes, and waited.
1
And behold, beneath those closed eyelids, little by little, a new
world was created. Horizons, invisible to our mortal eyes, stretched
before him. He saw himself surrounded by a transfigured world;
by immense vistas bathed in fields of light, flowers of dazzling colours
and mysterious perfume, dense forests, and deep murmuring streams.
Deaf to the sounds of this world, he trained his inward perceptions
to listen to harmonies which cannot be heard with the outward ear.
Then the very leaves on the trees spoke to him in a tongue he could
understand and answer. He could read the thoughts of the very field
flowers, their desires, their lamentations. The sun told him the secret
of his eternal glory in the darkness he heard the groaning of the
earth and witnessed the cruel convulsions of her travail. He saw
everything, nay more, his new world brought forth living creatures.
Not only did every flower and leaf, every bird on branch, every earth-
worm on its clod of clay, and even the clod of clay itself, become full
of life and speak to him, but new human and angelic beings rose
from this Eden of his own creation. In it innocent children sang and
played. Behind every flower, every animal, appeared spirits, angels
with golden wings, genii and fairies, merry imps, gloomy demons,
full of energy; human beings bathed in light, spectres weeping with
eternal lamentations. And in this strange world the spirits spoke,
and, becoming his friends, told him their secrets. He lived their life,
shared, their passions, rejoiced in their triumphs, exulted in their
INTRODUCTION
19
strength and sympathised in their infinite sorrows. So his people
were no longer our people, nor was his world our world.
Then, when his dream was ended, when he returned to our gloomy
and commonplace life, he would not believe that he had dreamed.
He could not recognise the unreality of his wonderful vision; and
when the necessities of daily life and monotonous labour crushed his
genius, he could not bring himself to regard that as life. Little by
little his soul took refuge in its dreams. In them and by them at least
he could live. And he passed through the world, his eyes fixed on
the country of his marvellous visions. Then, our world gradually
disappeared from his existence. His dreams! Who would dare to
call them dreams? It was we, poor blind folk, who dreamed. And
he threw back at us the epithet that was flung in his face :" Dreamers!
Dreamers all of us, unaware of life's irreality. Why can we not
awake? Our life has no existence. That glorious vision, that is
reality. Every child sees it and reflects it in his innocent eyes
dwells in the memory of every artist. All the prophets have declared
it; the fields, the flowers reveal it with songs of joy. We alone are
blind, and heavy with sleep. Our world is a negation. His world alone
exists.
it
His songs are echoes of this mysterious world, born in his own
spirit, bounded by his closed eyelids. It is here we find his almost
unique originality. We call these dreamers mystics, and the world
has seen many of them. But there have been relatively few who have
described their visions in poetic language. There have been hardly
any whose mystic faith was strong enough to transport them ab-
solutely into the world of invisible objects, to illumine this invisible
world so vividly that the very existence of our universe was forgotten
and denied. There is an element of mysticism to be found in all the
poets, but there is also a clear vision of the world and of life. They
may be lifted above our earth, but they do not lose sight of it. They
know all the petty failings of our human nature, they can share them,
and by them rouse their passions. There are few who leave our
visible world sufficiently to forget its laws, and to be careless of the
human mind's demands. Nevertheless, that is what Blake did. He
wrote neither about men nor for them, in so far as we understand
them. He belongs to the invisible world, and it is its inhabitants that
he addresses. When Dante passed through the doleful city, and
wandered in the kingdoms of eternal light, it was always men belong-
ing to our world that he met : he thought like a man; he wrote for
20
WILLIAM BLAKE
men. Still higher in the world of dreams are those who, like John in
Patmos or like Paul on the road to Damascus, see what the eye of
man cannot see, what his tongue is powerless to describe, what his
mind can hardly grasp. Blake almost always lives in such a world.
Of all the modern poets he is the most intensely mystical.
His mysticism is such that our language is no more sufficient to
describe his visions than his pencil was capable of expressing them
fully. He needed to employ a new language, to take our words and
give them an unknown meaning, to invent names for his supernatural
visitors, to pile metaphor on metaphor in order to express the in-
expressible, to show us the invisible by means of extraordinary
images, and with our perishable language to attempt to bring us the
words of life eternal. A philosopher would employ a long series of
abstract expressions: for a poet, the only language possible is that
of symbol.
Thus the two chief characteristics of Blake's poetry are: for its
inspiration-mysticism; for its expression-symbolism. They con-
stitute his originality, and are the source of his greatness, and also
of his defects. There is perhaps no writer in whose works we can
better observe, from a literary point of view, the effect of mysticism
on a poetic soul. This mysticism showed itself early in him, it
developed, fashioning all his thoughts and conceptions till it became
an integral part of his life. He put forth spontaneous and splendid
poems full of imagination and fancy. At first little fettered by sym-
bolism, it gradually weighed him down; and the moment came at
last when he could not express himself except by the most complex
symbols. Little by little the visionary ceased to speak our tongue;
in the end his mystic vision and the symbols which described it
reached a sphere in which our eyes could no longer follow them, our
mind no longer comprehend them. They are beyond us, and almost
cease to be literature.
It will be for us to examine this mysticism, in the different phases
of its development, from the literary point of view; to see the
gradual destruction of the poetic element in the artist's mind, the
creation of new elements of inspiration, soon spoilt by symbolism,
and finally the decline and fall of one of the greatest poetic geniuses
of the century. Consequently, after a short study of Blake's life, his
character and his visions, we shall attempt to explain the cosmogony
of his universe, and describe its myths. Then we shall study, more
closely, his powers of expression as a poet, in order to find out what
INTRODUCTION
21
constitutes his genius, and what are its defects and limitations.
Finally, we shall see by a cursory examination of his works, how their
mysticism and symbolism, which in the beginning gave such charm
and beauty to his poetry, were finally the cause of its ruin.
But in thus examining his mind and his work, we shall have
become acquainted with him by degrees, and grown accustomed to
his peculiarities. We shall have discovered beauties of the highest
order in the midst of much that has been severely but justly called
nonsense. We shall have learnt not to reject them scornfully because
they are mingled with dross, and perhaps we shall achieve a more
just appreciation of the poet. Then we shall understand why his
admirers are at once so rare and so enthusiastic. And, if we attain
no other result, we shall have at least prepared our minds for a more
profitable perusal of his works, so disconcerting and at the same
time so attractive. We shall have become more capable of under-
standing them, and consequently will appreciate them better.
T
II: HIS LIFE

O careless observers, Blake may well seem to have had no
history. The seventy years of his life passed almost un-
noticed by the world; and, at his death, writers of obituary
notices could not fill more than a few lines with the events
of his obscure and monotonous career.
In the eyes of those who only knew him superficially, Blake was
merely an engraver, half-artist, half-artizan, who now and then ven-
tured to invade the realm of poetry, but without gaining from it
either wealth or fame. He lived like an ordinary workman, and his
years of apprenticeship were followed by a long and painful life of
toil, unvaried except by sundry changes of abode, and the coming
and going of patrons and clients. He had to struggle perpetually
against actual want, and often could only live from day to day. He
married a young girl as poor as himself, lived happily with her in the
house she kept for him, died in her arms at the age of seventy, and
was followed to the grave by a very few friends. The world knew no
more of him than this; and men soon forgot the few books that he
sold, the few pictures shown in his ill-attended exhibitions, and the
few engravings purchased by two or three of his friends at a reason-
able price, and by an indifferent public for sums ridiculously small.
At first sight, there can be nothing more insignificant than such a
life as this the life led by the majority of men, not worth the trouble
of writing. For any man's more intimate acquaintances, however,
those who come into closer contact with him, the broad lines of his
life take, little by little, a more definite form. The man shows some
striking characteristic: he ceases to be commonplace, and becomes
individualized. Such was the case with Blake even more than with
other people. His personality could not help making a very strong
impression upon all who came into contact with him. He produced,
almost immediately, the effect of being someone outside the common
run of humanity. Though he went along the dusty and common high-
road of life, he left footmarks that were quite different from all the
others; and he was no ordinary fellow-traveller. And the more one
came to know him, the more interesting he appeared. He was not
one of those who impress us at first by an uncommon exterior or a
:
HIS LIFE
23
semblance of originality, but whom, on probing them to the bottom,
we find in the end to be just like everyone else. His words and his
acts engraved themselves deeply upon the minds of his visitors, who
have reported them for us; and they help us, more than any mere
biography could do, to understand the man and to perceive his origi-
nality. As far as his external life was concerned, he resembled the
generality of men: in his character and in the thousand small details
through which it found expression in his daily life, he stands far
apart from them.
And the distance is much greater if, beneath and through his
actions, we try to reach his inmost soul. No one could succeed in
doing this during his lifetime. Even his wife, who seldom went
further from him than the length of his right arm, who, during her
long years of widowhood, never wearied of talking about him, and
who worshipped him as a god, was far from having sounded the
depths of his mind. It is only through the whole of his works, through
his letters, his spoken words, his poems, his engravings, that we can
arrive at a more precise view of him than that taken by his contem-
poraries. And, in spite of all this evidence, there remain depths in
him that cannot be penetrated, because of the unique originality
hidden beneath this seemingly commonplace and insignificant life.
He had an extraordinary inner vitality, which created, as it were, a
new man within the external man, which controlled all his actions
and inspired all his artistic work, which, during his life and for long
afterwards, caused him to be regarded as a madman, but which
gained him, in the end, a place among those whose work remains a
joy for ever.
His story, as an outside chronicler might recount it, is soon told.
First there was the period of childhood and apprenticeship, which
lasted about twenty years, and ended with his marriage (1757-1782).
Then followed a second period, also of about twenty years, a time of
continual toil and struggle, helped and hindered by patrons or
friends; the monotonous labour of the engraver being, however,
varied by a rich output of poetry, as though the artistic spirit must
somehow find expression (1782-1803). And then came the period of
old age (1803-1827), during which the poet remained almost silent,
while the engraver seemed to have found his true vocation, and
produced his masterpieces. This was a time of great artistic activity,
and the artist's private life was quieter and happier in these years.
Of his family we know but little. His father, James Blake, appears
24
WILLIAM BLAKE
to have come of an Irish family named O'Neil. One of the poet's
grandfathers married a certain Ellen Blake, and took her name,
having disgraced his own by running into debt; and the family
retained this name. James Blake and his wife Catherine kept a small
hosier's shop at 28 Broad Street, Golden Square, a part of London
which is poor enough now, but was then much more prosperous.
Little or nothing is known of their life. The father was one of the
Nonconformists, who were then much fewer than now, and was
probably a man of good sense and sound judgment, as can be seen
from the way in which he provided for his son's education, and his
recognition of the boy's aptitudes. He had five children: James, a
careful prudent man, who became a prosperous merchant, fond of
giving dull but excellent advice on practical matters; William, the
poet; John, the family favourite, who, like so many favourites,
turned out ill, and was called by William "the Evil one," enlisted
in the army and died young; Robert, whom William loved best of
all his family, and who also died young; and, finally, a daughter,
who lived to a ripe age and never married.
William was born on the 28th of November, 1757, the year in
which, according to Swedenborg, the Last Judgment took place in
Heaven and in the human soul, when a new age began, and the
kingdom of God appeared among men. He lived at home up to the
age of ten, and received a meagre education in reading, writing and
perhaps arithmetic, listening to many conversations about Sweden-
borg and the New Church, with which his father and his brother
James were a good deal in sympathy, and probably drawing untrained
childish pictures for his own amusement. His father, perceiving his
taste in this direction, sent him to a teacher in the Strand, under
whom he learned to draw from the Antique. Then, as the family
could not afford him an art training, he was apprenticed to Basire,
who was then a celebrated engraver, as his father had been before
him, and as his son and grandson were destined to be until the middle
of the nineteenth century. With him Blake remained for six years,
that is to say, up to the age of twenty. He seems soon to have dis-
tinguished himself from his fellow-apprentices, and, within a year,
was given special work, his master sending him to make drawings of
the monuments in Westminster Abbey. There, for years, he spent
the greater part of the day. He was the first to discover traces of colour
upon
the old carvings. He delighted in copying them, and in trying
to reproduce their faded tints. There, no doubt, he found and
HIS LIFE
25
cultivated his preference for Gothic art, a preference which he was
to retain all through his life, in defiance of contemporary taste,
which was all for the Classic in art. There also, in the solitude of the
vast cathedral, he could enjoy unhindered his dreams of the past
and his visions of the eternal. The first of his own recorded works
(dated 1773) is an engraving with the strange title: Joseph of Arima-
thea among the Rocks of Albion. No doubt he produced others about
the same time; but they have been lost. He also wrote, in his spare
moments, some scraps of poetry, though without any idea of
publication.
In 1778, he left Basire, to join the Antique class of the Royal
Academy. Here he made himself noticeable by his hatred for Lebrun
and Rubens, and perhaps also for Reynolds, with whom he is said
to have had an interview which left each of them with a very poor
opinion of the other. But his student life soon came to an end, and
he established himself as an engraver on his own account, though he
continued to live at home. Among works known to have been done
by him at this early stage of his career were some engravings for the
Ladies' Magazine, a watercolour entitled The Penance of Jane Shore,
and a symbolical picture, War unchained by an Angel, which he did
not complete until some years later. At this time he made the ac-
quaintance of several other artists: Flaxman, the celebrated illustrator
of the Homeric poems, who revived the fine and simple outlines of
ancient Greek art; Stothard, then a very fashionable painter, and
Fuseli the engraver. These three were all to play a prominent part
in Blake's life.
His marriage clearly marks the end of his student days and the
beginning of his maturity. The story of it is a simple and characteristic
one, and has been many times recounted. The refusal of his love by
a certain Polly or Clara Woods, to whom he had for some time paid
court, brought on a fit of melancholy; and, to cure himself of this,
he left London, and took lodgings in the house of a market-gardener
at Richmond named Boucher, who was probably of French origin.
Here he met his host's daughter, Catherine. At first sight of him,
she experienced a peculiar nervous sensation which she could neither
explain nor describe, but which obliged her to leave the room for a
time. The same evening he told her of his ill-requited love, and of
how he had been deceived. "I pity you from my heart," she said.
"Do you pity me? Then I love you for that," was his reply. This
was the beginning of their love-story, and also the end of their life
26
WILLIAM BLAKE
in the Richmond house. Blake would not live near her, but deter-
mined to prove, by absence, the sincerity of his feelings, and to work
so that he might assure their common future. He returned at once to
London, and the lovers did not meet again until a year later, when,
finding themselves still of the same mind, they were married (18th
August, 1782). He was then twenty-five years old, in the full prime
of his manhood, and could look forward with confidence to the
future.
i
Was it only this young girl's pity that had caused their sudden
falling in love, or had it been so ordained from all eternity? Was the
nervous shock which Catherine had felt only her recognition of the
divine decree? Blake would assuredly have said so. Be that as it may,
he had at any rate found instinctively the very woman he needed.
To him she was not merely the bright-eyed young girl who had
comforted him in his first great sorrow, not merely the graceful woman
who was to serve as his only model, and whose form appears so often
in his work. She was also the comrade whose health and strength
enabled her to share without fatigue his thirty- and forty-mile walks,
and the housekeeper who managed the slender resources of their
home so economically that he never felt the actual hardships of
poverty. She was all this and more. His love for her was of a rather
domineering nature: he always felt his superiority to and his power
over her. In Blake's eyes, woman was always an inferior being.
But if he ever had made an exception, it would have been in his
wife's favour." You have been an angel to me," were his last words,
and never was praise better deserved. Her feeling for him was more
than love. It was veneration. To her he was always "Mr. Blake,"
a spirit of a higher order, moving in another world and breathing an
air different from her own. She never disputed his opinions, but
accepted them as those of a god, even when she failed to understand
them. In her unhappiest moments, she had only tears to face him
with; and those she very rarely shed. Her devotion was untiring.
Wherever he pleased to go, she followed him. Even at night, when
inspiration woke him, and he felt himself impelled to write or to
draw, and needed some moral support, she would rise, take one of
his hands, and sit speechless by his side for hours, aiding him by
her presence and silent contact, till his work was finished.
She had had no education. For his sake and with his help, she
learned to read and write, and even to draw and paint, as much at
any rate as was necessary to enable her to colour his books. She
HIS LIFE
27
supported him in all his internal struggles. When no one believed
in him, her faith remained unshakeable. Thanks to her, he was able
to live an artist's life and to follow his dreams. By her he was watched
and cared for on his death-bed, as he had been at every moment of
his life. And by her, too, his memory has been preserved for us, as
that of a saint. Personally, she appears but little in his work; but her
softening influence is to be seen in many of his poems. And, through
all his life, she was so inseparable from him that no praise can be too
high for her constant faith, her tireless devotion, and the complete
self-abnegation which she showed in giving her whole life to his
service.
But life is not limited to a love-story, however happy. The young
couple were poor, and must face the struggle that lay before them,
in the world and against it. So now there begins the second, or active
period in Blake's life. He continued his studies, as every great artist
must do unceasingly. He had read much of the work of Shakespeare,
Milton and Dante. His knowledge of the Bible was far more exact
than that of the ordinary educated Englishman. He probably at this
time made a serious study of Swedenborg's works, pencilling his
comments in the margin, as well as some of Boehme's writings and
possibly also those of Cornelius Agrippa and Paracelsus. He followed
with much interest the whole trend of thought in the second half
of the eighteenth century, with its leaning towards occultism. And
he must now have begun to lay the foundation of his own system.
We do not know whether he actually joined the Swedenborgian
"New Church," or any of the mystical societies of his time. If he
did, no record remains of the fact. He was a frequent visitor for
several years at the house of a certain Mr. Mathew, a clergyman
of the Church of England, in Rathbone Place, and here he met various
admirers of his youthful talent, whose kindness enabled him to
print his first volume of poetry-the Poetical Sketches, issued in 1783.
From this time onward, his biography becomes only an account
of his successive changes of residence, and an enumeration of his
works.
His first home was in Green Street, Leicester Fields, now Leicester
Square. In 1784, his father died, and William established himself
as a printseller next door to his brother James, who had succeeded
to the hosiery business. His younger brother, Robert, came to learn
drawing and engraving from him, but after three years fell ill and
died, nursed devotedly by Blake; and, immediately after, the print-
28
WILLIAM BLAKE
shop, which had not proved a success, was closed, and Blake went
to live in Poland Street, where he began business as a working en-
graver. Then, in 1793, after the death of his mother, and after
refusing, for reasons of policy, to accept the post of drawing-master
to the Royal Family, he moved to Hercules Buildings, Lambeth,
where most of his works were produced, and where he remained
up to the time of a very important event in his life: namely, his
installation at Felpham, in 1800.
During these eighteen years (1782-1800), his friends were still
few in number. He soon found that his doctrines were too uncon-
ventional and his ways of asserting them too dogmatic and too
paradoxical to be welcomed in the Rev. Mr. Mathew's drawing-
room; and he was wise enough to make his visits less and less
frequent, until they ceased altogether. He kept up his relations with
Flaxman, became a friend of Fuseli, and made the acquaintance of
Johnson, the bookseller. At the latter's house, he joined, for a time,
a small circle of revolutionaries, who dined there, and the majority
of whom had gained a certain notoriety on account of their very
advanced political and philosophical views. Among those whom he
met here were William Godwin, celebrated for his anarchistic
teaching, who had just published his Caleb Williams, to expose the
despotism which made man the destroyer of his fellow men; Mary
Wollstonecraft, the author of The Vindication of the Rights of Woman,
who became the wife of Godwin and the mother of Mary Shelley;
Tom Paine, who had just begun his polemical work upon the rights
of man, and who was to be later a member of the “Convention
and Priestley, famous as a politician and as a great chemist, and
destined also to become a member of the French Constituent Assembly.
Brought thus into contact with all these revolutionary spirits, Blake,
who was already a lover of liberty, became an ardent admirer of the
French Revolution, and even went so far as to wear a red cap in the
streets, though he discontinued this after the first massacres in
September, 1792. He saved Thomas Paine from arrest by warning
him, after one of his violent speeches, not to return home that
evening. The police actually went to his house the same night to
arrest him but he had taken Blake's advice, and was able to escape
the next day to France. In such surroundings Blake had many
opportunities of fostering and increasing his passion for liberty,
and their influence is often visible in his work.
;
These meetings, however, came to an end with the dispersal of
HIS LIFE
29
the friends attending them; and Blake does not seem to have
joined any other social circle for some years. One of the most useful
acquaintances he made at this time was that of Captain Butts, who
became his chief patron, purchasing most of his books and drawings,
and paying a fair price for them, though Blake always disliked re-
ceiving money for his work. But what most attached him to Butts
was that the latter never offered to criticise his work, but allowed him
to treat his subjects as he pleased, without attempting to interfere
with the artist. Naturally he was always welcomed as a friend in
Blake's house; and it is in letters written to him, in prose and verse,
that we find most of Blake's personal statements regarding his art
and his life. At last, Butts found himself the possessor of so many
of Blake's drawings that he had no space left for more of them.
Such a client was indeed a fortune to the artist, whose pecuniary
position was far from prosperous. He produced few pictures of any
importance during this period: some works for the Academy,
illustrations for David Simple and for Bürger's Lenore; Nebuchad-
nezzar, The Lazar House, The Creation of Adam, and a series of
drawings, on which he spent many months, to illustrate Young's
Night Thoughts. There were no less than 537 in number. Each
illustrated one page of the book, covering the very large margin, and
surrounded, in the original, by a red border. Unhappily, only a very
few of these about fifty-were published in 1797. They are all
extremely remarkable.
In literary work, on the contrary, this period was very rich. And
Blake's books are works of art as well as of literature, owing as much
to the engraver as to the poet. This is the reason of their extraordinary
value at the present day. Mr. Mathew and his friends had paid for
the printing of the Poetical Sketches in 1783, but nothing more was
to be expected from them. Blake had now, however, many poems.
ready for publication, and either was too poor to get them printed,
or preferred some other way of publishing them. And, as he was able
to engrave them himself, he adopted this course. The process he
employed has been minutely described by his biographers, and was
entirely original.
It consisted," says Gilchrist, "in a species of engraving in relief
both words and designs. The verse was written and the designs and mar-
ginal embellishments outlined on the copper with an impervious liquid,
probably the ordinary stopping-out varnish of engravers. Then all the
white parts or lights, the remainder of the plate that is, were eaten away
30
WILLIAM BLAKE
with aquafortis or other acid, so that the outline of letter and design was
left prominent, as in stereotype. From these plates he printed off in any
tint, yellow, brown, blue, required to be the prevailing, or ground colour
in his facsimiles; red he used for the letterpress. The page was then
coloured up by hand in imitation of the original drawing, with more or less
variety of detail in the local hues." 1
Finally, the pages were stitched together by Mrs. Blake, who often
assisted in the colouring also, and the book was complete, being thus
produced, except for the paper, entirely by themselves. Most of
Blake's works were issued in this manner; the pages being of various
sizes, often quite small (since copper was expensive and the plates
had to be used economically) with text and pictures intermingled,
and colour completing the effect produced by the poet and artist.
Among the works thus produced were, in 1789, Songs of Innocence,
The Book of Thel, The Ghost of Abel (a single page engraved now,
but not issued until 1822) and possibly Tiriel, though the last-named
is only known to exist in manuscript. In 1790, The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell. In 1793, The Gates of Paradise, Visions of the
Daughters of Albion, and America: A Prophecy. In 1794, Songs of
Experience, Europe and The Book of Urizen. In 1795, The Song of
Los, The Book of Ahania, and The Book of Los.
There was also printed, in 1791, the first instalment of a poem
entitled The French Revolution; but this does not seem to have been
published, the unique copy found quite recently being apparently a
printer's proof.
All these were poems or collections of poems, comparatively short.
They found very few purchasers, at the price of one or two guineas
for each copy. To-day, facsimiles of them cost three or four times
as much; and the originals are priceless.
The longer books were not to appear until much later. It was
probably about 1797, however, that Blake began his great poem,
Vala, the composition of which accounts for his silence during several
years, and which has only lately found its way into print. He had,
in the meantime, made the acquaintance of Hayley, which brought
about an important change in his life.
William Hayley (1745-1820), now almost forgotten, save for "a
little of his dust, not yet shaken from Blake's shoe," 2 was then a
fashionable writer, destined, however, to outlive his popularity.
1 Gilchrist: William Blake: chap. ix.
2 Ellis and Yeats: William Blake, Vol. I, chap. vi.
HIS LIFE
31
Among his works were a poem in six cantos, The Triumphs of Temper
(1781); various essays (on History, on Epic Poetry, on Old Maids,
on Sculpture (1780-1800), and a Life of Milton (1804). He was rich,
popular among the great, and generous; and had obtained from Pitt
a pension for Cowper, of whom he was a friend and admirer. At
the time of his acquaintance with Blake, he was preparing for the
press his Life of Cowper, the most important biography of the poet,
which appeared with great success in 1803. Though devoid of
imagination, he had some judgment and good sense. A bad poet,
and a vain, restless man, fond of posing as a celebrity, he was at the
same time affectionate and always ready to help his friends; and,
recognising Blake's merit, he was moved, partly by generosity and
partly by self-interest, to offer him the work of engraving the plates
which were to illustrate his Life of Cowper. Blake accepted the offer;
and, to be near his patron, took a small thatched cottage at Felpham,
near Bognor in Sussex, where Hayley had a house. For this cottage,
which was not far from the Downs, and quite close to the sea, Blake
paid twenty pounds a year, and there he and his wife remained for
three years. He regarded Hayley as his patron, assisted him with his
book, accepted orders from him for the work to be done, and learned
Greek under his direction." It was an understood thing that Blake
had come as a man of genius obeying the call of a man of taste."1
For a time, all went well. The fresh air of the country, the nearness
of the sea, only a few minutes' walk from his house, were for Blake
a novel and enlivening change from the gloomy and stifling atmo-
sphere of Lambeth. He seemed to be transported to Heaven, and his
first letters from Felpham are full of enthusiasm.
Our cottage is more beautiful than I thought it, and more convenient.
It is a perfect model for cottages, and I think for palaces of magnificence.
No other formed house can ever please me so well; nor shall I ever
be persuaded, I believe, that it can be improved either in beauty or use.
Mr. Hayley received us with his usual brotherly affection. I have begun
to work. Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual
than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her
windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants
are most distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen; and my
cottage is also a shadow of their houses. . . . And now begins a new life,
because another covering of earth is shaken off." "
1 Ellis and Yeats: William Blake, Vol. I, chap. vi.
2 Letter to Flaxman: 21 Sept. 1800.
32
WILLIAM BLAKE
His wife, and his sister, who lived with them, were both as happy
as himself. But a man of independent genius, incapable of restricting
his intellect or his will, cannot long endure any patronage, however
protective. Blake was soon to see that his state was less celestial than
he thought. The widening of his horizon gave a fresh impulse to his
genius, filled his soul with visions hitherto unknown, and opened to
him new ideas and a new field of work. At Felpham, Vala was
continued, and there he also conceived and began the two great
poems which he himself regarded as his most important works, the
Jerusalem and the Milton. For their writing, he needed leisure and
freedom of mind. But, just at the moment when he felt his inspiration
stirring with new force in him, Hayley would come and give him
some servile and mechanical piece of work to do; engravings for his
books, drawings for purchasers, all requiring to be carried out to
order, or in accordance with the fashion of the day. We are even told
that he was once asked to paint a fire-screen for a lady: but this he
absolutely refused to do. However, there were the necessities of life
to be satisfied: he had to gain his daily bread, and, as a consequence,
to spend most of his time in what he called drudgery. This was
quite enough to chill his enthusiasm and make him alter his opinion
of Hayley.
ม
Soon, his paradise grew gloomy, and he was only sorry that he
could not at once return to London. In 1803 he wrote to Butts :
Mr. Hayley approves of my designs as little as he does of my poems,
and I have been forced to insist on his leaving me, in both, to my own
self-will; for I am determined to be no longer pestered with his genteel
ignorance and polite disapprobation. . . . Indeed, by my late firmness
I have brought down his affected loftiness, and he begins to think I have
some genius; as if genius and assurance were the same thing!
And about the same time he wrote in his note-book :
When Hy finds out what you cannot do,
That is the very thing he'll set you to.¹
It was high time, therefore, for Blake and Hayley to part, if their
former friendship was not to change into cold neglect on the one side
and proud contempt, mixed with aversion, on the other.
One incident belonging to this period deserves notice, and that
is Blake's encounter with the soldier Scholfield, which came near to
costing him dear. His gardener had, without notice, sent this soldier
1 Rossetti MS.: No. 8o. (Sampson ed.)
HIS LIFE
33
to do some light work in the garden attached to the cottage. Blake,
seeing him there, first civilly desired him to go, and then, when
the man returned an insolent refusal, forcibly ejected him. Schol-
field retaliated by accusing Blake of having insulted the king and
expressed a wish to see England invaded by Bonaparte. Blake's
advanced ideas and his hatred of militarism might well have given
some colour to the charge; and he was arrested and brought before
the magistrates. Hayley became bail for him, and at his trial (11th
January, 1804) gave evidence in his favour; and Blake was acquitted
amidst the applause of the court. This circumstance revived all
their former friendship, but did not prevent Blake from returning
to London the same year. He established himself first in South
Molton Street, near Oxford Street, and a few years later moved to
Fountain Court, in the Strand. Separated from Hayley, he now only
remembered his patron's generosity, his own happiness at Felpham,
and the moments of enthusiasm he had experienced there. In
December, 1804, he wrote to Hayley :
My wife joins me in wishing you a merry Christmas. Remembering
our happy Christmas at lovely Felpham, our spirits seem still to hover
round our sweet cottage. . . I have said seem, but am persuaded that
distance is nothing but a phantasy. We are often sitting by our cottage fire,
and often we think we hear your voice calling at the gate. Surely these
things are real and eternal in our eternal mind, and can never pass
away.
It was not until later that he was to find Hayley among his real
enemies.
With his return to London begins the third and last period of his
life. The results of his dreams and of the happy hours spent at
Felpham now made themselves felt. The long walks on the seashore
had filled his spirit with fancies and visions. He had returned charged
with ideas for new work. And moreover his genius, perhaps because
of Hayley's direct opposition, had become more clearly conscious
of itself. Whatever the cause, Blake from this moment wrote as if he
had at last really found his way; he felt not only the desire to
produce, but the delight of the artist in his own creations. All the
years that followed were marked by some new work, either from his
pen or from his graver.
This period witnessed the publication of the two long poems which
were begun at Felpham and occupied several years in their com-
position; the Jerusalem and the Milton. The former consists of a
D
34
WILLIAM BLAKE
hundred closely engraved pages arranged in four chapters of equal
length, and the latter of two books making up forty-five pages in all.
Both bear the date 1804. They were engraved in the same manner
as his earlier books, the Jerusalem having illustrations, as well as text,
on almost every page; the Milton only a few, and those much more
roughly executed. Several shorter poems were written about the
same time: The Mental Traveller, The Everlasting Gospel, and
others, all very mystical and obscure in character.
The engravings and paintings produced during this period (for
Blake worked as a painter also, though without much pecuniary
success) were numerous and important. Among them may be
mentioned Christ in the Sepulchre, The Spiritual Form of Pitt guiding
Behemoth (these two are in the National Gallery); Jacob's Dream
The Canterbury Pilgrims; Nelson guiding Leviathan; The Bard,
from Gray; Satan calling up his Legions, and The Ancient Britons,
besides several portraits and drawings done for clients.
Most of these pictures were shown in 1809 at Blake's own ex-
hibition, which failed to attract buyers, but gave the artist an oppor-
tunity to write his Descriptive Catalogue and Public Address, both of
extreme interest as setting forth most of his views upon art. His
note to the Canterbury Pilgrims, in particular, was considered by
Charles Lamb to be the best criticism of Chaucer in existence.
But the two masterpieces which remain to us as the final and most
perfect productions of his genius are the illustrations to Blair's
Grave and those to the Book of Job, issued in 1808 and 1825
respectively.
The illustrations to the Grave comprise twelve designs, most of
them mystical. Some are severe and solemn, like that of The King,
Councillor and Warrior in the Tomb, with the calm, stiff lines of its
figures lying in the low vault. Others are rich in allegory, like The
Descent of Man into the Vale of Death: a long procession of men
winding their way down into the valley of shadows, some old and
tottering, some creeping on their knees, some in despair, others only
sad-faced, and a few rushing headlong to their doom. There are
moral scenes, such as The Death of the Strong, Wicked Man, in which
Blake seems to have found a pleasure in representing the effect of
agony upon superabundant physical strength, and the expression of
intense horror in the face of the dying man and in that of his soul,
which, as solid and muscular as himself, flies away in the midst of
flames, with terrified gestures. And, as if to prove that the artist
HIS LIFE
35
could also depict scenes of peace and happiness, the next page shows
us the death of the good man, surrounded by his family in prayer,
while his soul, upheld by angels, rises in ecstasy to heaven. In other
designs, again, the feeling of mysticism predominates. Such, for
example, is the picture of the soul floating over the body it has just
left, still in contact with it, and regarding it with eyes full of love and
sorrow. And such also is the Reunion of the Soul and the Body; the
body, as a male figure, rising from the tomb encircled by the flames.
of eternal life, while the soul flies down from the clouds, and flings
her arms round him, gazing at him in ecstasy, as if she would fain,
in one embrace, lose her whole self in him. All these drawings, simple,
almost classical, are full of meaning and intense thought; they
express, still better than Blair's poem, the pathos of death, with the
hope of resurrection and eternal life.
One only of these designs is complex in idea and in execution.
This is the Vision of the Last Judgment, and into this Blake has
introduced, besides certain well-known conventional figures, many
of his mystical conceptions. We see Christ on His Throne, the Book
of Life open upon His knees: around Him are the four and twenty
Elders, and angels bearing the symbols of Baptism and the Lord's
Supper. The Recording Angel holds the book in which men's deeds
are inscribed. Beneath Christ's feet, angels, having each six wings,
sound their trumpets in the midst of flames. The angel of Death
sheathes his sword, while the angel of Divine Justice draws his from
its scabbard. The dead arise: whole families, reunited once more,
mount upwards to meet the Saviour. On the other side, Satan,
encircled by the serpent, is hurled into the abyss: the hypocrites
vainly plead their seeming innocence: devils and evildoers are
dragged downwards together: many call upon the rocks to cover
them, and the Harlot of Babylon, below, flies away in shame and
terror. Over all shines the divine light which issues from Christ
Himself, reflected dazzlingly upon the faces of the angels and of the
chosen, and changing to sombre flames when it falls upon the
multitude of the wicked. The treatment of all these details fails to
give the impression of power and vastness that Michelangelo could
produce but the whole effect is perhaps more harmonious and more
luminous, the scenes of horror being overpowered and almost
blotted out by the supernatural radiance of a vision at once more
brilliant and more intellectual.
More remarkable still are the illustrations to the Book of Job.
36
WILLIAM BLAKE
These are twenty in number, and each represents an episode in the
life of the patriarch, or translates into visible form some idea evoked
by the words of the book. Each is surrounded by a border in which,
lightly sketched, are seen allegorical figures, flames, angels, stars,
intertwined with biblical quotations; the whole harmonising with,
and completing the effect of, the principal subject. All, without
exception, are of the most striking character.
Nowhere else do we find such clear visions of the invisible world,
nowhere such skies darkened with misery or darting forth flashes of
sombre lightning, as if they shared the thoughts and feelings of men,
nowhere such a power of expression condensed into a few outlines.
or a few attitudes. It is difficult to choose between so many master-
pieces. Here we see Job in his prosperity, at prayer beneath a tree with
his family, while behind him his flocks stretch out to the horizon in
serried ranks, like the illimitable waves of the ocean. Further on is
the Tempter passing before God among the angels, with a defiant,
ironical bearing, and, below, Job praising the Lord, all unconscious
of these presences. We see the bearer of evil tidings, which he begins
to impart even before he has come near, while, further off, another
follows him, beneath a sky full of clouds, towards which Job and his
wife raise their hands in vain supplication. We see Job, naked,
miserable, terrifying, as, with arms extended, he pronounces his
famous curse," Let the day perish wherein I was born!" His wife
and his friends lie prostrate upon the ground, their faces hidden
so as not to behold the divine wrath, while clouds of smoke rise
from an earth, parched, rocky, desolate, strewn with vast ruins,
beneath a lowering sky. We see the Spirit passing before the face of
Eliphaz, and making the hair of his head to stand up, in a vision which
is as actual in the clouds above as are the terrified faces of his listeners
below. We see the dreams that came to scare Job upon his bed,
horrible forms as solid as the sleeper's own, flashing their fiery eyes
upon him, and pulling at him with their scaly arms and hooked claws,
serpents vomiting flames, creatures with one goat-foot, clouds in
which flashes of lightning become huge membranous wings, a vision
wild and terrifying by reason of its clearness. We have a glorious
picture of the day of Creation," when the morning stars sang together
and all the sons of God shouted for joy," in which Job, his wife and
his friends, gaze enraptured upon the wonders of the sky above them :
the sun with his horses, the moon upon her black dragon, and the
angels standing, with arms raised to heaven, in an endless line,
HIS LIFE
37
and singing their triumphal hymn among the stars. We have Job's
prayer and his sacrifice, the heaven lit up, and the light of the glory
of God covering the altar, so that the very fire of the sacrifice seems
darkened. And we have the last scene, on which the sun shines again,
while the moon appears through the thick trees: the harp, lute and
trumpet are once more in the hands of Job and his many descendants,
and behind them can be seen again great stretches of distance covered
with innumerable flocks. But every one of these illustrations calls
for description; and no description can give a clear idea of the
intensity of vision, the solemn grandeur of feeling, which pervade
the whole series and make it perhaps the only collection of illustrations
really worthy to accompany the sublime and ancient poem.
Blake's last work was a series of illustrations to Dante, and before
undertaking these, he actually took the trouble to learn Italian.
Every leaf," says Mr. Ellis, " looks gigantic from the massive and
complex nature of the designs. . . . A thousand pounds would
probably be an under-estimate of their present market value.” 1
Only a very few were engraved, the most remarkable being perhaps
that depicting the episode of Paolo and Francesca. The two lovers
are seen at rest for a moment in the midst of the huge spiral vortex
which whirls the imprisoned souls through space, and reveals, in a
parting of its folds, the strip of ground upon which Dante lies
prostrate at the feet of Virgil. Above, in a bright circle of divine light,
appears a radiant vision of the immortal kiss. All these drawings are
still in the possession of Mr. Linnell; and only a few of them have
been reproduced.
But this period of masterpieces was not a time of prosperity.
The struggle for daily bread continued; and Blake remained poor.
He received only the scantiest remuneration for his work. The draw-
ings for the Grave brought him twenty guineas; the Job plates a
hundred and fifty. And these amounts, comparatively large though
ridiculously under the actual value of his work, came to him only
once. He was often compelled to accept a few shillings for one of his
masterpieces. This was the time when he and his wife were said to
have lived on half a guinea a week, and when she used sometimes to
set before him an empty plate, to remind him that he must execute
some trivial commission or other to provide the day's dinner. It
was at one of these times that Blake wrote in his note-book : Tues-
day, January 20, 1807, between Two and seven in the Evening,
1 Ellis and Yeats: William Blake, Vol. I, chap. xv.
<<
38
WILLIAM BLAKE
Despair."¹ Such moments must, however, have been of rare
occurrence, for him to have noted this one so precisely.
And as if poverty were not enough, he had, in connection with the
Blair drawings, to endure the humiliation of seeing lucrative work,
which should have been given to him, taken out of his hands, and
entrusted to another artist. This piece of sharp practice, which Blake
seems for a time to have attributed to Flaxman and Hayley, was the
work of Cromek the engraver. Cromek was the publisher of the
Grave; and he not only paid Blake a ridiculously small sum for his
drawings, but went further and, in spite of a tacit or perhaps even
verbal arrangement with the artist, who was to have the advantage
of engraving them, gave the work to another engraver, Schiavonetti,
whose style was more popular at the time than that of Blake. Thus
the illustrator of a book which, by reason of its plates, secured 589
subscribers at twelve shillings and sixpence each, and brought in
about £368, had to content himself with a payment of only twenty
guineas. About the same time Cromek, having seen Blake at work upon
the sketch for a picture of The Canterbury Pilgrims, afterwards com-
missioned a similar picture from Stothard, published an engraving
of it, and left Blake with his work on his hands. It was this incident
which led Blake to organise an exhibition of his pictures at his old
home, where his brother James still kept a hosier's shop, and to write
the Descriptive Catalogue, already referred to. The exhibition, however,
proved an almost complete failure.
Nor was this all. Penury could more easily be borne by the artist
than the violently abusive criticism to which he was at the same time
subjected. After the appearance of Blair's Grave, Leigh Hunt's paper,
The Examiner, published an article ridiculing Blake's illustrations
(which the writer regarded entirely from a superficial point of view,
without at all perceiving their inner significance) accusing them of
indecency, and more humiliating still to a spiritualist like Blake—
praising their realism. In September, 1809, followed another even
more violent attack, on the subject of his exhibition. In this, he was
called "an unfortunate lunatic, whose personal inoffensiveness
secures him from confinement," and the Descriptive Catalogue was
stigmatised as "a wild farrago of nonsense, unintelligibleness and
egregious vanity." Finally, in 1810, the death of Schiavonetti gave
The Examiner an opportunity of once more decrying Blake's work,
in eulogy of the engraver whose "tasteful hand" had bestowed an
1 Rossetti M.S., p. 10
HIS LIFE
39
-
exterior charm upon the "bad drawings," the "deformity
and nonsense," by which Blake had tried to represent
immateriality."
Blake's only revenge was the writing of a few lines of very poor
satirical verse, which he did not even publish; and perhaps it is to
the same circumstances that we owe the much-discussed couplet
referring to Hayley:
And when he could not act upon my wife
Hired a Villain to bereave my Life. 1
The first part of this accusation probably refers to efforts made
by Hayley to obtain Mrs. Blake's support in his interference with
her husband's work, rather than to an attempt of any other kind.
In the second, the allusion is either to the way in which the work of
his hands was taken from him and given to others, that he might die
of hunger, or to articles published by Leigh Hunt and presumably
suggested by Hayley (which Blake calls " hiring a villain "), these also
being an attempt to take away his life, that is to say, his genius and
his inspiration. Whatever their meaning, the lines, scribbled in a
moment of anger, and without any idea of publication, reveal the
bitterness of his feelings towards some of his former friends.
Happily for him, he now found some new friends and new patrons.
The most important of these was John Linnell, the landscape painter,
to whom Blake was introduced in 1818, and who became a regular
purchaser of his work up to the day of his death. It was for Linnell
that he engraved the illustrations to the Book of Job, from drawings
originally made for Mr. Butts. He it was also who commissioned the
drawings for Dante; and he purchased, in addition, a series of
illustrations to Paradise Regained. It was through him that Blake
was given the work of executing a set of woodcuts the only wood-
cuts he ever produced-for Phillips' translation of Virgil's first
Eclogue, published by Dr. Thornton; and through him also that
the artist made the acquaintance of several future buyers, among
whom were Sir Thomas Lawrence, the famous portrait painter, and
John Varley, now well known as a painter of landscapes and a leader
of the English Watercolour School. Varley was at that time an
enthusiastic student of Astrology, and is said to have foretold events
which came to pass precisely as he had anticipated. He taught Blake
something of the science; and Blake drew for him a series of visionary
1 Rossetti M.S. No. 78.
40
WILLIAM BLAKE
portraits, the subjects ranging from The Man who built the Pyramids
to The Ghost of a Flea. It was at the house of one of these new friends
that Blake met Lady Charlotte Bury, formerly a lady-in-waiting on
the Princess of Wales, and the writer of a diary, published twenty
years later, which gives, among a vast number of scandalous anecdotes
and other recollections, an account of Blake's appearance and his
sayings. At the same house, he made the acquaintance of Crabb
Robinson (1776-1867), gossip and keen observer of men, to whom
we owe so many stories of Goethe, Wieland, Wordsworth, Lamb and
others of his friends, and who has left us a most curious record of
his conversations with Blake and his impressions of the artist's
character. Linnell was so much attached to Blake that he named one
of his sons after him; and this William Linnell could still remember,
only a few years ago, how he sat on Blake's knee as a child. The
Linnell family still possesses most of Blake's original and unpublished
works, among them the Dante drawings, and the manuscript of Vala,
which Messrs. Ellis and Yeats arranged and printed for the first
time in 1893.
Blake was thus able to pass his last years in peace, his sole regret
being that his old age was a childless one. It is recorded of him that
once, while he was repeating the parable of the Prodigal Son, at
the words," when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him,”
his voice faltered and he burst into tears. He does not seem to have
complained, however; and his moments of real loneliness were few.
He had found, at last, "good. friends, willing pupils, quiet hours,
kindly atmosphere";¹ and in this peaceful state he ended his days.
There was no clearly defined disease: only shiverings and a gradual
sinking. On the day of his death, he composed and sang hymns to
his Creator. He is said also to have drawn a last sketch of his wife,
and told her that she had been an angel to him. Another account says
that just before his death "his countenance became fair, his eyes
brightened, and he burst out into singing of the things he saw in
heaven.” 2 And a little later he expired, so peacefully that the exact
moment of his death passed unnoticed. The date was August 12th,
1827, and his age seventy years.
So, painlessly and happily, his life ended, or rather, as he had
himself said of Flaxman a few months before, he went
to his own
eternal house, leaving the delusions of Goddess Nature and her laws
1 Ellis and Yeats: William Blake, Vol. 1, chap. xvii.
2 Gilchrist: William Blake, ch. xxxvii.
HIS LIFE
4I
to get into freedom." 1 He was buried, by his own desire, in Bunhill
Fields Cemetery, the resting-place of other members of his family
also. The grave was not a purchased one, and bears no identifying
mark. 2 His widow, whose soul, as she herself said, had gone with
him, lived for four years longer, during part of the time in one of
Linnell's houses, and for part as housekeeper to Tatham, one of her
husband's more recently acquired friends. Her last years cannot be
better described than in the words of Messrs. Ellis and Yeats:
She lived on, the captive of her mercilessly vigorous health. She never
forgot that her husband had looked on death as merely "going to another
room." Often she would call out to him as though he were only a few yards
away and would hear. Perhaps she knew best. Both Frederick Tatham
and John Linnell did what they could for her. She was not allowed to
want, and even sent back a gift of money that had been procured from the
Royal munificence, saying that others needed it more. She continued to
work as when Blake had been still in the same room, colouring and selling
his designs. At last she became unable to eat and drink. She fretted, though
uncomplainingly, at the closed door that kept her from being at his side,
and presently the door softly opened, and she passed gently and gladly
where she was weary of waiting to go. 3
Blake's sister survived her husband and his wife; but nothing
is known of her, except that she died old, and, it is said, in great
poverty. Blake had left a large number of manuscripts and finished
drawings, nearly two hundred in all, according to some authorities.
All these were given by his widow to Frederick Tatham, a member
of the Irvingite Church, lately founded by Edward Irving, the
tenets of which were, that the second coming of Christ was at hand;
that faith, if only strong enough, could still perform the miracles of
primitive Christianity, and that everyone ought to live in strict
obedience to the Church's laws. Its members numbered several
thousands, and, after Irving's death, took different lines, as Ritualists.
and Sacerdotalists, some uniting finally in their acceptance of High
Church principles. They called themselves "Angels," and posed
as strict guardians of religion and morality. Blake's doctrines had
nothing in common with the teaching of any orthodox church.
Naturally, therefore, his works were condemned and ordered to be
destroyed; and all his papers were, in the name of morality and
1 Letter to George Cumberland : 12 April, 1827.
2 Mr. Herbert Jenkins, one of the most assiduous of present day Blake
students, has recently succeeded in establishing the exact position of the grave.
• Ellis and Yeats: William Blake, Vol. 1, chap. xviii.
WILLIAM BLAKE
42
religion, either burnt or otherwise disposed of. In this way, many
masterpieces have been lost to us, or, if not masterpieces, at any rate
many writings which would have helped us to a clearer understand-
ing of his doctrines and his philosophy. By a miracle, the manuscript
of Vala escaped destruction, having been given by Blake himself to
Linnell. As to some of the other works, though Tatham declared
later that he had sold and not destroyed them, there is but too much
reason to doubt his statement, in view of his barbarous mutilation
of Blake's notes on Swedenborg. And, whatever their fate, not one
of these lost books has ever been recovered.
S
III: HIS CHARACTER
UCH a life as this, viewed from the outside, seems common-
place enough. But there was nothing commonplace about
Blake. On the contrary, everyone who came into contact with
him was struck by his peculiar distinction; and his manner
and conversation were alike unforgettable.
Physically, he was rather below the average in height, but strong
and well-proportioned. He was never ill. He could work for many
hours or walk the whole day long in the country, without experiencing
the least fatigue. On one occasion he nursed his dying brother,
watching for a whole fortnight by the bedside and allowing no one
to take his place; and then, when all was over, slept continuously
for three days. There seemed to be always in him a reserve of super-
fluous force demanding an outlet, which it found in these long walks,
and in the unceasing, impetuous work which never allowed his hands
to remain idle. But this force was a spiritual rather than a physical
one. It showed itself most of all in his head.
Two things about him seem specially to have impressed anyone
who saw him his hair and his eyes. We have several portraits of
him, done at different ages, two by his wife, and one-the best
known-by Phillips, besides a cast of his head made by a phrenologist
when he was about fifty. Further, he has, in several of his pictures,
taken himself as the model for certain of his mystical figures, as in
Los at his Forge (Jerusalem, p. 6) and the Resurrection of Albion
(Jerusalem, p. 95). And in these and the two portraits drawn by his
wife, we notice how the hair stands up, in thick waves, from the high
forehead, making an almost continuous line with that of the profile,
and reminding one of the rays of supernatural light emanating from
the pictured head of Moses. His hair was of a light colour, shaded
with gold, and is said by his contemporaries to have at times re-
sembled a lion's mane. His eyes were even more striking: very wide
open, and almost too large for their orbits, peculiarly bright, with
the illumination in them of some internal radiance, burning and
piercing into the very soul of those whom they looked upon. They
seemed more luminous than the eyes of common men; and the very
large pupils had an appearance of always trying to enlarge themselves
44
WILLIAM BLAKE
still more, as if to absorb, if possible, all the light that they could find
in the world. Their brilliance threw the rest of his face into shadow,
so that one scarcely noticed the open, rounded forehead, the slightly
pointed chin, and the closed lips which never seemed to smile, but
had always, nevertheless, an expression of kindliness. A madman's
head, his enemies called it; his friends, a visionary's: he himself
would have said, " the head of a prophet."
He had, indeed, two, at any rate, of the characteristics that mark the
prophet perfect freedom of mind, and an absolute confidence in
himself. Knowing that he possessed genius, he never hesitated through
any doubts as to his own worth, and was rather inclined to over-
estimate it than to value it too lightly. His opinions on many subjects
connected with art, religion and morality were not at all those of his
age; but he maintained them energetically, through thick and thin,
and could never endure the least contradiction.
All who differed from him he regarded as either knaves or fools,
no matter how great their celebrity. For Reynolds, who had once
found occasion to criticise his work, he had an intense detestation.
Rubens and Titian also he hated, as well as, in literature, the Greek
and Latin classics, Newton in science, and Bacon in philosophy;
and he was always ready to proclaim his aversion for all these to any
listener. On the other hand, he loved to enunciate some strange idea,
condensed into a few words in such a way as to make the expression
of it even more paradoxical than the meaning. Such assertions as,
"I touched the sky with my stick," or " I was Socrates," and many
others of the same sort, caused him to be regarded as a madman or as
trying merely to mystify his hearers, when a little explanation of
his meaning would have prevented any such misapprehension.
But it is the nature of oracles to be obscure, and prophets have always
spoken in parables.
Strong in his own faith, he stoutly opposed all social conventions,
and protested loudly against anything that put obstacles in the way
of liberty. For the common usages of society, when they came at all
in conflict with his principles, he had no respect. The man who did
not fear to wear a red cap in the streets, who had saved Tom Paine
from the police, and driven the soldier out of his garden in spite of
the latter's fearful threats of punishment, was not likely to be
troubled by any scruple as to what he might say himself. He deserted
Mr. Mathew's drawing-room as soon as he saw that his ideas could
not be freely promulgated in the house of a Church of England
HIS CHARACTER
45
clergyman. He sent away clients who desired him to work in accord-
ance with their wishes; his rupture with Hayley being the most
striking example of this independence. And he always preferred
poverty with freedom to the most luxurious intellectual slavery, or
even to silent acquiescence in conditions of which he could not
approve.
Public opinion had no terrors for him. A story is told of how Mr
Butts came one day to the house in Lambeth, and found Blake and
his wife sitting naked under an arbour at the bottom of their garden,
formed by a vine which Blake always refused to prune and which
bore, in consequence, much foliage and grapes that never ripened.
They were reading Paradise Lost; and when Butts hesitated to
approach, Blake called out, "Come in! It is only Adam and Eve."
The story is a doubtful one, and has been much discussed, without
any convincing evidence for or against it: but it is not incredible,
and would, if true, show how real was Blake's contempt for even
the universally accepted conventions of society.¹ It is also related
that he once proposed to introduce a second wife into his house, in
addition to Mrs. Blake. Was this prompted by physical passion only,
or by the desire to have a child? Or was it the logical outcome of
his views on the subject of marriage? We cannot say. But, in any
case, Blake, who would have refused contemptuously to enter into
discussion with anyone on such a matter, and would have strongly
resisted any violent opposition, yielded at once to his wife's silent
tears, and never renewed his suggestion. The prophet was still a man.
Moreover he was, in the highest sense of the term, a good man,
and this goodness had the effect of softening any harsh elements in
his rebellious nature. He preached charity and kindness towards all;
and this was no hypocrisy or empty sentimentality on his part. He
would not willingly have hurt a worm. By his example, just as much
as by his writings, he showed forth the gospel of love of good-will,
and of man's brotherhood with his fellow-men and with all nature.
Not only to the members of his own family, his sister and his younger
brother Robert, who found in him a constant and valuable support,
but to strangers also, in times of trouble, his hand and his purse were
always open. Once he gave forty pounds to a young man who had
1 This anecdote, related by the earlier biographers (Cunningham, Gilchrist
and Rossetti), has been discredited by Ellis and Yeats on the ground that it is
not referred to in any subsequent letters between Butts and Blake. But the
incident was not one to which any person of good breeding would be likely to
allude. We have no written evidence to support or contradict the story.
46
WILLIAM BLAKE
lost his fortune and his reputation through his revolutionary writings.
On another occasion, having noticed an unhappy-looking young
student who often passed his door, he made his acquaintance, and
found that he wished to become an artist, but was very poor and so ill
that he could not hope to live long. Blake gave him gratuitous lessons,
assisted him with money, visited him often during his sickness,
and nursed him on his deathbed. And in all these charitable deeds,
Blake and his wife were absolutely at one. They would have refused
any gift for themselves, and often accepted less than a fair price for
their work but they were always ready to give and to help.
It was this universal kindliness, also, which made him extra-
ordinarily polite in society, even when among indifferent or un-
friendly people. The satirical and spiteful words that he wrote in
his note-book were never spoken, for fear of giving pain. Perhaps,
too, he had in him something of his ancestors' Irish courtesy.
However that may have been, he was always welcomed in society,
despite his eccentricities, which, moreover, he must have perceived
himself; for, when his moments of enthusiasm were over, and he
was no longer talking about art, he became simple and awkward in
his manner, and sometimes even childlike. At such times, his shyness
was excessive: he felt himself uncomfortable and out of place in
the company of people whom, a moment before, the grandeur of
his thought had thrown quite into the shade.
"He looks careworn and subdued," wrote Lady Charlotte Bury of him
in 1820; “but his countenance radiated as he spoke of his favourite
pursuit. . . . His views are peculiar, and exalted above the common level
of received opinions. I could not help contrasting this humble artist with
the great and powerful Sir Thomas Lawrence, and thinking that the one
was fully, if not more, worthy of the distinction and the fame to which
the other has attained, but from which he is far removed. Mr. Blake .
evidently lacks that worldly wisdom and that grace of manner which make
a man gain an eminence in his profession, and succeed in society. Every
word he uttered spoke the perfect simplicity of his mind, and his total
ignorance of all worldly matters.” 1
And Crabb Robinson, in his Diary of December 10th, 1825,
wrote:
He is now old-sixty-eight-with a Socratic countenance, and an ex-
pression of great sweetness, though with something of languor about it,
except when animated, and then he has about him an air of inspiration.
¹ Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV.
HIS CHARACTER
47
His exuberant health and strength might well have excused in him
an intemperate, disordered life like that of Burns, alternations of
revolt and despair such as Byron experienced, or the inspired
audacities of Shelley. His freedom of thought almost leads us to
expect some of these: but his goodness, his love for his wife, and his
enthusiasm for his art filled his life, and left no time for any such
extravagances. He lived a calm, unadventurous, ordinary life with
Mrs. Blake in their humble home. Despite the originality of his
opinions, and his firm belief in them, the sweetness of his nature
prevailed over all other influences; and he was the typical upright
man of his age, and of all ages, a good son, a good friend, a good
brother, a good husband. And he would have been an excellent
father.
T
IV: HIS VISIONS
HIS stout fighting man who was always afraid of hurting
his adversaries, this proud, domineering spirit who became
so humble in company with others, this solitary genius who
could find no one to understand him, and who had to be
contented with the silence of his best friends and the dumb adoration
of his wife, this lonely prophet, born, out of his time, into a world of
sceptics and logicians-lived, at the same time, another hidden life,
richer by far than any life that his biographers could see or his most
sympathetic friends even guess at. Mrs. Blake had but one fault to
find with him, that his visions occupied so much of his time. They
were her only rivals. In them he found the source of his internal
strength and of his confidence in himself. To them he looked for his
chief happiness. From them sprang the great light which shone in
his eyes, and threw its dazzling brilliance over his sombre and
monotonous life.
No poet has ever surpassed Blake in visionary power. Even those
whose imagination was strongest have very rarely seen visions like
his. Their dreams have had no existence save in the imagination;
and they have felt that their visions belonged to some invisible, im-
palpable sphere, outside of our world. They recognised them as
creations of their own, which they could alter or destroy at will.
They never saw them with their bodily eyes; and they scarcely ever
felt an actual presence confronting them. Dante knew well that his
Inferno, though he described and measured it with such vivid exact-
ness, was but a fiction of his brain. Bunyan, in spite of his halluci-
nations, made no mistake as to the nature of the allegorical dream
which he embodied in the Pilgrim's Progress. Shelley, who saw and
felt so acutely the life around him, and whose nervous system was so
morbidly excitable, did not see more than two or three real visions,
nor did he take these as subjects for his poems. Even the most
fantastic nightmares of Poe and the weirdest evocations of de Quincey
are only artificial dreams, set before us as if they were real and
palpable. And if at times the intensity of the poet's imaginative
power has brought his artistic fancies visibly before his eyes, if Poe
did really see the beak of his ill-omened raven or the long, waving
HIS VISIONS
49
hair of his Ligeia, he must have felt immediately that these things
were only a part of his own thought projected outside of him, and
not separate beings with a life of their own. No poet, however
exactly he may have described his creations, has seen them entirely
outside of himself, or felt absolutely sure that they came to him from
another world, and that he was only the spectator or the enforced
listener. To all of them, as to Prospero, these things have been only
"such stuff as dreams are made of."
With Blake it was otherwise. His visions were real, and external
to himself: they came to him as the gods of old came among men,
or as the angels and the saints appeared to the early Christians.
It was not any hallucination of fever: his pulse beat quite normally,
and still he saw them. It was not madness. No one could speak,
when it was necessary, more calmly and collectedly than he. It was
not ignorance nor simplemindedness which made him believe in them.
His intellectual training, irregular as it had been, did not make him
at all the sort of man to be deluded with childish tales. Nor was it
with him, as with the heroes and the martyrs, any exalted religious
or patriotic sentiment that produced these visions, nor, again, were
they the result of illness or asceticism affecting his nervous system.
He was strong and in perfect health at the time when the visions
were most frequent. There was never any great crisis in his life,
which plunged him suddenly into the spirit world: no ardent
prayers ever produced in him such ecstasies as those experienced by
St. Teresa, St. John of the Cross, and so many other religious mystics.
He seems to have been subject to visions all his life. When only
four years old, he saw God's face at the window of his room, and
screamed with fear. A few years later, he was beaten for saying that
he had found the prophet Ezekiel sitting in the fields near his home.
On another occasion, he beheld a tree filled with angels, who sang
and waved their glittering wings in the branches. And, at fourteen,
he refused to be apprenticed to the engraver Ryland, on the ground
that the man looked as if he would live to be hanged-as, indeed,
some years later, he was. Thinking and reading made the visions more
frequent. After the death of his brother Robert, he saw his spirit
flying away and " clapping its hands for joy." And it was Robert's
spirit also which showed him-this time in a dream-the process
by which his books were to be engraved and printed. And once he
saw a ghost, a human figure covered with metallic scales, standing
at the top of a staircase, and fled terrified from the house, He walked,
E
50
WILLIAM BLAKE
as Swedenborg did, among demons and spirits of the dead. He tells
us how one day the prophet Isaiah dined with him; and the Memor-
able Fancies record his experiences in the strange places to which,
like the prophets of old, he found himself transported.
It was during his stay at Felpham that his visions were most
numerous. There he once saw a fairy's funeral.
I was walking alone in my garden; there was great stillness among the
branches and flowers, and more than common sweetness in the air; I
heard a low and pleasant sound, and I knew not whence it came. At last
I saw the broad leaf of a flower move, and, underneath, I saw a procession
of creatures, of the size and colour of green and grey grasshoppers, bearing
a body laid out on a rose leaf, which they buried with songs and then
disappeared. It was a fairy funeral.¹
One would call this childish: but the story was told in all serious-
ness, and Blake declared that he had seen it all. At Felpham also
he beheld "majestic shadows, grey but luminous, and superior to
the common height of men." These were the symbolic forms of
Moses and the prophets, of Homer, Dante and Milton. They spoke
to him in English, or rather, as he said of Voltaire, they spoke in their
own tongue, which reached his ear as English. There was even a time
when these visions would come at his call, when he could summon
the spirits of the great men of old, and even those of unknown beings,
to appear, visible to him alone. He drew pictures of many of them for
Varley the astrologer; and often these pictures were unlike the
authentic portraits of the persons represented: sometimes their
features changed while he was looking at them. This mattered little.
As Blake himself said, they appeared thus to him. To others, or even
to himself at other times, they might assume a quite different form.
Sometimes the visions would not remain at rest before him. "He
frowns," the artist would say. "He is displeased with my portrait
of him." Or " I can't go on-it is gone." And so the work often had
to be interrupted. It was in this way that he painted his celebrated
Ghost of a Flea, which is also symbolical of militarism and of the
spirit which delights in bloodshed; a kind of monster in human
form, with a low brow and membranous ears, a sharp, sting-like
tongue, greedy eyes fixed upon the bowl of blood which he is about
to drink, powerful limbs, and sharp claws. It is very probable that
many of the inexplicable pictures in the Prophetic Books had the
same origin. He himself did not always know why they came to him,
1 Allan Cunningham: Lives of British Painters.
HIS VISIONS
51
or what they represented; and he confessed as much when he wrote
beneath one of his drawings, "The Eye sees more than the Heart
knows." 1
Thus the powers that rule over heaven and earth, over the works
of nature and the minds of men, took shape and passed before his eyes.
Often they stopped to talk with him, telling him the secrets of their
mysterious realms, describing their lives, and revealing to him their
hidden knowledge, in words which he and they alone could hear
and understand. Many of his poems were thus "dictated" to him,
twenty or thirty lines at a time, which he wrote down on the spot,
and never retouched. The Jerusalem and the Milton were among those
written in this way; and hence his profound admiration for these
poems. They were not his, but were literally the work of the spirits.
And he did not write them for men to read. When he had written,
he saw the words take form and fly about the room; and then other
spirits came and read them. This was enough for him: his work was
read and praised in Eternity, and the world did not matter. This
respect for the words of his supernatural friends, which prevented
him from correcting anything he had written, had serious con-
sequences from the literary point of view.
These visions, however, were his one great consolation. They
made him forget all the unhappiness of his life, the coldness of his
friends and the indifference of the world. To them he turned in
search of new strength, and they restored his courage and revived
his faith in himself. Just as another visionary, greater even than
himself, had testified at the stake that her voices came from God
and had never deceived her, so Blake on his deathbed could declare
that his celestial friends had told him the truth, and that his songs
were not his own but theirs. Belief in the reality of their existence
helped him to leave this illusory world of ours without regret, and
singing hymns of praise like those with which the Lord's elect
entered into the Eternal City.
What is more important to us, however, is the fact that his books
owe their existence to these visions. Like St. John in Patmos, or like
the old Hebrew prophets, he was commanded to write, and he wrote.
It will not be uninteresting, therefore, as part of our study of his
genius, to examine more closely the character of these supernatural
apparitions, and to find out how they ought to be, or rather how they
can be explained.
1 Visions of the Daughters of Albion. Frontispiece.
52
WILLIAM BLAKE
The first question which presents itself is that of their objective
reality, their voluntary appearance, external to the poet himself,
as if they had been' men or material beings of some kind. Did the
spirits of Isaiah, Ezekiel or Voltaire really come to him, either at his
summons or of their own accord? Does there really exist, somewhere,
such a personage as "the Man who built the Pyramids," and did
he actually appear to Blake? Are there really in the world of infinity
spirits like Urizen, Los and Enitharmon, the prompters of human
desires and passions? And do they move always about us, invisible
to all, but showing themselves now and then to a few exceptionally
organised men, such as Blake was? To most of us, at any rate to
the so-called scientific mind, which Blake always hated, such a
question could never present itself, or could at best only be received
with a pitying smile, as not even worthy of consideration. And yet
how many men there have been who believed in the objective reality
of the visions seen by the prophets of the Bible, in the apparitions
of the Catholic saints and mystics, in the existence of angels and
demons, able, on occasion, to assume visible shape! And even outside
the pale of religion, are there not many who affirm the existence of
an invisible world in the midst of which we live, though we know
nothing of it? No really scientific mind can deny such a possibility.
And finally we have only to consider the occultists' conception of an
Astral Plane, and the many phenomena of spiritualism. The question
will for ever continue to be asked:
Were such things here as we do speak about?
Or have we eaten on the insane root
That takes the reason prisoner? 1
"the
Those who have seen, answer "Yes": the others, "No." To
Lady Macbeth and the guests, the ghost of Banquo was only
very painting" of his murderer's fear; but for the murderer himself
it was actually there, before him. The seers will always say that our
perceptive senses are not strong enough, and we shall say that theirs
have deceived them, or are in a morbid condition. Mere reasoning,
without experience, can prove nothing; and it is not easy to answer
the man who says, " I have seen.” We can reject his evidence if he
is sick or mad; but what are we to do when the only morbid symptom
he shows is his claim to have seen? Such was the case with Blake.
It is extremely probable-and this is my own view of the question—
1 Macbeth, Act I., Scene 3.
HIS VISIONS
53
that his visions had no objective reality. But it is impossible to speak
with absolute assurance on this point. And I am far from denying
the existence of an invisible world which fills space, which may
become perceptible-who can say ?-even to the physical senses of
certain people, and which can, in any case, communicate directly
with our souls, spirit meeting spirit like that choir invisible" of
which George Eliot speaks, "whose music is the gladness of the
world." In this, as in all questions that are outside the scope of our
practical experience, we may " believe all things." Blake was one of
the believers. For him, his visions did have a separate existence.
He was not their maker, but a mere spectator of them. Like the man
in Poe's story, whose ears were so sensitive that he could hear sounds
where all was perfectly silent, Blake could see things that were hidden
from the sight of all save himself.
The very nature of these visions, however, leads us to regard them
as nervous phenomena resembling the hallucinations of the majority
of mystics, that is to say, as forms engendered in the mind by the
unconscious working of thought or of intense emotion, which gradu-
ally makes them seem more and more concrete until at last the mind
perceives them as visible and external objects, like the forms seen in
hallucinations or in dreams. This can only happen, of course, with
persons possessing abnormal powers of vision and an exceptionally
strong imagination; and this was the case with Blake.
We do not know enough of his family and his ancestors to justify
us in attributing these gifts to any hereditary tendency. It will not
suffice to say that he had Irish blood in his veins, and so belonged to
a race in which imagination is the ruling force, and which still
possesses a faith in supernatural influences, strong enough to evoke
visions of fairies and spirit forms, among the old Celtic stones of
Carnak or Stonehenge, just as it evoked them, thousands of years ago,
on the phantom-haunted Breton shores. It is not enough to have
found among his ancestors that O'Neil of the seventeenth century
whose temper was so violent that he ordered his servants to bury him
up to his shoulders in the sand when he felt it getting the better of
him. This would be too artificial an explanation of Blake's intense
nervous sensitiveness. Nor would it be more profitable to seek a
parallel in the disorderly life of his soldier-brother. We are perhaps
more likely to be right if we trace his mystical and religious beliefs
to the fact that his father was one of the first admirers, if not actually
a disciple, of Swedenborg. But all these facts, even when taken
54
WILLIAM BLAKE
together, do not suffice to account entirely for Blake's visionary
powers. Nor does an examination of his physical appearance give us
much help. The general expression of his face, and, above all, his far-
searching eyes, might suggest some physiological explanation. But
it requires attention to discover, on the cast of his head made by a
contemporary phrenologist, the protuberances which Gall associated
with the qualities of ideality and belief in the miraculous.
We can trace more easily the close relation between the develop-
ment of his mind and the gradual change in the nature of his visions.
Those of his childhood had no strongly marked characteristics.
He saw them like pictures stepping out of their frames. We are not
told in what form God appeared to him when he was four years old:
probably he received some vague impression such as that conveyed
later on by the description, in one of his poems, of how God
appear'd like his father, in white."1 Such a mental image seems
natural enough if we think of the religious atmosphere of an ordinary
English family at this period, and especially that of his own family.
The vision of Ezekiel which he saw a few years later may have had
its origin in the many Bible readings and discussions attended by
the household. That of the angels only resembles a child's usual
conception of these "winged messengers from heaven." It was not
until after he had read and meditated upon Swedenborg that he began
to see visions like Swedenborg's own. Spirits, prophets and angels
appeared to him. He dined with them and disputed with them, and
was borne, in their company, beyond our limits of time and space.
And his Memorable Fancies closely resemble Swedenborg's own.
One sentence of Swedenborg's might apply almost exactly to
Blake's experience:
The man finds himself transported into an intermediate state between
sleeping and waking, but he has no knowledge of being otherwise than
awake. All his senses are as wakeful as they would be if the body were
entirely awake. In this state, men have seen angels and spirits in all the
reality of life, have heard them speak, and, still more wonderful, have
touched them: for, at such a moment, the body scarcely interferes
at all.2
Constantly, in Swedenborg, we come upon passages such as,
"I have spoken with many spirits"; "I know that these things
are true because I have often seen them
It has been my
destiny to live for years in company with spirits " "I have conversed
¹ Songs of Innocence: The Little Boy Found.
2 Heaven and Hell: § 440.
HIS VISIONS
55
about this with the angels."1 "I can affirm this after long experi-
ence." 2 "I have often been permitted to see the atmosphere of
falsehood which exhales from hell." 3" In order that I might under-
stand the nature and character of heaven and of the celestial joys,
I have often, and for long periods, been permitted by God to witness
its delights. I know them, therefore, from my own actual
experience." 4
6
97
In a note to Swedenborg, Blake asserts that these things, common
in times of antiquity, do still happen, though more rarely. And in the
same simple and matter-of-fact way he makes statements like "As
I was walking among the fires of hell . . . I collected some of their
Proverbs "; 5 or "When I came home, I saw a mighty Devil"; "
or“ An Angel came to me and said : O, pitiable foolish young man !
consider the hot burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself.'
The angel takes him into hell, and they converse there. He questions
the prophets and they answer him. And he even becomes intimate
with one spirit. "This Angel, who is now become a Devil, is my
particular friend: we often read the Bible together." Thus Blake
and Swedenborg alike are quite familiar with the world of demons
and angels they rub shoulders with its inhabitants like amicable
neighbours and good companions. Both of them walk as unconcernedly
through this mysterious region as we would walk through our native
town among our own friends. But it must not be forgotten that Blake
only saw his visions after he had read of, and meditated upon, those
of Swedenborg.
Later on, the influence of Swedenborg was supplemented by that
of Boehme and the Cabalists, and, further, by the development of
his own thought in the same direction. He went to the same source
from which Swedenborg had drawn his inspiration-the Word:
that is to say, the Bible. Then his visions became more peculiarly
his own. He still from time to time saw the demons: but soon a new
order of personages appeared to him, whom he vaguely calls "the
Eternals."
Eternals, I hear your call gladly.
Dictate swift-winged words, and fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.9
1 Heaven and Hell: § 526.
2 Heaven and Hell: $ 527.
3 Heaven and Hell: § 538.
A Heaven and Hell: $ 413.
Marriage of Heaven and Hell: p. 6.
° Marriage of Heaven and Hell: p. 6.
7 Marriage of Heaven and Hell: p. 17.
Marriage of Heaven and Hell: p. 24.
8
9 Urizen: Preludium.
56
WILLIAM BLAKE
And even Christ, as Blake conceived him to be, revealed Himself.
I see the Saviour over me,
Spreading his beams of love and dictating the words of this mild song.¹
1
Then came beings of a still more specialised character, personified
abstractions which were, to all appearance, created entirely by his
own imagination. He saw Los, the spirit of prophecy, who carried
him away in a whirlwind, and set him down in his cottage at
Felpham. Here he was visited by one of the Daughters of
Inspiration.
Walking in my Cottage Garden, sudden I beheld
The Virgin Ololon and address'd her as a Daughter of Beulah :
Virgin of Providence, fear not to enter into my Cottage.2
And the page on which these lines appear shows also a picture of
his cottage, with himself walking in front of the door, and Ololon
descending from the sky.
All this was not merely a poetical inspiration like the vision of
the Muse calling to de Musset, that amorous night in May, or
coming to Burns in his cottage and crowning him with the poet's
laurel wreath. Neither Burns nor de Musset would have claimed
for their Muse an objective existence. Blake affirmed that he had
actually seen Ololon; and very probably he spoke the truth. His
own creations did appear to him in visible form, so that he could
draw them, as if from a living model. His work is full of such visions:
his pictures swarm with them. And the personages represented can
only be recognised after a careful reading of the Prophetic Books.
Thus his supernatural visitors became more and more numerous ;
but they had their birth always in the invisible world of his thoughts,
his reading, his mental conceptions. This parallel development can
only be regarded as proving the subjective nature of these heavenly
visitations. They were simply the ideas of a thinker, clothed with a
symbolical and visible form, and perceived, as having an objective
existence, by an abnormally sensitive brain.
There were even some cases in which this last feature was lacking,
and the visions were nothing but vivid poetical creations. On one
occasion, when he had been describing a certain vision in minute
detail, someone asked him where he had seen it; and be touched his
forehead and replied " Here!" Such an answer shows us how a great
many of Blake's assertions as to what he had seen are to be
Jerusalem: p. 4. 4.
2 Milton: p. 36. 26.
"
HIS VISIONS
57
interpreted. He often saw only in the same sense as other great poets.
But while the others could always dismiss their visions, as it were,
into nothingness, and recognise their unreality as soon as the moment
of inspiration had gone, Blake remained always conscious of the real
existence of his visions. To him, they were the only reality, while
our real world was but a shadow and an illusion.
Two circumstances helped to induce in him his attitude towards
his visions, and his belief in their objective reality. One was the
suddenness with which his inspiration came to him: the other the
increasing frequency of the visions themselves.
His moments of inspiration seem always to have come and gone
in a sudden and unexpected manner. He never planned any of his
work beforehand never thought a poem out as a whole, settling
the scheme of it first, and filling it in, page by page, afterwards. He
knew nothing of the labour of composition, as experienced by other
writers. He wrote seemingly without preparation of any kind, and
once a page was written, took no further trouble about it. Undoubtedly
there had been a long course of unconscious mental preparation :
thoughts and feelings were perpetually fermenting in his brain,
without making any distinct attempt at expression. And, as soon as
he became aware of them, as soon as they took definite shape, he
left everything else and committed them to paper. But these moments
were never of his own deliberate choosing; and hence his persuasion
that he wrote under the orders of some supernatural power. This is
how inspiration comes to all poets: but with the others, the long
course of conscious labour that they have gone through prevents
them from believing in any sudden and capricious intervention on
the part of an external force.
The second circumstance arose from the strength of his visual
imagination. Though, in many cases, his dreams remained mere
mental fantasies, in others their vividness and his concentration of
his whole soul upon them, enabled him to arrive, like other great
mystics, at an actual perception of the abstract images created by
his mind. This faculty, the germ of which he possessed in childhood,
developed itself to such a degree that at last all his conceptions took
the form of visual and objective images materialised in space before
his eyes.
Finally, we must take into account one last feature in Blake's work
-his use of symbolism. Later on we shall see how this was to create
and also to injure his poetic style. But his symbolic conception of the
58
WILLIAM BLAKE
world, which assisted him in the production of his visions, helps us
now to explain them. Behind each visible object Blake imagined
a spirit, of which the visible object was only the symbol. Then,
before his imaginative vision, and perhaps before his bodily eyes
also, the symbol vanished, and only the hidden spiritual essence
remained. Where we see a lark soaring into the sky, he saw an angel
bearing a message heavenward. "I assert for myself," he says, " that
I do not behold the outward creation "; and continues:
What," it will be questioned, "when the sun rises, do you not see a
round disk of fire something like a guinea? Oh! no! no! I see an in-
numerable company of the heavenly host crying- Holy, holy, holy, is the
Lord God Almighty!' I question not my corporeal eye any more than I
would question a window concerning a sight. I look through it and not
with it." 1
Such a passage leaves no room for doubt as to the real nature of
these visions. Behind the disc of the sun, his imagination showed him
the company of angels. He therefore disregarded the one as a mere
illusion, and saw only the other. And then, whenever the concentra-
tion of his thought was strong enough, the mental vision became a
bodily one.
We can thus explain his visions and their apparent reality, without
necessarily admitting the material existence of the objects he saw.
The fact that some of his creations were actually seen, some years
ago, by a medium, 2 has nothing extraordinary in it. It is a simple
phenomenon of thought transmission, there having been present
in the room an assiduous reader of Blake's work, whose mind was
full of his ideas.
I do not for a moment wish, in arguing thus, to deny the reality
of
every kind of vision, nor even that of all Blake's visions. It is true
that the same might be said of all great visionaries, and that even
miraculous ecstasies like that of St. Paul on the road to Damascus
may have had their origin in some long, complicated, and quite
unconscious mental process, culminating in a flash of illumination
which, by reason of its suddenness and its lack of apparent cause,
made all beholders marvel. The conflict of opinion is the same in
every case. Only the visionary himself, and those whom he succeeds
in convincing, believe in the reality of visions: all the rest either
deny them entirely or else explain them as hallucinations of a diseased
brain. There are good reasons on both sides; and it is no more absurd
› Last Judgment. 2 Ellis and Yeats: William Blake, Vol. I, chap. 8.
HIS VISIONS
59
to believe in the angels and spirits seen by Blake or Swedenborg
than to believe in those evoked by modern mediums or preached
about by the Churches.
Besides, what matters it if all these visions are simply dreams,
dreamed in full daylight? To quote a well-known saying of one
of these dreamers:
They who dream by day are cognisant of many things which escape
those who dream only by night. In their grey visions they obtain glimpses
of eternity and thrill, in waking, to find that they have been upon the verge
of the great secret. In snatches, they learn something of the wisdom which
is of good, and more of the mere knowledge, which is of evil. They penetrate
however rudderless or compassless, into the vast ocean of the light
ineffable" and again, like the adventurers of the Nubian geographer,
agressi sunt mare tenebrarum, quid in eo esset exploraturi.¹
They at any rate believed in the reality of their visions; and it is
well for us that they did so, because such faith has been the great
moving force of all mystics, in the domain of art as well as in that of
action. If the prophets and the apostles had doubted for an instant,
they would never have revolutionised the world. If Blake had not
believed in his visions, we should never have had his pictures or his
poems.
The critic may therefore leave this question of reality unanswered,
and regard the visions in the light of actual facts, as the hagiographer
does when he describes and studies the visions of the saints. Exam-
ined thus, they present certain very striking features which at once
differentiate them entirely from the religious visions recognised by
the Church, and which clearly distinguish Blake's mysticism from
the mysticism familiar to us in the lives of the saints.
If the Church were to examine these visions, it would say, with
Tatham and his friends who burned Blake's manuscripts, "These
things come from the devil, and not from God." And indeed, these
visions had none of the accepted characteristics of a heaven-sent
apparition, either in the spiritual nature of the man who saw them,
or in the manner of their appearance, or in the physical and spiritual
effects they produced upon him.
Blake was no saint. He had never renounced the world, its passions
or its pleasures. He had never mortified his body by ascetic practices ;
on the contrary, he always delighted in his robust health. He knew
nothing of the flagellations and fastings endured by the visionaries
1 Poe: Eleonora.
60
WILLIAM BLAKE
of the Church, and had never experienced that intense longing to
behold their God which had filled the souls of the saints, nor such
periods of despair as those which accompanied the withdrawal of
their visions, and caused St. Teresa to utter so many cries of anguish.
He never prepared himself, by prayers and meditations, for his
celestial visitors, nor, when they came, did he remain in a state of
ecstasy as long as their visit lasted. He moved among them without
showing any bodily sign of their presence. Finally, he lacked what
the theologians have always regarded as the most essential mark of
the Christian visionary-humility. In their eyes, all visions that did
not inspire humility must come of the devil. Blake, on the contrary,
was proud of his visions; and unlike the saints, who kept theirs
secret, and only revealed them to their confessors, he proclaimed
them openly, and gloried in them. Even in their presence he had no
fear. Like Faust before the Earth-Spirit, he felt himself to be their
equal. He hated humility, as belonging only to the soul that doubted,
and he regarded himself as equal or even superior to any created
being. He would not humble himself even before God.
Thou also dwellst in Eternity.
Thou art a Man. God is no more.¹
He cannot therefore be called a religious mystic, in the ordinary
sense of the term. He himself would have classed himself rather
among the old Hebrew prophets, or the great poets of all time,
compelled to proclaim to all men the way of escape from eternal
death, and to open their eyes to the divine light, which, at the ap-
pointed hour, will reveal itself and shine forth in full splendour
upon all.
His pride and his confidence in himself were only the consciousness
of his poetic mission, as his visions were the source of it, a source
perpetually renewed, and his works its accomplishment. We have
now to see what was the special and mysterious message he was thus
charged to deliver, and to study the yet more mysterious language
in which he conveyed it.
¹ The Everlasting Gospel.
PART II
THE MYSTIC: HIS DOCTRINES
B
V: GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS WORKS
AND HIS SYSTEM
LAKE'S ideas and his message to the age he lived in
can scarcely be called a doctrine. He never troubled to give
any complete exposition of his creed, which we have to
gather for ourselves from the general tendencies of his
poetry, from fragments of his conversation, or from the maxims
which he scattered among his poems or inscribed as mottoes to his
pictures. It is indisputable, however, that he had a doctrine to preach.
On this he always insisted. If he does not repeat all through his
work, as at the beginning of Milton "Mark well my words: they
are of your eternal Salvation," nor always write such formal appeals
to his readers as we find in the preface to Jerusalem, still his dogmatic
tone, his bold assertions, his innumerable exhortations reveal, almost
invariably, the apostle underlying the poet.
1
But, like the prophets of old, he spoke chiefly in parables, and did
not always supply the interpretation.
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's wall. 2
So far, the task has never been successfully attempted. One can
certainly wind the thread into a sort of ball, and collect some kind
of doctrine from scattered passages; but the thread is so entangled,
so confused, so full of knots that one must be perpetually cutting it
and starting afresh. And so none of his critics and interpreters have
ever been able to give more than a fragmentary account of his teach-
ings no one can be sure that he has not cut the knots instead of
disentangling them. And even if it were possible to expound all
Blake's theories as a logical whole, and explain every part of his
work clearly and satisfactorily, some lost manuscript might still be
discovered which would add new and essential details and alter
conclusions seemingly indisputable.
And even if we leave his unknown writings out of the question,
1 Milton, p. 3, 25.
2 Jerusalem, chap. IV. Preface.
64
WILLIAM BLAKE
the general impression made by his published books upon the reader
is, despite the splendour of many passages, most strange and chaotic.
They can only be compared, for power and for obscureness, to the
Book of Revelation. One might call them the misty recollections of
a dream; a sort of twilight in which the wildest and most fantastic
visions succeed each other brilliant colours and sombre forms,
living creatures side by side with shadowy phantoms, children's
prattle and the hum of innumerable insects, the roaring of lions,
and voices like the sound of mighty waters; a kind of concert, all
harmonies and discords, attracting and at the same time offending
by its strangeness. And when, after resting for a time, or after a fresh
and prolonged effort, the eye and the ear have become accustomed
to this chaos, if we try to seize one of the forms that seem to pass
before us, to listen to one of the voices sounding vaguely in our ears,
we find ourselves in the presence of something incomprehensible,
something utterly unseizable, in a state of perpetual flux. Our sight
has scarcely grasped the outline of some form when all at once we
see it change, shrink away, and disappear into obscurity. We think
we are following a light, and it is only a Will-o'-the-wisp. We seem
to be in utter darkness, and are suddenly dazzled by a flood of blind-
ing light. Every moment, indeed, light and darkness succeed each
other, like the shadows of clouds passing overhead. The visions
seem to entice only that they may evade us, as did those apparitions
which Blake used to draw, and which vanished before he could
transfer their outlines to his paper.
""
Is it all, then, only a madman's dream? Many have declared it to
be so. And yet, are there not, all through it, signs of life, flashes of
genius, rays of pure illumination, which check the words before
they have passed our lips? Blake has that " method in his madness
which even a Polonius could not help recognizing in Hamlet, and
which puts us on our guard against forming any rash judgment.
And when, one by one, certain obscure words and incomprehensible
details have been set aside provisionally, and all the passages we can
understand collected and put in order, we become more and more
convinced that the obscurity of his mind is apparent only, and not
real. Blake marched boldly upon his way, and never stumbled in the
darkness. But, like the seer of Patmos, he had a light to guide him
that we know not of; perhaps that very light which of old "shined
in darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not." And so we
remember his visions, and realize that his mind was not like ours.
GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS WORKS
65
We feel that, to appreciate his work, we must cast aside for the
moment our own mental tendencies, free ourselves from all our
scientific, philosophical and religious beliefs; must forget, above
all, our scepticism and our incredulity, and enter into closer commu-
nion with his soul. We must trust ourselves to him, as Dante did to
Virgil, and let him lead us through realms that no human foot has
ever trod.
As one reads his books, one sees his theories becoming gradually
clearer and more complete. Different works explain each other.
None of them is complete in itself: all must be known and borne
in mind if any one is to be read properly. Even when he wrote the
first, Blake had dimly in his mind the ideas which were to fill his
latest books. His theories do not seem to have changed as he grew
older. They undergo development: they are expressed in different
terms; but at bottom they remain the same. Just as a seed contains
all the germs from which the plant will receive its shape, the flowers
their colours, and the fruit its flavour, so it is with Blake and with
the development of his genius.
His work can be studied in either of two quite different ways. We
might take his books one by one and examine, in each successively,
his philosophical ideas, his prophetic theories, and the manner of
their expression. We should thus follow step by step the development
of his mind. We should see how his thought becomes more and more
complex, while still keeping its original direction, and how, at the
same time, his symbolic exposition of it becomes more and more
enigmatic, as if, by a strange perversity, in proportion as the prophet
found more to say, the artist were seeking more obscure forms of
expression, to make his meaning more and more incomprehensible.
We should find, at the beginning, ideas that are relatively simple
and natural, and human feelings common to all, expressed clearly
and with much poetic talent-at times even with flashes of genius.
Later on, this genius becomes entangled in the complexities of mystical
vision, and its splendid gifts are, so far as true poetry is concerned,
entirely lost. At the outset, the breath of mysticism fans the poetic
fire in the end, it becomes a tempest, scattering the flames, which
it lifts here and there into huge columns, but gradually extinguish-
ing them and leaving only a vast pile of ashes smouldering in
darkness.
I prefer, however, to take another way of reaching the same con-
clusions. I shall try to sketch the broad outlines of his philosophy
F
66
WILLIAM BLAKE
and to describe his mystical world, as far as these may be elucidated
from the whole body of his work. I shall then consider his method
of poetic expression, strictly from the poetic point of view, and trace
the factors that conduced to its rapid growth, its wonderful flowering
and its slow decay under the invading influences of mysticism and
symbolism. And so I shall separate the study of his doctrines from
that of their expression, without concerning myself too much with
the successive developments of either, but reserving these for a
short subsequent examination of his books in their chronological
order.
It should be clearly understood that I make no attempt to give a
complete account of Blake's myth or of his mystical system. A task
which even the poetic insight of Swinburne could only in part achieve,
and which has remained unfinished, after long years of special study
have been devoted to it by critics so fully qualified as Messrs. Ellis
and Yeats, cannot be attempted within the limits of one short volume.
Still less can I offer the student a key to open the mysterious recesses
of the Prophetic Books, or explain all Blake's symbolic poems. For
these a commentary proceeding line by line would scarcely suffice.
The laborious analysis of Messrs. Ellis and Yeats is almost as long
as the text itself; and still it leaves many problems to be solved,
many obscure lines to be explained, many myths to be made clear.
A complete understanding of Blake can only be reached after a long
course of preparation, which should include a knowledge of all
the great mystics, and thorough familiarity with the methods of
occult science, as well as a profound study of the Bible. Next, one
would have to examine every word that Blake wrote, and every one
of his drawings; to spend, not months, as Mr. W. M. Rossetti wrote,
but years in reading and re-reading his books, and nothing else, so
as to assimilate all his images and all his symbols, and to understand
his language, like a strange tongue not yet fully mastered. And even
then, perhaps, the desired end might not have been reached. In any
case, the resulting enrichment of human thought would be small in
proportion to the labour expended.
For my purpose, which is to study the influence of mysticism
upon poetry in general, and upon Blake's poetry in particular, it will
be enough to give a broad outline of his system. Many of the questions
it raises I shall not touch upon at all: many others I shall only refer
to as unsolved, if not insoluble. I shall not attempt to discuss his
theories fully this would be a task for the philosopher-especially
GENERAL CHARACTER OF HIS WORKS
67
1
the metaphysician-or for the theologian, and would not profit us
at all from the literary point of view. Besides, his doctrines contain
little or nothing that has not already been made the subject of pro-
longed historical and philosophical study. I shall confine myself to an
examination of their sources, so as to be able to judge what personal
qualities Blake brought to the work of assimilating, arranging and
completing them. This will be an adequate introduction to the study
of their expression in his writings, and of their influence upon his
poetic genius.
VI: MYSTICISM AND ITS VARIOUS FORMS
T
HE foundation of Blake's theories, as well as of his art, is
his mysticism. It will not be unprofitable, therefore, in order
to arrive at a better understanding of both, without being
checked at every step by their strangeness, their obscurity
and their contradictions, to examine into the state of mind of mystics
generally, and to judge them, as one should judge Blake, without bias,
and without any sceptical or narrow-minded prejudices. One will
thus appreciate Blake himself more fairly, and understand better
how his philosophy was formed.
Mysticism is, in its essence, a concentration of all the soul's ener-
gies upon some supernatural object, conceived of and loved as a
living personality. This object may vary. It may be God Himself,
Christ or the Virgin, saints or angels, or spirits different from any
of these, such as abstract beauty, the forces of nature, or even spirits
of evil. But whatever be the object, for the mystic it becomes a god.
Upon it all his love is directed. All his intellectual faculties are bent
upon grasping its essence and understanding its attributes: all the
strength of his will is absorbed in the accomplishment of the duty he
owes to it. Whether his mysticism be purely emotional or at the
same time intellectual or active, its essence is always the concentra-
tion of the soul upon, and its abandonment to, the object of worship.
Every one of the innumerable forms taken by human passion, or
intelligence or activity, has its counterpart in some form of mysticism.
Just as there are no two men who love, think and act in exactly the
same way, so there are no two mystics whose adoration for their god
is of exactly the same kind. The one characteristic shared by all is
their detachment from the earth and their concentration upon some
object outside our ordinary existence.
Their point of departure would seem to be the feeling that the
earth and earthly things are insufficient for them, too transitory, too
deceptive, too wanting in real happiness. Their souls aspire to some-
thing better, and this they find in their supernatural-ideas. But not
all those whom this earth has failed to satisfy are mystics. Most of
us accept the world as it is, and take all the good that it can give
without seeking for anything above or beyond it. Others, full of faith
MYSTICISM AND ITS VARIOUS FORMS
69
in the existence of a perfection unattainable here, are content to
hope for it in another world: they reconcile, as best they can, their
hopes and their daily life, and make no attempt to enjoy beforehand
the happiness they look for hereafter. None of these are mystics.
What the mystic aims at is, by a kind of soul-transference, to make
some of the perfection of the life everlasting actual and visible in
this world of ours.
In all mystics, dissatisfaction with the things of this world leads
to the desire for a better, then to belief in its actual existence, and an
undivided love of this unknown universe, or of the being that, for
them, stands as its symbol. Many mystics get no further than this
emotional phase: their love is a dream, an all-mastering dream, of
God or of Heaven. Their life is but an unceasing aspiration, a
constant desire for the beloved, a long and painful waiting till he
shall call them or come to them. "I sought him whom my soul
loveth: I sought him, but I found him not." "Oh that I had wings
like a dove, for then would I fly away and be at rest," This amorous
form is the one which mysticism takes in most of the contemplative
saints, and particularly in women. Fed upon its own ardour, it can
rise to the highest passion of which the human soul is capable, and
can provoke such transports as those of St. Teresa.
I felt my soul enflamed with a great love of God. This love was clearly
supernatural, for I knew not what had lit it in me, nor had I at all assisted
it. I felt myself dying with the desire to see God, and did not know where
to seek for this Life, except in Death. The transports of this love were so
great that I knew not what to do. Nothing seemed to satisfy my desires :
every moment, my heart was ready to burst: it seemed to me as if
my soul
was being torn from me. It was a kind of death, so delightful that my
soul would gladly have prolonged it for ever.
And this heavenly love, uniting with absolute faith in the reciprocal
love of God, and with the feeling of perfect rest in the soul, produced
later on the ecstasies of Madame Guyon and the various forms of
Quietism. For Quietism is in reality only a kind of emotional mysti-
cism: a sort of impassibility in communion with God through
prayer, accepting even eternal torments if only they are the will of
God, and an effect of his love.
Every time. that the soul has the feeling of love and desire for God,
there is a birth of mysticism, even in the humblest of believers. But
it is seldom that this love proves strong enough to suppress the love
of self and of earthly things. Every moment of genuinely trustful
70
WILLIAM BLAKE
and loving prayer is also a moment of mysticism. But how brief are
these moments, even when the spirit is truly religious! This love
and this desire, however, are the essential elements of mysticism,
and the man who lacks them, however great his visionary powers,
cannot be called a mystic. No mysticism was possible for the Greeks
or the Romans, because they did not love their gods, but only revered
and dreaded them. Their prayers were petitions offered to a power-
ful and indifferent lord.
Hear me, O God of the silver bow! if ever I have built thee a splendid
temple, if ever I have burnt in thy honour the fat of bulls and goats,
grant my desires this day, and let my arrows exact from the Greeks a
heavy price for my tears. ¹
The gods were too selfish: they might make friends with mortals,
but they had no need of their love. The smoke of sacrifices was
enough for them. It was only in the East that any idea of love between
gods and men was to be found. Buddha loved all living creatures
and was loved by them, " conquering the world with spirit of strong
grace. "2 Towards him hearts full of love and gratitude sighed forth
their prayer:
Ah! Blessed Lord! Oh, High Deliverer!
Ah! Lover! Brother! Guide! Lamp of the Law!
I take my refuge in thy name and thee ! . .
Rise, Great Sun!
And lift my leaf, and mix me with the wave.
3
And it was not until some of the conceptions of the East had passed
into Greek and Roman thought that mysticism made its appearance,
first among the initiates of the various occult rituals, and later in the
different Gnostic sects. Only then do we begin to hear words of love
rising heavenward, and preluding, as it were, the passionate ecstasies
of the Christian mystics.
O holy and blessed Dame, the perpetual comfort of human kind, who
by thy bounty and grace nourishest all the world, and bearest a great affec-
tion to the adversities of the miserable as a loving mother; thou takest no
rest, neither art thou idle at any time in giving thy benefits, and succouring
all men, as well on land as sea. Thou art she that puttest away all storms
and dangers from man's life by thy right hand, whereby likewise thou
restrainest the fatal dispositions, appeasest the great tempests of fortune.
1 Iliad, I.
2 Edwin Arnold: Light of Asia, VIII.
* Edwin Arnold: Light of Asia, VIII.
MYSTICISM AND ITS VARIOUS FORMS
71
•
But my spirit is not able to give thee sufficient praise, my patrimony
is unable to satisfy thy sacrifice . . Howbeit as a good religious person,
and according to my estate, I will always keep thee in remembrance, and
close thee within my breast. 1
When Christ came, men saw, in the "Man of Sorrows," a God
who loved and suffered and whom they could love in return. And
then mysticism in all its forms began to spread over the West, in
company with the new religion of love.
This mystic love may or not be joined to the love of men. At
times, indeed, it seems to harden the heart and take from it all
sympathy for things of the earth. Some mystics have even regarded
the love of God's creatures as treason against the jealous God who
requires our whole heart, and who has said "Leave all and follow
Me." Such men would break all family ties, and retire for contem-
plation to the desert or the cloister, abandoning the world. It was an
ill-conditioned student of mysticism who said :
And I would see my father die, my child, my brother, and wife
And should not care a straw about it. 2
But Christ Himself left His parents, to teach in the Temple, and
so do His heavenly Father's work : and from His lips came the words
spoken to His mother: "Woman, what have I to do with thee?"
which Blake was to use again with deeper meaning.
This indifference to the world is, however, no more an essential
part of mysticism than it is of Christ's doctrine. Mysticism transforms
human love, but does not necessarily destroy it. That we should
love men for the love of God is the second commandment of Chris-
tianity; and the most mystical of the Evangelists was the very one
who never ceased to reiterate this ordinance of love. Many Christian
saints have loved not men only, but, like the followers of Buddha,
all living creatures, not because these have human souls, but because
they also are God's work and the image of His person. Some have
talked to the birds, and caressed the flowers with a lover's hand.
Others have carried their respect for animal life so far as to provoke
the ridicule of the profane.
We shall find in Blake's emotional mysticism a strange mixture
of these two feelings: love of humanity combined with an almost
entire absence of real passion; contempt for this world, side by side
1 Apuleius: Metamorphoseon, XI.
2 Orgon in Molière's Tartuffe (Act I. Scene 6).
72
WILLIAM BLAKE
with love of everything, animate and inanimate, that it contains.
But Blake's mysticism was dominated less by emotion than by
intellect an intellect, moreover, whose directing force was his
imagination.
While many mystics remain at the first or emotional stage, which
is simple love of God, others go further, and add to their love
thought and knowledge.
Thus their mysticism becomes intellectual. Their love acts upon
all the forces of their intellect, and concentrates them upon its object.
No longer contented with the ideas handed down to them by traditi-
onal religion, they desire a more personal knowledge of God. They
long to look into the mystery which their minds cannot conceive :
they aspire not merely to love God but to see Him face to face.
Some of these intellectual mystics accept the existing ideas of religion,
ponder and explore them, and try in this way to evoke a clearer
vision of the Divinity. Others, like Boehme, Swedenborg and Blake,
are less strictly religious, and, even when they still cling to established
doctrines, form their own spiritual conceptions and create, so to
speak, gods for themselves such gods, generally, as their love and
their desire would have them be.
It is only natural, therefore, that their mystical conceptions of
the divine should come from the faculties most strongly influenced
by feeling from faith, which is merely love's demonstration of the
truth; from imagination, which creates and alters objects in accord-
ance with our fears and wishes. With all mystics perception is a matter
not so much of reason as of intuition, either slow or swift. Even when
their doctrines do agree with reason, it is not in the name of reason
that they maintain them. They speak of them dogmatically, as facts:
This is so, because I have seen it." And they would no more
doubt their intuitions than we should doubt the evidence of our
senses.
Moreover, in the greatest mystics, the concentration of thought is
so intense as to give them a feeling similar to that of God's actual
presence. Even when they do not go so far as to see Him, they speak
with Him in an ecstasy of love and desire: they imagine Him stand-
ing beside them and answering in words which they can under-
stand and there takes place a kind of silent conversation, the soul
becoming so identified with its God that it acts now its own part
and now that of the Divinity, both asking questions and replying
to them.
:

MYSTICISM AND ITS VARIOUS FO
Comfort thyself: thou wouldst never have sought Me if thʊ.
not found Me. I have thought of thee in My agony. I have wept tears
blood for thee. If thou hadst known thy sins, thou wouldst have lost
Then I shall lose it, O Lord, for I know from Thy teaching
courage.
how evil they are.
heal thee. ¹
. . Not so, for I who have shown thee this, can
On almost every page of the "Imitation of Christ" we have
fragments of similar dialogues.
My son, always commit thy cause to Me. I will dispose well of it in
due time. O Lord, I do cheerfully commit all unto Thee.
If thou wilt hear Me and follow My voice, thou shalt be able to enjoy
What then shall I do, Lord ? 3
much peace.
•
When the feeling of the supernatural presence, imagined in this
way, is at its highest, visions begin to be seen. From the soul's con-
versation with God springs first the sensation of His presence,
actual even if invisible, and then, in certain cases, a visual perception
of Him.
This is the highest degree to which intellectual mysticism can
attain, if, indeed, we can use the term "intellectual
intellectual" to describe a
phenomenon in which the intellect appears to be entirely passive,
and only to accept its perceptions and its knowledge from some
higher source. Such cases are common in the Lives of the Saints.
We have St. Teresa seeing Christ, the Virgin, the Mystery of the
Trinity and the place in Hell that she had deserved. We have St.
Francis, in contemplation before the Cross, seeing and producing—
or receiving on his own body the sacred stigmata. We have St.
Catherine of Siena taking from the hands of the Infant Jesus the
bridal ring, visible only to herself, which she was to wear all her
life. And we have also, in their different sphere, Swedenborg and
Blake walking in the midst of angels, devils and spirits.
This intellectual vision, which leaves a profound impression upon
the mind, and at times even produces an actual image of the thing
perceived, is the chief form taken by poetic mysticism. Every great
poet is a mystic. The greater his genius, the clearer is the mental
imprint of his conceptions and their visual presentment. He often
sees them more distinctly than we see material objects. Whenever his
visions are of supernatural things, whenever his heart is fixed upon
these, as the believer's is upon God—and this is the case with all true
1 Pascal: Le Mystère de Jésus.
3 Imitation of Christ, III, 25.
• Imitation of Christ, III, 39.
WILLIAM BLAKE
his art has a moment of mysticism, and, to this extent, his
Setry is mystical. Poetry and mysticism are so nearly allied that
sometimes men otherwise obscure and of little talent have been raised
by the intensity of their mystical vision into great writers. In English
literature alone we find many such men, some little known, like the
old Saxon author of The Dream of the Rood, or Cædmon, the
writer of Christ and Satan, or Langland, the composer of the
visionary epic Piers Plowman; and others again, like John Bunyan,
who have become world-famous. Certain later writers, such as
Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William Morris and Edwin Arnold, have
tried, by sheer talent, to revive the old religious mysticism, and
to create a sort of artistic and artificial religion, enough to serve as a
foundation for their mystical poetry. But only those who are sincere,
whose soul is moved by intense faith, can, like Christina Rossetti,
strike the true note. And, in every age, those have been the greatest
in whom poetic genius was allied with the strongest and most genuine
religious feeling. From this point of view, Dante's poetry holds the
chief place. So far as man can, he, by virtue of his marvellous
evocative power, and that of his love, his hatred and his faith, did
really descend into hell. Milton's visions were of the same kind, and
sprung from the same causes. He, if he did not complete the whole
sorrowful journey, was at any rate transported to some high mountain
from which he could look into the unfathomable depths.
The same degree of mysticism is to be observed in a poet like
Shelley, though he saw not the God of any orthodox Church, but all
the spirits of nature, all the Gods of antiquity, and the very soul of
the beauty that dwells in all things, and whose belief in them was as
strong as that of any martyr in his Christ. And indeed, there is not
one of our great modern poets who does not show some clear marks
of mysticism, either sacred or profane.
Blake's mysticism stands between the two: sacred by virtue of
the subjects he deals with, profane in respect of his treatment of them,
religious in the widest sense of the word, and yet despising all religions
and excommunicated by all the Churches. But it was, above all,
intellectual and poetical, and it bore the stamp of a powerful imagi-
nation.
There is also a third kind of mysticism to which Blake was not
altogether a stranger, and this may be called active mysticism. It
would be a mistake to regard all mystics as mere contemplatives,
vowed to inaction and of no use in the world. Certainly there have
MYSTICISM AND ITS VARIOUS FORMS
75
been many who, like the monk of the Imitation, would, if the world
were perishing around them, only cover their heads and let it perish.
There are others who, misunderstanding their Master's teaching,
would renounce this life, and seek to enjoy in advance the Nirvânâ
which is the object of their desire. Their mysticism is emotional or
intellectual only. But mysticism is not confined to the limits of mind
or heart. It is not enough to think about God and to love Him.
We must also do His will: and here comes in the necessity for action.
Does mysticism become active when it takes possession of these
strenuous souls that feel the need of action? Or does it rather endow
even the weakest with the desire and the power of acting? Un-
doubtedly it does both. In any case, whenever a mystic has set himself
to accomplish what he believed to be God's work, no obstacle but
death has been able to stop him. Many great mystics have been men
of action, giving to God all their energies as well as all their intellect
and their love. Joan of Arc saved her country: St. Bernard drew
all Europe after him, organised a crusade, and silenced Abelard.
St. Teresa's power of vision is scarcely more wonderful than her
administrative capacity, and the unwearied energy which enabled
this weak and sickly woman to reform and create anew the ever
flourishing and powerful Carmelite Order. If certain profound words
of St. Paul fill us with wonder, how can we express our admiration
for his indefatigable work, his never-ending travels, his missions in
every quarter of the ancient world, and, finally, the greatness of that
Church of which he was one of the chief founders ?
Blake, though far from being a mere contemplative, was not one
of those great men of action who revolutionise whole societies. His
work was more modest; but it absorbed him absolutely. He, whose
hands were never idle, could not have been satisfied without action,
But his work was his art. He had to preach his doctrines, to set forth
his visions, by pencil and pen, as painter and as poet. Any work
unconnected with this great task was to him a burden, a slave's
employment, and he did it only with the utmost repugnance. But
to his real work, the spreading of the gospel that he had to commu-
nicate to the world, he dedicated the best part of his time and his
whole soul.
£
VII: HIS THEORIES-THE WORK OF DEMOLITION-
NEGATION OF THE SENSES AND OF REASON
H
IS message was a strange one for the age he lived in. He
seems, almost purposely, to have formed his system of
religion and philosophy out of everything that was regarded
by the eighteenth century as contemptible or ridiculous.
It was a rationalistic age, basing upon reason its philosophy, its
religion and even its poetry. It was the age of Locke, with his absolute
faith in the evidence of our senses, of Newton, with his science and
mathematics. It was, moreover, an age of atheism derived from Vol-
taire and his imitators, and of natural religion modelled upon the
doctrines of Rousseau. And never, perhaps, have reason, natural
religion, and belief in science found a more strenuous opponent
than Blake. Voltaire, Rousseau, Locke and Newton are names that
he refers to again and again, and always with execration.
Did this mean that the downfall of the goddess of Reason was
going to occur at the very moment when the French Revolution was
raising altars in her honour ? Indubitably, both science and rational-
istic philosophy had failed to satisfy the hopes of their adherents.
The end of this rationalistic period was, consequently, a time when
mystics and occultists were much in fashion. And Blake was but a
unit in this movement: one of its least known figures, but by no
means one of the least original or least interesting.
His system rests upon the destruction of two principles: that of
the evidence of our senses, and that of reliance upon human reason.
Belief in the evidence of the senses has been an axiom from the
beginning of time. We have no apparent reason to doubt the existence
of what we see or feel, and if one of our senses does sometimes
deceive us, the error is quickly corrected by the others, or by calcu-
lations based upon other sensations. If we are to trust the school of
Locke, which flourished a little before Blake's time, all our moral
and intellectual ideas proceed from our senses. Deprived of our
perceptive organs, we should possess no more of moral and intellectual
life than we attribute to a stone. But if this is so, if all our inner life,
all our knowledge depend for their source upon physical sensation,
what is to become of all the revelations of faith, all the mysteries of
HIS THEORIES
77
religion, all our suppositions regarding the invisible world. Obviously
there is an absolute antagonism between this sense-philosophy and
religious faith. And this antagonism produced the philosophic idealism
of Berkeley, which denied the existence of the world of sense.
According to this theory, the existence of our own spirit is the only
thing of which we can be sure. Sight, touch, smell are but modes of
our own knowledge, having no relation to any external reality. The
dispute between the idealistic and the sensualistic philosophies is a
classical one, and, like so many others, must remain for ever unsettled.
It is not difficult to foretell what Blake's attitude in such a contest
would be. A mystic, governed by visions, cannot have the same
confidence in his senses as an ordinary man. On the one hand, if
he does not believe in the reality of his visions, he must necessarily
distrust all his other perceptions which, having deceived him in some
cases, are just as likely to do the same in others. If, on the other hand,
、he believes in his visions, he cannot but feel that his senses are more
acute than those of other people, and that there are things in heaven
and earth beyond ordinary human perception. But then, may not
there also be things outside his own perception, things that he could
see if his senses were more highly developed? Such was the first
idea of Blake's system. "From a perception of only three senses or
three elements, none could deduce a fourth or fifth." 1 Consequently
the evidence of our senses is incomplete. Blake must often have felt
this, when his spirit was filled with visual perceptions, in which his
bodily eye had no part. He saw many things as clearly as if his eyes
had seen them, and those things he called "real." He regarded his
power of internal vision as a new sense added to the other five.
And the objects thus seen actually existed. What matter if they were
invisible to others? That was no reason for doubting their reality.
Hence this new axiom: "Man's perceptions are not bounded by
organs of perception: he perceives more than sense (though ever so
acute) can discover."2 The ideas of eternity, of God, of the infinite,
and many others cannot, according to him, be resolved into any
conception furnished by the senses. They are not what he calls
organic ideas, that is to say, ideas produced by our physical organs.
And yet they exist in man. Much more: they are objects of his desire.
The spirit's aspiration towards something infinitely remote and un-
realisable is at the bottom of Blake's soul, as it is with all mystics.
He regards this aspiration as an indisputable fact. We have a tiny
¹ There is no Natural Religion.
2 There is no Natural Religion.
78
WILLIAM BLAKE
sketch of his showing some men lost upon what seems to be a bare,
white mountain top, or, perhaps, some small section of the earth's
surface, melting into the obscurity of the sky. Far away, above them,
the moon and stars are shining. And one of the men, having raised
a huge ladder of light, which, its end almost lost in illimitable per-
spective, just touches the moon, is attempting to climb it. Underneath
is written "I want! I want!" In another drawing, the same as-
piration is represented symbolically in the figure of a young man
stretching out his arms towards a swan, which flies, unregarding,
far away from him. Dreams of infinite knowledge, of absolute beauty,
these are the desires that gnaw unceasingly at the human heart.
But, says Blake, none can desire what he has not perceived." 1.
The desire of the infinite being in every man, every man must have
perceived something to desire, and must, consequently, possess
means of perception independent of his organs of sense. Therefore
we must have either an innate conception or a supernatural revelation
of those things: and perhaps, in their essence, these two are the same.
But Blake is not contented with affirming the inadequacy of the
senses he denies the truth of their evidence. Not only do they fail
to show us all: what they do show is false. His vision of legions of
angels in place of the sun is one of the best known examples of this
false-witness borne by the sense of sight. Blake regarded the eye not
as an instrument of vision, but merely as a window to be looked
through. Those who accept visual perception as it appears to us are
men of "single vision," from which "may God us keep."2 They
believe in the reality of what they see. Men of "double or triple
vision," like Blake, see through the eye and beyond, not with it.
Their spirit goes much further than the appearance of things. They
interpret every image that their eye receives, and it is this interpre-
tation that is impressed upon their intelligence. We see a flash of
lightning and say simply," that is a flash of lightning." Blake says :
"That is the sigh of an angel-king!
:
""
Before my way
A frowning Thistle implores my stay.
For double the vision my Eyes do see,
And a double vision is always with me.
With my inward Eye, 'tis an old Man grey
With my outward, a Thistle across my way. 3
There is no Natural Religion.
2 To Mr. Butts.
3 id.
HIS THEORIES
79
The evidence of the inward eye is not the same as that of the out-
ward eye. Where one shows nothing, the other reveals visions;
where one sees material things, the other beholds a man or an angel.
Which of the two are we to trust? Blake does not hesitate for a
moment :
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see, not Through the Eye,
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night,
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.¹
Our senses, therefore, are at the same time incomplete and untruthful.
There must be, over and above the senses, some other source of
perception, incomparably richer and more exact, whose revelations
can fill the gaps or correct the errors of our organic consciousness.
This source is not, as so many philosophers assert, reason, with its
innate ideas. Reason, Blake says, is not innate in man. It is only
the result of accumulated experience: a code of general laws deduced
hy the mind from many individual observations: sometimes from a
tot lity of such observations. But it always has its source in experience.
"Reason is the ratio of all we have already known."2 Consequently,
it is not invariable. If a new experience revealed to us facts hitherto
unknown, and opposed to everything we had seen, our reason would
have to admit them, and to undergo alteration in consequence. If
we lived in a world of illogical things, our ideas of what is reasonable
or unreasonable would be changed, just as, if we lived in a world
whose phenomena defied the law of gravitation, we could no longer
regard it as a law. And so our reason, like our experience, is mutilated
and incomplete. "It is not the same that it shall be when we know
more." 3 And it must never be forgotten that Blake did" know more,"
that he had seen another world, whose laws are not those that govern
our little minds.
So far, Blake's philosophy does not strike us as being specially
original. Many men have affirmed the falsity of our perceptions and
the imperfection of our reason. He was not the first to regard the
visible world as an error of our senses, or, reversing the principle of
Descartes, and denying the truth of what is evident, to start by stig-
matising as false all that seems true. Nor was he the first who, in the
very name of logic and reason, by reasoning almost irrefutable, and
the strictest logical arguments, destroyed the authority of both.
¹ Auguries of Innocence.
2 There is no Natural Religion.
3. There is no Natural Religion.
80
WILLIAM BLAKE
1
But very few have followed these theories, as he did, to their final
results. His principle once stated, one can see him, the contemner
of reason, drawing every possible conclusion from his premises, like
the exactest and most absolute of logicians. He follows his theories
everywhere; in his conception of the world, in his views of art and
literature, in his religion, in his moral and political systems.
For him, even more than for any other idealist, the world has no
real and independent existence: it is only a mode of the human spirit,
spontaneously produced, without external cause, subsisting entirely
in itself. Nothing exists except the spirit: the actual world is a dream.
"Mental things are alone real. What is called corporeal, nobody
knows of. Its dwelling-place is fallacy and its existence an imposture.
Where is the existence, out of mind, of thought? Where is it, but
in the mind of a fool? ›› 1
But, if nothing exists outside the human spirit, it follows as a
logical consequence that things" go out of existence" as soon as the
spirit ceases to perceive them.2 Blake did not shrink from this
conclusion. Error is burned up the moment men cease to beł ld
it." And, for him, error is the external world of creation, everything
that comes under our senses or proceeds from our experience. Error
and creation are synonymous words. The destruction of the created
world, that is to say, the Last Judgment, is nothing more than the
annihilation of error, simply by our spirit's ceasing to believe it.
Error, or creation, will be burned up, and then, and not till then,
truth or Eternity will appear." 3 It follows, therefore, that when
Blake speaks of reality, creation, or external forces, we must always
think of all these henceforth as forming an integral part of the spirit,
which includes them all, while the external world is only what seems
to be external. This once grasped, the exposition of all his other
theories can proceed as if the existence of things were external to
the spirit. Events happen in the same way: they seem external,
instead of being so. They exist; but the meaning of the word
exist" is not the same for Blake as for us, since for him existence
is only the existence of our spirit and its modes. Such a conception,
however, did not prevent his using ordinary words and ordinary
forms of speech. Blake spoke and wrote like anyone else, but the
underlying thought was different. Words, for him, often had
¹ Picture of the Last Judgment.
(6
2 Cf. Schopenhauer's formula : "All matter and, consequently, all reality, exists
only for intelligence, by intelligence, in intelligence.”
3 Last Judgment.
HIS THEORIES
81
a special sense, and this is a point that we must always bear in
mind.
""
. He took the same spiritual view of art. The ideal art, according to
him, is not the representation of things as they are. Why should one
make slavish copies of nature or of a model? This kind of work
exasperated his artistic soul. Hence his horror not only of any realistic
painting or sculpture, but even of any that took its subject from reality.
This explains to a great extent his aversion for Reynolds, the portrait
painter, for Rubens, the Homeric artist of the flesh, of material
abundance and bodily vigour, and for Titian, whom he regarded
solely as a depicter of physical beauty and sensuous colour. His great
admiration was for Raphael, whom he called the " artist of the ideal,'
since, to his eyes, there was no grandeur in tables, chairs or foot-
stools, but rather in such things as "a head, a foot, a hand,” ¹ into
which he put a soul "sublime, majestic, graceful, wise." 2 As a
literary critic, Blake was the first and almost the only writer who has
shown us Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims not as so many individuals
a collection of single, realistic characters-but as general and
eternal types of humanity. From this point of view he has painted
them himself; and he explains his conception in a notable piece of
criticism. The lifelike individuality of all these people, which we
admire, he denies entirely. For him, Chaucer's personages belong
to every age, and are the actual essence of human nature.
As one
age falls," he says, " another arises, different to mortal sight, but to
immortals only the same . . . the characters themselves for ever
remain unaltered; and consequently they are the physiognomies or
lineaments of universal human life, beyond which nature never
steps." 3 In the Knight, he sees a type of the true hero of all ages,
"a good, great and wise man "; in the Prioress," the Beauty of our
ancestors till after Elizabeth's time, when Voluptuousness and Folly
began to be accounted beautiful"; in the Pardoner, a typical knave ;
in the Monk, the spirit of a leader of men; in the Sompnour,
devil of the first magnitude"; in the Ploughman, " Hercules in his
supreme eternal state;" in the Miller, “ a terrible fellow, such as
exists in all times and places, for the trial of men, to astonish every
neighbourhood with brutal force and courage, to curb the pride of
man ; in the Wife of Bath, the type of certain women who at times
govern the world, like "a scourge and a blight
a scourge and a blight . . . useful as a
scarecrow." The Reeve and the Manciple represent worldly wisdom.
1 Rossetti MS. : No. 93.
2 id., No. 95.
3 Canterbury Pilgrims.
(C
G
a
82
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Shipman or Sailor is a similar genius of Ulyssean art." The
Clerk of Oxenford typifies contemplative philosophy, and Chaucer
himself the poetic genius. And so each is "an Antique Statue, the
image of a class, and not of an imperfect individual." Blake's great
cause of complaint against Stothard's picture of the same subject was
that Stothard had only seen individuals, and had only felt organic
sensations. He himself, "seeing through," had been able to per-
ceive better things.
We for our part may reconcile the two views by regarding Chaucer's
portrait of each of his pilgrims as a double one, moral and physical
as well. Every man is, in virtue of his moral characteristics, the type
of a class, but his physical traits give him a personal individuality
also, and make him appear more lifelike to us. Blake saw only the
one kind of characteristics: Stothard only the other. One man was
more of a realist; the other more of an idealist and consequently a
greater artist. Chaucer combined the two kinds in the complex unity
of life.
In literature also, all that was pure reason filled Blake with furious
indignation. The sacred precept of the classical writers: "Follow
reason," was to him in the highest degree ridiculous. He could not
find words bitter enough for the seventeenth century poets, English
or French, of the school of Boileau. "While the works of Pope and
Dryden are looked upon as the same art with those of Shakespeare
and Milton . . . there can be no art in a nation.” 1 "Now let
Dryden's Fall and Milton's Paradise be read, and I will assert that
everybody of understanding must cry out shame upon such niggling
and poco-pen as Dryden has degraded Milton with. But at the same
time I will allow that stupidity will prefer Dryden, because it is
rhyme, and monotonous sing-song sing-song from beginning to end.”2
Such an opinion was daring indeed at such a time (1809); and yet
posterity has long since ratified it. But Blake, always following his
theories, has gone much further than this. It is not for their pseudo-
classicism, but for their real classicism that Pope and Dryden are
here condemned. Is not all classic literature, from the age of the
Greeks onwards, on one side a literature of reason, and on another a
literature of worldly beauty and sensual life? Does not this feeling
dominate all the ages of antiquity, and all the Renaissance as con-
trasted with mediæval Christianity? For that, and for their subser-
vience to rule, the Classics stand condemned. "Grecian is Mathe-
1 Public Address.
2 Id.
HIS THEORIES
83
matic Form. Mathematic Form is Eternal in the Reasoning Memory;
Living Form is Eternal Existence. Gothic is Living Form."1 Blake
regards Homer as altogether unworthy of his reputation, and accuses
Greece and Rome of having filled the ancient world with wars,
instead of peacefully cultivating the arts. In their wars, they "swept
art into their maw and destroyed it."2 In the whole of Virgil, he
only sees the famous lines:
Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
Hae tibi erunt artes, pacique imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis, et debellare superbos.
(Aen. VI.)
which he renders vigorously: "Let others study art. Rome has
somewhat better to do, namely, War and Dominion." 3
Thus, according to him, the worship of reason is responsible for
the Greek idea of beauty, with its lifeless mathematical regularity,
and belief in the visible world responsible for the desire of material
power, for the wars and tyrannies of Rome, and the death of art.
The only art, the only literature in which he believed were the poetry
of the Bible, the Gospel, oriental art, the architecture of Chaldæa,
then scarcely known, and Solomon's Temple, even less known,
which he asserted to have been the model of the greatest of Greek
masterpieces. And so, without taking pains to examine into the
particular facts, and relying upon an extremely simple and seemingly
irreproachable logic, he arrived at absolute assertions of the most
paradoxical and extraordinary kind.
His ideas of science were equally singular. Science was a mere
product of reasoning and experience. And, as such, Blake hated and
refused to credit it, apparently personifying its varieties under the
names of Newton or Bacon, names which for him were always objects
of vituperation. Newton's conceptions are not the truth; they are
only dreams he is a sleeper who thinks he is awake.
May God us keep
From Single vision and Newton's sleep.
What he calls "sweet science" is as different from our science as
were his visions from the phenomena of the ordinary world. What
value, indeed, could natural science have for a man who denied the
reality of the world, and disbelieved the teaching of his own experi-
ence? Of what use was it to study these laws, which only recorded a
1 On Virgil.
2 Id.
3 Id.
4 To Mr. Butts.
84
WILLIAM BLAKE
series of phenomena, that is to say, of dreams and illusions? "The
great Bacon he is called-I call him the little Bacon-says that every-
thing must be done by experiment. His first principle is unbelief." 1
Blake's first principle was just the opposite-distrust in experience.
"Reynolds thinks that man learns all that he knows. I say, on the
contrary, that man brings all that he has or can have into the
world with him." 2 The study of the sciences, by binding us to the
visible world, is even more harmful in its effect, since it prevents us
from seeing eternal truth." Study science till you are blind,” he says
in the "Notes to Swedenborg.'
>>
In the same way, he could not subscribe to any natural religion,
any creed like that of the Savoyard Vicar, semi-scientific and replete
with reason. To him the so-called Deists, such as Voltaire and
Rousseau, were either scoundrels or imbeciles. Natural religion is
only the product of experience and reason, inexact and imperfect
sources. How could their result be right? Religion ought to make clear
the unknown world. But, says Blake, "as none by travelling over
known lands can find out the unknown, so from already acquired
knowledge man could not acquire more." 3 No long demonstration
is needed to show the incorrectness of such reasoning, despite its
apparent logic. The laws of the known do open to us large vistas of
the unknown; and this fact was much more clearly understood by
Swedenborg, who made a complete study of all the sciences and of
all the laws of the visible universe, as a preliminary to the study of
the human spirit and to his searches after God, the Eternal Spirit, in
Whom all knowledge must be contained and completed. But Blake did
not possess Swedenborg's scientific mind, nor had he ever any idea of
building his religion upon scientific attainments or scientific reasonings.
He did not even think of basing upon them his own moral or
political rules. All existing societies are, according to him, founded
upon reason, and make laws which are, or appear to be, logical.
Therefore, they are all wrong. Every man should have a law adapted
to his own character. "One law for the lion and ox is oppression." 4
Blake is all for liberty, for the absence of any laws, for anarchy, as
we should call it. What would be the practical effects of such dis-
organisation, or how it could be attained, he did not trouble to con-
sider. These questions belong to the world of material reality, with
which he had neither the power nor the wish to concern himself.
¹ Notes on Reynolds: Discourse III
3 There is no Natural Religion.
2 Id: Discourse VI.
* Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
HIS THEORIES
85
And so he goes on, clearing his own path, tearing down and
trampling underfoot the very fabric of the world, pitilessly destroying
all that generations of men have built up, attacking with desperate
energy everything that his age most valued and approved. No wonder
that we find him regarded by his contemporaries as an eccentric,
and even as a madman. But he is not contented with demolishing.
Reconstruction follows the work of the destroyer; and upon the
chaos of ruins he has made, he builds a new and complicated system,
itself at times scarcely less chaotic, and one that seems strange indeed
to anyone who approaches it unprepared.
I
VIII: CONSTRUCTIVE WORK-IMAGINATION
AND SYMBOLISM
F we take away from the human soul its faculty of per-
ceiving external objects, and that of reasoning and judging,
there will remain only Imagination, that is to say, the power
of creating new ideas; Passion, which in its widest sense
includes all pleasure and pain, all love and hate; and Will, or the
power to act, which influences both these faculties. Thus, to take the
old-fashioned division of the soul's faculties into Intellect, Feeling
and Will, Intellect will now be represented only by Imagination.
Here we have practically the whole of Blake's psychology. For him,
imagination is the only source of knowledge. Sometimes he calls it
the spirit of prophecy, sometimes the poetic genius: but it is always
the same faculty. In it are to be found the origin and medium of his
visions, his manner of regarding the world, and all his religious and
philosophical doctrines. Obviously, any system so founded must
defy all discussion. For a man whose sole standard of truth is his
own imagination, argument has no force, and any affirmation is
possible. The truth is what he sees, or, rather, what he imagines.
It cannot be demonstrated: it can only be felt by an act of faith.
Blake had the most profound contempt for those who tried to show,
by argument, the truth of any religion whatsoever. The sole and
indisputable proof of any truth, according to him, is our direct
spiritual perception of it, a kind of intuitive and instinctive vision.
We know that such and such a thing is true because our spirit feels
it to be so, just as we know that a thing is hot when we touch it.
Therefore everything that we imagine is true, provided we feel that
it is true. And Blake did feel the truth of everything he imagined.
These theories, though he rarely states them as actual doctrine,
are at the bottom of his whole system of thought. They are the theories
of all believers, all mystics, visionaries and occultists. Has not Pascal
defined faith as " God felt by the heart"? We find these doctrines
set forth very fully, and in terms that Blake would not have disavowed,
in the writings of the greatest Theosophist of our time, Mrs. A.
Besant. According to her, the spirit which perceives instead of
reasoning is a quality of the Supreme Ego, and its faculty is true
CONSTRUCTIVE WORK
87
intuition, absolute knowledge of an object, quicker than bodily vision,
sure, unhesitating, and superior to all reason. But, unlike the images
created by passion or desire, these intuitions do not come except by
silent prayer and profound contemplation, for so only can the soul
hear the voice of the Supreme Ego, which, proceeding directly from
God, remains in uninterrupted communication with him.
We cannot clearly see from Blake's work whether, like Mrs. Besant
and the ancient Hindoo sages, he believed this intuition to come from
the soul's Supreme Ego, the " Higher Manas," which is as omniscient
as God, or whether he regarded it as a revelation of God Himself,
though the former view seems the more probable. However that
may be, the practical result is the same. He believed in intuition as
opposed to reason, just as an animal trusts in the infallibility of its
instinct. For a mind so organised, to see or hear a truth is to be im-
mediately convinced by it. On the other hand, it would be as difficult
to convince an unbeliever by argument as to give a full explanation
of colour to one blind from birth. And so Blake never sets forth his
theories in the hope of convincing those who do not already know
them, but only in order to confirm his supporters in their adherence.
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out.
A Riddle, or the Cricket's Cry
Is to Doubt a fit Reply. . .
He who Doubts from what he sees
Will never Believe, do what you Please ;
If the Sun and Moon should Doubt,
They'd immediately Go Out. 1
And so the field is open to every kind of theory, no matter how
extraordinary. But the theories, for this very reason, can only interest
us as curiosities, and cannot, unless indeed we are believers, bring
us a step nearer to the solution of the problems they claim to settle.
We can only regard them as a work of art, to be admired for its beauty
or its ingenuity, not as a philosophical system to be examined and
tested. If we believe in Blake at all, it must be by sheer intuitive faith
like his own." This thing is true, because I feel that it must be so."
Thus his religion becomes a simple revelation, a question of faith,
like all revealed religions. Revealed religion still tries at times to prove
its Divine origin. Though no explanation can be given of its mysteries,
it seeks to establish them upon facts, miracles and logical arguments.
1 ¹ Auguries of Innocence.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
Blake denies the facts, despises the miracles and puts no trust in the
arguments. Going further than Swedenborg, who does often reason
and explain, he relies simply upon assertions, for which his visions
are the sole authority. Of any revelations that differ from his own
he takes no account: they do not disturb his faith at all. All are true.
For truth is not a unity; or if it is, then it presents different appear-
ances to different minds. All the visions of the prophets are individual
expressions of truth, seen in the light of each one's imagination.
At bottom, when beheld with double or triple vision, all must have
the same meaning. All contradictions are apparent only. And some
day, when we know more, when "Sweet Science "-that is, art and
the poetic genius-" reigns," ¹ harmony will emerge from the chaos.
It is only the systems founded on experience and reason that are
opposed to one another and for ever conflicting. Human knowledge
is proved false by the very fact that its conclusions are perpetually
being changed. "Truth has bounds, Error none."2 And, in this
limitless world of error, the philosophers and the learned will always
continue to dispute. Poets and artists alone understand each other.
They offer no reasoned criticism. Instead of arguing about beauty,
they feel it instinctively, because they believe in its existence and
recognise it everywhere. And our test of truth should be the same.
Blake might indeed have written Keats's celebrated lines:
"¹
'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 3
We can no more prove truth than we can beauty. Both are
objects of intuitive spiritual perception; and the only real science
is art.
It follows that the source of art, the faculty through which all
truth reaches us, and in which neither reason nor the external world
can have any part, can only be the imagination. To imagination we
owe the intuitive power which gives us our direct vision of the truth.
Now imagination, in the normal mind, performs two great functions.
One is to interpret and make more alive to us our perception of the
external world, and the other is to create, out of nothing, ideas that
are entirely new. In Blake's mind the first of these functions gave
rise to his philosophic symbolism: the second produced his mytho-
logy and his new universe.
¹ Vala: Night IX. 2 Book of Los: Chapter II. 3 Ode on a Grecian Urn.
CONSTRUCTIVE WORK
89
SYMBOLISM
In poetry, as a rule, the description of any external object serves
to show it to us in some new light, to give it, while the thing itself
remains unchanged, a special kind of life, to help us (as Shelley says)
"to feel that which we perceive and to realise that which we know." 1
With Blake, the process is slightly different. His spirit throws no
new light upon the object he sees, shows us no unobserved details,
brings out nothing that we had noticed though less distinctly. He
does not assist us in forming a strong and accurate image of the thing
seen by him. On the contrary, acting upon his intuitive conviction
that the created world is non-existent and illusive, he makes of it,
so to speak, a transparent glass, behind which lies reality. His spiritual
eye looks through it, and sees only that which is beyond. This is
the power of "double vision."
I do not behold the outward creation: to me it is hindrance and not
action. It is as the dirt upon my feet-no part of me. 2
And we know that, for him, things which had no part in his spirit
simply did not exist.
I have already given some examples of this "double vision.”
The sun becomes a legion of angels: a thistle is an old man standing
in the way; a cloud, the soul of his dead brother; a lark, the
messenger of the celestial powers. All animals and all plants are
spirits similar to human spirits, or actual men.
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that won't Believe;
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbeliever's fright.
The Gnat that sings his Summer's Song
Poison gets from Slander's tongue.
The poison of the Snake and Newt
Is the sweat of Envy's Foot.
The poison of the Honey Bee
Is the Artist's Jealousy. "
3
Each grain of Sand,
Every Stone on the Land,
Each rock and each hill,
Each fountain and rill,
¹ Defence of Poetry.
2 The Last Judgment.
3 Auguries of Innocence.
90
WILLIAM BLAKE
Each herb and each tree,
Mountain, hill, earth and sea,
Cloud, Meteor and Star,
Are Men Seen Afar. 1
Such an interpretation is only natural to a man for whom nothing
existed except the human spirit. Every other object that he saw must
also be a spirit like himself. Consequently, all things everywhere
are human. The visible world is but the outward sign of bodies hiding
a soul. And even this last assertion could not satisfy Blake, since,
to him, body and soul were not distinct things. The body is a part
of the soul made visible, the expression of the soul to our external
senses. There is no separation of one from the other. The parting of
soul and body is not the putting off of an old garment which can be
utterly destroyed: it is the soul's release from its visible part, or,
better still, its ceasing to be visible. The body was not only a prison
in which the soul was enclosed and from which it now escapes; it
was rather a product of the soul, as the cocoon is a product of the
silkworm, an emanation from the soul, created by and attached to
the soul, like a kind of vegetable growth, in order to give it a material
visibility, and also for other and profounder reasons which will be
explained later. Thus all material objects are bodies created by the
souls which they at once display and hide, and in which they seem
to be enclosed. This theory, while resembling the metempsychosis
of the ancients, differs in some respects from it. For them, body and
soul had an independent existence, the soul passing into the
bodies of plants and animals, according to its tendencies in this
life. But neither the animal nor the plant was an integral part
of it. Blake, like the ancient Indians, held that the soul not merely
decides what body it shall enter, but actually creates a body for itself,
and perhaps passes in this way through a series of existences. He
does not clearly say how this creation is worked sometimes, indeed,
he even adopts the common expression, and speaks of a soul impris-
oned in its body of clay, and actually represents in pictures the
separation and reunion of the soul and the body. But he never loses
sight of his essential idea of the body as a part of the spirit made
visible.
Consequently, we are everywhere surrounded by spirits. We only
see the visible part of them, and are satisfied with that, because we
are men of simple vision, living in the world of matter, which is
1 To Mr. Butts.
CONSTRUCTIVE WORK
91
illusion. The great poets alone can see the invisible. And for this
reason they have recourse to metaphors, giving a soul to material
things, and making them think and feel like men. An effect of their
imagination! we say. Blake would reply: No, but the expression and
actual perception of reality! The poets themselves, however, do not
deny the independent existence of material things. Blake does deny
it. To him a metaphor is no mere poetic fiction: it is the truth. If
he had lived in ancient times, he would have believed literally in the
horses of Phœbus and the rosy fingers of Aurora. He would have
formed his creed out of all the allegories of the poets. It is true that
he attempts to distinguish between allegory and his own visions.
"Fable or allegory," he says, " is a totally distinct and inferior kind of
poetry. Vision, or imagination, is a representation of what actually exists
really, and unchangeably. Fable or allegory is formed by the daughters
of Memory. Imagination is surrounded by the daughters of Inspiration.
The Greeks represent Chronos, or Time, as a very aged man. This
is fable; but the real vision of Time is an Eternal youth.
1
He does, however, allow some power of vision to the poets who
preceded him.
Fable or allegory is seldom without some vision. Pilgrim's Progress is
full of it. The Greek poets the same. But allegory and vision ought to be
known as two things, and so called.
2
Freed from unessential details, the distinction does not seem a
really important one. It depends upon the degree of its creator's
genius, and, above all, on his originality. If the metaphor is evolved
slowly, and as the result of thought, labour and comparison, then it
is Allegory. When it presents itself to the mind in a flash, then it is
Vision, and partakes itself of the nature of revelation. And all great
poets have believed in revelation.
The ancients did not mean to impose when they affirmed their belief
in Vision and Revelation. Plato was in earnest. Milton was in earnest.
They believed that God did visit man really and truly. 3
Blake's visions or revelations seem, then, to be only a sort of gen-
eralization and concretion of symbols. He turns every visible thing
into a metaphor, using the tiger's eyes for anger, a pebble for hard-
heartedness, the myrtle for conjugal love, the sunflower for desire
1 The Last Judgment.
& The Last Judgment.
* Notes on Reynolds: Discourse VII.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
of the infinite, and so making each of these objects a symbol of some-
thing invisible. Most makers of symbols stop at this point, to avoid
becoming absurd. But Blake fearlessly goes on to deny the existence
of the symbol, and affirms instead that of the abstract thing symbol-
ized. For him, the sunflower, the myrtle, the pebble, the tiger's eyes,
have all vanished, leaving only angry or selfish men, bound by
marriage vows, or burning with never-satisfied desires. His authority
for such assertions is simply his own vision. In the same way the
priest, in the mass of Bolsenna, saw the blood of Christ on the con-
secrated elements: in the same way, many saints have beheld Christ
himself upon the altar. Blake's assertions are as daring as the doctrine
of transubstantiation itself. After the words of consecration, the
bread and wine cease to exist, and there remains only the Saviour.
Blake would say:
The bread and wine were never there, except
as delusive appearances. It is the body of the Saviour that has been
there from all eternity." This utter destruction of the symbol is
accepted in the central mystery of the Catholic religion, and is the
essence of the Church's sacramental doctrine, the doctrine that
Material phenomena are both the type and the instrument of real
things unseen." But what if this idea were carried still further?
When the smoke of the incense rises from the altar, symbolizing the
prayers of the congregation, the priest says: "Dirigatur, Domine,
oratio mea sicut incensum in conspectu tuo," and, in so saying, admits
the existence of the incense. But Blake would say: "There is no
incense: I see only a ladder by which angels are carrying our prayers
up to God's throne." And he would feel only pity for the unbeliever
who could not see it also.
These familiar symbols will help us to understand Blake's con-
ception of the visible world. We have only to apply the same proced-
ure to every other case. The world of matter has no existence of its
own it is only a symbol of the invisible universe, something shown
to us in order that, through it, we may gain knowledge of what we
cannot see. The earth, the sky, the sun, are all symbols, each at once
a portion and a visible representation, as delusive as a mirage, of
some eternal spirit. Trees, animals, nay more, even men, are only
symbols. History is a symbol : revolutions are symbols of some great
change actually taking place in the invisible world. The American
Revolution, for instance, merely symbolized the revolt of the angels
of liberty against the powers of tyranny in the eternal universe.
1 Newman: Apologia.
CONSTRUCTIVE WORK
93
America itself is only a symbol, standing for that part of the human
spirit not yet subjugated and bound down by tyrannical laws. Blake
is a symbol, a mere transitory form of the prophetic spirit: his wife
is a symbol of the internal joy felt by that spirit, and of its softer
emotions. And so we pass through this little life of ours, unknowing,
unsuspecting that we are but reflections, metaphors in action, symbols
and representations of eternal beings, who dwell outside of time and
space, and whose life is the only real existence.
In this theory also Blake goes a step further than any of his pre-
decessors. He was no doubt acquainted with the doctrines of mediæval
science, which held matter and spirit to be inseparable, regarding
one as the result of the other and both as emanations from God. He
had at anyrate read all this in the Divine Comedy.
That which dies not,
And that which can die, are but each the beam
Of that idea, which our Sovereign Sire
Engendereth loving; for that lively light,
Which passeth from his brightness, not disjoin'd
From him, nor from his love triune with them,
Doth, through his bounty, congregate itself,
Mirror'd, as 'twere in new existences,
Itself unalterable and ever one.
Descending hence unto the lowest powers,
Its energy so sinks, at last it makes
But brief contingencies: for so I name
Things generated, which the heavenly orbs,
Moving, with seed or without seed, produce.
Their wax, and that which molds it, differ much :
And thence with lustre, more or less, it shows
Th' ideal stamp imprest. ¹
1
This idea of a bond uniting all things, visible and invisible, in the
universe, pervaded all the thought of the middle ages. To it was due
the doctrine of the influence exercised by the stars upon human
destinies. It suggested the remarkable correspondence between angels
and planets which gives Dante's map of Paradise its shape. It was
at the root of most of the teachings of occult science.
And it is but a step from the idea of an indissoluble bond to that
of symbol and thing symbolized. Philosophical idealism helps us
to make the transition. The visible world has no existence, and yet
¹ Paradiso: XIII (Cary's translation).
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WILLIAM BLAKE
we see it. It can, therefore, only be a metaphor, and the bond be-
tween visible and invisible is the relation of a metaphor to the abstract
thing it represents. Nowhere has this theory of the world's symbolic
character been so strongly or so clearly expressed as by Swedenborg,
who not only recognizes that one current of life flows unceasingly
from the spiritual to the material world, but defines exactly the close
relationship existing between the two.
The whole natural world corresponds to the spiritual world, not only
the natural world in general, but also in particular. Whatever, therefore,
in the natural world, comes into being from the spiritual, is said to be its
correspondent. It is to be known that the natural world exists and subsists
from the spiritual world, just as an effect comes forth from its efficient
cause. 1
Thus the human form corresponds with that of Heaven, and the
structure of the whole visible world (the Macrocosm) with that of
man. In every man, there are exactly the same number of parts as
in Heaven, in the body the same number as in the spirit. And these
divisions and correspondences are carried out in the minutest detail.
Thus by the head is signified intelligence and wisdom; by the breast,
charity; by the loins, marriage love; by the arms and hands, the power
of truth; by the feet, what is natural; by the eyes, understanding; by
the nostrils, perceptions; by the ears, obedience; by the kidneys, the
purification of truth; and so on. 2
All things are "correspondents": animals, plants, minerals, sun,
moon and stars, clouds, mists, rain, lightning and thunder, the
seasons, the hours of the day,
In a word, all things which exist in nature, from the least to the greatest,
are correspondents. The reason they are correspondents is that the natural
world, and all that it contains, exists and subsists from the spiritual world,
and both worlds from the Divine. 3
To arrive at Blake's idea, we have only to discover the correspond-
ence, to suppress the natural world, which is the symbol, and to gain
a direct vision of the spiritual world, though even triple or quadruple
vision may not reach to the world of the divine itself. This notion
of a body existing only as a symbol of the soul, extraordinary as it
may appear, still holds an important position in English philosophy
and theology, and is supported by men who would set small value
¹ Heaven and Hell: § 89.
3 Heaven and Hell: § 106.
2 Id. § 97.
CONSTRUCTIVE WORK
95
upon Blake's theories. In a recent book, for instance, we have the
following statement, the reference being to the parents of a dead
child, who desire to find him again in another world, though
neither forced to remain an infant nor yet grown and altered beyond
recognition :
What binds them to him is something deeper. The physical organism of
the child was but the symbol which expressed the higher meaning of his
personality to them, just as in the patches of paint upon a canvas, which
at one standpoint are mere patches of paint, we are able, at another stand-
point, to discern as symbolised, the higher meaning, the higher expression. ¹
1
It was always from this other point of view that Blake regarded
the world of nature and matter, Consequently, everything in the
visible universe was an expression of some profounder invisible
existence; and, as a further consequence, no earthly thing could
ever be insignificant.
What to others a trifle appears
Fills me full of smiles or tears. 2
The fly that buzzes round us is a man bent upon his own amuse-
ment, and therefore no careless hand may kill it. No foot must crush
the humble worm, which is a new-born infant.
The Catterpiller on the Leaf
Reminds thee of thy Mother's Grief. 3
Hence his boundless pity for all weak creatures :
Art thou a Worm, image of weakness? art thou but a Worm?
I see thee, like an infant, wrapped in the Lilly's leaf.
Ah! weep not, little voice; thou can'st not speak, but thou can'st weep!
Is this a Worm? I see thee lie helpless and naked, weeping,
And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mother's smiles. 4
Hence also his indignation at every suffering inflicted upon the
humblest of these dumb creatures :
A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.
A dove-house fill'd with Doves and Pigeons
Shudders Hell through all its regions. . .
A Dog starved at his Master's gate
2 To Mr. Butts.
¹ Haldane: The Pathway to Reality.
3 Gates of Paradise.
¹ Book of Thel: p. 4.
96
WILLIAM BLAKE
Predicts the ruin of the State.
A Horse misused upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood.
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear.
A Skylark wounded in the wing;
A Cherubim does cease to sing. 1
And if, behind these symbols of animal life, there are such heights
of Heaven suffering with them, what must it be when suffering is
inflicted upon men? If Eternity is so closely allied with the poor
redbreast, the wren, and the earthworm, how much more with man,
mere symbol though he be ! Blake was deeply inbued with the Gospel
saying:
Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not
fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head
are all numbered. Fear ye not, therefore, ye are of more value than many
sparrows. 2
Human sorrow, according to him, like that of animals, and in an
even greater degree, re-echoes eternally through Heaven.
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 Almightie's Bow. 3
Every injustice done to men is fraught with terrible consequences
in the invisible world.
The Soldier, armed with Sword and Gun,
Palsied strikes the Summer Sun.
The Beggar's Rags, fluttering in Air,
Does to Rags the Heavens tear. 4
And the invisible world, in its turn, will react on the visible and
pay back its cruelties.
The Harlot's cry from Street to Street
Shall weave Old England's winding-Sheet.
The Winner's Shout, the Loser's Curse
Dance before dead England's Hearse. 5
Even the will of man may bring about changes in Heaven. Certain
¹ Auguries of Innocence.
Auguries of Innocence.
2 St. Matthew x, 29. 3 Jerusalem: To the Deists.
5 Id.
CONSTRUCTIVE WORK
97
1
dreamers ¹ have believed that our words and thoughts have power
to create, somewhere in the world of infinitude, visible and material
objects which will serve as their concrete expression, just as the
creation was the concrete expression of the divine Fiat, arising out
of chaos. The Eastern philosophers have shown us how a man's
thoughts and passions weave around him a new body, floating unseen
in space, which is given to him, as reward or punishment, when his
physical body has perished.
The Karma, all that total of a soul
Which is the things it did, the thoughts it had,
The Self it wove with woof of viewless time,
Crossed on the warp invisible of acts;
The outcome of Him on the Universe. 2
Without affirming in so many words the truth of such an idea,
Blake certainly believed that the world of pure thought exercised an
influence over the world of symbols, and that movements in it have
power to disturb the heavens. Speaking of a Devil, he says:
At his curse the sun went down,
And the heavens gave a frown. 3
But he also says of himself:
When I had my Defiance given,
The Sun stood trembling in Heaven ;
The Moon, that glow'd remote below,
Became leprous and white as snow;
And the Sun was hot
With the bows of my Mind and the Arrows of Thought. 4
Thus in nature he always saw God, and, through time, he could
perceive eternity. He realized for himself the ideal that he was always
preaching :
To see a World in a Grain of Sand,
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand,
And Eternity in an hour. 5
Not only did he see the invisible through the symbols of the
visible. He also had direct revelations of it: his visions and the
creations of his poetic imagination, all of which were more real to
¹ See, for instance, Poe's Power of Words. 2 E. Arnold: The Light of Asia, VI.
3 Rossetti MS.: No. 5.
Auguries of Innocence.
4 To Mr. Butts.
5
H
98
WILLIAM BLAKE
:
him than anything in the actual world. There were thus two
sources from which Blake's universe was derived his visions spon-
taneously created, and the things that he perceived through the
visible world. The two currents are closely intermingled, and it is
often difficult to distinguish them. In most cases, moreover, they give
an identical result, namely, the hitherto unknown universe which
is the product of his visions, and which we have now to explore, And
it is indeed a strange world, a perpetual enigma to our minds, free
from all the laws of the material universe, and yet with a life and a
soul of its own, full of chaotic passions, of revolutions and wars, of
victories and defeats, of despair and death and eternal life. A universe
small enough, no larger than the human brain, its limits not extended
by any scientific calculations; its earth a flat circle bounded by the
range of our eyesight, its heaven a blue dome close over our heads-
he touched it one day with his stick-its infinite starry spaces, a void.
And, for all that, an infinite universe, exceeding time and space, or
rather existing above them in eternity, where nothing has a fixed
place, but every object fills immensity, where gigantic spirit-forms
move through the regions of infinity; a universe that no geometry
can measure and no barriers enclose; the universe of man's spirit,
of the Eternal Spirit, ageless, for ever old and young, like God.
From this world, at once unknown and familiar, his creations.
come. Even when he shows them to us in visible symbols, it is they
themselves alone that are important. With them, he forms a complete
'mythological system, having its council of the gods, its epic wars,
its conquerors and conquered, its heavens and hells, its powers of
light and darkness-the intricate and eternally storm-swept realm of
a tempest in a brain.”
6
With these personages we must now make acquaintance, so that,
having gained some knowledge of Blake's way of seeing, we may
understand also what it was that he saw.
IX: HIS UNIVERSE-THE CREATION OF THE WORLD:
SPECTRE AND EMANATION-THE FALL
I
AND REGENERATION OF MAN
T is to the world of the invisible that we now find our-
selves transported, a world which existed before our material
world, and which will exist always; the only one whose
existence is real, though we are not aware of it, seeing only
its shadow projected in time and space, and taking that shadow
for substance. This world is organized like ours: it has its
circles, its cosmography, its hierarchy of powers. Blake could have
given an exact description of it, as the visionaries and the Gnostics
did of theirs. Perhaps he did so. But in what remains of the Prophet-
ical Books, we find only fragments of description, " Here a little and
there a little." It is only by joining the fragments, by comparing
them, by interpreting or by explaining some through others, that
any definite idea of his conception of this universe and its inhabitants
is reached. Even then, the description is not complete. There are
many blanks to be filled, many contradictions and doubtful inter-
pretations.
At the same time, we find here and there reminiscences of the
Gnostics and the Cabalists, of Boehme and Swedenborg. But they
are reminiscences only, and sometimes, perhaps, only coincidences:
they are never copies. Blake's visions and conceptions left his mind
with undoubtedly personal attributes, even though they may have
sprung from older ideas. He could not have read the Gnostic writers:
but he was not far from being a Gnostic himself, and, like them, was
saturated with the spirit of the Hebrew prophets and the Apocalypse.
He knew the Cabalistic theories, and had adopted some of them;
but they left no deep traces in his work. He took much from Boehme,
whom he greatly admired. As to Swedenborg, after having studied
him minutely and long admired him, he gradually changed his
opinion of him, and believed himself to have far surpassed him in
knowledge of the invisible. We shall see later on how much Blake
owes to each of his predecessors, and how he has reshaped their
thoughts and rebuilt their universe.
But his world is no imitation, either of Swedenborg's, with its
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WILLIAM BLAKE
regions infinitely divided to correspond with the divisions of the
human body, or of Dante's, with its concentric circles. Neither is it
the universe of the Cabala with its spheres and its Sephiroth, nor
the Gnostic system of Eons, with its successive emanations of worlds
from the Supreme Mystery, its Archons, Liturges, Angels, and all
the hierarchy of an organized kingdom.
Blake's universe is outside space, and has no form, no centre from
which all life is derived, no Initial Mystery, no “primum mobile."
One might almost say it has no God. There is hardly any indication
of a Supreme Power. Somewhere there are beings whom he calls.
the Eternals, who seem to govern the world, but who, like the ancient
Gods of the classics, apparently have their power strictly limited.
We find the spirits disputing before their assembly.
But Palamabron called down a Great Solemn Assembly. ¹
And it was enquired: Why in a Great Solemn Assembly
The Innocent should be condemn'd for the Guilty? Then an Eternal rose,
Saying
So spake the Eternal, and confirm'd it with a thunderous oath.” 2
It is before these same Eternals that Milton offers to return to
the world, to instruct humanity again in the mysteries of the in-
visible universe. And, at the end of time, there is a feast of the
Eternals, to celebrate the welcoming back of man, regenerate now,
into their midst.
And the Eternal Man
Sat at the feast rejoicing, and the wine of Eternity
Was served round by the flames of Luvah all day and all the night.
And many Eternal Men sat at the golden feast. ³
They embraced the new-born Man,
Calling him Brother, image of the Eternal Father. 4
As for this Eternal Father, who might be the Supreme Deity, he
is nowhere described. He reflects his image on each of us, but we know
nothing more of him than that. He has no part to act, no word to
speak, in Blake's poems, and we cannot tell whether the God of his-
childhood, the God of the first " Songs of Innocence," is this Divine
Father or only one of these Eternals, walking among men. Like the
great Prabrahm, the First Mystery, the Ineffable, He is doubtless
lost to sight in some undiscoverable region beyond the reach even
of the eternal Spirit of men and gods.
¹ Milton: 6:46. 2 Milton, 9: 15, 27. 3 Vala: Night IX, 613.
4 Id., 638.
HIS UNIVERSE
1
The Eternals themselves dwell far off, seeing rather than sharing
the life of men, like the immortals whom Homer tells of, in their
palace on Olympus, when forbidden to take part in the struggle
between the Trojans and the Greeks. They send forth their messen-
gers, the prophets and the poets; and Blake invokes them before
revealing his truths to the world.
Eternals, I hear your call gladly.
Dictate swift winged words, and fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment. 1
There are many, and yet live as one: the same spirit breathes
through them all: they are the Eternal Family, are conscious of
perfect unity, and form an indivisible Eternity. We find their names,
or rather, the names of seven of them, mentioned in "Jerusalem "; 2
and in Vala we read of—
the Seven
Eyes of God, and the Seven Lamps of the Almighty.
The seven are one within the other. 3
They are: Lucifer, the angel of light; Molech, the ancient god
of sacrifice; Elohim, the creator of Adam; Shaddai, the angry;
Pahad, the terrified; Jehovah, the leprous, god of materialism and
jealous law'; and the last, Jesus, the Saviour of man. And here we
can already recognize five of the names of God given in the Cabala:
Jehovah, the mysterious; Elohim, who punishes, and who is also
Pechad or Fear; Sadai, the all-powerful, who presides over the
increase and decrease of all things; and Molech, who gives to man-
kind intelligence and knowledge.
Man was originally one of these Eternals, and was in all points
like them. He had the same power, and was eternal and infinite,
filling the limitless universe. His essence was divine like theirs ;
and to call them men was not in any way to degrade their nature.
Thou art a Man: God is no more. 4
In fact, they were men: the essential and universal man; not
like the men who make up our poor humanity, but the elemental
and unique spirit, the very essence of man's nature, which makes
us all recognize each other as beings of the same species. This unique
essence is not merely divine: it is a god, perhaps God Himself, the
"Divine Humanity." Thus God is brought down to the level of
¹ Book of Urizen: Preludium.
2 Jerusalem, 55, 32.
3 Vala. Night I, 406.
4 The Everlasting Gospel.
WILLIAM BLAKE
man's spirit, or man's spirit is deified and raised till it reaches God.
Blake wrote in his youth:
Nor is it possible to Thought
A greater than itself to know: 1
But he did know God; and therefore he regarded his own thought,
and the essence of our whole humanity as equal with God.
This essential spirit of humanity, origin of man and equal of
God, is not Adam. It is rather the pre-Adamite man of the Cabalists,
the "Adam Kadmon," who was before the creation, and who,
divine himself, has reposed in the bosom of God from times Eternal.
He was outside time and space, and consequently the physical laws
of our world had no power over him. He was everywhere at once,
concentrating within himself the whole universe, making one with
the Great All. Being All, he had no wants, no desires: he can
scarcely be said to have lived, in the sense in which we use the word.
He endured. There was no material world to bar his infinite expansion,
no moral law to block his way with the words Thou shalt not."
He had nothing to learn, and lived in endless self-contemplation.
He was like a thought in the mind of God, inseparable from him ;
resembling, not even a drop in the ocean, but rather one of those
myriads of forces that act on each drop, revolving through the entire
mass in ceaseless torrents of life, which are nothing except in it and
by it, but with it are everything.
Here we see the state of primal happiness, the celestial Paradise,
far above our poor Eden. It was Nirvânâ before the creation of the
world, the perfect communion with God, the sharing of all the
attributes of the Godhead.
Earth was not, nor globes of attraction.
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all-flexible senses.
Death was not, but eternal life sprung. 2
Were there myriads of these men, these Eternals, or was there
only one Eternal Man? What matters it? Number belongs to time
and space. Indivisible unity embraced them all; and they were but
one. It would be of little use were we to count the individual cells
that make up the human body. Not one of them is conscious of its
individuality; but all share equally in the complete knowledge of
our existence, and all combine in us to make one.
1
Songs of Experience. A Little Boy Lost.
2 Urizen, II,
HIS UNIVERSE
103
But suppose one of these cells to become conscious of its own
existence, and to say, "I exist, independently of the body as a
whole." This thought would be the beginning of a separate creation,
the formation of a personality, the first fall of man from unity.
Must not something analogous occur when the newly conceived being
begins to live a conscious life even in its mother's womb? In such
wise came the first fall from Eternity, the first separation of something
from the Divine whole, the phenomenon of creation, which, at
bottom, is only a division. One of the thoughts of God separated
itself from Him, as it is written in the Gospel of St. John: this
Thought became the Word, which has been with Him from the
beginning, and before the beginning, the word which was God.
"Et verbum erat apud Deum et Deus erat verbum." And the word
became the Fiat, and had its echo in Eternity: the created universe
was its emanation.
Blake says no more than this, though he may say it differently.
According to him, there was a spirit who separated himself from
Eternity, from that infinite Unity constituted by the Spirit of
Universal Man, both All and One, and who thus became a personality
different from the Eternals, who are one though many. In separating
from them, he created a kind of abstract void between them and
himself he wrenched himself away from them, diminishing both
himself and the Eternal Infinite at the same instant.
Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity, unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos'd, all repelling: what Demon
Hath form'd this abominable void,
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? Some said,
"It is Urizen." But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding secret, the dark power hid.
Dark, revolving in silent activity,
Unseen in tormenting passions,
An activity unknown and horrible,
A self-contemplating shadow
In enormous labours occupied.
But Eternals beheld his vast forests:
Age on ages he lay, clos'd unknown,
Brooding, shut in the deep. 1
1 Urizen, I, 1, 4, 5.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
Thus began the existence of Urizen, the firstborn of Eternity,
who plays so great a part in the works of Blake. We shall have to
study him in many shapes; but for us now he is only the first
conscious being, disembodied still, but nevertheless the first
creation, the first "I" as distinguished from the All, the Ancient
of Days.
The first existence of a separate personality is pregnant with
consequences. We have now two distinct beings : Eternity and Urizen.
But the birth of Urizen marks a definite moment in Eternity. There
is therefore a date, the beginning of something. And as, in the Bible,
the first great act of creation marks the first day, so the breaking away
of the first personality from the great "All" marks the beginning of
time. Time is created simply by the birth of a separate Will. His
name, in Blake's great mythical system, is Los. From henceforward
the history of Urizen will belong no more to Eternity, but to Time.
It will be Los's task, therefore, to separate this new-born personality
from the Eternals. He is the smith who will bind Urizen in the chain
of Days and Years.
And Los round the dark globe of Urizen
Kept watch for Eternals to confine
The obscure separation alone. 1
And Los formed nets and gins
And threw the nets round about.
He watched in shudd'ring fear
The dark changes, and bound every change
With rivets of iron and brass. 2
Thus Urizen passed through changes; and each change was no
longer eternal, but fixed a period, and was existent in Time. Now,
Urizen himself, like the Eternals, is nothing but an aggregate of
myriads of elemental essences, alive only in the general knowledge of
his unity. These elements might combine in a different order, might
divide and separate themselves from him after the example he has
given them. And these are the changes that Time, by his division,
would bind or fix-the rivets of brass and iron. In like wise, as we
read in Genesis, God divided the light from the darkness, and the
evening and the morning were the first day. But the story in Genesis
is only a symbol, signifying to Blake that Urizen tore himself apart
from Eternity, and that Time began. It is partly on account of this
¹ Urizen, III, 8.
2 Id, IV, 4.
HIS UNIVERSE
105
symbol that, later on, he calls Urizen the Prince of Light, and that
the name Los is also the name of the sun-an anagram of “Sol.”
From this moment in the story follow the seven days of creation,
as symbolised in the majestic Bible narrative, and in the even more
majestic evolution of the earth and of life which geological knowledge
is beginning to reveal to us. What really came to pass in the invisible
world was the progressive creation of Urizen. He developed, age by
age, like some monstrous animal in the throes of a painful gestation
and a delivery wrapped in darkness and confusion. At first, there
was nothing but a dark globe of invisible flame, the fire of life,
sometimes spherical, because he is wrapped in self-concentration;
at other times becoming heart-shaped, because the pulse of life beats
in him, and at others again like great loins, ready to bring forth the
universe.
Like a black globe
Viewed by sons of Eternity; standing
On the shore of the infinite ocean,
Like a human heart struggling and beating,
The vast world of Urizen appeared. 1
Thus, in a dreamless night, this spirit, who is also a world, remained
an unshapen mass of flesh or clay, until in time, with the help of Los,
definite forms began to appear in him.
Restless turn'd the immortal inchain'd,
Heaving dolorous, anguish'd, unbearable,
Till a roof shaggy wild inclos'd
In an orb his fountain of thought.
In a horrible dreamful slumber,
Like the linked infernal chain,
A vast Spine writh'd in torment
Upon the winds; shooting pain'd
Ribs, like a bending cavern,
And bones of solidness, froze,
Over all his nerves of joy.
And a first Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe. 2
And straightway Blake draws, on the opposite page, a globe of
light in the midst of darkness, and in this globe a monstrous skeleton,
bent and crouching like the embryo in its envelope; its elbows
touching its knees, one bony hand clasping its eyeless skull, in an
1 Urizen, III, 7.
2 Urizen, IV, 5.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
attitude of misery, terror and immense despair. Thus age succeeds
age, and in horror and suffering, the flesh and muscles, the eyes, nose
and tongue, all take shape. At last, Urizen stands upright, flings his
arms out to north and south, and with his feet stamps the nether
abyss, trembling, howling, in despair. He feels that he has lost eternity,
and consequently is miserable and furious. But all in vain. From
henceforth Urizen will live by his own vitality; and the world which
he has created, the universe which he constitutes, will continue to
develop itself.
But other lives also are created at the same time, and always in
consequence of the first creation. The separation of Urizen has
divided Eternity. From henceforth, the Eternals are in one place, and
Urizen's universe in another. The Infinite has become finite. Space
comes into existence at the same moment with Time.
Sund'ring, dark'ning, thund'ring,
Rent away with a terrible crash,
Eternity roll'd wide apart,
Mountainous all round,
Departing, departing, departing,
Leaving ruinous fragments of life,
Hanging, frowning cliffs, and all between
An ocean of voidness unfathomable.
And whilst Los, the mighty smith, forged his rivets of iron and
brass, creating Time and its divisions, he by that act enclosed Urizen,
not in Time only, but also in Space, separating him from the Infinite.
Urizen's senses also, his nose, ears, eyes and tongue, as they came
into being, felt that they were limited, and could no longer perceive
Eternity and the Infinite. With these same senses began the feeling
of visible space, with its dimensions and its limitations. Thus Los
was the personification of both Time and Space, the two new and
inevitable consequences of the creation of the new universe.
Now it is the fate of those who separate themselves from others
to feel fresh divisions within their own beings. Los, in separating
Urizen from Eternity, became himself conscious of an individual
existence. He was an Ego," as Urizen was. He could no longer be
one with Eternity, nor return to his former state. He, who was at once
Time and Space, was for ever separated from the Eternal-Infinite,
confined within the same limits as those in which he had bound
Urizen. Further, the two elements of which he was composed must
1 Urizen, III, 3.
HIS UNIVERSE
107
themselves soon divide, Space becoming an entity distinct from
Time. As Urizen broke away from Eternity, so would Enitharmon
break away from Los.
((
The Abyss of Los stretch'd immense,
And now seen, now obscur'd to the eyes
Of Eternals, the visions remote
Of the dark separation appear'd.
As glasses discover Worlds
In the endless Abyss of space,
So the expanding eyes of Immortals
Beheld the dark visions of Los
And the globe of life blood trembling. ¹
globe of life blood trembling" was Enitharmon, who,
separating herself from Los, became the feminine personification of
Space, as distinct from Time. She found herself standing
Beside Los in the cave, enslaved to vegetative forms, 2
In other words, she fell, like Time, into the dark world of things
created, ready to become one of the attributes of matter, and a
necessary part of the visible world.
Later on, we shall come across Los and Enitharmon under other
shapes and with other meanings. But, as far as the phenomenon of
the creation is concerned, Blake soon abandoned the use of this
double myth. Here, as is usual in his work, symbols are no sooner
introduced than we find them blotted out, effaced, or mingled with
others in unceasing changes. For the present, the birth of Urizen as
the first personality, the first individual will, and his consequent
projection into Time and Space-themselves the results of his advent
are sufficient to show Blake's conception of the origin of the world
and the beginning of creation. His myths are an expression, visible
and poetic, of Boehme's remarkable definition: "Creation is the
introduction of Space and Time into the world of individual wills."
By the same process, the Eternal Man has become a definite
personality. The birth of Urizen is not merely a mystical representa-
tion of the world's creation: it symbolises also the creation of man
as a distinct being. Like Urizen, the Spirit of Man broke away from
that of the Eternals, and found itself closed up in Time and Space.
But, in this second interpretation, Los is no longer only symbolical
of Time he is also the Prophet of Eternity, the prophetic Spirit in
1 Urizen, V, 7.
2 Vala. Night VII, 260.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
humanity, sent by the Eternals to watch over man, even while he
separates him from them. And as he fulfils this task, he cannot help
retaining a remembrance of the Eternals, and a clear consciousness
of their existence. His mission of separation reminds him perpetually
of his former union with them. Consequently, he keeps alive in man's
spirit the recollection of his first state, and a vague longing to return
to it. He is the spirit of the Seers, the spirit that will later on inspire
the poets and the artists, and speak by the mouth of the prophets.
By him comes all that constitutes the Ideal, all that reaches us from
the unseen world. He is at the root of all the arts and of all true
religion; for religion and art are nought but visions of Eternity.
He it was who spoke through Milton. He it is who will enter into
Blake, and dictate his words:
What time I bound my sandals
1
On, to walk forward thro' Eternity, Los descended to me:
And Los behind me stood: a terrible flaming sun, just close
Behind my back: I turned round in terror; and behold,
Los stood in that fierce glowing fire: and he also stoop'd down
And bound my sandals on in Udan-Adan. ¹ Trembling I stood
Exceedingly with fear and terror, standing in the Vale
Of Lambeth: 2 but he kissed me and wish'd me health,
And I became One Man with him arising in my strength.
'Twas too late now to recede. Los had enter'd into my soul :
His terrors now possess'd me whole: I arose in fury and strength.
"I am that Shadowy Prophet who Six Thousand Years ago
Fell from my station in the Eternal bosom. Six Thousand Years
Are finish'd. I return! both Time and Space obey my will. 3
Blake and Los become so entirely one that nearly all the pictures
showing Los at his anvil are at the same time portraits of Blake.*
Thus Time, the Poetic Genius and Blake lose themselves in one
another, and nothing that Time has seen born is hidden from the
true poet. Thus also Blake can assert that he knows everything, that
he is "the Bard who Present, Past and Future sees.'
>> 5
And as we see Los change, in like manner does Enitharmon, born
of Los, change also. In the prophets, as in all men, there are, besides
the flame of inspiration, certain softer feelings: love, pity for man-
kind, longing for rest, joy in the contemplation of their work.
Hence a further division in the poetic spirit: on the one side, the
¹ Udan-Adan-the region of the Indefinite.
2 Lambeth-the region of the poetic spirit, where Blake lived.
3 Milton, p. 20, 4.
4 See Jerusalem, p. 6.
5
Songs of Experience.
HIS UNIVERSE
109
divine fire, clear and pure; on the other, "the milk of human
kindness," whether it be regarded as a weakness or as another
source of strength. Los, the prophetic spirit, as he contemplates
Urizen, feels his soul possessed by an overwhelming sense of pity.
This pity becomes self-conscious. Feminine like space, and joined
with her in the same myth, she appears as
A round globe of blood
Trembling upon the void. 1
As she develops, she takes a new shape, and becomes Enitharmon,
the emanation of Los, the feminine form standing before the masculine
spirit, as the Biblical Eve stands before Adam. Eternity and Los
himself trembled at the sight. The Eternals called her Pity, and fled.
Pity cannot exist in their midst, since there is no sorrow. Thus Los
and Enitharmon must live apart from them, as Adam and Eve were
separated from God. It is this separation of strength from tenderness
in the spirit, of its masculine from its feminine element, that is
symbolised in Genesis by the creation of woman. But in the beginning
Los and Enitharmon were but one, as were Time and Space, or man
and woman according to the sacred Book. "Male and female created
He them." With the separation of the sexes in the spirit, man's fall
has already begun.
This separation is symbolised by the existence of sex in the material
world. In Eternity woman was not. The Eternal Man is sexless, for,
according to the words of Christ, "in the resurrection they neither
marry nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in
heaven."2 And Blake says, in several passages, that in Eternity there
is nothing resembling a female Will. At the end of time, Enitharmon
will be united with Los, as formerly, being one only with him.
This explains Blake's ideas as to the function of woman, who is to
him only a symbol of the weaker side of his nature, who must submit
herself to him, and be what in " Milton " he terms " My Shadow of
Delight." 3
Thus, in the creation of Urizen, Los and Enitharmon, we find
symbolised at the same time the creation of our world of Time and
Space, and that of the universal pre-Adamite Man, by his separation
from Eternity, and also his division into sexes and the birth of
woman.
1 Urisen, V, 7.
2 Matthew xxii, 30.
& Milton, p. 36, 31.
ΙΙΟ
WILLIAM BLAKE
SPECTRE AND EMANATION
In this myth are comprised also the two great supernatural pro-
cesses of creation, namely, by separation and by emanation. When
two united beings separate from each other, as did Urizen from the
Eternals, then we have the first process. When, on the contrary, a
being, single and complete, conscious of his own individuality,
perceives a distinct element in himself, and separates it, by a kind of
abstraction, from his own personality, projecting it, so to speak,
outside himself, that is the process of emanation, which is nothing
but one form of division. But this process has given birth to two
classes of beings whom Blake designates by names the meaning of
which it is absolutely necessary to know: the Spectres and the
Emanations.
Enitharmon has emanated from Los, and is called his Emanation.
Generally speaking, in Blake's cosmogony, all the feminine creations
are Emanations of the masculine. They are their softest affections,
their tenderest feelings, their emotions and joys, when a unity is thus
divided by the separation of its Einanation, it is left incomplete.
The part that remains is the Spectre, composed nearly always of
pride, egotism, ambition and the reasoning mind.
The Spectre is in every man insane, brutish,
Brutish, deformed . . . a ravening lust continually
Craving, devouring. 1
It is the Reasoning Power
An Abstract objecting power, that Negatives every thing.
This is the Spectre of Man: the Holy Reasoning Power,
And in its Holiness is closed the Abomination of Desolation. 2
Thus Los describes his own Spectre :
Thou art my Pride and Self-righteousness: I have found thee out. 3
And again :
The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man; and when separated
From Imagination, and closing itself as in steel, in a Ratio
Of the Things of Memory, It thence frames Laws and Moralities,
To destroy Imagination, the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms and Wars. 4
Therefore the Spectre seems to be the sum of the intellectual
faculties, pure logic subservient to egotism, without either the
softness of the affections or the inspiration of faith, proceeding
1 Vala. Night VII, 302. 2 Jerusalem, 10, 13.
3 Id, 8, 30. 4 Id, 74, 10.
HIS UNIVERSE
III
brutally to its goal, rejoicing in its strength, believing only in its own
infallibility and justice, hating all the world which it, at the same
time, seeks to rule. Blake has sometimes shown it in the form of a
huge vampire with membranous wings, like those of a bat, the head
dragon-shaped, with hungry, flaming eyes, hovering over the
Emanation it has just left. Sometimes it is a vulture about to plunge
its long neck and pointed beak into the entrails of the being from
whom it has separated itself, and whom it seeks to devour. It is the
power of logic, detested by Blake, trying to destroy in the soul all
that is of the imagination, of the affections, or of faith.
After the sundering of the Emanation and the Spectre, the primitive
spirit is sometimes completely destroyed, so that nothing remains
of it. But often, again, there remain other elemental essences, distinct
both from the Spectre and from the Emanation. Now it is the material
body, or rather a kind of astral body, such as we, might expect
spirits to possess. But in this case the body, whether it be material
or not, becomes feeble, dead, or wrapped in a dream-like sleep. It is
no more than a shadow. Such is the body of the Universal Man after
his fall, lying in the arms of Christ, stretched upon the Rock of Ages,
between the palm of suffering and the oak of tears, till there arises
the eternal morning of the Resurrection. Now again, though Spectre
and Emanation have both parted from the spirit, they have not
deprived it of all its vitality. There remains the essential part of it,
conscious of its own existence and aware that these two elements are
distinct from it; sometimes struggling with the ravenous and
devouring Spectre, and sometimes seeking to recall its Emanation,
which flies away like a dream. Thus, in the first chapter of Jerusalem,
Los has endless discussions with his Spectre; and in Vala, all the
great Powers groan and seek to mingle again with their Emanations,
so that they may return to their primal unity.
What is the value of this conception? What psychological truth
has Blake hidden under these symbols? At first, one seems to see
here one aspect of those struggles that convulse and rend the con-
science, a personification of the conflicting tendencies among which
human life must fight its battle: good and evil, faith and denial,
passion and reason, the power of devils and that of angels. One group
of these tendencies would make up the Spectre, the other the Emana-
tion. Thus Stevenson, in a celebrated novel, has imagined a man
able to assume two bodies, one expressing and containing all his
virtues, the other all his vices. He is alternately the detestable Hyde
112
WILLIAM BLAKE
and the highly respected Doctor Jekyll, or, as Blake would have said,
now the Spectre and now the Emanation.
.
But the words good and evil, reason and passion, have not the
same meaning for Blake as they have for us. He would not label
consciences, or divide the complex forces that govern men, according
to our code of morals. Man, in his view, is moved on the one side by
his instincts, his impulses, his insatiable desires, which are derived
from Eternity, and which he gathers together under the title of
Inspiration or Imagination. On his other side, he finds himself
confronted at every step by fixed rules, by motives founded on reason,
which have been suggested to him by worldly experience, and by
which his actions are dictated. This is what Blake calls Logic and
Reason.
Let man but. follow his native impulses: let him act as his heart
and his instincts desire: let him speak according to the inspiration
of the Spirit that breathes within him, coming from God and from
the depths of his soul. Then he will feel the joy that springs from
satisfied activities: he will have been himself, will have sought his
own goal, and drawn nearer to Eternity: he will have tasted happiness
and can rest in rapture. The joy he feels in the impulse followed, the
desire satisfied; the happiness which will entirely fill him; this will
be his Emanation. He will cherish her with infinite love and tenderness
and follow her sweet promptings; and she will reward him by giving
herself to him, and by perpetually renewing his loves and his delights.
:
But for how few amongst us is this fate reserved! Where is the
man whose spirit is free enough to follow his instincts and his impulses
even when they are generous ones? How often, while our heart
impels us to speak or act, do we stop to reflect and throw the " pale
cast of thought " upon an action stifled almost as soon as it is con-
ceived! Thus, to use Hamlet's forcible expression, does conscience
make cowards of us all. What is it, then, that checks us? So many
things: the influence of public opinion, the need to keep up appear-
ances in society, the thought of our own interest, habits long acquired,
the mean rules of everyday life, school maxims learnt by heart,
narrow dogmas inculcated in us, social codes created for a cold and
egotistical world, the doctrine of a Divinity jealous and prompt to
punish. What a futile Spectre it is, that all this goes to make up!
Futile, and yet how powerful! How few events there are in our daily
life in which logic is not the established ruler of our words and our
actions! It is not we who speak and act. The depths of our souls
HIS UNIVERSE
113
are not reflected in our deeds. We have become machines, and our
faces masks. And so we go through life performing our little parts,
hiding our emotions, repressing our joys, stifling our instincts,
hardening our hearts. The Spectre dominates us. It is he who speaks
through and lives in us. Happy the child upon whose horizon he has
not yet appeared, and who has not felt his thousand fettering chains!
Happiness truly belongs to childhood alone. “ Of such is the kingdom
of Heaven." But for us, how rare are those moments of enthusiasm,
those great crises, when the mask is torn away, when the role is
forgotten and the soul appears! How fleeting the instant when the
cloud rolls apart, and the hidden fire flashes out like lightning!
How often, when these moments have passed, does the Spectre return
and reproach us bitterly, trying to enwrap us more deeply in his
shadows, terrifying us with his imaginary thunders. It is we who have
created him, and we tremble before him. Little by little, he has
become our conscience, has gained such possession of us that he has
stifled all that made our own personality; and now he seems actually
to be the whole man. It is as if the Spectre were man, and all the rest
only illusion.
This "rest" consists of our deepest emotions, the joys which we
experience in the accomplishing of our desires. It is the inmost life
of our soul, hidden and forced into such darkness that we have come
to ignore its existence. It is the eternal inheritance of inner happiness
that we have renounced. It is our Emanation who flees far from us,
lost and lamenting; taking with her all that would have made life
sweet, and relegating it to Beulah, the land of dreams. Again, to use
Blake's expression, Eve dwells no longer in Adam's bosom, and he
must pursue her unceasingly.
What compensation now remains to us? For what have we ex-
changed our stifled joys, our lost happiness? For naught but the
approbation of the Spectre, who praises us for having been good
actors, and played our part to the very end. We hear him say to us,
"Thou hast obeyed my laws: thou art a righteous man." And then
we think we have done our duty, because our lesson has been well
learned. We believe that we have accomplished our destiny. We swell
with pride, and repeat the prayer of the Pharisee: " God, I thank thee
that I am not as other men are, and that I keep thy laws." These
inner thoughts give but vain satisfaction: a fruit full of ashes. It is
the men who think thus, who are so sure of their own righteousness,
that Blake places first among the damned in his picture of the Last
I
114
WILLIAM BLAKE
Judgment. It was these men whom Christ reviled, calling them
"whited sepulchres," and whom he saw leaving the Temple
unjustified. And Christ came that he might destroy the letter
of the Law, and only acted Himself on the impulse of Divine
love.
Thus the Spectre, who at first was only the motive power of the
Law's constructive reason, has now become Conscience the
conscience that is hypocritically self-satisfied-and Pride-the pride
of him who thinks himself in the right because he has observed the
outward forms of the law-the Pharisaical spirit, which Blake
detested. As such, he becomes also the Spirit that accuses others, and
desires to convince them of sin, as Caiaphas wished to convince
Christ. He it is who, after the fulfilment of each of our desires, comes
to us and says, "Thou hast sinned." He turns our joy into sorrow,
and drives away our grieving Emanation. In his eyes, all our pleasures
become wrong doings: joy, which is a divine thing, is accused of evil,
and happiness is called the forbidden fruit: the earth becomes at once
the valley of tears and the valley of renunciation. This is what Blake
symbolises when he depicts the Spectre pursuing the Emanation,
hunting her over snowy wastes where all the loves are frozen, seeking
to stifle all the joys that are born of her, and, little by little, to destroy
her. Nothing is more terrible than this ferocious chase, this fury of a
wild beast in pursuit of its prey. And nothing is more heartrending
than the Emanation's agonised complaints. She flies weeping, believ-
ing she has sinned, and yet wishing to return; ready to love and to
pardon, and imploring pardon and love for herself also.
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,
Wheresoever thou dost go,
Thro' the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?
HIS UNIVERSE
115
Dost thou not in Pride and Scorn
Fill with tempests all my morn,
And with jealousies and fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears?
Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereaved of their life.
Their marble tombs I built with tears,
And with cold and shuddering fears.
Seven more loves weep night and day
Round the tombs where my loves lay,
And seven more loves attend each night
Around my couch with torches bright.
And seven more Loves in my bed
Crown with wine my mournful head,
Pitying and forgiving all
Thy transgressions great and small.
When wilt thou return and view
My loves, and them to life renew?
When wilt thou return and live ?
When wilt thou pity as I forgive?
And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As our dear Redeemer said :
This the Wine, and this the Bread."1
There is nothing astonishing in the fact that this poem was thought
to be the lamentation of a forsaken lover, and that Rossetti should
have entitled it "Broken Love." But the conception it expresses is
much more profound, more complex and obscure, than that of a
rupture between two lovers.
When his Emanation had fled away, when his Spectre has gained
complete power over him, what then remains of man? It is enough
to see the picture of him which Blake has drawn as an illustration to
page 41 of Jerusalem. Man has obliterated in himself all his joys and
desires he has lost sight of his eternal origin, and allowed himself
to be enslaved by a phantom which he has made into a god : and at
last he has come to understand his state. Let us imagine a man who
¹ Spectre and Emanation. Rossetti MS. The verses are here given in the order
in which, according to Mr. Sampson, they appear in the MS. Book. Most editors
arrange them differently, and add other stanzas which Blake left unplaced.
116
WILLIAM BLAKE
has once held all his life's happiness in his hand, who, having been
offered a divine joy, has thrust it from him by one mad action, and
who now sees it lost for ever, and realises at the same moment his
mistake and the eternal misery it has brought upon him. Such is the
man Blake has drawn: crouching upon the ground, bent double,
with his head so bowed on his knees that nothing can be seen but his
long, flowing locks, as if his face could no longer show any personal
character; his whole attitude expressing prostration and endless
despair. By his side are engraved the prophetic words:
Each Man is in his Spectre's power
Untill the arrival of that hour
When his Humanity awake,
And cast his Spectre into the Lake. 1
But when will this awakening of humanity come? When shall we
be delivered from all our paltry and oppressive laws? Will it be when
the visionaries and the prophets shall have regenerated the world
and changed its social conditions? That was the dream of all the
revolutionary spirits of Blake's age. It must have been the dream also
of the first romantic writers, who were themselves so often revolution-
aries. But mankind is always deaf, and the day so long desired has
not yet come. Can it ever come for each of us individually? And who
would dare to be, or indeed could be himself, in a cold, jealous and
malevolent world? Will not the awakening rather be when the
Resurrection morning shines upon us, and its light disperses the
shadows that have covered us? Then we shall see how deceptive were
the Spectre's terrors, how pitiful the arguments we listened to,
how insignificant the voices of the world and the trivial interests to
which we so often sacrificed our private happiness. This will be the
falling of the Spectre into the lake of error and forgetfulness.
But he will arise from it again, being then no more than the power
of divine vision. He will realise that sin does not exist, and that there
is naught but forgiveness in Eternity. He will find his Emanation
again he will submit himself to the infinite instincts of the divine
man, and will make ready for his regeneration. It is in this way that,
according to Blake, the division of Spectre and Emanation generally
ends and we shall see numerous examples of it. But before this
fulfilling of our eternal destiny, it is our duty to meet our Spectre
face to face, to dispute with him as did the prophet Los, to combat
1 Jerusalem, p. 41.
HIS UNIVERSE
117
and to subdue him. Let us be ourselves. Let us cease from sup-
pressing our emotions and stifling our joys. Let our souls vibrate to
the hidden breath of the Divine Spirit and of Love: and thus we
shall escape from despair and death. So the poet makes his fervent
supplication to the Lamb of God:
Create my Spirit to thy Love:
Subdue my Spectre to thy Fear. 1
Further on, we shall find other possible interpretations for these
symbols, the Spectre and the Emanation, which fill so large a place
in Blake's myth. We shall see that not only every man, but each state
of the Soul, has an Emanation and a Spectre, and that the meaning
of the words changes, as do also the symbols, according to the point
of view from which they are regarded. But the explanation here given
seems to be that which best answers to Blake's work in its entirety,
and also that which gives to these creations of his their most human
interpretation.
THE FALL AND REGENERATION OF MAN
When the Spectre and Emanation have been separated from the
primal spirit to which they belonged, they live as distinct entities,
and often forget their origin. Sometimes they meet like enemies, or
pursue and fly from each other. At times the Emanation sighs for her
reunion with the primal spirit, or gives herself to him as a woman
does to a man, and thus they engender new beings. Thus Orc, Human
Passion, is born from the union of Los and Enitharmon. Creation
by generation has now come to be added to the two other processes,
and produces successive births of myriads of beings. These three
processes, division, emanation and generation, continue for ever by
ceaseless renewal; and they fill the universe. To these processes,
innumerable beings owe their existence: they are born distinct the
one from the other, and yet they come every one of them from a
common source, forming one great unity, of which, nevertheless,
they are unconscious. It is thus that from the Eternals, from Urizen,
from Los and Enitharmon, and by stages which Blake does not
describe, are born multitudes of spirits-of men, since every spirit
is really a man-and also all material things in the universe, since all
material things are only spirit seen under the guise of matter. And
all men, past, present and to come, are spiritually but one man: the
1 Jerusalem, chap. 2: Introduction.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
Universal Man. It is an illusion to believe that there are manifold
individuals they have an appearance of multitude, but only in the
same way as a single object seen through a glass with many facets:
taken altogether, they constitute
The Divine Humanity, which is the Only General and Universal Form. 1
Contracting our infinite senses,
We behold multitude, or expanding we behold as one,
As One Man all the Universal Family; and that One Man
We call Jesus the Christ; and he in us and we in him. 2
This apparent multiplicity of what is really unity is found all
through Blake's writings. Thus Rahab, the False Religion,
When viewed remote she is One; when viewed near she divides
To multitudes, as it is in Eden so permitted. 3
Through this endless separation of the spirits and consequent
creation of others, the universe has become filled with personalities
apparently distinct. Little by little, each of them has forgotten its
origin, has contracted upon itself, and separated itself completely
from all the others. The Ego becomes aware of itself-so say the
philosophers—in opposing itself to the Non-Ego. It is this opposition
which, according to Blake, has produced the illusion of a material
body growing up round each personality. The man whom we see
before us is, like ourselves, an integral portion of the universal
humanity, a spirit that can penetrate the whole of it, and can penetrate
us. But we believe that we are an independent unity, and that he is
another; and this illusory belief makes us see him, and ourselves,
under the deceptive form of two clearly defined material bodies.
Nothing, in fact, so clearly distinguishes our own individuality from
that of others as this possession of a body incapable of blending with
other bodies. Disembodied spirits might perhaps mingle, as they do
in certain mystical dreams of love: but their bodies keep them
apart. The body is at once the last stage and the symbolic expression
of self-consciousness: the "limit of contraction" of the universal
soul divided into separate individualities. In the same manner an
invisible vapour liquefies, under the action of cold, into separate
drops, which cease to coalesce, as if they had never formed part of
the same mass.
Adam, the first man to receive a body, or at least the first to become
3 Vala. Night VIII, 278.
1
¹ Jerusalem, 43, 20.
2 Id, 38, 17.
HIS UNIVERSE
119
visible in bodily semblance, was the first symbol of this creation of
human individualities.
1
The Saviour . . . found the limit of contraction, and named it Adam.
In Adam, moreover, there is not only the formation of an in-
dividuality, but also the contraction of the Infinite into the Finite,
the fall of Eternity into Time. The senses, of the pre-Adamite spirit-
man contracted or expanded themselves at will, and were capable of
grasping the whole universe. Those of Adam became our five senses,
limited in their powers, showing us only the lowest plane of the
infinite and the eternal, while our body prevents us from losing
ourselves in them as before. Hence Blake's hatred of our body and
its senses, which are limitations of our infinite soul. For him also,
“Man is a fallen god who remembers Heaven," 2 and the sign of
this fall is his visible body. It was not when he ate the fruit of the
forbidden tree that Adam fell from his divine state, and all his race
with him it was when God took clay and breathed upon it, enclosing
in a material body that which, formerly, was part of Himself and, like
Him, filled Eternity. This was not creating but killing, putting restraint
upon infinite energies and powers, until only infinite desire remained.
Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy?
Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire ? 3
But more, and worse is to come. For the body becomes fixed, and
crystallises into what Blake calls the "vegetative" form, that is to
say, into living matter, the seat of all the evil instincts born of the
sensation of individuality, of all that constitutes egotism, and all the
vices-pride, contempt, ambition, cruelty-that flow from it; of
everything, in short, that should be banished with our Spectre, and
thrown, like him, into the lake of eternal perdition.
Cruelty has a Human Heart,
And Jealousy a Human Face;
Terror the Human Form Divine,
And Secresy the Human Dress.
The Human Dress is forged Iron,
The Human Form a fiery Forge,
The Human Face a Furnace seal'd,
The Human Heart its hungry Gorge.
1 Vala. Night IV, 272.
2" Borné dans sa nature, infini dans ses vœux,
L'homme est un dieu tombé qui se souvient des cieux."
3 Thel. IV.
4
(Lamartine. Méditations-L'Homme, à Lord Byron.)
4
* Songs of Experience. A Divine Image.
120
WILLIAM BLAKE
Consequently, all disembodied spirits dread this materialisation.
For them, as for Blake, to feel oneself enclosed in a body, or rather to
feel that body become part of oneself, is to die. Those whom we call
the living are really the dead. Our body is our tomb. The living are
those who have thrown off this mortal envelope. Whenever Blake,
in the Prophetic Books, speaks of life and death, we must understand
him thus. The disembodied spirits are the living: we, with our
bodies, are the dead.
"I am the Spectre of the living," says Los's spectre in Vala. 1
And Thel, the daughter of the Seraphim, mourning over her coming
death, is a gentle soul bewailing the hour when she shall be clothed
with a body and born into our earthly existence. She journeys
through the kingdom of the clay, whence comes and whither returns
all that we call our mortal life.
She saw the couches of the dead, and where the fibrous roots
Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists;
A land of sorrows and of tears, where never smile was seen.
2
And she sees the place of her own tomb, the body which will be
hers. She hears it already lamenting its own existence, and she flies,
terrified by this mournful voice issuing from the hollow pit.
Pursuing this conception to its final conclusions, Blake comes to
hate what we call life. He shows no gratitude to those who have given
us life, and so brought into the world this body of death. "No
Earthly Parents I confess," says his Christ in the Everlasting Gospel.
And did not Jesus Himself say to His mother, " Woman, what have
I to do with thee ?" 3 Is it not written: "That which is born of the
flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit ?
Mary only represents the flesh. Nowhere else, perhaps, has this
repudiation of maternal rights and filial duty been more energetically
expressed than in the extraordinary little poem entitled " To Tirzah."
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?
Thou Mother of my Mortal part
With cruelty didst mould my Heart,
1 Vala. Night VII, 306.
4 St John iii, 6.
2 Thel, IV.
3 St. John ii, 4.
>> 4
HIS UNIVERSE
121
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? 1
Nevertheless, whatever evils the body may have caused in putting
restrictions upon individuals, in separating them and making them
egotistical, it is the Saviour who, in His mercy, has created it. It is
He who has taken the limit of contraction, and called it Adam. In
one of his drawings Blake depicts, as the creator of man, not God
the Father but Jesus Christ. The creation of Adam was therefore a
blessing to the Universal Man, as well as his fall. We have here one
of Blake's most obscure conceptions; his manner of regarding the
life of mortality and the Redemption.
During the endless progressive division of spirits into separate
individualities, each of these new personalities forgets the eternal
unity. But, since the vision of Eternity is the sole true light, these
personalities, as they go farther and farther from it, become more
and more opaque, and are threatened in the end with utter darkness.
Progressive division produces opacity. In order, therefore, to prevent
the dispersal into infinity of all the elements of each little unity, and
the total loss of the light which was the essence of the primal unity;
in order that some element of union, some ray of the eternal vision
may be preserved, it is necessary to set a term of this subdivision
and this progressive obscuration.
The Saviour, in His mercy, took the limit of opacity, and called it
Satan, or, as Blake says, Satans in multitudes, Satan in the aggregate.
This limit being formed, it was no longer possible to pass it; and
utter darkness was thus averted. Henceforward, no man can go
further from the Divine Vision than the spiritual state called Satan. This
happened when man began to fall from Eternity into Time and Space.
All Eden was darkened.
The corse of Man lay on the rock. The Sea of Time and Space
Beat round the rocks in mighty waves, and as a polypus
That vegetates beneath the sea, the limbs of man vegetated
In monstrous forms of death. 2
Man was then already far from Eternity. The consciousness of his
1
Songs of Experience. To Tirzah.
2 Vala. Night IV, 263.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
personality, of his independent " Ego," had become so strong that a
material body, devoid of spiritual life, had spontaneously formed itself
around him. He became more and more materialised, and in the end
would have descended to the last stage of division and of the contrac-
tion of each element into itself. He would have fallen into absolute
death; would have become a mere lump of clay, a pebble, a stone,
without hope of ever returning again to life. The creation of Adam
at the same time as that of Satan put a limit to this descent towards
eternal death. On the one hand, the body of the newly created Adam
unites, in an indissoluble bond, those diverse elements of a soul
which, if free, would again separate and become distinct individual-
ities. If it separates each individual from his fellows, it still maintains
the unity of each. The man who has a body cannot further subdivide
himself; and thus the work of gradual dissolution from the primal
unity is arrested. On the other hand, this bar to dissolution arrests
materialization. The universal man of pre-Adamite times saw his
body of death growing round him like an immense polypus, because
his spiritual and vital elements were leaving him one by one, thus
destroying the unity that gave him life, as a soul gradually deserts.
its body, to leave only a corpse. As soon as the dispersion is arrested,
the materialization also ceases, and with it the contraction of the
personality upon itself: and so death without hope is avoided. The
Universal Man can no more contract upon himself, and separate
himself from the Eternals, than can Adam, once created by the divine
breath, extinguish that breath's immortal fire. He can never, therefore,
according to Blake, reach complete materialization, that is, annihi-
lation.
Thus the creation of the earthly man is a work of mercy: it trans-
forms eternal death into sleep. It is for this reason that the work is
accomplished by the Lamb of God, and that the Creator is not the
Father but the Son, the Word which became the Fiat. He is but one
of the living elements of the Universal Man, Luvah, the spirit of
love, separated from the universal Spirit to become the Saviour of
men. He it is again who will save them a second time, by his In-
carnation and His Resurrection, by His putting on of humanity's
robes of blood. There is even a passage in Blake's works in which
Christ the Redeemer and God the Creator are so completely absorbed
one in the other as to have the same name, Jehovah. " Thou Human,
O Jehovah," exclaims Satan, when the blood of Abel refuses to be
covered by the earth, and persists in demanding a sacrifice, "Thou
HIS UNIVERSE
123
"1
shalt Thyself be Sacrificed to Me thy God on Calvary." Here we
have dimly indicated one of Blake's theories as to the religion of
sacrifice and the falseness of the God of the Jewish priests, whom he
assimilates with Satan, as later on he will assimilate him with Urizen.
After this conception, somewhat obscure though it be, of the
saving of man through creation, which allows each individual “ to
fly eternal death, and to escape Satan continually," the doctrine of
salvation through regeneration follows as a logical consequence.
It is not enough that the Spirit of Love should change death into
sleep he must also prepare for the awakening, and make sure the
resurrection. This is what He promises to the eternal brothers of the
fallen man." If ye will but believe, your brother shall rise again." 2
And so He undertakes the work of eternal life.
For this, He must become Himself a man of flesh and blood,
having in Him the divine humanity and upon him the body of death.
He gives his promise in Eternity; and already the Eternals, the
"Sons of Eden," see it accomplished in an ecstatic vision, and
celebrate it in their songs.
•
The Lamb
puts off the clothing of blood: he redeems spectres from their bonds. 3
We now behold
Where death eternal is put off eternally. Oh! Lamb,
Assume the dark Satanic body in the Virgin's womb.
Oh! Lamb Divine, it cannot thee annoy! Oh! pitying one,
Thy pity is from the foundation of the world, and thy Redemption
Begins already in Eternity. Come then, Oh! Lamb of God,
Come, Lord Jesus, quickly. 4
The work of Redemption does not consist in a sacrifice which
expiates the sins of humanity before the Father. It is not an appli-
cation of the Pharisaical maxim of Caiaphas : " It is expedient for us
that one man should die for the people "—here a god for the world-
" and that the whole nation perish not," 5 even though this principle
were enounced in order unconsciously to fulfil the prophecies.
With Blake, it was never a question of satisfying eternal justice.
Christ became man, and subject to matter, in order to symbolise, in
His body, the unity of the divine humanity, so that men should be
always conscious of it; and in this symbolical body, representing
the bodies of all men, He came to break down the law of generation
1 The Ghost of Abel. 2 Vala. Night IV, 269.
3 Vala. Night VIII, 233.
5 St. John, xi, 50.
4 Vala. Night VIII, 236.
124
WILLIAM BLAKE
and the law of death. By being born of a virgin, He accomplished
the first, and by His resurrection the second, of these designs. By
His death He cast off the material body of humanity, never to take
it again. He reclothed Himself with the immaterial body which
we shall all possess at the end of time. It must not be forgotten that
His coming, and the mystery of His passion and His death, are only
symbols of what is passing in the unchangeable present of Eternity.
It is the mystical history of the Universal Man, and consequently of
the entire human race, and of each of us in particular. Just as He was
able to be born again, with His material body-and He alone could
do this-so shall we be born again. Our captivity, our contraction
into matter, are not eternal: we shall one day be free spirits as
formerly, belonging, with Him who is our very essence, to the
immortal world of the Living. Our passage through this world of
illusion is only a sleep lasting for a few years; soon the golden
gate will open, and admit us to Eternal Life. This explains the
expression so often used by Blake: "the sleep of death," meaning
our terrestrial life.
Hence arise also two very different branches of Blake's doctrine :
his conception of the sexes, and his attitude towards death.
It is the regeneration of man which has made the distinction
between the sexes necessary. Woman must exist, in order that Christ
might be born of her to deliver us from generation.
When Man sleeps in Beulah, the Saviour in mercy takes
Contraction's Limit, and of the Limit he forms Woman : that
Himself may in process of time be born, Man to redeem. 1
Thus generation, which, in the beginning, was a dividing and
therefore a destroying process, becomes a means of salvation. But
once the work of Redemption is accomplished, the sexes again be-
come useless. In Eternity there will be no sex. The distinction
between the sexes is but an illusion of matter, and will disappear.
The Sexes sprung from Shame and Pride
Blow'd in the morn; in evening died. 2
As to his attitude towards death, it requires no explanation. It appeals
eloquently to all minds, even those outside the pale of mystic belief.
For him, to die was only to pass from one room into another. He felt
more vividly, perhaps, than many spiritualistic or religious souls,
1
¹ Jerusalem, 42, 32.
2
Songs of Experience. To Tirzah.
HIS UNIVERSE
125
that death was nothing but a birth into real life. It held nothing
gloomy or terrifying for him. Had not Christ said to man,
Repose on me till the morning of the Grave: I am thy life. ¹
He could have written like Victor Hugo speaking of the Angel of
Death,
Et je vis dans sa main l'étoile du matin,
or ask, like him, with ardent desire for death's coming,
Quand verrons-nous, ainsi q'un idéal flambeau,
La douce étoile mort, rayonnante, apparaître
A ce noir horizon q'on nomme le tombeau ? 2
He has left us his conception of Death's Door: a massive stone
building; the heavy door half-open, showing a couch within, and
outside, a trembling old man, with long white hair blown about by
the storm. Bending beneath the blasts, and leaning on his crutch, he
totters, weary and exhausted, towards the threshold of the dark
dwelling-place. But above appears the rejuvenated spirit, scarcely
able yet to rise from the ground in the ecstasy of some marvellous
vision, while behind him the rising sun darts its rays across a sky
bathed in light. 3 And in the Dedication to the Grave illustra-
tions, he has expressed the same idea in some splendid lines.
The Door of Death is made of gold,
That Mortal Eyes cannot behold;
But, when the Mortal Eyes are clos'd,
And cold and pale the Limbs repos'd,
The Soul awakes; and, wond'ring sees
In her mild Hand the golden Keys:
The Grave is Heaven's golden Gate,
And rich and poor around it wait;
O Shepherdess of England's Fold,
Behold this Gate of Pearl and Gold !
The Grave produc'd these Blossoms sweet
In mild repose from Earthly strife;
The Blossoms of Eternal Life ! 4
After this deliverance of individuals will come the great deliverance
¹ Jerusalem, 62, 1.
2 Contemplations, VI, 8. Claire.
3 Illustration to Blair's Grave, with partial replicas in several of the Prophetic
Books. See Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and America.
• To the Queen.
126
WILLIAM BLAKE
of the Universal Man. When all men shall have come to believe
their prophets and their poets; when, by brotherhood and love,
they shall have realized that they are all one, and done away with
egotism and the feeling of separate individuality; when all these
bodies of death shall have disappeared, when the Spectres are sub-
dued and the Emanations restored to their primal spirits-then the
Day of Judgment will come. But it will be also the hour of Resurrec-
tion. The corpse of the Fallen Man will revive upon the Rock of
Ages. He will live again, and be united in perfect communion with
Christ, who is the Divine Humanity. He will recover his lost power of
Infinite Vision, and will seat himself once more at the feast of the
Eternals.
And not only will the human race be saved, but the whole universe
also. Christ, in saving man, has saved the world. It must be remem-
bered that the whole world, the whole of nature, is but a part of the
human spirit. Man's elements have separated themselves, have
become distinct, and have found their symbols in matter. Some of
his passions have spoken in the roaring of wild beasts: his strict,
unyielding laws have become impenetrable stones; his joys have
burst forth in the glowing colours of the flowers.
Man looks out in tree, and herb, and fish, and bird, and beast,
Collecting up the scattered portions of his immortal body
Into the elemental forms of everything that
1
grows.
But all these elemental forms also await their own deliverance.
As St. Paul says, "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in
pain together until now. . . . The creature itself also shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty
of the children of God." 2 It is for this reason that Nature will
triumph and make her joyous songs to be heard, and the universe will
exult in the renewal of its eternal youth.
The sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning,
And the mild moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night,
And Man walks forth from midst of fires
and one sun
Each morning, like a new-born May, issues with songs of joy.
the lions roar
and in evening sport upon the plains.
They raise their faces from the earth, conversing with the Man:
1 Vala. Night VIII, 553
2 Romans, viii, 21-22.
4
HIS UNIVERSE
127
How is it that all things are changed, even as in ancient times?
The sun arises from his dewy bed, and the fresh airs
Play in his smiling beams, giving the seeds of life to grow,
And the earth beams forth ten thousand thousand springs of life. ¹
1
This is only a very incomplete sketch of man's history, as Blake
presents it. He has prolonged the story immensely by introducing
numberless episodes, frequent repetitions, and variations on the
same theme, sometimes even contradictions. In his earlier works,
the Universal Man has no name: in the others he is called Albion.
But whatever his name, his history is that of humanity in general
and of each of us in particular. An event which happens once, or
rather, one which is ever present in eternity, repeats itself to infinity
in time and space. It may be interpreted historically or psychologi-
cally; and the reader is not a little puzzled by the change from one
meaning to the other, when Blake becomes the interpreter.
His ideas, too, are far from being lucid. A logical mind would find
in them ample matter for a multitude of questions. What, for in-
stance, was the cause of the initial separation by which creation was
begun? What was the precise part played by Christ? What were
the phenomena of man's fall, and the different stages of his regenera-
tion? But we must take the myths as we find them; mysterious,
like the facts they symbolize. The clear vision of their general char-
acteristics, the broad outlines of the system, detaching themselves
sharply from the mass of details, these are enough to enable us to
follow his poetic thought, and appreciate all that is really poetic in
it. And if his theories of creation by disintegration from a Primal
Unity seem strange to us, we have only to think of the Gnostic
theory, which represented each Eon as an emanation from a superior
Eon, starting from the Ineffable to arrive finally at Matter, the lowest
emanation of the last spiritual Eon. We can think of Boehme's theory
of Man's fall at the precise moment when his Ego" detached
itself from the universe. Or we can even leave the circle of mystics
and dreamers, and find in the modern metaphysicians 2 something
analogous to Blake's ideas with regard to the creation of individual
personalities all issuing from the Great Supreme Personality, in
whom the whole universe is contained.
<<
1 Vala. Night IX, 820.
2 See Renouvier : le Personnalisme.
X: THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS

W
HILE the Eternal Man sleeps in the Saviour's arms on
the Rock of Ages, our terrestrial humanity is undergoing
evolution. The spirit of man, the soul of the race, "That
dark and dismal infinite where thought rolls up and
down,"¹ is like a stage upon which crowds of actors are moving, as if in
some mysterious dream. These beings order the whole of our human
life on earth, that of individuals as well as that of nations. Their story,
and especially that of the conflicts waged by them within man and
against him, fills almost the whole of Blake's Prophetic Books. It is
like an immense, ill-constructed epic, sung in disconnected fragments.
The impression produced by these poems upon anyone who takes
only a careless glance through them is that of some very ancient
history of battles fought in remote ages, combats of Titans before the
beginning of the world. And then suddenly, in the middle of some
vast prehistoric conflict, we come upon the most daring anachron-
isms the introduction of modern names like those of Washington
or Voltaire; or a dissertation upon contemporary society, which
makes us forget the battles of the giants and the quarrels of ancient
gods. We are really seeing " Eternity in an hour.'
:
No one can say where it is that these heroes live and fight. Their
worlds have names that we have never heard. They fly from chaos
to chaos and bestride immensity. Their travels and their falls defy
all measurement, even Milton's measure of the vast circles which
Satan described in falling from Heaven. They go "from immense
to immense" under their steps, Eternity cracks and groans; as
missiles they fling universes at one another; ages upon ages pass
over them, and still they do not change. They divide asunder; they
give forth Spectres and Emanations: they fly from and pursue each
other for no visible reason; weep and rejoice without any apparent
cause; form friendships and enmities of which no one can understand
the object. All of them desire to dominate the whole of man's spirit ;
and little more can be known concerning the purpose of their struggles.
They undergo Protean, and more than Protean alterations of shape
and personality. They are slain, and we find them, a few pages further
1 Vala. Night I, 91.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
129
on, alive and fighting: they die, and a love-song recalls them to life;
they are wasted by old age, melt into air, vanish and are born again
as little children. Males and females marry and have offspring; and
the children are as old as their parents. They enter into one another,
become one, and then separate again, and know each other no more.
They love and hate one another simultaneously. Their behaviour is
as illogical and as incomprehensible as the world which they inhabit.
No clear description is given of their appearance: with a very few
notable exceptions, we can scarcely recognize their pictured forms.
All we know is that they are immense and immeasurable. They have
wheels and harrows, ploughs, furnaces, hammers and anvils, arrows
and deadly weapons; but these are the intellectual wheels of logic,
the plough and harrow of Shaddai, which prepare the world for the
sowing of knowledge and of life, the bow and arrows of desire, the
hammer of the Prophetic Spirit, the weapons of Eternal Life warring
against Death.
""
These Titans are the inhabitants of the human spirit, the forces
acting upon it, eternal forces engaged in a struggle of which it is only
the perpetually shifting scene. They are not, however, the old
allegorical personifications of Vice and Virtue, Pride, Avarice and
Giant Despair. These are too clearly defined, too precise, too strongly
characterized. Blake's personifications are rather those of disposi-
tions in the soul, of the great principles which rule over life:
Reason, the Feelings, Instinct, Will, Religious Emotion, Passion,
and so forth" states (as we shall find him calling them) of the
soul, through which man passes, but which themselves remain for
ever. Blake is the first, and perhaps the only mystical poet who has
conceived the idea of personifying these states, instead of taking the
several virtues and vices and expressing them by new symbols.
Hence comes, no doubt, the chaotic impression which his work as a
whole produces. Nothing, in fact, is less susceptible of clear definition
than a state of the soul. Nothing is so complex in its origin and
development, its opposition to or agreement with the states that
precede and follow it, its end, its apparent death and its restoration
to life, its creation of other states, the conflict of principles and elemen-
tary forces within it, the harmony which gives a normal course to
the life influenced by it. And if " this other universe which is man
is so complex in an individual, what must be its complexity when
the individual becomes humanity as a whole, when his life-story is
¹ Rabelais : Pantagruel, ch. VIII.
"I
K
130
WILLIAM BLAKE
the history of nations, interwoven with fragments of world-history,
which in turn is itself but a part of the history of the Universal Human
Spirit?
It is, nevertheless, these spiritual tendencies, these states of the
soul, these antagonistic life-principles, that are the inhabitants of
Blake's visionary universe, the beings whom he saw as permanent
shapes behind the shifting and deceptive mirage of our mortal world.
First in his theogony, after the mysterious Eternals, come the
elements called by him the four Zoas. These are the chief states
through which, according to him, the human spirit passes, the regu-
lating principles of life (hence their name).
Four Mighty Ones are in every Man. 1
Upon them and their conflicts turns the whole history of humanity :
they people the universe of mankind with their creations, their sons
and their daughters.
They are: (1st) Urizen, the firstborn of Eternity, the state of self-
knowledge, arising from experience, intelligence and the reasoning
faculty; (2nd) Luvah, the principle of human love, the state of the
soul governed by the emotions; (3rd) Tharmas, the "vegetative
power," that state of the spirit which feels only the blind forces of
life and growth; (4th) Urthona, the instinct that binds the spirit of
each individual to that of the whole universe; our last remaining
recollection of the primeval unity. Urthona is also the spirit of art
and of prophecy.
Blake describes them in these two lines:
Urizen, cold and scientific; Luvah, pitying and weeping;
Tharmas, indolent and sullen; Urthona, doubting and despairing. 2
Like the Universal Man, the Zoas have each his own Emanation.
which flies from him and will not be reunited with him till the end
of time, and his Spectre, which pursues and hates the Emanation.
They have their sons and their daughters: they create whole worlds,
and they carry on eternal warfare between themselves. Before the
beginning of Time, they were united in the universal brotherhood
of Eden, and at the end of Time they will be united again for all
Eternity. Meanwhile, it is their struggles and their changing fortunes
that make our world what it is: the dream-filled sleep of Man upon
the Rock of Ages.
出
​1 Vala. Night I, 6.
2 Jerusalem, p. 43, 2.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS 131
URIZEN AND AHANIA
Urizeń seems to be the most powerful of the Zoas. He it is who
occupies the brain of man, the southern quarter of the spiritual
world, the region of the definite. He is the prince of light and the
king of the morning. As we have seen, his was the first personality
separated from Eternity. As Los "bound his changes" in time and
space, during ages of immense suffering, he became gradually a being
complete in himself, distinct from the world and from the universal
man. It is from him that man as an individual derives his personality;
and to him, consequently, we owe all our personality's constituent
parts. Now, the first thing that defines and sanctions personality is
the body. And this is why Blake shows us, in the creation of Urizen,
the fashioning of a gigantic body, the spine, the skeleton, the heart,
blood and nerves, and, finally, the five senses. All knowledge, all
experience acquired through the organs of sense, comes within the
province of Urizen. It is because of the senses that man has become
contracted. Formerly, all could, like Los and Enitharmon, walk
forth
on the dewy earth,
Contracting or expanding all their flexible senses,
At will to murmur in the flowers, small as the honey-bee,
At will to stretch across the heavens, and step from star to star.
1
But now our universe is that of the senses, within whose limits we
are confined. Theirs is the power that defines the world for us. It is
like an enclosing shell, the " Mundane Shell," as Blake calls it, which
Urizen, with his sons and daughters, built.
Uttering his voice in thunder,
Commanding all the work with care and power and severity.
Then... Many a pyramid
Is formed and thrown down thundering into the deeps of non-entity,
Heated, red-hot; they, hissing, rend their way down many a league,
Till, resting, each his centre finds. Suspended there, they stand
Casting their sparkles dire abroad into the dismal deep.
For, measured out in ordered spaces, the Sons of Urizen
With compasses divide the deep. 2
And in one of the Books 3 Blake has pictured the Ancient of Days
bestriding the clouds, and measuring with outstretched compasses
the abyss of space.
1 Vala. Night II, 286.
2 Vala. Night II, 129.
3 Europe.
132
WILLIAM BLAKE
Thus the atmospheres were spun and woven upon looms of gold,
the curtains of the firmament "hung abroad" and the vehicles of
light "spread out from sun to sun." Thus the twelve hills of
Urizen, the houses of the Zodiac, were built and set in the
heavens :
Every hall surrounded by a bright paradise of delight,
In which were towns and cities, nations, seas, mountains and rivers. 1
There was the Mundane shell builded by Urizen's strong power.
Sorrowing went the planters forth to plant, the sower to sow;
They dry the channels for the rivers, they poured abroad the seas,
The seas and lakes. They reared the mountains and the rocks and hills
In beauteous order. 2
And Urizen comforted saw
The wondrous work flow forth like visible out of the invisible. 3
Thus in process of time it became the beautiful Mundane Shell.
The Habitation of the Spectres of the Dead and the Place
Of Redemption and of awaking again into Eternity. 4
At the end of these vast labours-the creating of the world-the
invisible Universe was, as it were, shut away from the sight of man,
who thus found himself completely cut off from Eternity. We must
not forget that the visible universe is only an illusion created by our
senses, and having no existence except in our own minds; that it is
a kind of intellectual mirage, a product of the state of the soul per-
sonified and ruled by Urizen, material in its nature and, as such,
unreal and transitory.
But it is not enough for Urizen to have bound man within the
limits of his body and of the material universe. He is not content
with bending over immensity, shaking his terrible wings in the throes
of new births, and weeping tears from which universes will spring.
He must find yet other restrictions to impose: the bonds of personal
experience and of moral and religious laws.
Man's personal experience, as opposed to his desires and his
dreams, is a direct product of his senses, a summing up of his organic
perceptions. Its ultimate result is Reason, the "ratio" (as Blake
terms it) or general law of all that we know. It is Urizen who makes
this law. We see him 5 seated upon an open book, the tables of the
law behind him, in the shade of the Tree of Knowledge. Blind,
³ id. Night II, 250.
1 Vala. Night II, 172.
4
* Jerusalem, p. 59, 7.
2 id. Night II, 240.
5 Book of Urisen. Title page.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
133
because he no longer sees the Divine Vision, old as the world itself,
his long beard flowing over his feet, he is writing with both hands
in two enormous books. It is thus that he stores up the experience of
every individual man and of all humanity.
Sometimes he rises and goes to visit his universe or the unknown
worlds of his brethren, Urthona's dark immensity or the void spaces
of Luvah. In his realm, he meets "dishumanized men," transformed
into lions and tigers, he beholds the fierce terror that has taken on
the scorpion's shape, the spirit of passive obedience bowed under
the ox's yoke, the rocks which are petrifications of abstract thought.
He speaks to them, but they return no answer.
Rock, mountain, cloud,
Were not now vocal, as in climes of happy eternity,
Where the lamb replies to the infant's voice and the lion to the wail of ewes,
Giving them sweet instructions; when the cloud or furrow'd field
Talk with the husbandman and shepherd. 1
He sees the chains in which materiality has bound them, and he
repents him of his work; but to no purpose. He can no longer calm
the elements, because, like man, he has become their servant. And
so he pursues his flight in fear, anguish and remorseful tears. But all
the while his experience is becoming more complete: he always
carries with him his books of iron and of brass, and writes in them
unceasingly, showing thus that none can pass through the material
world without seeing and learning its lessons.
For such a journey none but iron pens
Can write, and adamantine leaves receive, nor can who goes
The journey obstinate refuse to write, time after time.2
But he cannot, with all his experience, escape from the ponderous
wheels of the world, or find one corner of the universe where his law
will be obeyed. All seems to him to be confusion: he can no longer
command these elements that he has created and projected away from
himself. His world of matter is all in ruins. His experience can only
show him scattered fragments of the great unity, whose life-spring
seems to be dried up. Such is the result of accumulated experience:
a chaotic assemblage of contradictions; a philosophy of ignorance
and of despair. His horrified contemplation of his world inspires in
him the same vast and futile regret that preys upon Milton's
Satan.
1 Vala. Night VI, 130.
3 Vala. Night VI, 163.
134
WILLIAM BLAKE
Oh! thou poor ruined world,
Thou horrible ruin! Once, like me, thou wast all glorious,
And now, like me, partaking desolate thy master's lot.
Art thou, oh ruin, the once glorious heaven on these thy rocks
Where joy sang on the trees and pleasure sported in the rivers,
And laughter sat beneath the oaks, and innocence sported round
Upon the green plains? 1
But if this world of experience is empty and desolate, if its philo-
sophy can only be one of darkness and despair, is it not still possible
for Urizen to build another (always, of course, in the human spirit)
where light and order will reign instead of obscurity and confusion?
And this new world comes straightway into being: the world of
science. Science, to Urizen, means organized experience. In place
of the world, full, as it appears to the ignorant, of change, chance
and disorder, we are to have the scientific conception of a world
governed by regular laws and systems.
He began to form of gold, silver and iron
And brass, vast instruments to measure out the immense, and fix
The whole into another world better, and made to obey
His will, where none should dare oppose his will, himself being king
Of all, and all futurity he bound in his vast chain,
And the sciences were fixed. 2
Urizen's will within the Mundane Shell, the chains with which he
binds the future, these are the laws of the Creator, of Destiny (as
the ancients termed it), the being to whom gods and men alike must
bow. In our modern world, this being is represented by the physical
laws of the universe, which science discovers and expounds one by
one, and which are as inevitable as the decrees of Jehovah or those
of the Greek Anankê,
It was Urizen, then, who laid down these laws. Having caused man
to shrink up into himself, and having, by the creation of the material
world, set limits to his hitherto infinite powers, he puts upon him the
further burden of this all-governing necessity. Henceforth, man
cannot exercise his free will without finding himself in constant
opposition to the fixed forces of the universe. His spirit longs to rise
to the clouds, and the laws of gravitation hold his body to the ground.
He would fain move the world, and the laws of his own being make
him a toy of Nature's hand. He dreams of eternity, and is condemned
to an ever-premature death. He aspires to perfection, and the laws
1 Vala. Night VI, 199.
2 Vala. Night VI, 219.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
135
of his body force sin and evil upon him. " But I see," says St. Paul,
another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind,
and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my
members. O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from
the body of this death ? ” 1
But, by the working of divine Providence-for Urizen himself is
unconsciously accomplishing a higher will-there remains the human
soul, which the laws of matter cannot enslave, not the visible universe
confine, and which, though hampered by the body, is still itself free
and infinite in its thoughts, its will, and above all, its unappeasable
desires. The subjugation of this part of man had still to be accom-
plished. Urizen and his sons have achieved it. The soul, unconquer-
able by any physical laws, has submitted itself to the laws of religion
and morality; and these laws are Urizen's. His experience, that is
to say, the experience of every man who observes and reasons, has
shown him the imprudence of contravening such and such laws of
nature. Little by little, he has come to the conclusion that, in the
physical world, certain things are good, and certain others bad. He
has established a distinction between physical good and physical
evil. And the false ideas of moral good and moral evil have the same
origin. Moral law was the invention of selfish and jealous men, who
desired to put the same restraint upon the energies of others as
nature had put upon their own energies. Physical laws say, " Thou
can'st not": moral law says, "Thou oughtest not." The former
prevents the accomplishment of man's infinite desires: the latter,
in the commandment "Thou shalt not covet," prohibits even those
desires themselves. Such is Blake's almost childishly simple concep-
tion of the origin of religion and morality. In his symbolic system,
these laws increase with the increase of experience and human reason.
While Urizen writes in his books, there grows above and around him
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, soon to become the tree of
Mystery, source of all religions and of all restrictive laws. Thus we
can see, combined in one and the same symbol, the idea that the Un-
known increases with the growth of the sum-total of the Known, and
the idea of the relationship existing between physical and religious laws.
For when Urizen shrunk away
From Eternals, he sat on a rock
Barren a rock which himself
From redounding fancies had petrified.
1 Romans, vii, 23, 24.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
Many tears fell on the rock,
Many sparks of vegetation:
Soon shot the pained root
Of Mystery, under his heel.
It grew a thick tree: he wrote
In silence his book of iron;
Till the horrid plant bending its boughs
Grew to roots when it felt the earth
And again sprung to many a tree.
Amaz'd started Urizen, when
He beheld himself compassed round
And high roofed over with trees.
He arose, but the stems stood so thick
He with difficulty and great pain
Brought his Books all but the Book
Of iron, 1 from the dismal shade.
The Tree still grows over the Void
Enrooting itself all around,
An endless labyrinth of woe. 2
From this tree of Mystery Urizen causes a religion to grow. The
Divine Vision, the power of seeing man as eternal, has almost entirely
disappeared, and no longer exists in any scientific or purely logical
conceptions of the world. All the prophetic fire in man is extinguished,
and with it his affections have died also. And in this mutilated human
spirit there remains only the reasoning power, the Spectre. Such is
the effect of Urizen's work; and such also is the idea he tries to instil
into the mind of man.
The Spectre is the Man. The rest is only delusion and fancy. 3
This Spectre, the image of Urizen, proceeds to make for himself
a God in his own likeness.
Above him rose a shadow from his wearied intellect
Of living gold, pure, perfect, holy; in white linen pure it hovered,
A sweet entrancing self-delusion, a watery vision of Man,
Soft, exulting in existence, all the Man absorbing.
And Man falls prostrate before this vision,
words of eternity uttering-
4
Oh, I am nothing if I enter into judgment with thee.
If thou withdraw thy breath I die, and vanish into Hades ;
¹i.e. of love.
* id. Night III, 50.
2 Ahania, III, 3, 4, 5.
3 Vala. Night I, 315.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
137
If thou dost lay thy hand upon me, behold I am silent;
If thou withhold thy hand I perish like a fallen leaf;
Oh I am nothing, and to nothing must return again.
1
Thus would the Psalmist in his humility, or Job in the depths of
his misery, have spoken. And Urizen replies, like God, from the
midst of the whirlwind:
"Am I not God?" said Urizen." Who is equal to me ?
» 2
Do I not stretch the heavens abroad, and fold them up like a garment ?
So here, after making a long circuit, the myth of Urizen comes back
to its original point of departure. Urizen is Jehovah. He was Jehovah
when he separated himself and his universe from chaos and from
Eternity he was Jehovah when he created the world. He is now the
Jehovah of Mount Sinai, the jealous God and the terrible law-
giver, as he was formerly the Destiny of the Ancients, the personi-
fication of the laws of fate. Like Destiny he is blind and in chains:
like Jehovah, he measures the earth with his compasses, and his spirit
moves upon the face of the waters or walks among the stars. By
whatever name men call their god, he is still Urizen, the founder of
all the religions and all the decalogues. It is he who writes "Thou
shalt not
over all doors: he whom Adam and Noah saw giving
his laws to the nations by the hands of the prophets, the children
of Los.
""
Rintrah gave Abstract Philosophy to Brama in the East.
Moses beheld upon Mount Sinai forms of dark delusion:
To Trismegistus, Palamabron gave an abstract Law;
To Pythagoras, Socrates and Plato. 3
From the same hands come Christ's gospel of sorrow, Mahomet's
"loose Bible," and Odin's code of war. And the religions thus created
spread themselves all over the world, in the form of laws restricting
the energies and the infinite desires of men,
Till like a dream Eternity was obliterated and erased. 4
The last degree is reached in Natural Religion, the religion of the
senses and of science. This Urizen gave to Locke, Voltaire, Rousseau
and Newton, watering it with his fruit-producing tears.
During all this time, the spiritual element in humanity has gone
on contracting. Men have come to fear the joys of love, and to worship
¹ id. Night III, 59. 2 Vala. Night III, 107. 3 Song of Los: Africa. • id.
138
WILLIAM BLAKE
!
false chastity and hypocrisy. They have abandoned even the earthly
Paradise. Har and Heva (Adam and Eve) fly because their brothers
are living in a state of war and debauch. The poisoned arrow of
Urizen strikes down the firstborn of men. Later, falling upon the
earth, it becomes a death-giving rock, " Mount Sinai, in Arabia." 1
This growth of what Blake calls the Druidical religions,—the
religions, that is, which sacrifice men as well as men's desires-is fur-
ther symbolised in the silent flight of Urizen through his universe,
spreading everywhere, as he goes, his web of religious laws.
And wherever he wander'd in sorrows
A cold shadow follow'd behind him
Like a spider's web, moist, cold and dim. 2
The contraction of the souls of men is symbolised by the diminution
of their stature, and by the limits imposed by the creation of Jehovah's
world upon their perception of the Infinite.
Six days they shrunk up from existence,
And on the seventh day they rested,
And they bless'd the seventh day in sick hope,
And forgot their eternal life. 3
But Urizen was not content with giving religious laws to men : he
has given them civil laws also, since these too spring from Reason.
It is he who has founded governments, which were all originally
theocracies, and which have kept their character. In our modern
society, it is he who dictates the laws of persecution and oppression,
who keeps labour and slavery in existence.
And Urizen read on his book of brass in sounding tones:
Compel the poor to live upon a crust with soft mild arts,
So shall you govern over all. Let duty tune your tongue,
And be your hearts far harder than the nether millstone is.
Smile when they frown, frown when they smile, and when a man looks pale
With labour and abstinence, then say healthy and glad he seems,
And when his children sicken let them die. There are enough
Born, even too many, and our earth will soon be overrun
Without these arts. If you would make the poor with temper live,
With pomp give every crust of bread you give; by gracious cunning
Magnify gifts; reduce the man to want, then give with pomp.
¹ Ahania, II, 10.
2 Urizen, VIII, 6.
3 Urizen, IX, 3.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
139
Say, if you hear him sigh, he smiles; if pale, say he is ruddy.
Preach temperance: say that he is overgorged, and drowns his wit
In strong drink, though you know that bread and water must be all
He can afford. Flatter his wife, pity his children, till
We can reduce all to our will, like spaniels taught with art. 1
For reasons of his own, hypocritical and falsely religious, he
rejoices in the unhappiness of men.
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.
2
He has organised the laws of commerce and industry, which are
laws of oppression.
First trades and commerce, ships and armed vessels he builded laborious
To swim the deep; and on the land children are sold to trades
Of dire necessity, still labouring day and night, till, all
Their life extinct, they take the spectre form in dark despair,
And slaves in myriads, in shiploads, burden the sounding deep. 3
So (and these quotations, purposely given at some length, are the
best example of this peculiarity) we are in a moment abruptly
transported from the remote and cloudy visions of a dreamer into the
midst of the most burning problems of modern society. The Urizen-
symbol covers a multitude of meanings, and is a personification of
things that belong to all time as well as of things eternal. But, in
fallen man, he always represents the aggregate of those tendencies,
materialistic, logical, cold, egotistical, jealous and authoritative,
which Blake most of all detested.
In the beginning, however, Urizen, Prince of Light in the bosom
of Eternity, was nearest to the supreme Deity, perfect and holy.
He shone in his glory: he was the Angel of the Divine presence.
It was through him that the Universal Man clearly perceived the
supreme Vision, and was conscious of forming part of it. He was the
intellectual power, intuitively knowing all things, like God Himself.
But in an evil hour, he forgot his great duty. He wished to rule over
a part of the human spirit of which he had no knowledge. The
intellect desired to be master of love and of the affections of the heart.
And, on the other hand, it allowed the emotions and affections to
darken the pure light of divine intuition.
1 Vala. Night VII, 109
3 Vala. Night VII, 504.
2 Songs of Experience. The Human Abstract.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
As Blake expresses it, Urizen gave to Luvah the horses of the light,
forgot his station in the South and took Luvah's place in the East,
the region of the heart and of love. From this moment, the sweet
harmony that reigned in the Eden of man's spirit was broken.
Urizen wanders lost in Luvah's unknown and inexplicable world,
while Luvah himself, accustomed to the lions and tigers of human
passion, drives the horses of light unskilfully. In another and much
later myth, Blake expresses the same idea when he shows Satan,
once the angel of light, attempting to drive the plough of Palamabron,
the son of Los. 1
This change brought about a complete disorganisation of man's
primal state, a displacement of all the Zoas, and a series of struggles
between them. Peace will never be restored until the end of time, when
man will awake from his dreams of death, the Zoas resume their
places and their functions, and "Sweet Science "-that is to say,
art and its ideal, the divine vision-reign once more. Meanwhile,
as long as man's life lasts, Urizen struggles against Luvah, becomes
terrified, seeing him in dark visions of the future, trembles upon the
throne of sombre light from which he had proclaimed himself the
only God, and, with his universe, falls into infinite space amid the
crashing of the shattered world, supreme, like Milton's Satan, only
in misery.
During this time also, in common with all other beings, he has
seen his Emanation and his Spectre separate themselves from him.
His Emanation is Ahania, whose myth is a complex one. While they
lived happily in Eden, she was his delight and his repose, sweet and
pleasant, but inactive and unfruitful.
The feminine indolent bliss, the indulgent self of weariness,
The passive idle sleep, the enormous night and darkness and death. 2
Then, however, neither of them perceived this inferiority. He was
happy, resting in her after his labours as in
A cavern . . . where
I laid my head in the hot noon, after the broken clods
Had wearied me.
But when he had begun to regard himself as the supreme God,
when he desired to act and to rule by his own power, the nature of
his Emanation changed. He was now Jehovah, and the Law: she
therefore became the Law's first-fruits, that is to say, the breaking
1 Milton, Book I.
3 Vala, Night III, 123.
2 Vala, Night III, 115.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
141
of the Law-Sin. It is one of Blake's theories that Sin came into
the world solely through the creation of the Law. This was St. Paul's
view also." I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not
known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet. But sin,
taking occasion of the commandment, wrought in me all manner of
concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead." But St. Paul
differed from Blake in regarding the Law as a good and holy thing ;
and did not hold it in any way responsible for the existence of Sin.
According to Blake, as soon as the Law becomes conscious of its
own existence, all the desires which are opposed to its restrictions,
and which constitute the essence of the infinite Soul, become re-
prehensible and are therefore Sin.
I have looked into the secret soul of him I love,
And in the dark recesses have found sin. 2
These words, though not spoken by Urizen, express exactly his
feelings when he first perceived Ahania and became aware of her
existence as a separate being.
Dire shriek'd his invisible Lust.
Deep groan'd Urizen! Stretching his awful hand
Ahania (en name his parted soul)
He seiz'd on his mountains of jealousy.
He groan'd anguish'd and called her Sin,
Kissing her and weeping over her,
Then hid her in darkness, in silence;
Jealous tho' she was invisible.
She fell down a faint shadow wand'ring
In chaos, and circling dark Urizen
As the moon anguish'd circles the earth. ³
Elsewhere he is represented as seizing her by the hair and flinging
her away from him. She falls like a flash of lightning, and all Infinity
is struck with terror.
A crash ran through the universe; the bounds of Destiny were broken.
The bounds of Destiny crashed direful, and the swelling sea
Burst from its bonds in whirlpools fierce, and roaring with human voice,
Triumphing even to the stars at bright Ahania's fall. 4
Though he has driven her from him, Urizen still loves her with a
1 Romans, vii, 7, 8.
Vala. Night III, 136.
2 Vala. Night I, 38.
3 Ahania, I, 7, 8.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
selfish and jealous love: he follows her, precipitating himself, like
lightning, with a terrible noise,
Through the confusion, like a crack across from immense to immense. 1
He watches over her, and drives all the male spirits away from her,
just as she seeks to keep all the female spirits away from him.
Here a new complication enters into the myth. The Spectre and
the Emanation represent the division of human personality into two
sexes. This division has given birth to the law of marriage, to love
that is selfish and exclusive, and so to jealousy. In Urizen it is the
cruel jealousy of pride: in Ahania, the despairing jealousy of love.
But this very complexity makes them human. For a moment, Blake
forgets that these are spirits, free from human limitations. He sees
only the woman separated from the proud man whom she loves;
and he makes her give voice to some of the sweetest lamentations
ever poured from the heart of a loving and forsaken woman.
Ah! Urizen! Love!
Flower of morning! I weep on the verge
Of non-entity: how wide the Abyss
Between Ahania and thee!
I cannot touch his hand
Nor
weep on his knees, nor hear
His voice and bow, nor see his eyes
And joy, nor hear his footsteps, and
My heart leap at the lovely sound!
I cannot kiss the place
Whereon his bright feet have trod.
Where is my golden palace?
Where my ivory bed?
Where the joy of my morning hour?
Where the sons of eternity singing
To awake bright Urizen my king
To arise to the mountain sport,
To the bliss of eternal valleys? 2
Thus the myths of the great poets stand outside the bounds of time.
Ahania weeping for Urizen might as easily have been Ariadne or the
forsaken Margarete.
And, with the acuteness of vision which love so often bestows on a
1 Vala. Night III. 150.
2 Ahania, V.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
143
woman, she sees clearly into the spirit of Urizen. She knows her
adversary: the pride, the ambition, the self-satisfaction, that have
taken from her her celestial spouse. Not content with vain regrets
for the past, she gives wise counsel, and calls upon Urizen to return
to his former state.
Resume thy fields of light.
Why didst thou listen to the voice of Luvah that dread morn
To give the immortal steeds of light to his deceitful hands?
1
Only at the end of time will Ahania have her reward. Then Urizen
will listen to her, and will abandon his dreams of universal domination
over man. And when he shall have resumed his proper place, “glo-
rious, bright, exulting in his joy," 2 then only will Ahania, flying
around him, lose herself in him for ever. She will rise, full of joy,
but only to disappear, " as when a bubble rises up on to the surface
of a lake." ³ She will die at his feet," a smiling corse," 4 to be born
again, as she was in Eternity, an integral portion of himself, his
joy once and for ever.
When Urizen ceases to create laws and to impose his will on men,
Sin can no longer exist. But during the time when he was separated
from Ahania, and went about the world enclosing it in his web of law
and preaching the doctrine that the Spectre alone is man, he gave
birth to certain monstrous creations.
First there was his own Spectre, who grew within him, and then
separated from him. He had a horrible shape, and was covered
with scales, like a dragon.
Upon his belly falling,
Outstretched through the immense; his mouth wide open, tongueless,
His teeth a triple row
And his immense tail lashed the abyss.
5
Of Urizen's essential self nothing remained, after this separation,
except a human form devoid of life.
A form of senseless stone remained in terrors on the rock,
Abominable to the eyes of mortals who explore his books.
His wisdom still remained, and all his memory, stored with woe.
And still his stony form remained, in the abyss immense,
Like the pale visage in its sheet of lead, that cannot follow. 6
Such is the result of dogmatic religion, the work of the reasoning
1 Vala. Night III, 30.
4 id. Night IX, 198.
2 Vala. Night IX, 190.
5 Vala. Night VIII, 419.
3 id. Night IX, 194.
• id. Night VIII, 423.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
power, the product of intelligence without love: a petrifaction
which checks for ever the life of the soul, and leaves man a prey to
the dragons of selfishness and ambition.
Urizen had, besides, sons and daughters, of whose birth we know
nothing, but whom we see flying from him after his rejection of Ahania.
We find them referred to here and there, almost invariably as engaged
in conflict with their father, and playing a secondary part in his story.
The sons include, among many others, Tiriel, the Titan, born from
a cloud; Utha, who rises from the waters; Grodna, who springs
howling from the earth; and the fiery Fuzon, "first begotten, last
born." Each of these personifies one of the four elements of the
material world. But Fuzon is also the fire of divine love, slain by the
stone of the Law, against which he has rebelled, and nailed upon the
accursed tree of mystery: a symbol of Christ sacrificed, and thus at
once fulfilling and destroying the old Mosaic law.¹ The daughters of
Urizen are three in number. We see them stopping him when, in
the course of his wanderings, he desires to drink the water of life,
and driving him back despite his curses. It is they, also, who prepare
the poisoned bread and wine with which he feeds the passions of
men; and they assist him, besides, in the writing of his icy laws.
It is difficult to give any exact account of them. Their story is one of
the most obscure in all Blake's obscure mythology. 2
The last vision that we have of Urizen and his family shows him
restored to his original glorious state. Out of the depths of his despair
has come his salvation. Torn from Ahania, divided into a horrible.
spectral shape and an immovable stone that is yet aware of its own
wretched state, he feels grief and remorse arising within him. Like
the fallen Satan, he casts a look of immense regret upon the past,
and is stirred to repentance and to hope. He hears the appeal of the
Universal Man who is beginning to awake. He resumes his place
in the luminous South, and with the help of his sons and daughters,
and of Ahania, whom he has at last found again, labours to prepare
the new humanity, making another heaven and another earth, im-
mersed and lost in a dazzling vision of celestial light.
And lo! like harvest moon, Ahania cast off her dark clothes—
She folded them up in care, in silence, and her brightening limbs
Bathed in the clear spring of the rock then from her darksome cave
Issued in majesty divine. Urizen rose from his couch
On wings of tenfold joy, clapping his hands, his radiant wings
¹ Urizen, VIII, and Ahania, I to IV.
2 Vala. Night VI, 1.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
145
In the immense. As when the sun dances upon the mountains,
A shout of jubilee in lovely notes responds from daughter to daughter,
From son to son, as if the stars beaming innumerable
Through night, should sing soft warbling, filling the earth and heaven,
And bright Ahania took her seat by Urizen in songs and joy. ¹
LUVAH AND VALA
1
Luvah," the gentlest, mildest Zoa," 2 is that spiritual state which
is dominated by the emotions. He is Love in God, and the God of
Love. He has his dwelling in the East, and his seat in the heart of
man. To him belong all the emotional faculties of humanity its
loves, its hopes and its desires, as well as its hates, its sadness and
its despair. In his purest form, he is eternal love, as distinguished from
earthly love, which seeks only to please itself. He is the spirit of
sacrifice, ready to offer itself up eternally for man and for all beings
in the universe. Every one who gives up his life for others is wholly
possessed by Luvah, whether it be Christ dying for humanity or
Buddha offering his flesh and his blood to the famished tigress.
Like Urizen, Luvah was originally one of the Eternals. Did he
become conscious of his own existence at the same time as Urizen,
or later? Blake's myth is not clear enough to show. All we know
is that, in Eternity, he ruled the human heart until the day when
Urizen set him in the brain, and gave him the horses of light to
drive, thus mingling the life of the emotions with that of the intellect,
and making each of them act upon and try to govern the other.
This happened at the time of Albion's fall, at the beginning of the
death-like sleep of the Eternal Man. Luvah, accustomed as he was
to the tigers of passion, could not drive the horses of Urizen, and
refused to come to an understanding with him: a symbol of the
conflict eternally waged between Passion on the one side and Reason
and Logic on the other. Urizen went towards the North, and left
Luvah for an instant to pour his rage on the Universal Man.³ In
this obscure narrative, we find dimly sketched the origin of sorrow
in the human soul, the transformation of the king of love into the
king of wrath and of death, the plight of humanity torn and devoured
by the many conflicting passions which can now no longer be
moderated. And, when Urizen reappears and resumes his conflict
with Luvah, it is the latter who almost always has to suffer, not only
tortured by the power of logic, but also abandoned or betrayed by
1 Vala. Night IX, 340.
• Vala. Night I.
2 Jerusalem, p. 24, 52
L
146
WILLIAM BLAKE
the objects of his affection themselves, as personified in Vala, his
Emanation. He undergoes every kind of trial: is "cast into the
Furnaces of affliction and sealed." And when he is born again, it is
only for new conflicts in which he will be defeated and captured by
his foes. He will be condemned to death, and nailed to a tree,
To die a death of six thousand years bound round with desolation. 2
From beginning to end, his story seems to be only that of the "Man
of Sorrows," as if Love were destined to perpetual suffering. His two
great incarnations are those of two martyr-gods: Christ and Orc.
As Christ, Luvah has had a sublime part to act. When man had
fallen, and the Eternals had chosen seven of their number (the Seven
Eyes of God) to watch over him, six of them either abandoned their
task or accomplished it imperfectly. The seventh was Jesus, the Christ,
the symbol of human brotherhood, of the universal family seen as
one man. He not only watched over man, but in the end, saved him,
by sacrificing Himself and becoming the Lamb of God. But, when
He did this, He was no other than Luvah, the principle of Love.
Christ, says Blake, put on Luvah's robes of blood, that is to say, his
living body. He came to teach men love, setting it in opposition to
the harsh laws of the Old Testament, given by Urizen-Jehovah.
Therefore the state called Luvah did not perish from among men.
A little love was still left to us, even when the laws of egotism and of
authority were most in the ascendant. This is why, after the death
of Jesus, the Eternals buried him in the sepulchre of Luvah, while
on earth His body was laid in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, to
await His ultimate resurrection and His final victory.
But till the coming of that moment, the religion of love is far from
having conquered the world. Luvah struggles incessantly against
the other Zoas. Only in the end will he be victorious; and then he
will be no longer sweet and tender, but a violent, passionate, irresist-
ible force, breaking all laws and overturning all authority. This is
the meaning of Christ's triumphant resurrection. It is also the
meaning of the myth which deals with Luvah's other incarnation,
as Orc. Orc, whose history will be given in fuller detail later on, is
human passion, long held in captivity by the jealous and egotistical
laws of morality, but in the end roused by the roaring of Luvah's
tigers within it, rebelling, breaking its bonds, and consuming the
whole world in flames.
1
¹ Jerusalem, p. 7, 30, and Vala, Night II, 70.
2 Vala. Night VII, 653.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
147
Thus Luvah, whether as Christ or as Orc, comes to his final
triumph. And then, just as Urizen and his family make ready the new
human harvest through the restoration of the divine intuitive faculty,
so Luvah and his sons labour for the resurrection of love, and tread
in their winepress the vintage of human passions. They take rest and
sleep, exhausted with the work, to awake with youth renewed, and
to resume their former station in the spirit of the regenerated man,
and seat themselves once more at the feast of the Eternals.
The history of Vala is extremely complicated and obscure. She is
the Emanation, or rather, according to her own description of herself,
the daughter of Luvah.¹ The book which bears her name has not
much to say of her. The pictures which show her as a fully developed
woman, either nude, as on the first page of Vala, or draped, as in
Jerusalem, throw no light upon her real nature. In the beginning,
she was the Emanation of Luvah, sprung from him we know not
how. She walked in Eden like the lily of the desert. She was loved
by the Eternal Man, and bore a son who was Urizen, the " firstborn
of generation." Was it this birth that brought about the separation
of Urizen from the Eternals? Or had Blake forgotten his first
mythical account of the Creation? Or had he given some other
explanation, now lost, which reconciled the two versions? Or,
again, did all this happen before the separation, when Urizen, though
the son of Vala, was still a disembodied spirit, and one with Eternity?
However that may be, from this moment Vala seems to have become,
as far as man is concerned, distinct from Luvah, of whom she had
hitherto formed an integral part, and yet not always clearly separated
from him.
A wonder to the eyes
Of the now fallen man, a double form Vala appeared, a male
And female shuddering. Pale at sight the fallen man recoiled,
And calling the Enormity Luvah and Vala, turned
Down vales to find his way back into heaven, but found none.
2
This enormity is the Hermaphrodite, which several times appears
in Blake's original drawings, the Virgo-Scorpio of the Ancients,
symbol of Beauty and Desire. Man, having once enjoyed Beauty,
melting in high noon upon the bosom of Vala in sweet bliss," 3
knew that pleasure came from this experience. (The birth of Urizen
symbolises this.) At the same time he desired to repeat the enjoyment,
and so Luvah, the symbol of this desire, becomes for ever associated
1 ¹ Jerusalem, p. 80, 27.
2 Vala. Night VII. 243. 3 Vala. Night VII, 238.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
with Vala. Henceforward, Beauty and Love exist together, bound
by the mystic chain of a common origin, now pursuing, now evading,
and now mingling with one another, until their great reunion at the
end of time. They pass through innumerable vicissitudes. After the
fall of man, Vala finds herself made captive by" forms of vegetation,'
or, in other words, becomes visible and is now the soul of material
beauty instead of being a disembodied spirit. The materialisation
of man has brought with it her own. She is pursued by all, and
especially by Luvah, whom she overpowers, destroys, and burns in
the furnace of affliction. She
forgot he was her Luvah,
With whom she liv'd in bliss in times of innocence and youth. 1
Thus Beauty has ever mocked at and consumed the love that
sighed for her.
But scarcely has this myth been outlined when a new meaning
appears. Vala falls into the hands of Urizen, and becomes obedient
to his laws. Following the commandment, " Thou shalt not covet,'
she seeks to kill all the desires that are turned towards her. But the
destruction of these desires, personified by Luvah, entails her own
destruction also. The beauty that has ceased to be desired and loved
is no longer beauty in the eyes of the human spirit. And this brings
upon Vala a new fall, and death.
Death means complete materialisation. Urizen takes her ashes
and mingles them with the Mundane Shell. She is no longer even
the soul of material beauty: she has become a part of the physical
world, perceived only by the senses, and not by the spirit. She can
no longer be seen apart from the world of matter. Every time that
Luvah thinks he has seized her, and tries to possess her, "the vast
form of Nature, like a serpent, rolled between." 2
Love will be henceforth a material thing, an act of the senses,
the desire for generation, leading to the production of physical beings,
creating and loving the creatures of nature that are born of it,
forming ever-repeated circles, like the coils of the serpent, in an
endless series of conceptions and births. Vala is the object of this
passion, the beauty which attracts sensual desire, the mother of our
bodies of death. "Vala produced the Bodies: Jerusalem gave the
Souls."3 Lastly, when man contracted and subdivided into distinct
¹ Jerusalem, p. 7, 36, and Vala, Night II, 76.
3 Jerusalem, p. 18, 7
2 Vala. Night III, 101.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
149
individuals, each with a body of his own, Vala became Woman, the
goddess and the temptress, manifold and eternal.
Then all these myths concerned with physical beauty, nature and
woman became confused in Blake's mind. For him, the physical love
of woman is closely connected with Natural Religion. Both are an
adoration of beauty, but of a material beauty, which has no real
existence, a worship of illusion, of nothingness, of death. Hence Vala
is the Babylonian Goddess: she is Cybele, the mother of Nature;
and, more strange still, she is Mary, the Mother of Christ's mortal
part, the Virgin whose worship means spiritual death. But whether
as goddess of natural religion, as the Scarlet Woman of the Apoca-
lypse, as Rahab the harlot, as Nature, Beauty, or Woman, it is always
she who attracts and enchains the spirit of man, and so completes
the work begun by her master Urizen.
1
Know me now, Albion : look upon me. I alone am Beauty.
The Imaginative Human Form is but a breathing of Vala.
I breathe him forth into the Heaven from my secret Cave, ¹
Born of the Woman to obey the Woman, O Albion the mighty.
For the Divine appearance is Brotherhood, but I am Love. 2
Albion recognises her. Though he knows well that in Eternity
there is neither love of woman, nor natural beauty, nor sensual passion
he yet feels himself enveloped and dominated by her. All his masculine
strength goes from him. The throne of God, which is in every man,
has been claimed and usurped by woman. Man, as man, no longer
exists. He has become
the Tabernacle of Vala and her Temple,
And not the Tabernacle and Temple of the Most High.
3
Thus came into existence a feminine personality, that "Female
Will" which Blake so abhorred. Love, which ought to be a bond
uniting man with man, a spark from the great eternal fire, has become
instead a selfish union of man and woman, the mere shadow of what
it ought to be. Vala is only the shadow of Jerusalem. The love men
feel for natural beauty is but a feeble image of the love inspired by
divine and intellectual beauty.
4
The evil influence of Vala and of sensual love is unbounded. It is
she who makes a religion of virginity and chastity, through a false
idea of reverence for woman. She calls the accomplishment of man's
3 Jerusalem, p. 34, 29.
1 i.e. Generation.
2 Jerusalem, p. 33, 48.
4
id., p. 44, 39.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
desires Sin. She drapes herself with all the arguments of the law,
"the spectres of the dead." She slays humanity by subduing it to
the material worship of nature, and preserves its lifeless body by
embalming it in moral laws. 1
It is for her that all the internal conflicts between the powers of
the human soul are waged. The wars of intellect are combats between
systems at variance before the great veiled mystery of physical
nature. The wars of history are struggles for the preservation of
man's life, for the defence of his home, symbolised by woman.
And moral wars are the various kinds of vicissitudes which the
sensual passions undergo. It is to Vala, too, that the desires of man,
transformed into demons, sing their war-song.
Now the battle rages round thy tender limbs, O Vala !
Now smile among thy bitter tears, now put on all thy beauty.
Is not the wound of the sword sweet, and the broken bone delightful?
Wilt thou now smile among the slain, when the wounded groan in the
fields ?
Lift up thy blue eyes, Vala, and put on thy sapphire shoes.
Oh melancholy Magdalen, behold the morning breaks.
Gird in thy flaming loins, descend into the sepulchre ;
Scatter the blood from thy golden bow, and tears from thy silver locks,
Shake off the water from thy wings, dust from thy white garments.
Call forth thy smiles of soft deceit, call forth thy cloudy tears.
We hear thy sighs in trumpets shrill, when morn shall blood renew.
2
In the end Orc, in whom Luvah is hidden, attacks and consumes
her, and is himself burned up with her. Thus the poet shows how
passion finally possesses beauty. But just as desire had destroyed
beauty by ceasing to sigh for her, so now it destroys her by gaining
complete possession of her. Orc is consumed: desire, once satisfied,
no longer exists, and, ceasing to exist, can no longer see the beauty
which inspired it; and this entails the death of beauty also. Whether
by self-suppression, or by satisfaction, Desire, in dying, has slain
Beauty.
And yet Vala, Woman, Physical Beauty, are necessary to our
terrestrial world, because generation is itself necessary for redemption.
This is why Vala will rise again at the last day, that is to say, will be
spiritualised and saved. She will beseech the Saviour:
Pity me then, O Lamb of God: Oh Jesus, pity me.
1 Jerusalem p. 80, 27.
3
2 Vala. Night VII, 672. 3 Jerusalem, p. 80, 30.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
151
And He will not leave her in "the gnawing grave "1 of material
life: He will create her anew. She and Luvah will be reunited, and
will enter again into the Eternal Man. They will only have been cast
for a moment into the world of shadows, till winter is come and
gone, "2 that is, until everything material and perishable has been
taken away from them both.
<<
THARMAS AND ENION
3
The third Zoa is Tharmas, the principle of "vegetative" life, the
god of the waters, dwelling in the West, the centre of the physical
sensations. He is called the "Devouring Tongue" because he
absorbs all these sensations as the tongue absorbs everything that
can be tasted. He is "indolent and sullen," 4 because vegetative life
flows naturally and without effort, through the unconscious action.
of the physical organs. He resembles the shepherd of the " Songs of
Innocence," who follows his flocks in the pastures, and lives an
untroubled life, watching them grow day by day.
The part he plays is almost always secondary to that of the three
other Zoas, and it is only in certain books of Vala that we see
him taking an important place. His story is inseparable from that of
his Emanation, Enion. Enion appears to be identical with Eno, the
Aged Mother," who, in one of the earlier Prophetic Books, the
"Book of Los," complains of the bonds which confine the forces of
nature. At any rate, she is the generative power in physical life, as
distinguished from Vala, who is its all-attracting beauty. She is
Venus Genetrix, the mother of all vegetative things, as Tharmas is
the great "Parent power, darkening in the West." 5
At the fall of man, Enion, like the other Emanations, becomes a
separate entity, severing herself from Tharmas, in whom she has
discovered Sin; for Urizen and his laws have already begun to
influence him. Finding the same Sin in herself, she flies, and by so
doing, draws after her the Spectre of Tharmas, who pursues her,
though his feeling for her is one of hatred. He seizes her: the two,
mingling, form a horrible monster, half-woman, half-spectre; and
from their union are born Los and Enitharmon, " two little infants,"
weeping "upon the desolate wind." It matters little to Blake
that he has already given a different account of their birth: for him,
two myths which contradict each other may both be true. What he
¹ Jerusalem, p. 62, 21. 2 Vala. Night IX, 793. 8 Jerusalem, p. 14, 4.
1 id, p. 43, 3.
5 Vala. Night I, 20.
6 id. Night I, 159.
6
3
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WILLIAM BLAKE
wishes to show here is that Time and Space are necessities of vege-
tative life at its beginning and during its course. They, therefore,
will be the two firstborn children of the great natural creative forces,
male and female.
As soon as they are born, everything in nature swarms and multi-
plies. Enion brings the universe of creation to birth.
Enion brooded over the rocks. The rough rocks groaning vegetate.
The barked oak, the long-limned beech, the chestnut-tree, the pine,
The pear-tree mild, the frowning walnut, the sharp crab, apple sweet,
The rough bark opens: twittering peep forth little beaks and wings;
The nightingale, the goldfinch, robin, lark, linnet and thrush.
The goat leaped from the craggy cliff, the sheep awoke from the mould,
Upon its green stalk rose the corn, waving innumerable. 1
Thus the living things multiply as Enion breathes out her life,
little by little, upon the rocks. As for the Spectre of Tharmas, as soon
as he abandons Enion, he falls into eternal death. He is nature devoid
of creative power, that is to say, inert matter; and no imaginative
force can restore him to life. "This Spectre of Tharmas is Eternal
Death.” 2
Enion, for her part, becomes, so to speak, the soul of all nature
excluding human nature. But she has forgotten her origin. Blind and
broken by age, she weeps upon the wind. She sees that the law of
death, the destructive power which opposes her own creative power,
has come into the world, and she laments incessantly. Blake has put
into her complaints all his own pity for the dumb creatures who suffer
and die unheeded,
Why does the Raven cry aloud, and no eye pities her?
Why fall the Sparrow and the Robin in the foodless winter?
Faint, shivering, they sit on leafless bush or frozen stone,
Wearied with seeking food across the snowy waste, the little
Heart cold, the little tongue consumed, that once in thoughtless joy
Gave songs of gratitude to waving cornfields round their nest.
At other times she laments the evil that is in the world. Nature,
which should be the source of man's delight, has become his enemy.
All creation has turned against man, and man himself against his
fellow man. Physical laws have made some men strong and others
weak. Weakness has produced cunning and hypocrisy ; and thus evil
1 Vala. Night I, 169.
2 Vala. Night I, 209.
& Vala. Night I,
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
153
and grief have come into existence. In her long lamentations Enion
names and mingles together all these evils. She makes, as it were, a
list of all the soul's sorrows; moans over all the afflictions of human-
ity, and curses her own laws of life, because they have brought
poverty, famine and death upon the world.
I am made to sow the thistle for wheat, the nettle for a nourishing dainty.
I have planted a false oath on the earth. It has brought forth a poison tree,
I have chosen the serpent for a councillor, and the dog
For a schoolmaster to my children
•
I have taught the thief a secret path into the house of the just.
I have taught pale artifice to spread his nets upon the morning.
What is the price of experience? Do men buy it for a song?
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No, it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath-his wife, his house, his children.
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy,
And in the withered fields where the farmer ploughs for bread in vain. ¹
Then, continuing her declamation, she compares the lot of the
rich with that of the poor, and ends with a malediction upon poverty.
It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity.
Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.
2
So her terrible form goes lamenting through space. She flies now
around Urizen, now around Los: but she always escapes from
Tharmas, who still follows her.
The story of Tharmas himself is occupied with two subjects: his
useless pursuit of Enion, and his struggle against Los and Urizen.
We see him still surviving among the ruins of Luvah's world. When
love and desire are dead, there still remains the consciousness of
physical life and the need of preserving it. This need is so urgent that
Tharmas commands Los to build him a new universe; and, to gain
control over him, carries away Enitharmon, that he may give her up
later to his Spectre. In the end, he assists Los in his own work.
All these myths indicate vaguely the influence of the desire of life
upon the human spirit, and upon the production of artistic and
poetical work, which is inspired by Los. Against Urizen alone
Tharmas has no power, and he retreats even while he fights. The
functions of vegetative life must give way to those of the intellect :
the organs cannot refuse obedience to the brain.
1 Vala. Night II, 379. 2 id. Night II, 409.
154
WILLIAM BLAKE
In certain episodes of his struggles, Tharmas takes Vala for Enion,
that is, beauty for creative power, and then, recognising his error,
weeps over the loss of his former joys.
Oh! Vala, once I lived in a garden of delight;
I watered Enion in the morning, and she lived always
Among the apple-trees, and all the garden of delight
Swam like a dream before my eyes. 1
Later, terrified by the spectre of Urizen, he submits himself to
Los, the prophet of Eternity-natural life yielding to divine life.
So only can he hope for the return of Enion. But first he must abase
himself before the other spirits, instead of seeking to rule over man :
he must calm his rage, and call humbly upon Enion.
Arise, oh! Enion, arise and smile upon my head,
As thou dost smile upon the barren mountains, and they rejoice.
When wilt thou smile on Tharmas, oh! thou bringer of golden day?
Arise, oh! Enion, arise, for lo! I have calmed my seas.
2
As moral changes are always symbolised by physical transforma-
tions, Tharmas and Enion find one another again, but, this time, as
two little children.
There, in eternal childhood, straying among Vala's flocks,
In infant sorrow and joy alternate, Enion and Tharmas play'd. 3
And they play together until the time comes for them to assist in
the great work of man's regeneration, of the resurrection, and of
the new life.
Till then, they represent for us the simple instinct of life. They fill
not only vegetable and animal nature, but also the spirits of children,
before Luvah with his passion, or Urizen with his experience, has
entered into them, and before they have heard the terrible voice of
Urthona-Los, the Eternal Prophet. It is Tharmas and Enion who
raise the shouts of joy with which the fields resound in childhood's
glad days. They have forgotten their past strivings in the world of
eternity, but have kept their great joy in existence, the freshness of
life, the newborn energy of nature, bursting out in its buds and open-
ing in its flowers, painted with the magic colours of an unfading
spring and an eternal youth. It was at their dictation that Blake wrote
his wonderful Songs of Innocence, which perpetually renew for us the
purest and tenderest joys of a careless, innocent and happy childhood.
¹ Vala. Night VII, 717. 2 Vala. Night IX, 486.
• Vala. Night IX, 548.
•
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
155
URTHONA-LOS AND ENITHARMON
The fourth Zoa is Urthona. He is the same as Los, whom we
have already seen as a smith, forging chains to bind Urizen, but he
appears also under other aspects, and these, as well as his history,
we must now examine.
1
Los was the fourth immortal starry one, and in the Earth
Of a bright Universe, Empery attended day and night,—
Days and nights of revolving joy-Urthona was his name.
Blake therefore seems to have made him, under this first name,
Urthona, the governing principle of the earth, under whose rule the
macrocosm of our world lives and moves. He has been compared to
the Earth-Spirit evoked by Faust, and also to Shelley's Demogorgon.
He is the primitive instinct which unites man with the universe and
with God. It thus seems that, according to Blake, the instinctive
desire for the infinite comes from the very heart of our own planet,
and draws us towards Eternity, just as the law of gravitation draws
our earth towards the centre from which it had its birth. Whatever its
origin, this instinct it is which reveals itself in the words of the seers and
the prophets, and persists throughout all ages, so that the Eternal Vision
may not be altogether lost. Like Faust's Earth-Spirit, Urthona
works as Time, the weaver, and weaves the living garment of Divinity
-that garment which Blake saw in one aspect as the tissue of days
and years—the robe of Eternity woven by Los-and in another as
the inspired Word, which Los also keeps alive through all the ages
of mankind. The impression of chaotic strength that he leaves in
the mind is very much like that given by Shelley's description of
Demogorgon.
A mighty power which is as darkness
Is rising out of the earth, and from the sky
Is showered like night, and from within the air
Bursts, like eclipses which have been gathered up
Into the pores of sunlight. 2
Like Demogorgon, too, he speaks of a deliverance, and proclaims
the final triumph of man over the gods.
Urthona was his name in Eternity. But when man fell from
Eternity into time, he became Time's guardian," Los, the vehicular
form of Urthona," whose birth we have seen recorded in the stories
of the creation of Urizen and of the world of Tharmas. He is always
1 Vala. Night I, 11.
2 Prometheus Unbound.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
closely associated with his Emanation, Enitharmon, either as
Time with Space, or as the Spirit of Prophecy with the Spirit
of Pity.
Los is by mortals nam'd Time; Enitharmon is nam'd Space.
But they depict him bald and aged who is in eternal Youth
All-powerful, and his locks flourish like the brows of morning.
He is the Spirit of Prophecy, the ever apparent Elias.
Time is the mercy of Eternity: without Time's swiftness,
Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment.
All the Gods of the Kingdoms of Earth labour in Los's Halls.
Every one is a fallen Son of the Spirit of Prophecy.
He is the Fourth Zoa, that stood around the Throne Divine. 1
Blake thus mingles the two myths. Just as physical birth and death
were necessary to the attainment of eternal life, so also must the
individualities of men be bound down in time and space, to escape
utter self-destruction, and to be able to resume their primal unity.
But it was necessary also that the recollection of this unity should
not be entirely blotted out, that there should still be one voice to
remind men of their lost paradise. And this was the voice of Time,
the son of Eternity, who thus saved humanity once more by becoming
the Prophetic Spirit, the Los of this new myth.
To Blake, however, prophecy does not mean at all the same thing
that it does to the orthodox. With him, it means art in all its forms.
In his sense of the term, not only Ezekiel, Isaiah and St. John were
prophets, but all visionaries, all poets, all artists, all those who have
the power of bringing into this world a little of the eternal world of
imagination, a reflection, however faint, of the land of dreams, from
whence alone this Earth of ours derives its life. (Hence the conception
of Urthona, the Earth's Life.) Milton was one of Los's great prophets,
as we have seen above. Blake himself was another. Individual artists
pass away, but the " State " called Los-that is to say, Inspiration-
remains for ever.
The part played by Enitharmon is less clear. She is Space: but
when she separated from Los, the Eternals " called her Pity." While
Los is Inspiration, she is the feeling that pervades the soul of the
artist, the joy that he takes in his work, the emotion stirred in him
by his visions. For Blake himself these milder elements in his spirit
were symbolised by his wife, his "Shadow of Delight." Hence the
following strange description of Enitharmon, which the poet does not
¹ Milton, p. 23, 68.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
157
apply to any of the other Emanations, and which is, as it were, a
sort of tribu.e of gratitude paid to Mrs. Blake.
Enitharmon is a vegetated mortal Wife of Los:
1
His Emanation, yet his Wife till the sleep of death is past.
When that sleep is ended, when the golden door of the grave opens
to receive Blake and his wife, and they awake to the only real life,
then there will be no more marrying. She will be his Emanation, as
in the eternal past: her separate personality will have vanished;
and she will become one with him in the great Divine Humanity
which is Christ. But the gate is still closed, and hidden from us :
we are still in the world of the body, sunk deeply in the "Sleep of
Death," and Enitharmon is still but a " vegetated mortal wife.”
The labours of Los and Enitharmon are many, and most complex.
Their story fills the greater part of the Prophetic Books. Their
personalities and their meanings are constantly changing, as one myth
gives birth to and is replaced by another. It is impossible to follow
them through all the labyrinth of details in which their history becomes
involved; and only their chief doings stand out with any clearness
from the confused medley of the poems, as the doings which they
symbolise stand out in the history of humanity. These chief doings
are: (1) the binding of Urizen in time and space; (2) the creation
and sacrifice of Orc, or human passion; (3) the conflicts between Los
and Enitharmon; (4) the conflicts between Los and his Spectre ;
(5) the building of Golgonooza, the world of art, and the creation
of the material world; (6) the protection and regeneration of man.
(1) The " binding of Urizen's changes" has already been described
in Chapter IX. A detailed account of it is given in the Book of Urizen
and in the fourth Night" of Vala, where almost the same words
are employed. From this first great labour we get the myth of Los
the Blacksmith, a sort of Thor, standing hammer in hand beside his
anvil, or plying the bellows in his furnaces, melting down the iron
and brass which are the elemental thoughts and desires of men,
solidifying them as soon as they come into existence, and forging
systems and worlds.
<<
(2) The history of Orc, the firstborn of Los and Enitharmon, fills
a considerable part of the Book of Urizen and of Nights V and VII
of Vala. It symbolises the attempts of jealousy to destroy love, and
those of the Law to restrict man's natural energies. When Enitharmon
¹ Jerusalem, p. 14, 13.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
has become separated from Los, he loves her, and she gives birth
to Orc, the "Red Demon " whom Blake always represents as en-
circled with the flames of life and passion, the "Howling Terror,'
the "Human Shadow." As Orc grows up, fed with Enitharmon's
milk, she begins to love him; and jealousy enters into the heart of
Los, despite all his efforts to rid himself of it.
A tight'ning girdle grew
Around his bosom. In sobbings
He burst the girdle in twain.
But still another girdle
Opress'd his bosom. 1
Each day a new chain forms itself, and together they make the
ponderous chain of jealousy. Los had seen Orc
Embracing his bright mother, and beheld malignant fires
In his young eyes, discerning plain that Orc plotted his death. 2
Then he seizes Orc and, followed by the weeping Enitharmon,
takes him to the top of a mountain, where he binds him down with
his chain, and there leaves him, to be watched over by his Spectre,
now
Concentred into love of Parent, storgeous appetite, craving. 3
Like Prometheus, Orc remains howling upon his rock, the symbol
of human passion held captive by the laws of egoism and jealous
necessity. In vain do
Ten thousand thousand spirits
Of life lament around the Demon, going forth and returning.
At his enormous call they flee into the heavens of heavens,
And back return with wine and food, or dive into the deeps
To bring the thrilling joys of sense to quell his ceaseless rage. 4
To what purpose do the flames of life play around him and reveal
to him the forces of the external world? Why do his senses now
contract and now expand to see the secrets of the universe or the
depths of the human soul? All the joys of life are close at his hand.
All the stars
Sing round. There waves the harvest; the vintage rejoices there.
The springs flow into rivers of delight. Spontaneous flowers
Drink, laugh and sing; the grasshopper, the emmet and the fly,
The golden moth builds there a house and spreads her silken bed. 5
¹ Urizen, VII, 2. 2 Vala. Night V, 81.
3 Vala. Night V, 113.
4 Vala. Night V, 116. id. Night V, 130.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
159
All these things he sees and feels. But he alone is joyless, filled with
insatiable passions, with longings for the infinite, budding desires
nipped before they can blossom, unquenchable energies checked by the
eternal "Thou shalt not." In vain does the tyrant himself repent of his
work : in vain do Los and Enitharmon bewail the momentary impulse
of jealousy which made them chain down the "ruddy boy" upon
the rock. Such a law, once it has been promulgated, is irrevocable.
Jealousy, like love, is stronger than death, and its effects endure
for ages. The chain fastens itself upon the limbs of Orc and grows
into them, rooting them to the rock : it becomes a luxuriant vegeta-
tion-the "Tree of Mystery "-covering the whole mountain, from
the caves at its base up to the summit where the immortal child lies
bound. Neither the tears nor the death of Enitharmon, nor Los's
efforts, nor the bulls of Luvah, can break it. It is a “living chain,
sustained by the Demon's life." Orc in his struggles shakes the
earth, and wraps it in the flames that rise higher about him. Urizen
trembles upon his throne, and goes forth to discover what is the cause
of this disturbance. Then Luvah, who is overmastering desire and
all-powerful love, hides himself in the person of Orc, and strives
against Urizen-passion striving against law. Orc "organises a
serpent-body," which exudes from his limbs," silent as is despairing
love, and strong as jealousy," and which rears its vast form against
the Tree of Mystery, to destroy it in the end. At the same time, in
his furious excitement, his inextinguishable passion for the beauty
of Vala, he breaks his chains, mingles with Vala, and is consumed,
with her, in his own flames. Strong passion, so long restrained, has
burst its bonds at last; and desire satisfied has brought about its
own extinction. Blake had expressed the same idea some years before
when he said that the whole creation would be consumed at the end
of six thousand years, and that this would come to pass by an
improvement of sensual enjoyment." 3 The destruction of Vala is
the dissolution of worldly beauty possessed by desire, entirely ab-
sorbed in it, and perishing with it in the moment of consummation.
(3) The quarrels of Los and Enitharmon occupy, with those of
the three other Zoas and their Emanations, all the "Nights" of
Vala, and symbolise the struggles that are always going on in the
artistic spirit. Enitharmon is now no longer merely Pity or Artistic
Pleasure she has become the Ideal, the vision that always floats
2
1 Vala. Night V, 169. 2 id. Night VII, 622.
3
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 14.
160
WILLIAM BLAKE
}
before his eyes, flying from him like a shadow when he pursues her.
She is still the joy that he feels in work accomplished; but she is
also the wife of Los, a capricious woman, an inconstant lover.
Scarcely had she separated from Los when
He embrac'd her she wept, she refus'd,
In perverse and cruel delight.
She fled from his arms, yet he follow'd. ¹
Even while they wandered as little children in the world of Tharmas
Enitharmon delighted in evoking visions of Albion, the Fallen Man,
despite Los's love. And she it was who called to Urizen in the human
heart, and decided the wars between him and the other Zoas. In
vain Los struck her in his anger. He soon felt love for her reviving
in his heart, and summoned her to return to him. But their marriage-
song, sung by all nature, is a discordant cry of rebellion against man.
The Mountain called out to the Mountain, Awake, O brother Mountain.
Let us refuse the Plough and Spade, the heavy Roller and
Spiked Harrow. Burn these cornfields all, throw all these fences down.
Fattened on blood and drunk with wine of life is better far
Than all these labours of harvest and vintage. 2
Nevertheless, for a time the newly wedded pair remain happy,
watching the labours of Urizen and the sufferings of Luvah. They
alone have kept a little of the eternal, and can still expand their
senses into the infinite, and step from star to star. But Enitharmon
again refuses to give herself to Los, in spite of his pleading.
Lo, the lily pale and the rose reddening fierce
Reproach thee, and the beamy garden sickens at thy beauty.
I grasp thy vest with my strong hands in vain. Like water-springs
In the bright sands of Los evading my embrace. Thus I alone
Wander among the virgins of the summer. 3
Los dies in despair; but, after one night of sorrow, she calls him
back to life with a love-song.
The Joy of woman is the death even of her most beloved,
Who dies for love of her,
In torments of fierce jealousy and pangs of adoration.
O, I am weary. Lay thy hand upon me or I faint,
I faint beneath these beams of thine,
Urizen, VI, 1.
2 Vala. Night I, 357.
³ id. Night II, 293.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
161
For thou hast touched my five senses and they answered thee.
Now I am nothing, and I sink
And fall on the bed of solemn sleep till thou awakenest me.
1
Thus she sang" in a rapturous delusive trance." Los heard, and
revived. But alas! scarcely had he taken Enitharmon once more in
his arms when she fled "outstretched upon the immense like a bright
rainbow, weeping, smiling, fading."
Elsewhere, we see her revealing the secret of woman's power, her
gross, proud and jealous love, which overrules the higher love of man.
I will create
A round Womb beneath my bosom lest I also be overwoven
With Love: be thou assured I will never be thy slave.
Let Man's delight be love, but Woman's delight be Pride.
In Eden our Loves were the same: here they are opposite. 2
And the Spectre of Los tells him the bitter truth :
The Man who respects Woman shall be despised by Woman,
And deadly cunning and mean abjectness only, shall enjoy them. 3
Here the goddess has fallen from heaven, and become the woman
of flesh and blood, who subdues man to her will.
It is useless to recapitulate, as Blake does, the many recurring
phases of this history. Till time shall end, woman will always attract
man and fly from him, will kill him and call him back to life with
her tears. And always, too, the artist's ideal of love and beauty will
hover before his eyes, unattainable, and filling him with alternate
joy and grief; an eternal Eurydice, pursued and lost among the
shadows of the infinite, "weeping, smiling, fading."
(4) The struggles between Urthona-Los and his Spectre are as
infinite in number and as varied in kind as his quarrels with Eni-
tharmon. The whole book of Vala was written to describe his
division into Spectre and Emanation and the changes he passed
through as a consequence of it.
Daughters of Beulah, sing
His fall into Division and his resurrection into Unity,
His fall into the Generation of decay and death and his
Regeneration by resurrection from the dead. 4
In Vala, the Spectre of Los, who is Urthona, appears for the first
time assisting Tharmas to check the progress of Urizen. In other
1 Vala. Night II, 341.
4 Vala. Night I, 16.
2 Jerusalem, p. 87, 13.
3 id., p. 88, 37.
M
162
WILLIAM BLAKE
words, the proud prophetic spirit joins with the natural instinct of
life in resisting the despotic laws imposed by a false god. But his
chief achievement is his conquest of Enitharmon, who, not knowing
who he is, surrenders herself to him beneath the Tree of Mystery.
He reveals to her their mysterious common origin in the dividing of
the Universal Man, and tells her that it is she only whom he desires,
because he is Urthona, a spirit and "the Spectre of the Living." From
their union, she gives birth to a "horrible monster," Error, "in
dreams of Ulro," the "State" of Moral Death. Then he enters
into the bosom of Los, who now for the first time becomes aware of
his identity with Urthona.
Thou art united with thy Spectre, to consume by pains
That mortal body, and by self-annihilation come
Back to Eternal Life to be assured I am thy self.
For thou art but a form and organ of life, and of thyself
Art nought, by Mercy and Love Divine continually created. 1
Thus the prophet learns that he is nothing. He must perish: only
the spirit which breathes in him, the spiritual " State" represented
by Urthona, remains for ever. It is by only his complete identification
of himself with this spirit, by abandoning all thought of self and
becoming simply the voice of God, that the prophet can accomplish
This destiny and attain to perfect union with his ideal. Otherwise, all
must be error. But once Los recognises and loves his Spectre, Eni-
tharmon can come back to him; only, however, after many ad-
ventures, when, at the end of six thousand years of abnegation and
repentance, the Lamb of God shall appear. And with the regeneration
of man will come their final reunion.
Urthona is arisen in his strength; no longer now
Divided from Enitharmon-no longer the Spectre of Los. ²
2
There will be no more need of prophecy, because God and man
will be but one; no more need of an ideal, because the ideal will
be life itself.
In Jerusalem, the conception of Los's Spectre is somewhat different.
Here he is, above all, the prophet's deadly enemy. He seems to have
entirely forgotten that he is Urthona until Los recalls him to himself.
He is only Los's pride and his sense of self-satisfaction. He hovers
above the forge of Los, trying now to subjugate him and now to
1 Vala. Night VII, 339.
2 Vala. Night IX, 843.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
163
persuade him to leave Albion, the Eternal Man, whose salvation he
has undertaken, to his fate.
Wilt thou still go on to destruction ?
Till thy life is all taken away by this deceitful Friendship?
He drinks thee up like water: like wine he pours thee
Into his tuns: thy Daughters are trodden in his vintage.
He makes thy sons the trampling of his bulls
All the Spectres of his Sons mock thee.
I saw it indignant, and thou art not moved!
This has divided thee in sunder: and wilt thou still forgive?
In all ages men have justified the condemnation pronounced by
Christ. They have slain the prophets, and stoned those who were sent
to convert them. But still the Prophetic Spirit remains unshakeable,
and continues his work through all the ages. He does not merely
resist the arguments of his Spectre, the biddings of his pride and his
egoism, but he subdues the Spectre, and compels him to labour in
the furnaces, to obey him and help him, or to drive away the sons
and daughters of Albion, so that they may not interrupt his work.
So even the least exalted impulses of the artist are made to serve
his ideals. The Spectre is sent
abroad over the four points of heaven
In the fierce desires of beauty and in the tortures of repulse. He is
The Spectre of the Living pursuing the Emanations of the Dead. 2
Art never shrinks from appealing to the earthly passions and
affections of men, in order to gain their attention. And thus the
Spectre also assists the work of Eternity. The Sons of Eden will
praise him" because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble," 3
and Los will receive him into his bosom.
(5) All this while, Los has been building Golgonooza, the Palace
or the World of Art. This has been Inspiration's chief work through-
out the whole history of mankind. It is through Art alone that we
can obtain a glimpse of the Divine Vision, since Art is all that
remains to man of his lost Eden. Los builds the City of Art continu-
ally, with the unwilling aid of his Spectre and Enitharmon's gladly
given help. He began it as a Universe of the Ideal to oppose the
material world built by Urizen; and Blake gives us a minute
description of it in Jerusalem, though in Vala he barely mentions it.
We could almost draw a picture of it, as we might make one of the
¹ Jerusalem, p. 7, 9.
2 Jerusalem, p. 17. 11.
3 id. P. 30, 15.
4 Vala. Night V, 76.
4
164
WILLIAM BLAKE
New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse, or a plan on the lines of that in
Dante's Inferno. Blake has tried to imitate Ezekiel's vision of the
Temple, with all its details of measurements, rooms, gates and orien-
tations, though, on account of the symbolical meanings which he
always kept in mind, he has failed to attain the same degree of clear-
ness and precision.
And the North Gate of Golgonooza toward Generation.
Has four sculptur'd Bulls, terrible, before the Gate of iron;
And iron the Bulls: and that which looks toward Ulro,
Clay bak'd and enamel'd, eternal glowing as four furnaces:
Turning upon the Wheels of Albion's Sons with enormous power.
And that toward Beulah four, gold, silver, brass and iron. 1
We can gather from this what sort of conception he had formed of
the History of Art. First came those works of art which appealed
only to the passions of man (the Bulls of iron): then those which
were based upon error, dry like clay baked in the furnace, and as
devoid of life and then those which expressed the artist's idealized
fancies, with all their wealth of spiritual thought, of knowledge,
imagination, and love. After this we have other descriptions of walls
and enclosures, and the various parts of each, and of the Genii, the
Gnomes, the Nymphs and Fairies that guard them. Around the City
lies all that world which knows nothing of Art or of the Ideal—
the land of death eternal: a Land
Of pain and misery and despair and ever brooding melancholy :
In all the Twenty-seven Heavens, number'd from Adam to Luther: 2
From the blue Mundane Shell, reaching to the Vegetative Earth. 3
We are in a vast country, which Blake saw clearly defined before
his eyes, but of which he alone could distinguish the features. In it,
the poet's inspired vision perceived as actually existing the innumer-
able multitude of all things past, present and to come. There, in Los’s
Halls, is carved all the history of mankind, all the visions of poets
and dreamers, all the inspirations of the artists, all that splendid,
luminous, changing world that the imagination describes or creates.
For every thing exists, and not one sigh nor smile nor tear,
One hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away. 4
But this is not the whole of Los's work. Everything that pertains
to creation comes within his province. He and Enitharmon and their
1
¹ Jerusalem, p. 12, 61.
3
2i.e. the religions. Jerusalem, p. 13, 30. 4 id., p. 13, 66.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
165
1
sons not only build the palace of man's imagination: they also pro-
duce in the Universal Man the material of which our individual
bodies are to be formed. Enitharmon weaves these human bodies
on the golden looms of Cathedron, and receives back the souls when
the material bodies have perished. They are also the spiritual
origins of all the material universe. So it seems-and this phenomenon
occurs often in Blake's work-as though even Urizen can create only
when they enter into him and empower him to do so; in other
words, when he is "in showers of Los." Some sons of Los take the
human passions and clothe them with forms of beauty: others seize
the terrible spectres, and endue them with hideous animal shapes:
others forge the metals, and others, again, the hours and the minutes,
while yet others create each man's own universe, the
Space that a Man views around his dwelling-place,
Standing on his own roof, or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height. 2
And thus, wherever there is creation, we find some divinely-in-
spired work: Urizen, and even Enion also, must borrow a spark of
Urthona's fire. All that we see, all that we imagine, is the work of
Los, the "labour of six thousand years. Thus Nature is a Vision of
the Science of the Elohim." 3 And the poet is, as his name indicates,
the only real creator. This can be more easily understood if we regard
the material world as a vision of the spirit, created by, and disappear-
ing with, the spirit. It then becomes altogether a product of the
imagination; and this was the way in which Blake saw it.
VI. Finally, Los is entrusted with the task of watching over
Albion and his Emanations, and the account of this work fills almost
the whole of Jerusalem. He prevents the sons and daughters of Albion,
who are the thoughts, passions and desires of men, from falling
into absolute materiality, which is eternal death. He prophesies the
death of the world, the salvation of man, and the destruction of the
sexes. He sets forth Blake's own doctrine of eternal life. He creates
and promulgates his system, in order that he may not be himself
subjugated to other systems. He has to protect the innocent, and
instruct the ignorant. He exhorts Albion to reject all false religions,
to banish all the spirits of war and discord, which are but
A pretence of Art, to destroy Art: a pretence of Liberty,
To destroy Liberty: a pretence of Religion to destroy Religion. 4
¹ Milton, p. 26. 2 id., p. 28, 5. 3 Milton, p. 28, 64. Jerusalem, p. 43, 35.
166
WILLIAM BLAKE
He tries to lead man back into Eden through his own gateway of
the ideal; and, failing, receives from the Divine Family, the mission
of watching over him until Jesus shall appear.
They gave their power to Los,
Naming him the Spirit of Prophecy, calling him Elijah. ¹
1
And he continues to save men by means of Generation, putting
spirits into their bodies, so that they may not fall still lower, and be
lost in non-entity. He calls up for them a vision of the world to come,
the heavenly Jerusalem, as she will appear in the England of the future
with her mystic angel-wings, her gates of pearl, her pillars of cloud
and of fire. “I see thy form," he sings to her. “Thy forehead
Reflects Eternity beneath thy azure wings of feathery down,
Ribb'd delicate, and cloth'd with feather'd gold and azure and purple
From thy white shoulders shadowing: purity in holiness! 2
3
He teaches true morality: the swing of his hammer is Pity; its
blows are Justice and its strength is Eternal Forgiveness. He casts
out the Spectres, presides over the gradual awakening of Albion,
and makes ready for his Winepress the vintage of the new human
race. And in the end, when Man, now regenerate, has brought
back all his elements into harmony, and restored all the Zoas to their
original places, Urthona-Los is once more praised by the Eternals
for having kept the Divine Vision. And a still greater reward is in
store for him.
Jesus appeared standing by Albion, as the Good Shepherd
By the lost Sheep that he hath found, and Albion knew that it
Was the Lord, the Universal Humanity, and Albion saw his Form
A Man, and they conversed as Man with Man, in Ages of Eternity.
And the Divine Appearance was the likeness and similitude of Los. 4
No higher praise could be bestowed upon the personification of
the poet's imagination and the prophet's inspiring spirit. And if we
remember that Los himself dwelt in Blake as he did in Milton, we
can easily account for the pride that Blake took in his work. He often
declared that the Divine Imagination was the body of Christ, the
Soul of humanity. And once he scandalized a listener by saying, “ I
am Christ, and so are you, and so is everyone." This meant that he
saw in every man a spark of the prophetic spirit, which, if we do not
1
¹ Jerusalem, p. 44, 30.
* Jerusalem, p. 96, 3.
2 id. p. 86, 5.
3 Vala. Night IX. Milton, p. 24.
THE FOUR ZOAS AND THEIR EMANATIONS
167
extinguish it, can make each of us a Los in our own sphere, and
enable us to draw humanity, as Christ draws His sheep, a little nearer
to its lost Paradise and to Eternal Life.
Such are some of the ideas concealed in the myths of Los and
Enitharmon. But it must not be forgotten that these two creations
have, besides, a vast wealth of other meanings, just as their history
contains a multitude of other episodes. In them we find summed up
all that is noblest and most poetic in humanity; and all that Blake
prized most highly among the unsearchable treasures of his soul.
XI: HIS OTHER CREATIONS, AND THE WORLDS
A
THEY LIVE IN
JERUSALEM

LBION, the Eternal Man, symbol, in his fallen state, of our
terrestrial humanity, has an Emanation, Jerusalem, who gives
her name to the most important of the Prophetic Books,
though she does not otherwise play a very large part in
Blake's work. Blake often speaks of her, metaphorically, as a city; but
she is always represented in his pictures as a woman, and she acts as a
feminine spirit. We find her frequently opposed to Vala, as spritual
beauty opposed to material beauty. She personifies the tenderest
side of the human soul, its spiritual love and hope and desire; and,
in this aspect, she cannot easily be distinguished from Luvah. She
is Mutual Forgiveness, and also the Destruction of Sin; because
every Sin, once it is forgiven, ceases to exist. But in destroying Sin
she destroys the Law; and therefore she " is called Liberty among
the Sons of Men.”
In the days of innocence, she lived always as the inseparable
companion of Vala in Havilah, the land of lilies and of purity, of love
and beauty united.
I slept in his golden hills: the Lamb of God met me there.
There we walked as in our secret chamber among our little ones.
They looked upon our loves with joy: they beheld our secret joys :
With holy raptures of adoration rap'd sublime in the visions of God. ¹
It was a time of happiness that could not last. After Albion's fall,
when his sons and daughters had built up philosophies and estab-
lished laws, and reason had usurped the place of the affections,
Jerusalem and Vala fled away from him. He cursed his love and his
passion calling them Sin. Pleasures came to be regarded as forbidden
fruit chastity was accounted the highest virtue. Love of humanity,
which prompted men to pity and forgiveness of sins, was condemned
as weakness. Desire became temptation, as symbolized by the Eternal
Woman, Lilith,who entices human souls to their destruction. This weak-
ness and this temptation are personified in Jerusalem. And therefore the
sons of Albion can scarcely find words strong enough to condemn her.
1
¹ Jerusalem, p. 79, 41.
HIS OTHER CREATIONS
169
Cast! Cast ye Jerusalem forth! The Shadow of delusions!
The Harlot daughter! Mother of pity and dishonourable forgiveness!
Our Father Albion's sin and shame! . . .
Jerusalem is our Harlot-Sister
•
Return'd with Children of pollution, to defile our House
With Sin and Shame. Cast! Cast her into the Potter's field. 1
Jerusalem, cast forth into the winter of human life, can only lament
for the days of her youth, when she could forget the existence of
error, when she had no thought of evil, and no knowledge of sin,
when Albion loved her as he loved Vala, and the Lamb of God took
her for His bride. She implores Albion not to look too closely into
her soul in search of evil; and praises the virtue of forgiveness.
Why wilt thou number every little fibre of my Soul,
Spreading them out before the Sun like stalks of flax to dry?
Why should Punishment Weave the Veil with Iron Wheels of War,
When Forgiveness might it Weave with Wings of Cherubim ? 3
But Albion, in spite of her prayers, curses her as he is dying, and
casts her out.
Her history is unfolded in various short episodes scattered through
the whole book of Jerusalem. We see her now hidden in a grain of
sand, a forgotten corner of the human spirit, where Satan cannot find
her; and now become the slave of Albion's sons. She is tormented
first by the false religion of Rahab, and then by the materialistic
creed of Tirzah. She is cast naked and unprotected before Sion, and
thinks that the Divine Presence has abandoned her. She almost gives
way to utter despair, and is on the point of losing her faith, falling
into matter, and becoming
A worm, and no living soul:
A worm going to eternal torment: rais'd up in a night
To an eternal night of pain, lost! lost! lost! for ever! 4
But Los, calling Albion to awake from the sleep of death, summons
Jerusalem also to arise and come.
Awake, Awake, Jerusalem! O lovely Emanation of Albion,
Awake, and overspread all Nations as in Ancient Time.
For lo! the Night of Death is past, and the Eternal Day
Appears upon our Hills: Awake, Jerusalem, and come away ! 5
¹ Jerusalem, p. 18, 11.
4 id, p. 80, 3.
2 id, p. 22, 20.
5 Jerusalem, p. 97, L.
³ Jerusalem, p. 22, 34.
170
WILLIAM BLAKE
Amid the flames of life and the sunrays of the newborn day, Albion
awakes, dazzled by the Divine Splendour, and clasps her in his arms,
never to be parted from her again.¹ And when the whole world has
become as one man, one living, united family, the Emanations of all
things are mingled into one, and their name is Jerusalem.
THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF LOS AND OF ALBION
The personages of whom some account has been given are the
principal, but by no means the only inhabitants of Blake's misty
realms. A multitude of others dwell there also. Some we meet for a
moment, hear their names, and then forget them. Others come and
go in crowds, with no individual characteristics, like the long files
of the undistinguished in the old Chronicles. Others appear and
reappear, each time with some new meaning; and others, again,
form the subjects of long episodes or of entire books, while still play-
ing only a minor part in the poet's great mystical scheme. We could
give their genealogy with some approach to exactness, in spite of
various blanks and contradictions. But it is almost impossible to
distinguish clearly between all the units of this mixed multitude,
whose members seem to resemble each other even more closely than
those of a human crowd. Blake lived in the midst of a whole host of
spiritual beings, of whom he mentions only a few by name; and
even these few are too numerous for us to keep an account of. Many
of them, moreover, are of so little importance that, except for the
part they play in contributing to the confusion and complexity of
Blake's universe, their absence would make no difference to his work
as a whole. The appearance of one new name among so many others
might well pass unnoticed, like the addition of a single new soldier
to an army. A brief account of the most important among them will
be sufficient.
We have already seen the four sons of Urizen, who symbolize the
four elements, and his daughters, who knead the bread of material
existence. And we have followed with some care the story of Orc,
the first-born of Los. The chief personages remaining to be studied
are the other children of Los, and those of Albion. Los and Enith-
armon have many children, born after Orc, almost all of them repre-
senting ideas connected with prophecy, religion or philosophy. We
find, among others, Rintrah, the proud and passionate spirit who is
¹ Jerusalem, p. 96. Illustration.
1
HIS OTHER CREATIONS
171
the soul of revolutions; Palamabron, the "horned priest," whose
harrow covers up the seeds of thought in the human soul; the
wretched Theotormon, who gave to Jesus the gospel of sorrow, and
whom the beautiful Oothoon loved in vain ; Bromion, god of thunder,
the avenger of sins and jealous tormenter of lovers; Satan, the mild
spirit of weakness and pity, who borrowed Palamabron's harrow,
and later, under the influence of Rintrah and Bromion, became the
impassioned accuser of man; Har, the earthly son of Mnetha, who
lived in the Garden of Eden before Adam; Adam himself, the first
man formed out of clay, and his sons; Jacob and his sons, who
became the heads of the tribes of Israel; the great prophets and the
founders of the Churches-David, Solomon and St. Paul, Con-
stantine and Charlemagne, Luther and Milton. These last are
mortals, born of human parents; but their spiritual individualities
were inherited by each of them from Los and Enitharmon. We hear
also of many of their daughters, who symbolize various aspects of
woman; the lovely, jealous Ocalythron, beloved by Rintrah; Elyn-
ittria, the silent queen of the silver bow, a chaste goddess like Diana;
Oothoon, the innermost passion of woman, symbol of her desire for
man, the spirit that reveals all the secrets of woman's soul and does
not fear to pluck the flower of love; Rahab the harlot, goddess of all
authoritative religions; Tirzah, the symbol of earthly motherhood;
Mary, in whose womb Jesus assumed the satanic body of death;
And myriads more of sons and daughters, to whom our loves increased. 1
Other beings also come into existence, we know not how or
whence, and the parts they play have a certain episodic interest.
Such is Thel, the daughter of the Seraphim, the pensive queen of
the Vales of Har, a spirit about to receive a mortal body and already
beginning to be separated from Eternity, who "sought the secret
air," and wept over her untimely death. Such are also Heva, sister
of Har, who is perhaps the Eve of the Bible, and who lives through
an eternal second-childhood in her happy valleys; Eno, the Ancient
Mother, who laments over the lost freedom of Eden; and Ololon,
one of the Daughters of Beulah, Los's messenger, a Muse who takes
the form of a lark-that “mighty angel "--and flies down to Blake's
cottage at Felpham to announce to him the coming of Milton's spirit.
Next, we have the twelve sons of Albion, who, in Jerusalem, struggle
unceasingly against Los, and uphold the religions of materialism.
1 Vala. Night VIII, 360.
172
WILLIAM BLAKE
They have extraordinary names, purely or partly imaginary in
their origin; and among them are Hand, who personifies contempt
for others, pride and self-satisfaction, and who absorbs all his brethren;"
Hyle and Coban, his "emissaries in War"; 2 and Schofield, who
borrows the name of Blake's soldier-enemy, and is " Adam who was
new-created in Edom,"3 the symbol of bestial materiality, father
of his brothers in this obscure genealogy. In him, by some mystical
process known only to Blake, all the other evil spirits who are his
brothers seem to be at times included.
<<
4
There are, further, the daughters of Albion, twelve in number,
who, like the Fates of the Ancients, weave the bodies of vegetative
humanity, and who in every bosom " control our vegetative powers.
They also have imaginary names taken in some cases from history.
Cambel and Gwendolen, the eldest, weave the threads of war and
religion, and are able to absorb the eight elder sons of Albion. They
make the sighs, groans and sorrows of men, or, to use Blake's words,
Are melted into the gold, the silver, the liquid ruby." 5 Sabrina
and Ignoge (Imogen) "sharpen their beamy spears of light and
love." Ragan is implacable cruelty. Like their brothers, they are
able to combine in one being. And like the daughters of Los, they
can, when seen by the Eternals, become sometimes Tirzah, the mater-
ialistic religion of Mount Gilead, sometimes Rahab, the " System
of Moral Virtue "7 without faith, and sometimes even the abstract
philosophy which in Eternity is called Vala, 8 on account of its
natural attractive beauty.
These are the chief actors in the vast drama; but we see many
more crowding upon each other and passing before us; now myster-
ious beings like the "nameless shadowy female "; now well-known
historical personages like Washington or Lafayette, and now the
souls of animals, plants, or mountains, from the earth-spirit down
to the humble worm or the despised clod of clay.
THE WORLDS THEY LIVE IN EDEN-GOLGONOOZA-ULRO AND
ITS REGIONS—BEULAH
These inhabitants of the kingdom of dreams are not only them-
selves new creations, but they live in worlds created on purpose for
them. Blake considered the visible world as non-existent. The idea
¹ Jerusalem, p. 7, 71, and p. 8, 44.
3 Jerusalem, p. 7, 25.
2 id, p. 18, 41.
4 id, p. 5, 39.
Jerusalem, p. 39, 10.
8 id., p. 70, 31.
5 id, p. 9, 23. 6 id, p. 11, 19.
HIS OTHER CREATIONS
173
of infinite space did not affect him at all; and he disregarded the
revelations of the telescope and the miscroscope, as he did all the
phenomena of experience. For him the infinitely great and the in-
finitely little were both outside the material world. They existed in
the human spirit, within the limits of which his universe was con-
fined.
Every Space that a Man views around his dwelling-place,
Standing on his own roof, or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his Universe.
The Starry heavens reach no further, but here bend and set.
And if he move his dwelling-place, his heavens also move.
Such are the Spaces called Earth, and such its dimensions.
As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner
As of a Globe rolling thro' Voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro.
The Microscope knows not of this nor the Telescope; they alter
The ratio of the Spectator's Organs, but leave Objects untouched. ¹
There are, however, many invisible worlds, which surround our
delusive material world and interpenetrate it, mingling with and
melting into one another, as do the spirits who dwell in them. These
worlds exist outside of space: they are at once everywhere and no-
where, and they are all contained in the soul of man. Their names
furnish no explanation of their nature, and the descriptions of them
that Blake gives are far from clear. Dim, fragmentary glimpses of
them are all that we get.
The first of these worlds is Eden, the land of pure imagination and
primal happiness, the dwelling-place of the Eternals and of the
Divine Vision, man's lost home, to which, in the end, he must return.
It is the garden of God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, where all live in
perfect harmony in Christ, "giving, receiving, and forgiving each
other's trespasses." "2 Here also the "Seven Eyes of God" and all
the Divine Family are united, "upon Mount Gilead, sublime."
Eden has its counterpart in the earthly Paradise, the Vale of Har,
where all spirits dwell in happiness, and where Har and Heva, the
prototypes of Adam and Eve, live for ever as little children. 3 But
this world is now barred against man : Albion cannot find his way
back into it. Even the artist has only a confused vision of it. That
1 Milton, p. 28, 5.
2 Jerusalem, p. 38, 22.
3 Tiriel.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
side of Golgonooza, the palace of Art, which faces towards Eden" is
walled up, till time of renovation." It is the Eastern Point,
"the
Center, unapproachable for ever," 2 as beheld in Eternity.
The second World, Golgonooza, the building of which we have
already had described to us, is perpetually being created afresh by
Los. Every prophet takes his part in its building, and adds his stone
to its structure, thus preserving a sort of reflection of the world of
Eden. Los is there, organizing the four arts, "Painting, Poetry,
Music, and Architecture, which is Science," 3 There stand the forges
in which he creates continually "the times and spaces of Mortal
life, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars." There the passions and
affections of men-the " spectrous dead "-grow into fibres which
Enitharmon and her daughters weave into mortal bodies on the
golden looms of Cathedron, forming
the ovarium and integument
In soft silk, drawn from their own bowels in lascivious delight,
With songs of sweetest cadence to the turning spindle and reel,
Lulling the weeping spectres of the dead, clothing their limbs
With gifts and gold of Eden. 5
So literally did Blake regard every sort of creative act, even the
making of a child's body, as a work of art.
Beneath Golgonooza, and all around, other worlds stretch out into
infinity. The largest of these is Ulro, the world of sleep and death,
that is to say, our mortal life, borne upon the river of space. There
the spectres who have received a body plunge for a moment, until
the grave opens for them, and they awake again to life. It is a land of
shadows, where all is illusion. Ulro is Error. 6 How could it be other-
wise, seeing that no pure spirits dwell there, but that "whatever
enters becomes Sexual, and is Created, and Vegetated, and Born."7
In the end, the Lamb of God descends into Ulro, to wake those that
sleep, to release the spectres from their bonds, and to call them to
resurrection and eternal life.
This vast world contains many different regions, representing all
the various forms of terrestrial life and of error. One is called Entu-
thon Benython :
1
A dark and unknown night, indefinite, immeasurable, without end,
Abstract Philosophy warring in enmity against Imagination. 8
¹ Jerusalem, p. 12, 52.
3 Milton, p. 24, 55.
4 Vala. Night VIII, 203.
8
7 id., p. 44, 21.
2 Jerusalem, p. 12, 56.
5 Vala. Night VIII, 207.
8 Jerusalem, p. 5, 56.
* Jerusalem, p. 46, 10.
HIS OTHER CREATIONS
175
In Entuthon Benython is the Lake of Udan Adan :
A lake not of waters but of spaces,
Perturbed, black and deadly . . .
formed of the tears and sighs and death-sweat of the victims
Of Urizen's laws, to irrigate the roots of the tree of Mystery. 1
The mills of Satan and Beelzebub stand on its shores. It is the
region of those energies of the soul that have been slain by laws and
religions.
›› 2
Other regions of Ulro have different meanings. Such are " Bow-
lahoola and Allamanda, where the Dead wail night and day."
Bowlahoola is the Stomach in every individual man." ³ But it is
also" named Law by mortals. Tharmas founded it." 4 It represents,
as far as we can judge, the laws of physiological life. In this region
dwell the spirits that govern our vital functions, such as circulation
and digestion. And here the souls are classified before they enter
upon mortal life; and the spectres are born upon earth with such
bodies as they themselves have chosen. Thus our " laws of heredity
are regulated by spiritual powers.
Allamanda, call'd on Earth Commerce, is the Cultivated land
Around the City of Golgonooza, in the Forests of Entuthon.
This region symbolizes commerce that is to say, commerce in
the widest sense, the relations of man with the world through the
nervous system, which receives external impressions and gives out
internal ideas and wishes, thus establishing a kind of psychological
trade in exports and imports. Just as Bowlahoola includes the func-
tions of assimilation, Allamanda comprises those of perception and
feeling. Beneath Ulro are the lowest depths, the abysses of Al-Ulro ;
the world of pure matter, into which no spirit ever descends, and
which represents eternal death.
Beyond all these worlds there is a joyous region of which Blake
always speaks in words of rapture,
A mild and pleasant rest
Named Beulah, a soft moony universe, feminine, lovely,
Pure, mild and gentle, given in Mercy to all those who sleep,
Eternally created by the Lamb of God around
On all sides, within and without the Universal Man. 6
7
It is the world of "the feminine Emanations," the region in
1 Vala. Night VIII, 222.
4 Milton, p. 23, 48. id. p. 24, 42.
2 Jerusalem. p. 40, 57:
Vala. Night I, 197.
8 Milton, p. 23, 67.
id. Night IV, 263.
176
WILLIAM BLAKE
which dwell all the pure desires and tender affections of men, their
love and the joys that spring from it; a land where Dante would
have placed all the immortal lovers, as he did in his own world of
Venus, and where Blake would assuredly have set Dante's Francesca
upon a throne of glory. It is the dwelling prepared for the Juliet of
all the ages, for that love which is ever ardent and eternally young.
The softer passions of the heart can find no place in Eden, which is
too infinite to admit any tender or feminine element. Such spirits
would be consumed there, like Semele in the embrace of Jupiter.
They exist, nevertheless, as Emanations still hidden and undis-
tinguished in the bosom of Eternity. When the Spectres of men
became separated, all these Emanations, now individualised, besought
the Eternals not to destroy them utterly.
Give us a habitation and a place
In which we may be hidden under the shadow of wings.
For if we who are but for a time, and who pass away in winter,
Behold these wonders of Eternity, we shall consume.
And there appear'd a pleasant
Mild Shadow; above, beneath, and on all sides round.
Into this pleasant Shadow all the weak and weary
Like Women and Children were taken away as on wings
Of dovelike softness, and shadowy habitations prepared for them. 1
Into this land of human tenderness, strife can never enter. It is
a place where Contrarieties are equally True," because Love is
not a wrangler, but a peacemaker. One of the gates of Golgonooza
opens towards Beulah, and there are to be found all the great mystics
who were also lovers.
Fénelon, Guion, Teresa,
Whitefield and Hervey, guard that Gate, with all the gentle Souls
Who guide the great Wine-press of Love. ³
In the Visions of Beulah,
Sexes wander in dreams of bliss among the Emanations,
Where the Masculine and Feminine are nurs'd into Youth and Maiden
By the tears and smiles of Beulah's Daughters till the time of Sleep is past.
4
Hence come all the youthful passions of our Earth. But whereas
on Earth there are laws of jealousy and chastity-" a tender curb
upon the youthful burning boy . . . a little curtain of flesh on the
1 Milton, p. 30, 24.
2 id, p. 30, I. ³ Jerusalem, p. 72, 50. 4 id., p. 79, 75-
HIS OTHER CREATIONS
177
bed of our desire "there, in the land of dreams, every desire is
satisfied, and every love attains complete fruition. There
The Female lets down her beautiful Tabernacle,
Which the Male enters magnificent between her Cherubim
And becomes One with her, mingling, condensing in Self-love. 2
There is no jealousy in Beulah, no marriage-law. The woman
does not even wish to have sole possession of the man's love.
Every female delights to give her maiden to her husband.
The female searches sea and land for gratifications to the
Male Genius, who in return clothes her in gems and gold,
And feeds her with the food of Eden: hence all her beauty beams. ³
It is therefore the land of that Free-Love, which Blake so often
dreamed of, and which can only be realised in a world where there
are none but disembodied spirits, and where any apparent suggestion
of physical love must be metaphorical only.
But the Daughters of Beulah are not content to be merely the
lovers of men, giving themselves to them for their pleasure. They
are also the only beings who have sympathised with Man in his
unhappiness. They weep over the fall of Albion, and beseech the
Lamb of God to come to his assistance.
Lord Saviour, if Thou hadst been here our brother had not died. ª
To them, as to Martha and Mary, the eternal promise was made:
"If ye will believe, your brother shall rise again";5 and they
patiently await its fulfilment.
In the meantime, it is they whom Blake invokes, as Homer invoked
the Muses, or Milton the Divine Spirit. It is they who, in Vala,
are called upon to sing of Urthona's "fall into Division and his
resurrection into Unity." And in the opening lines of Milton,
their office is still more clearly defined.
6
Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poet's Song,
Record the journey of immortal Milton thro' your Realms
Of terror and mild moony lustre, in soft sexual delusions
Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer and repose
His burning thirst and freezing hunger!7
Thus love and its young joys are associated by the poet with the
1 Book of Thel, p. 6.
4 Vala. Night ÏV, 252.
7 Milton, p. 3, I.
2 Jerusalem, p. 30, 34.
5 Vala. Night VII, 778.
3 Jerusalem, p. 69, 15.
6 id., Night I, 16.
N
178
WILLIAM BLAKE
Muses' inspiration and delight; and for him, the country of Beulah,
the biblical land of marriage and prosperity, is also the land of human
kindness and of poetry.
CONCLUSION
We need not prolong this summary account of Blake's worlds and
their inhabitants. These few pages are very far from having exhausted
the subject, and far also, no doubt, from having brought into clear
light the misty regions in which his imagination loved to dwell.
His readers will probably feel that, like Moses, they have so far only
been allowed to gaze upon the Promised Land, without entering it
or even seeing any clear way of approach to it. They will still find
scarcely a page that does not contain some new enigma, that does
not bristle with doubtful passages, especially as they come to study
the most important part of his work, the great Prophetic Books.
It is even doubtful whether a full light will ever illumine this chaos,
made of intricate shadows and lightning flashes. But Blake can be
appreciated without being entirely understood. His obscurities
cannot darken the many pages of magnificent poetry which shine
out in his work like glimpses of blue sky among the clouds. We may
see many a dim landscape, lighted by soft moonrays, whose beauty
is enhanced by the mists that conceal its actual features.
In any case, this brief survey of his worlds may prove of some
use to those who might otherwise find only complete obscurity in
Blake, and so be prevented from adventuring upon his work and
enjoying his poetry. It will serve also, in spite of its many deficiencies,
to show how extraordinary was the imaginative power of this great
maker of myths, who, almost without materials, constructed a vast
universe, through which he could walk at his ease as we do in our
own, and peopled it with multitudes of living creatures, born of
himself alone and respiring the breath that he breathed into them.
T
XII: HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
HOUGH the material world was of no importance to Blake,
it was nevertheless part of his office as a prophet to show us
how we ought to live in it. The four Zoas wage unceasing
warfare within us: their innumerable children make our
souls into fields of desperate battle. It is our part to reduce this chaos to
harmony. We are not powerless against them, for the eternal essence
of the soul remains always master of its own destiny. Blake disregarded
entirely all theories that restricted or abolished individual liberty
and, as a consequence, individual responsibility. The idea of pre-
destination finds no place in his work, except as a prophetic vision
of a regenerated humanity, returning once more to the eternity
whence it had come. The scientific conclusions of Determinism he
would have energetically denied, if he had known them, as false laws
governing delusive phenomena. He felt himself to be both free and
responsible; and this was enough for him; his own intuition being
a far higher kind of evidence than any logical proof, no matter how
convincing. Each of us, therefore, must, as he did, order his own life,
reduce his warring instincts to harmony, and prepare for his ultimate
regeneration. What are the rules in accordance with which this
preparation must be made?
Blake's life, as we have seen, was that of a good and upright man
from the point of view of our moral code. But in his heart, he groaned
under this code, and hated the social conditions which made it
necessary. His own system of morality was created for an ideal world.
Our narrow, rigid laws would be as much out of place there as our
shabby creeds and our atheism would have been in his own soul.
He never gave any clear or methodical exposition of his rules, which
we find scattered, like all the rest of his teaching, in fragmentary
passages all through his works. Moral discourses, aphorisms and
ejaculations were set forth at the bidding of the Spirit; and the time
and manner of the Spirit's utterances are independent of all laws.
Blake would probably have shrunk with repugnance from the idea
of collecting his principles into a systematised doctrine, and so
sacrificing them upon the altar of reason. Swedenborg, that "fallen
angel," adopted this course; but none of the great prophets have
1
180
WILLIAM BLAKE
ever done so. It is our task to engrave these principles in our souls,
and to reduce them to logical order, if we are so unfortunate as to
have any need of order or of logic. And even then, Blake's system will
fail to produce the effect of a complete doctrine. There are many
points upon which he does not touch at all, many questions which
he leaves unanswered. The whole resolves itself into certain general
tendencies; attitudes of mind rather than rules to be followed.
Even these tendencies, however, are clear enough to be characteristic
of a man so different from ordinary men. As we might have guessed
beforehand, they belong rather to a dreamer living among his visions
of the ideal than to anyone taking an active part in the affairs of
this real world of ours.
((
For Blake, no system of morality could exist without religion, or
rather without faith. It is as absurd, according to him, to speak of
natural morality as to speak of the reality of nature and its phenomena.
All these things pertain to sensual experience and reason, and are
therefore illusory. Natural morality, that which he calls the morality
of Rousseau, is Tirzah, the harlot, the abomination, the false Babylon
that shall be destroyed for ever. Does it not even now vanish, together
with nature itself, as soon as we close our eyes and cease to behold it?
And, when we reopen them in the grave, it will have disappeared
still more completely. How can the experience of mortal man, this
worm of sixty winters," suffice for the making of rules which are
to order his immortal life? How can the finite set bounds to the
infinite, and say, "Thou shalt go no further"? How can this illusive
life, which is but the sleep of death, say to the undying soul, "“ Thou
shalt do this or this, because I am the Truth"? Such, nevertheless,
are the pretensions of natural morality and natural religion. The
Earth, bowing down to Nature, worships nothingness. We see her,
in the illustration to page 16 of America, as a colossal figure praying,
with clasped hands, to a bare rock in the distance. On her head are
tiny figures of priests with their books, but in the folds of her robe
men and women embrace; and, behind her, bare trees and shrivelled
thorn-bushes assume vague human shapes, and stretch out their
branches to grasp each other. Blake's idea here is clear enough: he
himself would never have offered up prayers to a stony heaven, a
mere abstraction, a logical conception of moral duty, which has no
existence.
His morality comes directly from his revelations. We are sur-
rounded on all sides by the world of Eternity which his visions showed
HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
181
him we are citizens of Eternity, and we ought to live as such. The
ideal which we, here on earth, in this terrible sleep of Ulro, must
aim at is to restore as far as possible the life lived by the Eternal Man
before his fall, the life of the primal Eden, which will also be the life
of the New Jerusalem, when the sleep of death is past. There were two
great distinguishing characteristics of man's state before his fall into
the ocean of time and space: he was infinite, and he was one, com-
prising in himself the whole of humanity. These two words, "Infinity"
and" Unity," sum up all Blake's ideal conceptions: they form the strong
foundation upon which he built his most surprising theories and
systems. He always has one instance to cite in corroboration of his
teachings: the instance of Christ, in Whom was actually incarnated
the Divine Humanity, and Whose soul was infinite, representing the
very soul of the universe. We ought therefore to be guided by His
example and His teaching. He has shown us how to find the lost
Eden again, and how to build the New Jerusalem. And this is why
Blake refers to Him constantly as a proof and a living application of
his theories. But it does not at all follow from this that he was a
Christian in the ordinary sense of the word. His interpretation of
the Gospel is the reverse of orthodox. His Jesus, as he says himself,
"will not do, either for Englishman or Jew."1 It is to this Christ
of his dreams, the Christ of the Everlasting Gospel, that reference
must often be made in any account of his system.
The consequence of the human spirit's infinitude is the absence
of all restriction. Hence the first great principle of Blake's morality:
"All restriction is evil." The energies and perceptions of man in his
unfallen state were unlimited. Restrictions only came when he
separated himself from Eternity and received a body, when Urizen
built the Mundane Shell around him, when Adam became the Limit
of Contraction. Our aspirations and our desires are all that remain
to us of our original infinity. They can never be satisfied in the world
of time, because they belong to eternity. And it is well for us that
this is so; because it is they alone that keep alive in us a memory
and a reflection of the Divine Vision, and so prevent us from losing
our last hold upon Eternity. The idea is not a new one, but the
conclusion that Blake draws from it is much more original. Our desires
being our only remembrance of Eternity, we ought not to oppose
or restrain them, but, on the contrary, to obey them, to give them a
free rein, and endeavour to satisfy them. Thus all our desires will
¹ The Everlasting Gospel.
182
WILLIAM BLAKE
become so many efforts to recover our eternal inheritance; and if
they do not win it for us, they can at least bring us nearer to it, and
save us from losing it altogether. But what is law, whether moral,
religious or social, if not a limit set to our desires, a restriction?
It was the Law that bound Orc down upon the hard rock of jealousy
and necessity, that slew Fuzon upon Mount Sinai, that caused the
Tree of Mystery to grow around Urizen, that crucified Jesus.
The law is an evil, and should be banished from the world. Obedience
to it is an evil. No one can be blamed for seeking to satisfy his desires
and following them with all the strength that is in him.
Here, then, is the first principle of Blake's morality: the destruction
of the Moral Law. The doctrine is a strange one, to say the least.
It makes us think, more than once, of the Superman extolled by
certain later moralists and especially by the followers of Nietzsche,
the man whose very superiority sets him above all laws; or, again,
of the Puritan saints, whom the consciousness of their pre-election
excused from following any of the ordinary rules of morality. But,
for Blake, it is not necessary to be a Superman, or one of the Elect.
Simply to be a man is enough to entail upon us the right and the duty
of obeying only the dictates of our infinite aspirations. We might well
ask whether we have not been transported into some Abbey of Thel-
ema, with “Do what thou wilt " for its only rule, and without even
the principle of honour to keep a check on evildoing. Or are we not,
rather, closer to Rousseau's maxim: "Follow Nature," though
Blake would have condemned it as blasphemous? In any case, this
principle is set forth in so many passages, and in so many different
ways, and is followed to its ultimate results through so extraordinary
a course of reasoning, that we can have no doubts as to its significance.
Everyone ought to have entire liberty to follow his instincts and to
use his energies without any impediment. The physical world and
its laws form a barrier which we cannot break down. But why should
we make for ourselves a still darker prison by adding to these in-
evitable restrictions those of moral or social laws?
And so we see Blake here becoming a revolutionary, and an enthusi-
astic admirer of the newly liberated America, and of the efforts made
by France to rid herself of the monarchy and break, once for all, the
chains that bound her in the past. We see him summoning all the
powers of heaven to fight against the ancient laws, and leading the
nations of the earth and the celestial legions into battle with mystical
and triumphant songs of liberty.
HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
183
But it is the principle of moral liberty, or perhaps we should rather
say moral anarchy, which is the most striking and characteristic
element in Blake's doctrine. All the champions of political liberty—
and there were already many of these, had at least respected the
ordinary rules of morality. Blake proceeds to undermine all these
rules without compunction. They are represented by the Decalogue,
and the Decalogue is the work of death. It was Urizen who composed
it when he stretched out his leprous hand over the world and, under
the name of Jehovah, tried to make himself the only god. It was the
spirit of selfish individualism that made these laws of jealousy in
order to preserve its own existence. The Decalogue is the law of
egotism-egotism in religion, in the conception of parental authority,
in the respect for persons and property, and, finally, in the possession
of woman and in married life. On the one hand, it sins against the
great principle of universal union without any separation of personal
identities on the other, its perpetual "Thou shalt not " means the
destruction of all man's energies. And this is why humanity is for
ever in revolt against it, and brute force must be employed to secure
respect for its ordinances. Prisons are built with stones of Law." 1
Authoritative religions have set the Decalogue on high, and have
sacrificed to it all that was infinite in the human soul. The holocausts
offered on the altars of the old gods were only a symbol of the im-
molation of our desires before this cold abstraction which is the Law.
Every ornament of perfection, and every labour of love,
(6
In all the Garden of Eden, and in all the golden mountains,
Was become an envied horror, and a remembrance of jealousy,
And every Act a Crime, and Albion the punisher and judge.
Cold snows drifted around him: ice covered his loins around.
He sat by Tyburn's brook, 3 and underneath his heel shot up
A deadly Tree: he nam'd it Moral Virtue, and the Law
Of God, who dwells in Chaos hidden from the human sight.
•
Albion began to erect twelve Altars
Of rough, unhewn rocks, before the Potter's Furnace.
He nam'd them Justice and Truth. And Albion's Sons
2
>>
Must have become the first Victims, being the first transgressors.*
Hence comes Blake's hatred of what he calls " Druidical Religions,'
those which had as their symbols altars of sacrifice, like the dolmens
¹ Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 8.
2 i.e., he lost his creative power.
* Where the gallows stood.
Jerusalem, p. 28, 1.
184
WILLIAM BLAKE
of Stonehenge or the gallows of Tyburn. Hence also his sympathy
for all revolutionaries, of whom the first and greatest is the Satan
of Paradise Lost. He and his legions were Blake's friends. Milton's
poem, as he read it, was a history of human desires and energies
enslaved by Reason (that is, of Satan vanquished by Jehovah, as
Prometheus was by Zeus). In Paradise Lost" the Governor or Reason
is call'd Messiah But in the Book of Job Milton's Messiah is
call'd Satan."¹ These few words are enough to show on which side
Blake's sympathies were ranged. He would have recognised his own
mental attitude in Byron's conception of Satan and Cain rebelling
against the tyrant Jehovah. This ought to be, according to him, the
view taken by all great poets; and by it he explains, in a few striking
lines, the frequently remarked superiority of Milton's Satan to his
Angels and his Christ. "The reason Milton wrote in fetters when
he wrote of Angels and God, and at liberty when of Devils and Hell,
is because he was a true Poet and of the Devil's party without
knowing it." 2
Hell and its flames are not, according to Blake, a punishment,
but only the unappeasable desires of humanity. On the other hand,
the angels, as we conceive them, the ministers and messengers of God,
were, to him, far from being objects of admiration. They had restrained
their energies until they had become mere" shadows of desire ";
(6
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 5.
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 6. One might reply to Blake by saying,
among other things, that Milton's Satan, the one-time Angel of Light who
separated himself from the Eternal, bears a strong resemblance to Urizen, the
Light of the Morning," who also broke away from Eternity. Notwithstanding
this, he hates Urizen-Jehovah, while he strongly sympathises with Satan. It is
probable that, according to his view, Milton's Satan, rebelling against Jehovah,
personifies the desires of men revolting against the law, the spirit of indepen-
dence and of liberty which exists eternally in the human soul. Thus regarded, he
"
is a "State and not an Individual," and must not be confounded with the
Lucifer of the ages before the Creation, who was another "State." In the be-
ginning, Urizen was one with Eternity: his fault was that he desired to become
a separate being, and to have, like Jehovah, the "Jealous God," a world of his
own to worship him. Lucifer-Satan, on the other hand, is shown to us as having
been originally a servant of Jehovah. Blake regards him as one of those infinite
elements in our Eternal Humanity which the God-Urizen tried to bring into sub-
jection to himself; and which, in the spirit of the poets and the passions of men,
is perpetually revolting against this tyranny. Far from being identical with
Urizen, he is one of his victims. We must remember, too, that, in the Book of
Job and in Milton's story, Satan represents different spirits, and that in Blake's
own writings, he is sometimes the Tempter, sometimes the Accuser of Sin, some-
times the limit of human blindness, sometimes the spirit of false humility, and
sometimes the spirit of revolt. It is in this last capacity that Milton has conceived
him; and all the poet's genius stirs him to unconscious sympathy with the rebel,
while his Christ and his angels are only the uninspired productions of a theologian
guided by reason.
:
HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
185
the very opposite of what the ideal man should be. They had bowed
down before a cruel law, and had called themselves just and holy;
but in so doing they were guilty of a foolish pride. " I have always
found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only
wise; this they do with a confident insolence sprouting from system-
atic reasoning.' "1 Swedenborg is imperfect because he only "con-
versed with Angels," whereas Blake himself conversed with devils
as well. It was a devil who taught him his doctrine of revolt against
the Ten Commandments, and showed him how Christ had broken
them by mocking at the Sabbath, by pardoning the woman taken in
adultery, by living upon the labour of others, in bearing false witness
when he refused to defend himself before Pilate, in coveting when
He prayed for His disciples. " I tell you, no virtue can exist without
breaking these ten commandments. Jesus was all virtue, and acted
from impulse, not from rules."2 And, to make his intention quite
clear, Blake then tells us how the angel with whom this devil has
been arguing is consumed in the devil's flames, and arises as Elijah,
the spirit of prophecy, the great Urthona-Los himself.
(C
To follow impulse and not rules," is therefore the great principle
of Blake's Christianity. What, then, becomes of the virtues of religion,
as well as of social duties and moral laws? Priests, like kings, are
tyrants. They stifle the desires of men, and for them also Blake has
nothing but hard words. He has lost his Eden, his " Garden of Love";
he has been driven out into "the heath and the wild"; the thistles
and thorns have told him how they also were "Driven out, and
compel'd to be chaste." 3
I went to the Garden of Love,
And 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 turn'd to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore ;
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires. 4
¹ Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 21. 2 Marriage of Heaven and Heil, p. 23.
3
* Rossetti MS., No. 2.
+ Songs of Experience. The Garden of Love.
186
WILLIAM BLAKE
This murdering of joys and desires, whose graves can be seen all
around us, is the great evil of our world. How can a man work
when the infinite energies that are in him are chained down and
destroyed?
No one bruises or starves himself to make himself fit for labour. 1
And so all the great Christian virtues, obedience, humility, chastity,
are nothing but the destruction of energies, illusions of Ulro, creations
of the Spectres, effects of Urizen's laws. Jesus Himself rebelled
against them. He preached disobedience to parents. They say He
obeyed the Laws:
Ask Caiaphas, for he can tell !
<
Obey your parents.' What says he?
Woman, what have I to do with thee?
No Earthly Parents I confess :
I am doing My Father's Business.' 2
He had as little respect for the laws of the state.
He scorn'd Earth's parents, scorn'd Earth's God,
And mock'd the one and the other's Rod;
His Seventy Disciples sent
Against Religion and Government-
They by the Sword of Justice fell. 3
Nor was He what we would call an honest, conscientious workman.
He left his Father's trade to roam,
A wand'ring vagrant without Home;
And thus he others' labour stole
That he might live above controll. 4
To "live above controll" was the ideal of Blake's Christianity,
as it is the ideal of most imaginative men. Since everyone ought to
follow his own desires, obedience is forbidden. "One Law for the
Lion and Ox is Oppression." 5 Each ought therefore to make his
own law; which means the abolition of all law.
The virtue of humility is no less strongly condemned. When a
man is humble, it means that he doubts himself, that he has lost his
feeling of union with the eternal, and has destroyed the very essence
of his humanity. Humility is the soul of doubt, and doubt" is self-
contradiction." We have no right at all to humble, in our persons,
¹ Jerusalem, p. 17, 21. 2 The Everlasting Gospel.
3 The Everlasting Gospel.
4 id.
Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
187
the divine nature of humanity. Christ was proud, and would never
bow down to the great ones of the earth.
Humble to God, Haughty to Man,
Cursing the Rulers before the People
Even to the temple's highest Steeple,
And when he humbled himself to God
Then descended the Cruel Rod.
If thou humblest thyself, thou humblest me.
Thou also dwellst in Eternity
Thou art a Man: God is no more :
Thy own humanity learn to adore,' 1
And again :
God wants not Man to humble himself:
That is the trick of the ancient Elf. 2
As for chastity, Blake held it always as an accursed thing. It is
not merely a restriction of man's infinite desires, but also a murdering
of one form of love; and love is the only thing that brings us nearer
to the primal unity. There could be nothing more pitiful, according
to him, than the vain longings of
the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale Virgin shrouded in snow,
3
wearing their lives out in ceaseless and hopeless waiting, in an ever-
unsatisfied desire for love, like that of the sunflower for the sun.
He shows us his young ascetic as an emaciated figure standing, in
winter, before a closed door, while a famished dog howls at his side. 4
Virginity is courted only by "pale religion's letchery," which desires
it for its own purposes. 5 It is not a holy state. What is holy is the joy
of life, because" every thing that lives is holy," and "the soul of
sweet delight can never pass away. "7 Accursed are those who
would destroy it. They are the source of all sin and all evil. As
Prisons are built with stones of Law," so are Brothels with bricks
of Religion." 8
6
It is not virginity, but love, which purifies. Oothoon, who has
revealed the secrets of womanhood, who has lost all her modesty,
¹ The Everlasting Gospel.
2 The Everlasting Gospel.
4 Urizen, VIII, 5.
9 Songs of Experience: Ah! Sunflower.
Marriage of Heaven and Hell: A Song of Liberty.
6 Visions of the Daughters of Albion, p. 8.
› Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 8.
7 Id., p. 1.
188
WILLIAM BLAKE
who dies for love of Theotormon, and whom Bromion calls a harlot,
is nevertheless pure in her soul.
How can I be defil'd when I reflect thy image pure ?
Sweetest the fruit that the worm feeds on, and the soul prey'd on by woe.
The new-wash'd lamb ting'd with the village smoke, and the bright swan
By the red earth of our immortal river. 1
In the same way, her purity will be all the sweeter, coloured as it is
by the love which she proclaims so openly.
Mary, the wife of Joseph, glories not in her virginity but in her
impurity.
If I were pure, never could I taste the sweets
Of the Forgiveness of Sins; if I were holy, I never could behold the tears
Of love! .
O Mercy, O Divine Humanity!
O Forgiveness and Pity and Compassion! If I were Pure I should never
Have known Thee: If I were Unpolluted I should never have
Glorified thy Holiness, or rejoiced in thy great Salvation. 2
Jesus Himself showed his disapproval of chastity by associating
with women who were sinners, by pardoning the woman taken in
adultery, and by condemning those who
call a shame and sin
Love's Temple that God dwelleth in,
And hide in secret hidden shrine
The Naked Human form divine,
And render that a Lawless thing
On which the soul expands its wing. 3
The marriage-laws found no favour in Blake's eyes. He hated the
shade of the myrtle.
Love, free love, cannot be bound
To any tree that grows on ground. 4
He foretells the glorification of free love in the future,
Children of the future Age,
Reading this indignant page
Know that in a former time,
Love, sweet Love, was thought a Crime! 5
¹ Visions of the Daughters of Albion, p. 3.
3 The Everlasting Gospel.
4 Rossetti MS.
5 Songs of Experience. A Little Girl Lost.
2
Jerusalem, p. 61, 11 and 43.
In a Mirtle Shade.
HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
189
And sees visions of its splendour in his dreams of the lost Eden.
In the Age of Gold
Free from winter's cold,
Youth and maiden bright,
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.
1
This disappearance of free love, slain by jealousy and egotism, is
our world's bondage. The secret love of marriage is a thing as absurd
as the putting of a candle under a bushel. The Spirit of the Earth
itself protests against it.
Break this heavy chain
That does freeze my bones around.
Selfish! vain!
Eternal bane !
That free Love with bondage bound. 2
Love bound by conjugal law is only a form of that self-love of
which the Pebble speaks.
Love seeketh only Self to please,
To bind another to Its delight,
Joy in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite. 3
Marriage makes a prostitute of the virgin who gives herself, not
for love but from a false conception of duty. But the woman who
gives herself for love and desire of joy is holy. And when passion
shall have burned up the world and brought back the true light to
humanity, then virginity will be found in the harlot, who has desired
only love,
4
and in coarse-clad honesty
The undefil'd tho' ravish'd in her cradle night and morn :
For every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life;
Because the soul of sweet delight can never be defil’d. 4
Seldom has Blake been clearer or more forcible than when he touches
as he does again and again, upon this question of love compelled or
forbidden, of infinite desire restrained by the accursed laws of
morality.
¹ Songs of Experience.
2 Songs of Experience.
Э
3 Songs of Experience.
A Little Girl Lost.
Earth's Answer.
The Clod and the Pebble.
4 America, p. 8.
190
WILLIAM BLAKE
I cry, Love, Love! love! happy, happy Love! free as the mountain
wind!
Can that be Love, that drinks another as a sponge drinks water?
That clouds with jealousy his nights, with weepings all the day :
To spin a web of age around him, grey and hoary! dark!
Till his eyes sicken at the fruit that hangs before his sight.
Such is self-love that envies all! a creeping skeleton
With lamplike eyes watching around the frozen marriage bed. 1
ધ
Further on, we find passages of splendid eloquence in which the
poet calls upon men to taste the joys that should be theirs. He sings
of virgin passion and the delights of satisfied desire with a fervour of
adoration and enthusiasm worthy of a mystical worshipper of the
body.
Does not the worm erect
a palace of eternity in the jaws of the hungry grave ?
Over his porch these words are written: "Take thy bliss, O Man!
And sweet shall be thy taste and sweet thy infant joys renew." 2
And the lines that follow are extraordinary in their vehement force.
The moment of desire! the moment of desire! The virgin
That pines for man shall awaken her womb to enormous joys
In the secret shadows of her chamber: the youth shut up from
The lustful joy shall forget to generate, and create an amorous image
In the shadows of his curtains, and in the folds of his silent pillow.
Are not these the places of religion? the rewards of continence?
The self-enjoyings of self-denial? Why dost thou seek religion?
Is it because acts are not lovely, that thou seekest solitude,
Where the horrible darkness is impressed with reflections of desire?
Father of Jealousy, be thou accursed from the earth ! 3
It must be remembered that these passionate cries for free love
belong to the first period of Blake's work, and were uttered before
he had reached his fortieth year, and before age had calmed his
spirit and extinguished the forces of his robust constitution. They
were almost all written about ten years after his marriage, perhaps
just at the time when he began to feel himself condemned to childless-
ness, and when he made his strange suggestion as to the bringing
of a second wife into his house. Neither his biographies nor his
letters throw any light upon his real state of mind at this period
1 Visions of the Daughters of Albion, p. 7.
2 Visions of the Daughters of Albion, p. 5.
3 Visions of the Daughters of Albion, p. 7.
HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
I-91
with regard to the matter; and we have no means of knowing how far
the man sympathised with the declarations of the poet. But Blake
took too high a view of his art for any doubt as to his sincerity to be
possible. And, moreover, are there not, at times, moments of in-
spiration when the soul's profoundest utterances find their expression
in works of art, when the poet reveals what the man would fain hide,
and the musician's harmonies are in reality the secret lamentations
of his heart? Did Blake experience such moments? When this man,
who loved children so much, realised that he and his wife must be
childless and solitary all their lives, the familiar words of Scripture
must have re-echoed suggestively in his ears.
Now Sarai, Abram's wife, bare him no children: and she had an hand-
maid .. whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold
now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing. I pray thee, go in unto
my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her.. .. And he went
in unto Hagar, and she conceived. 1
Was this the cause of Blake's proposal? Or was it prompted by
the feeling that his wife could never understand him, that she would
be merely his servant and not his real and eternal Emanation, and
that she would remain always an alien from the land of his dreams?
Did he feel his marriage-bond becoming a burden to him, and his
love turning cold to the bright-eyed young girl who had won him by
her pity? We cannot help thinking that, at such moments, an
immense longing must have arisen in him. Perhaps he saw passing
before him some radiant vision that must for ever elude his grasp,
perhaps some memory of his first love, perhaps some face lost in
the crowd, but revealing itself, in some mystical way, to him, and
reflecting more clearly the light that illuminated his dreams. We know
that such feelings cannot have lasted long with him; but it is im-
possible to feel sure that he never experienced them. And we shall
never know the real truth. We have no record but that of his indignant
utterances, and his intense desire to let us see the fire that burned
in him. But his complaints did not lead him to break his chains,
even before life had shown him how pure was the gold of which they
were forged. His lamentations, like Oothoon's, were lost upon the
wind; and his ideal, the well-beloved of his dreams, still remained
unattainable. We remember how, when the glorious light of death
was dawning upon him, he realised at last that she had always been
1 Genesis, xvi, 1.
¿
192
WILLIAM BLAKE
near him. But at the time when he expounded his theories, his soul
was breathing forth its own sorrow, in company with those of the
despairing Oothoon.
Thus every morning wails Oothoon, but Theotormon sits
Upon the margin'd ocean, conversing with shadows dire.
The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, and echo back her sighs. 1
This was the time when he invented that terrible metaphor of
"The Marriage-Hearse," 2 and represented married life by a picture
of Oothoon and Bromion, chained back to back upon a rock by the
seashore. He is in the torments of rage and jealousy; she moans in
despair; and above them, always out of their reach, is the mournful
figure of Theotormon the beloved.
This period may have been only a very short one in Blake's life,
and may have passed without leaving any deep scars upon him: but
ineffaceable traces of it remain in his work, while the cries of revolt
that it wrung from him can never be forgotten.
We need not ask into what state of anarchy this law of Blake's-
or rather this absence of law-would inevitably lead us. There is no
need to point out how forced are some of his interpretations of the
Gospel; how false and tyrannical at bottom is his conception of the
part to be played by woman as an instrument of man's pleasure, and
with no individuality of her own; how vain and impracticable this
ideal that he aimed at of satisfying all desires; how immoral his
whole system of morality. It is only too easy to find reasons for
condemning him. But we must remember always that Blake had no
thought of actually applying his system to the society in which he lived,
and that he even hardly contemplated its introduction into the narrow
circle of his own home. He never troubled himself as to the practical
results of his visions. His kingdom was not of this world; but belonged
to that ideal country in which all "contrarieties are equally true."
Moreover, even in this ideal kingdom, he has himself introduced,
by what at first seems to be a quite eccentric contradiction, the best
corrective to his Law of Thelema. This he finds in the second great
characteristic of the Eternal Man: the unity of all men with each
other and with the whole universe. Since we all are one, therefore
I am my neighbour and my neighbour is myself. “Fool! says
Victor Hugo," not to believe that I am in thee!" All that happens
1 Visions of the Daughters of Albion, p. 8. Songs of Experience. London.
2
HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
193
to one of us happens to all in eternity: all that happens to any creature
in the universe happens to the universe in its entirety. Hence comes
the great doctrine of the solidarity of all men among themselves
and with all created beings, the immediate consequences of which
are universal love and its corollary, the forgiveness of all sins, com-
bining to establish the "divine brotherhood of Eden." These are
the two chief factors in Blake's moral system, and they represent the
same principle under two forms.
The forgiveness of sins is the only rule laid upon us by Christ in
the Lord's prayer. It is Blake's one commandment. According to
him, Satan's great function is to accuse the world of sin. And we shall
escape from the "State" called Satan if we abstain from accusing
anyone of any sin, and forgive all offences.
Mutual Forgiveness of each Vice,
Such are the Gates of Paradise,
Against the Accuser's chief desire. 1
Moreover, sin itself is nothing. It is external to man, and does not
exist in him at all, but is a " State," through which individuals pass,
leaving it behind them.
As the Pilgrim passes while the Country permanent remains,
So Men pass on; but States remain permanent for ever.
2
It is therefore incorrect to say that anyone is a sinner: he is simply
in the State" of sin, as Luvah was at one time in the State" of
Satan, and at another in the " State" of Urizen. This "State" is only
a garment which can be, and indeed always is, put off by the wearer.
Satan, when he accuses individuals, is " but a Dunce " who does not
"know the Garment from the Man."3 66 Every harlot was once a
Virgin every Criminal an Infant Love." They must therefore be
judged according to their essential nature, and not according to their
accidental state.
Iniquity must be imputed only
To the State they are enter'd into that they may be deliver'd.
Learn therefore . to distinguish the Eternal Human
That walks about among the stones of fire, in bliss and woe
Alternate, from those States or Worlds in which the Spirit travels :
This is the only means to Forgiveness of Enemies. 5
1 Gates of Paradise.
2 Jerusalem, p. 73, 42.
3 Gates of Paradise. Epilogue.
Jerusalem, p. 49, 65, 72.
4 Jerusalem, p. 61, 52.
194
WILLIAM BLAKE
One of the functions of the Lamb of God is to transform Evil into
a" State, "" that Men may be deliver'd time after time, evermore.' "1
We do not know exactly by what mysterious process this change is
accomplished. But it is thus that Christ has taken away the sins of
the world, and for this He is to be praised rather than for His sacrifice
of Himself on Calvary, which could only be a punishing of the
innocent for the guilty.
We see now why Jerusalem, though she had sinned, did not regard
herself as soiled, but rejoiced in her forgiveness." What is Sin but a
little error and fault that is soon forgiven?" 2 and also why Mary,
when about to be repudiated by Joseph, instead of protesting her
innocence, speaks of the glory that God has conferred upon her by
forgiving her. To forgive "unto seventy times seven," that is to
say endlessly, was Blake's command as it was Christ's, and as it
was the law of that mystical realm of the Pistis Sophia described
by the Gnostic Valentine in the second century,
where the "Supreme Mystery" pardons all offenders, if they
go to Him.
a realm
Sin and accusations of sin being the only cause of man's separation
from his fellow-men, it follows that, in a world governed by the law
of mutual forgiveness, universal love and unity will reign also. Upon
this last point, Blake never tires of insisting. He preaches unceasingly
the love of humanity represented by every individual man. But his
love does not arise from that pity which weakens the soul
and degrades its object. It is born only of brotherly affection
and the spirit of self-sacrifice. It is the one religion, the great
act of adoration.
The Worship of God is honouring His gifts.
In other men ; and loving the greatest men best, each according
To his Genius, which is the Holy Ghost in Man; there is no other
God, than that God who is the intellectual fountain of Humanity.
He who envies or calumniates, which is murder and cruelty,
Murders the Holy One.
He who would see the Divinity must see him in his Children,
One first, in friendship and love: then a Divine Family, and in the midst
Jesus will appear. 3
This fraternity will be the great creating and binding force in the
New World: the Eternals at their feasts will sing of it.
¹ Jerusalem, p. 49, 70, and p. 25, 12.
3 Jerusalem, p. 91, 7.
2 Jerusalem, p. 20, 23.
HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
195
We know
That Man subsists by brotherhood and universal love.
Man liveth not by self alone, but in his brother's face
Each shall behold the Eternal Father, and love and joy abound. 1
Here we almost have a suggestion of that worship of great men
which the Positivists were to evolve later on, if, indeed, one can give
the name of worship to simple love, without rites or ceremonies of
any kind. We are nearer still to the great maxim of Christian love:
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, through love of God."
But Blake went even further, and said, " because thy neighbour is
God Himself."
And he includes also the love of all creatures, since all are integral
parts of the Eternal Man, in whose spirit the whole universe is
contained.
For not one sparrow can suffer, and the whole Universe not suffer also
In all its Regions, and its Father and Saviour not pity and weep. 2
We have already seen several instances of the same idea in our
study of his mysticism and his conception of the world.
This great brotherhood of all things must express itself as it does
in Christ or in Luvah, by continual acts of self-sacrifice. It is the law
of Eternity that everyone must sacrifice himself for his neighbour.
In this way we arrive at renunciation of self, at the destruction of
personality, the annihilation of that "ego" which was the original
source of all our evils. In Eternity, each individual lives and dies
for others. It is this that Thel learns from the flowers and the cloud :
this that Milton comes to proclaim to men.
I come to Self-Annihilation.
Such are the Laws of Eternity, that each shall mutually
Annihilate himself for others' good, as I for thee. 3
This is the only proof of love that can be given to God or man.
Jesus said: Wouldest thou love one who had never died
For thee, or ever die for one who had not died for thee?
And if God dieth not for Man and giveth not Himself
Eternally for Man, Man could not exist for Man is Love,
As God is Love: every kindness to another is a little Death
In the Divine Image, nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood. 4
1 Vala. Night IX, 632.
▲ Jerusalem, p. 96, 23.
Jerusalem, p. 25, 8.
3 Milton, p. 39, 34.
196
WILLIAM BLAKE
And the poet sums up his plan for the abolition of all laws and the
reconstruction of morality in these lines.
Jesus died because he strove
1
Against the current of this Wheel: ¹ its Name
Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death,
Of Sin, of Sorrow, and of Punishment.
But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life,
Creating Nature from this fiery: Law,
By self-denial and forgiveness of Sin. 2
And so this preacher of the Gospel of Impulse, this despiser of
official truth and justice, this breaker of the Tables of the Law,
concludes with this practical teaching, so childlike in its sweetness
and simplicity. His doctrine is the very essence of Christianity: the
doctrine of the love of all men, to which he adds, as the Indian sages
did, that of self-forgetfulness and love of all nature. He who had
advocated the sanctity of men's desires and the lawfulness of their
complete satisfaction, ordains, by a strange contradiction, the
sacrifice of those very desires, not through obedience to a tyrannical
law, but solely through love and abnegation of self. In his theories
as in his land of Beulah, opposing doctrines meet and are reconciled,
being all equally true. And the morality expounded in his writings,
like that set forth by his life, is simply the morality of all good men
in all ages.
In this aspect, we cannot help recognising that Blake was, despite
his strong personality and his hatred of the century he lived in, the
typical man of his period, that very period which he so much wished
to influence and change: that he was really the companion of Rous-
seau and his pupils, a humanitarian philanthropist, a herald of revo-
lutions and of popular government. Just as Rousseau cried " Follow
Nature," Blake cried "Follow impulse," and did not perceive that
the two doctrines are fundamentally one, which is, moreover, the
only one that the destruction of all accepted laws can lead to. Blake
refused, however, to believe that his impulses came to him from
nature: he looked further and higher for their origin. Rousseau, too,
in his own way, looked further for his conception of nature, which
he understood as that of primitive man. He created this "Nature"
himself, by logical reasoning, just as Blake created his Eden by sudden
flashes of intuition. And, following different and widely diverging
¹i.e., the Law.
2 Jerusalem, chap. 4. Preface.
HIS SYSTEM OF MORALITY
197
ways, they both arrived at the same end: the same doctrine of
universal philanthropy, of liberty, fraternity, and the rights of man,
and even the same broad and vague sentimentality which caused them
to associate all the animal and vegetable world, and all material nature,
with their own emotions and their love. Both were dreamers; one
building up his visions in a logical shape with carefully reasoned
mathematical precision; the other seeing them take form before his
eyes, without knowing whence they came, but believing in them
as firmly as the philosopher believes in his logical syllogisms. Both
had the same passionate, imaginative spirit, the same feeling of
dissatisfaction with the society in which they lived, the same aspira-
tions towards an ideal unattainable except in their dreams. There
is therefore nothing extraordinary in the fact that they should have
arrived at the same conclusions on the subject of practical morality.
But here the resemblance between them ceases. One of them revo-
lutionised his age, altered its whole moral course, and exercised a
powerful influence upon its politics. The other's life was obscure and
without visible effect even upon his immediate circle, in which he
might have expected to find admirers and followers. But his age
failed to understand him, because he was not so much a man as a
prophet, and spoke, like all prophets, in obscure parables. If he had
written as a man for men, and not as a mystic for mystics, he could
have stirred all his contemporaries profoundly. As it was, his words
fell upon deaf ears. His mystical poetry, which should have been a
whirlwind, carrying the world along with it, was only a halting strain
of music; strange, complex modulations, too soon silenced, and
giving a little futile pleasure to a few dreamers like himself.
XIII: THE SOURCES OF HIS DOCTRINES
H
OW far were Blake's doctrines his own, and how far
borrowed or imitated from others? It is impossible to
answer this question exactly. Some critics have held that
there is no originality in Blake's theories, and that his
whole system was only a medley of ideas gathered from books that
he had read and conversations he had listened to. This statement is
true in part, but in part only. Like all the founders of philosophical
systems, he said many things that had been said before he came into
the world; and most of his opinions had already found expression
in the writings of other men. The only question is, what was the
extent of his knowledge of, and indebtedness to, these existing
systems, and in what measure was he influenced by them? Even if
he added nothing to them (which is a very disputable point) he was
at any rate original in his choice of materials and in his combination
of isolated fragments into a new body of doctrine. Reference has
already been made more than once to systems that resembled his own.
We must now compare some of these systems with his, and see how
far he was a plagiarist instead of being a genuine prophet.
His doctrines may be summarized as comprising, in his conception
of the world, the negation of the evidence of the senses and of reason;
the reality of the invisible world perceived by the imagination; and
the correspondence between the visible and the invisible, one being
only a symbol of the other ;-in his cosmogony, the primal unity of
the whole universe with God, a unity to which it will return at the
end of time; the identity of God, man and nature; the process of
creation by successive separations which produced individualities ;
and the process of regeneration by the sacrifice of these individual-
ities and the return to the primal unity;-in psychology, the theory
of "States" through which the soul passes without changing its
essence; and the resulting conception of the Zoas and their struggles;
-in religion, his attacks against the tyranny of the law and of Jehovah,
his idea of devils as desires in revolt against this law and destined in
the end to overcome it, and of Christ as the destroyer of the law, the
divine humanity, the poetic imagination, and the liberator, but not
the redeemer ;-finally, in morals, the lawfulness of desire, as
THE SOURCES OF HIS DOCTRINES
199
opposed to law, and, conversely, the necessity of sacrificing our
desires through love of others.
All these ideas have been familiar to men from the earliest ages.
The first Hindu scriptures¹ speak of man's brotherhood with nature
and of the transmigrations of the human soul into the bodies of
animals and into lifeless matter: and these beliefs are still current in
the India of to-day. Buddha himself, also, taught the doctrine of
regeneration through the destruction of the "ego," the detachment
of ourselves from all that is individual in us, so that we may enter
into communion with the whole universe, and become at last an
integral part of the great Whole in the all-embracing Unity which is
God. But this detachment is reached through the suppression of our
desires, whereas Blake would have us develop them to infinity, and
destroy them by their own consummation.
In the early Mahometan mystics, the Sufis, we find the idea of
God's unity with his creation very forcibly expressed, the universe
being only "the visage of God," as well as the conception of man's
absolute unity with God, whose voice the dying martyrs heard, pro-
claiming, " I am the truth," that is, "I am God."
In Plato and the Platonic philosophers, the reality of the ideal and
the unreality of the material world have come to be regarded almost
as over-trite conceptions. These repeat themselves throughout all
the history of philosophy, and find their completest expression in the
Berkeleian idealism of the eighteenth century.
The Cabalistic writers of the Middle Ages, as well as the valen-
tinian Marcus, might have supplied Blake with his theory of the
"Seven Eyes of God," and, above all, with the idea of word-symbols
endued with mystical power, and composed of letters representing
spiritual forces. For instance, each of the characters composing the
name of God is itself a kind of Fiat; and not only did their com-
bination result in the creation of the world, but they are still capable
of influencing it. In the writings of the early Christian Gnostics he
might have studied the theory of the world's creation through success-
ive emanations. The Pistis Sophia of Valentine might have shown
him how the Eons emanate from one another in concentric circles
1 Very few English books dealing with this subject are to be found before 1823,
when the Asiatic Journal published an "Account of the Founder of the Buddhist
Religion." One article appeared in 1799 on "Religion in Burmah" (Asiatic
Researches). There was, therefore, very little in existence that Blake could have
read. But the doctrines themselves had spread all over Europe; and a modern
Theosophist has found in Boehme many of the old Hindu ideas. (Hartmann :
Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme. London, 1891.) c.f. also pp. 200, 201.
200
WILLIAM BLAKE
around the Ineffable, the last stage being the " dejection" by the
spiritual worlds of the matter forming our visible universe. But the
word "Emanation does not mean at all the same with Blake as it
did with the Valentinians: his process of creation is quite different
from their creation by Eons; and his poems have absolutely nothing
in common with the work of Valentine, in spite of the apparent
affinity between the two.
It has been said also that Blake's theories were borrowed from
those of the Marcionites, an heretical sect which flourished in the
second century of our era. And as a matter of fact, Marcion, like his
master, Cerdon, did hold certain of Blake's most cherished views.
Not only did he share the Valentinian idea of Emanations, but he
was also the first to point out the antagonism between the God of the
Old Testament and the Christ of the New. He hated Jehovah, creator
of the flesh, of evil and of the law of vengeance; with the same
passion that would have made him a martyr for Christ the Liberator.
We have seen a similar attitude of mind in Blake. But the Marcionites
held that God the Creator was quite different from and independent
of the Supreme Intelligence. He was only the demiurge, who had
acted upon the evil principle of matter, and attempted to bring order
into Chaos by the institution of physical laws. The souls of men were
emanations from the Supreme Intelligence, but they had been
enslaved by the Creator, confined in fleshy organisms, and subjected
to His code of moral laws. Christ was the pure emanation of this
same intelligence, made subject to the flesh in appearance only, and
sent to show men the divine nature of their origin and their end,
thus freeing them from the slavery of life and of the Creator's laws.
Undoubtedly, we do recognize here many of the ideas contained in
Blake's Gospel of Eternity, such as that of Urizen, the creator of
the world and its physical laws, the god of morality and of the
religion of jealousy, and that of Jesus, sent by the Eternals to
save humanity. But Blake did not believe, like the Marcionites, in
several distinct and independent principles. According to him,
all things come from the Eternal Unity, and matter is only an
illusion produced by the separation from that Unity of distinct
in dividualities.
It is impossible to say how much Blake had read of all these, and
impossible, consequently, to distinguish between reminiscences of
them in his work and simple coincidences. He is not likely to have
had any profound knowledge of Hindu literature; but his note, in
THE SOURCES OF HIS DOCTRINES
201
the Descriptive Catalogue, on the picture of The Brahmins, seems
to show that he was acquainted with one translation, at any rate, of
the Bhagavadgita. Plato and the Platonists he may possibly have
read. We have no means of judging. He could scarcely have helped
knowing Berkeley's great works, and his idealistic theories. It is very
doubtful whether he ever read any of the Gnostic literature; but
the Marcionite doctrines were within his reach, in Mosheim's
Ecclesiastical History, translated into English in 1764, and in Lardner's
History of the Heretics in the Two First Centuries, published in 1780.
We have no evidence, however, of his having actually seen either of
these works.
The only mystical and religious books that he is positively known
to have studied are, according to his own showing, the Bible, and
the works of Dante, Milton, Boehme and Swedenborg.
From the Bible, both the Old and the New Testament, he has
certainly taken much of his doctrine. But he is, as certainly, original
in his interpretation of it, and in the thoroughness with which he
mastered its text and entered into its spirit. The Bible contains too
many hidden systems, too many possible meanings concealed in
each word of it, and is, besides, too rich a source of thoughts, fancies,
conjectures and philosophies, for any writer who draws from it to
be condemned as a plagiarist. Blake's indebtedness to it is limited
to the primal inspiration and the text itself: in the use he made of
it, he is at least as original as any of the religious writers or poets.
Very often, he even surpasses them in the novelty of his interpreta-
tions, several of which we have already remarked.
1
To Dante he owes nothing, though he himself describes Dante
and Shakespeare as mines from which an "infinite number" of
philosophical systems might be drawn. ¹ But the resemblances be-
tween these systems and his own are very few. Dante's creed was, as
a whole, that of the orthodox Church, and Blake was of all men the
most unorthodox. Nor did he borrow at all from Milton, though he
gave his name to one of his own great poems, and made him the
representative of Los in it. But we know already that Milton did not
please Blake, as a prophet, except in his conception of Satan, and
that Blake regarded him otherwise only as a subject of Jehovah and
a believer in Jehovah's hateful doctrines.
A far more fruitful source of his theories was the complete collec-
tion of the works of the shoemaker-theologian, Jacob Boehme, the
1 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 22.
202
WILLIAM BLAKE
German mystic of the sixteenth century, whose profundity had
earned him the title, so often bestowed upon him, of Philosophus
Teutonicus. This collection, translated into English by the Rev.
William Law, was published in 1764 in four enormous volumes, with
explanatory notes and some very curious illustrations. Blake had read
these works, and could not help being strongly impressed by them.
From Boehme, more than from any other source, he derived the
great doctrine of the world's union with God. God, absolute and self-
existent from all eternity, desired, according to Boehme, to reveal
Himself. But this revelation necessitated something that was not
Himself. There were thenceforward two distinct elements in Him,
His desire and His will. In His will, he reflected His infinite desire.
Now this will was the germ of His individuality, for will is the
essential mark of the " Ego." The agreement of these two elements,
that is to say, the Will accomplishing the Desire, produced the Divine
Ideal, the mirror of God Himself. This Ideal, however, was not
yet materialized. Another birth was necessary to complete the
process of creation. And so there came to pass the separation from
this ideal of the seven Original-Spirits, the "Seven Eyes of God,"
which were, Desire or Egotistical Tendency, Motion, Disquietude,
Light born of suffering, Love, the Word, and the Body or Spirit of
Harmony. These seven spirits, by their complex actions and reactions,
brought about the creation of matter. But everything comes from God,
and exists in Him. " God is distinct from nature: but nature is His
existence."
In Boehme, too, we find the idea of creation by the separation of
certain elements which assert their own individuality. Some submit
their will to that of God, and these are the angels: others, who
oppose Him, are the devils. There are reminiscences of all this in
Blake's conception of the birth of Urizen by separation from Eternity
And the "binding" of Urizen by Los and Enitharmon is a develop-
ment of Boehme's definition, quoted above, of creation as the
introduction of time and space into individual wills.
For Boehme, as for Blake, time is an instrument of regeneration,
and the material body a means of escape from utter destruction.
Boehme's Lucifer is immortal because he is a pure spirit and exists
outside of time. His Christ, like Blake's, has been sent to break the
yoke of Lucifer and regenerate man by a mystical union with
Himself. This union can only be secured through the annihilation
of our individuality, the destruction of the " Ichkeit."
THE SOURCES OF HIS DOCTRINES
203
Boehme, too, regarded humanity as divine. Man is a manifestation
of God, and in the end will become like Him, exercising an unlimited
power over nature and freed from all the restrictions of the senses.
For him, as for Blake, the real fall of Adam (or Albion) was the im-
prisonment of the divine breath which was his soul in the clay which
was to become his body. Both writers give us the history of the
original man in his purity and innocence, of his fall into corruption,
and of his regeneration through Christ. This theme, which forms
the principal subject of Jerusalem, may possibly have been suggested
to Blake by the threefold illustrations in Law's translation of Boehme,
where, in diagrams and in figures superimposed one upon another,
we are shown these three states of man, in the body, soul and spirit,
progressing, as each figure is raised so as to show the one underneath
it, from man and the visible universe to things invisible, and finally
coming to the figure of God Himself, the innermost essence of the
spirit, the perfect circle wherein there is nothing distinct, because
all is lost in His absolute unity.
Boehme further believed, with Blake, that doubt is the greatest
of all evils. "Doubt is the non-entity in which the devil dwells. Its
negation is God. It is the effect of blindness and egoism.”
To both Boehme and Blake, finally, the Bible and the events
recorded in it were not so much historical as symbolical. Boehme
distinguished between the external form or letter of the Bible and
its internal form or Spirit. He began, in his immense Mysterium
Magnum, the work which Swedenborg afterwards undertook in his
Arcana Cœlestia, and which Blake projected in his version of the
Old Testament, of explaining the Book of Genesis, verse by verse.
He took every event, every little incident, in the familiar narrative,
and, under each, wrote down its spiritual signification, reading it as
Blake must have afterwards read and written, and fulfilling Blake's
conception of double and triple vision. A better idea of the value of
this symbolical reading, which is so important in Blake's work, can
be gained from an example, taken haphazard from one of the simplest
passages, an episode in the history of Joseph. The Bible says:
sons
Now when Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt, Jacob said unto his
Get you down thither, and buy for us from thence; that we
may live, and not die. And Joseph's ten brethren went down to buy corn
in Egypt. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, Jacob sent not with his brethren:
for he said, Lest peradventure mischief befall him. '
¹ Genesis, XLII, 1, 2, 3, 4.
204
WILLIAM BLAKE
Boehme interprets this as symbolizing Man, who feels the wrath
of God, and sends his soul into the land of repentance, where there
is abundance of justification in the death of Christ.
But Benjamin, Joseph's brother (that is the humanity of Christ),
he gives not to it (i.e. to his soul): he first bestows upon it its sinful brethren
that is, he gives it first his terrors into its conscience, and hides his Comfort
in his Grace (viz., (he hides) the true Benjamin, Joseph's brother from
the Properties of Sin), and sends the Properties of Sin (viz. those wherein
Sins have been wrought and committed) after Grace, to buy this corn of
Joseph (viz. of Christ). 1
This commentary, with its parentheses and its inextricable explan-
ations, themselves in need of a commentator, pursues its dense and
tangled way through page after page of subtle and overabundant
thought. We could scarcely find a better way of seeing what was the
state of mind inspired by the Sacred Book in mystics like Boehme
and Blake. No wonder that for both of them-but especially for
Boehme-words had a spiritual value of their own, that their music
called up distinct images, and that syllables were signs of actual
things (signatura rerum). Blake, doubtless, did not go quite so far as
Boehme, who saw people rising before his mind's eye at the mere
utterance of articulate sounds. But he often spoke of the importance
attaching to sounds and numbers, and of the placing of every word
and every syllable, so as to give each its full spiritual meaning. From
Boehme, therefore, he seems to have derived, if not the whole of his
doctrine, at any rate many of the ideas that suggested and settled it
and he was right in placing Boehme before Swedenborg on the list
of his great spiritual teachers.
Nevertheless, Swedenborg's influence upon him was considerable
also. His family was well acquainted with the Swedenborgian doc-
trines, and one at least of his brothers belonged to the "New Church,"
whose ideas he must often have heard explained and discussed when
he was a child. He had seen visions as Swedenborg did, had studied
his works, pencil in hand, and made copious notes upon one of them
at any rate, and had written down his Memorable Fancies in imitation
of Swedenborg's Memorable Visions. And if we bear in mind that
Swedenborg himself owed much to Boehme, we cannot be surprised
at finding many points of resemblance between him and Blake.
Three very distinct features in his doctrine seem to have struck
¹ Mysterium Magnum, Chap. LXIX, v 3, 4, 5. W. Law's Translation.
THE SOURCES OF HIS DOCTRINES
205
Blake more than the rest, and to have left an indelible impression on
his mind the likeness of man to God; the perception that the
Invisible had a real existence, outside of time and space; and the
correspondence between the material and spiritual worlds.
It was impossible for Swedenborg to think of God otherwise than
as resembling a man, because, according to him, it is impossible
for man to imagine Him in any other likeness, and because God must
have given us the power of so conceiving him. Not only is God a spirit,
like the spirit of man, but Heaven itself, with its regions and its hosts
of angels, is a man, "the Great Man." Each of its parts corresponds
to a part of man's spirit; and the parts of man's spirit resemble, in
their functions, the parts of his body. The brain, the heart, the lungs,
the feet, all have their regions in Heaven; and in each of these
regions there are the same divisions as in our earthly organs. Thus
the law of analogy, which played so great a part in the science of the
Middle Ages, and in all occult learning, helped the visionary to form
his conceptions of Heaven and of God. For Blake also, as we have
seen, God was a man. But Blake did not follow the analogy out in
Swedenborg's logical fashion. He made no attempt to trace the re-
production of the different parts of God in man, except, perhaps in
his theory of the Zoas, with their Spectres and Emanations, and there
only very obscurely.
As regards the existence of the invisible world, no one ever
believed more implicitly in its reality than did Swedenborg. No other
mortal had ever walked so easily and naturally among visionary
beings, nor crossed and recrossed so often the boundary between
life and death. To him, commerce with the spirit-world was not an
exceptional event, but almost a normal and everyday occurrence.
From the day of his first vision, he saw nothing mysterious in the
supernatural universe, which became, to him, as actual and as
commonplace as the material world is to us. And it was the same with
Blake, who, however, went even further. Swedenborg had never
denied, as he did, the very existence of the real and the visible.
Swedenborg was a savant who had made many discoveries in the field
of material phenomena, who believed in natural science, and had been
led by it to the knowledge of God. In this he therefore differed widely
from Blake, who hated all physical science. But he showed him,
nevertheless, how to open the gates of the spiritual world.
Lastly, Blake's theory of symbols is an almost exact reproduction
of the Swedenborgian doctrine of Correspondences. I have already
206
WILLIAM BLAKE
given an account of these Correspondences, in Swedenborg's own
words; and we need only observe here how closely Blake has
followed them. Sometimes even the very words are imitated. Blake's
If the Sun and Moon should Doubt,
They'd immediately Go Out. I
1
at once recalls Swedenborg's assertion that light is the visible
correspondence of the vision of God, that if the love of God dimin-
ished, the sun would grow cold, and if the knowledge of God ceased,
all the stars would lose their light.
In spite of these resemblances, Blake held that Swedenborg had
not shown a sufficiently independent spirit, that he had made too
many concessions to the theories of science and the doctrines of the
Churches, and that he had worshipped the spirit of obedience and
believed in the holiness of angels, accepting their own view of their
virtues. He was the "strongest of men," but a "Samson shorn by
the Churches."2 Blake chose to go his own way, to get into imme-
diate contact with Boehme, and to plunge more boldly into the
mysteries of the Absolute and the eternal.
In many respects, therefore, Blake was an imitator, though not a
conscious plagiarist: he did not originate the doctrines which he
preached. He was original, however, not only in his choice of his
material, but also in regard to two very important points: his views
on the laws of morality, and his theory of the poetic genius.
As to the first of these, his ideas had found very few previous ex-
ponents, and none so categorical in their manner of expression as
himself. The doctrine that angels might be condemned for sinning,
and devils praised for rebelling against God, the sanctity of all human
joys, the lawfulness of fulfilling our desires in despite of all law, the
conception of Christ as a breaker of the commandments-none of
these ideas had ever been expressed or maintained with such passionate
and insistent force as Blake employed. The theorists who preached
moral anarchy and revolt against law were not to come until many
years later; and even to-day no one perhaps has ventured to go as
far as Blake in advocating the destruction of all laws and the exalta-
tion of all desires.
The second conception that of regarding imagination and the
poetic genius as divine-could only emanate from the mind of an
artist. Blake founded on it all his science and all his religion. Just as
1 Auguries of Innocence.
2 Milton, p. 20, 50.
THE SOURCES OF HIS DOCTRINES
207
(in theory at least) man's impulses ought to govern his moral life, so
his imagination ought to be the sole ruler of his intellectual life.
Both are parts of the poetic genius : they are the breath of the In-
finite, the very soul of God. It is the poetic genius, the imagination,
which alone keeps alive in us the remembrance of Eden and the
vision of Eternity, and brings us back once more to the Eternals. It
is the particle of God which still exists in man, the essence of human-
ity, the God-Man, the body of Christ. Deification cannot be carried
further. Thus, step by step, the poet's creed comes to be united with
the faith of the mystic: the worship of God is the worship of
poetry, in the widest sense of the word. All imagination is inspira-
tion every work of art is divine: there is only one religion, and
that religion is Art.
These theories, of course, are not peculiar to Blake. They have
been enunciated by the Romantic schools in England, Germany and
France, and, for a whole century, the high moral and religious in-
fluence of the artist was everywhere insisted upon. Men's minds
were full of these ideas even when Blake was writing.¹ But never
had they been expressed in words so daring or with such absolute
conviction. It is in this respect especially that Blake goes beyond all
other writers. And here we can clearly see the spirit of the artist
forming the mind and the ideas of the mystic, as the scientific spirit
had formed those of Swedenborg, and as no other mystic's mind
has ever been formed before or after him.
Finally, even though his theories and his conceptions may not be
all original, his manner of expressing them places him in a sphere in
which he reigns supreme. No one has ever written a symbolic Bible
like his. The universe born of his brain is entirely his own. Nowhere
else can we find such creations as the Zoas, as Los and Enitharmon,
Albion, his sons and their descendants, their worlds and their innum-
erable struggles. His spiritual universe, his cosmogony, his epic
histories, have no existence save in his own imagination. Even if we
deny any originality of thought to the mystic and the preacher-and
¹ We find reference to the divinity of Inspiration as early as 1797, about which
date the account of the building of Golgonooza by Los was written in Vala; and
the idea is more fully developed in Jerusalem (1804-1820), where such typical
expressions as "Human Imagination: Divine Body" (p. 60, 57) are frequent;
and also in Milton, composed between 1800 and 1804. The characteristic sen-
tence: "The Eternal Body of Man is The Imagination, that is God himself, The
Divine body, Jesus," appears on the margin of the undated Laocoon engraving,
together with many other aphorisms on the subject of Art, written in a style
closely resembling that of the Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790).
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WILLIAM BLAKE
it is very difficult to do this-we cannot turn to the poet without
being struck by the intensely powerful individuality and the extra-
ordinary originality which he derives from the mystic, and which
mark his work as something apart, something altogether different
from the work of any other writer.
PART III
THE POET: HIS WORKS
P
ל
XIV: THE INFLUENCE OF MYSTICISM UPON POETRY
I
-DESTRUCTION OF THE POETRY OF
LOGIC AND REASON
F Blake had written only as a mystic or a visionary, like
Boehme, Martin de Villeneuve, Swedenborg, and so many
others, he would have been completely forgotten, and his
work would now be of as little importance in the world of
literature as the Pistis Sophia or the Arcana Cœlestia. Perhaps it
would be even more neglected. It is doubtful whether the mystics
of the future will set any great store by his writings, the obscurity of
which will always prevent the foundation of any "Blake School."
The reason of this, strange as it may appear, is to be found in his
extraordinary poetic faculty. If he had been a man capable of thinking
otherwise than in symbols and images, and of mastering the dis-
ordered enthusiasm which swayed his soul, he might perhaps have
given the world a clear and logical exposition of his doctrines, and
so secured some readers and disciples. But he was a poet first of all ;
and he wrote with no regard for order, just as the inspiration came
to him, using strange metaphors and unknown symbols which he
very rarely took the trouble to explain. Further, his reverence for
the spirit that breathed in him and dictated his words forbade him
ever to correct what he had written. His different visions were con-
nected only in the vaguest fashion, and he was at no pains to make
them coherent in his writings. The mere arrangement of the pages in
his great books, where he had not done it himself, has proved as hard
a task as that of arranging the manuscript of Pascal's Thoughts,
without the aid of such a close logical sequence as Pascal's editor
had to direct him. Thus, in Blake, the poet has spoiled the prophet,
causing him to rank as a mystical writer of secondary importance,
when he might have been one of the first.
But this same characteristic has kept his name alive in the world
of letters, where so few mystics have found a place. He is, in England
at any rate, the only real mystic among the poets; and it is by his
poetry that he has become famous. This prepotency of the poetic
element in his visions, and the charm of their setting, have led even
the least mystically-minded to study them with sympathetic interest,
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WILLIAM BLAKE
and to overlook all their strangeness. Even sceptics can read his
works, as they read certain chapters of the Bible, for the splendour
of their language and the ideas they evoke. But if, on the one hand,
his poetic gifts have thus influenced his mysticism, and made his
philosophy that of a dreamer and not that of a thinker, on the other
hand his poetry, in its turn, has been profoundly affected by his
mysticism, with the result that it is a thing unique in English liter-
ature, no less for its striking beauties than for its many faults.
What sort of poetry was to be expected from a mystic like Blake,
with his theories and his mental eccentricities? I have already re-
ferred on several occasions to the strange disordered impression that
his work leaves on the mind, to the dense obscurity which alternates
in it with flashes of blinding light, and to the effect which it produces,
in spite of all, of immense power hidden beneath its very imperfections,
a great fire never extinguished, though at times it may disappear.
This mystic light, which our eyes could not long endure to look upon,
informs and colours all Blake's visions: and this it is which alters
or destroys in him everything that we are accustomed to find in
poetry. There is no single poetic element in either his mind or his
work that has not been touched by it. It transforms some, disfigures
others; and some it entirely demolishes.
A reading of his poems in their chronological order shows us not
only this change, but the stages by which it progressed, the disappear-
ance of the ordinary qualities of poetry, one after another, as new
elements came to take their places. Blake, in fact, began by living in
the world of visible things, and it was only little by little that he
passed out of it. His earliest writings, though they dazzle us here and
there by flashes of the unknown, leave us at any rate with our feet
still upon firm ground. But as page accumulates upon page, his
“double vision " makes him forget the common way of seeing. His
eye, accustomed to regard the world as a series of empty pictures,
gazes over it without noticing its form : his soul, more and more lost
in the infinite, goes further and further from ours, and flies before
us, out of the range of our sight, into the unexplorable regions
whither he would lead us. His visions become more frequent: the
number of his celestial visitants grows into a crowd. And now ordi
nary speech can no longer express what he sees: he must use a specia
language. His pencil must come to help him explain and complet
his written message, and often even the pencil has to confess it:
powerlessness to reproduce the artist's visions of the ideal. Hi
1
THE INFLUENCE OF MYSTICISM UPON POETRY 213
mysticism, which at first was only an adjunct to his art, transforms
and, in the end, submerges it. We can see the beginnings of this
influence in the Poetical Sketches: it grows in the Songs of Innocence,
dominates the Songs of Experience, and is almost the sole inspiring
force of the Prophetic Books. A rapid survey of these various works
will show us the course of this progressive movement, and lead us
to our final judgment of Blake as a poet. But it will not be unprofit-
able to examine first the general character of the influence exercised
by mysticism in changing and destroying the three chief elements of
his poetry namely, the expression of his ideas, the depth and extent
of his feelings, and the strength and special tendency of his imagi-
nation.
DESTRUCTION OF THE POETRY OF LOGIC AND REASON
One of the first effects of Blake's mysticism was the eradication
from his mind of all faith in reason and science, poisonous growths
which ordinary people believed to be healthful and nourishing, and
the substitution for them of the tree of true knowledge, which could
only thrive in the light of Revelation, and which any logic or reason-
ing would blight for ever.
This simple fact has grave literary consequences. It destroys by
one stroke all the sources from which sprang the logical and didactic
poetry of the eighteenth century. Very little would remain of Pope's
work, if we eliminated from it all the writer's literary, moral and
philosophical dissertations, all, that is to say, that springs from reason.
The descriptive poetry of Thomson and his school is also didactic:
it paints things seen by the eye: it argues and it instructs. Even the
works of the most genuinely lyrical poets-Young, Cowper and
Blair are full of logical and philosophical reasoning. Blake never
wrote in this way. He hated Pope and Dryden, and despised the
subjects-always connected with man and the world as man sees
it-which they chose for treatment. He rebelled against their theories
and their principles of criticism, which he regarded as a murdering
of Art and Inspiration, as the destruction of Los by the leprous hand
of Urizen. He asserts that Pope's " poetic jargon " is not art. And he
goes back, for his own models, to Milton's epical conceptions, and
above all to the great creations of Dante and Shakespeare, who saw
everything intuitively and never relied on reason for their poetic
discoveries.
Logic, then, has no place in his poetry, any more than in the
214
WILLIAM BLAKE
elaboration of his philosophy-or if it finds a place, it is without his
knowledge. Boileau's precept—
Love Reason: let all your writings
Borrow from her alone their lustre and their value
though the whole eighteenth century obeyed it, was to him the
greatest of all blasphemies against art and poetry.
哈
​Not that he was wholly lacking in those frigid qualities of reason, good
sense and practical observation which, as an artist, he so disdained.
Some of his short poems reveal a real talent for minute analysis,
the results of which are expressed in language so clear and precise
as to be worthy of Pope himself. Such, for example, is Love's Secret.
Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be ;
For the gentle wind does move
Silently, invisibly.
I told my love, I told my love,
I told her all my heart ;
Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears,
Ah! she doth depart.
Soon as she was gone from me,
A traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly :
He took her with a sigh. 1
Such also is the remarkable poem, strange as to subject but classical
in style, in which he gives us his two conceptions of love.
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 sung 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,
To bind another to Its delight,
Joys in another's loss of ease,
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite. 2
1 Rossetti MS. No. 1.
2
Songs of Experience: The Clod and The Pebble.
THE INFLUENCE OF MYSTICISM UPON POETRY 215
تريند
And certain other poems, partly narrative in form, such as Mary
and William Bond, reveal, in spite of several passages quite peculiar
to their author, the contemporary of Gray and of Cowper. Many of
his aphorisms, too, show not only his faculty of observation but also
his power of concentrating his thought, sometimes without the aid
of any image, but more often in logical metaphors selected with a
view to its most forcible expression. The man who insisted so strongly
upon the need for distinctness of outline in drawing, was able, when
he wished, to invest his writing with the same clearness. We could
quote, almost haphazard, any of the Proverbs of Hell to illustrate
this.
Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity.
No Bird soars too high, if he soars with his own wings.
If the fool would persist in his folly he would become wise.
The fox condemns the trap, not himself.
The cistern contains: the fountain overflows.
The eagle never lost so much time, as when he submitted to learn of the
crow.
The fox provides for himself, but God provides for the lion.
He who has suffer'd you to impose on him knows you.
The crow wish'd everything was black, the owl, that everything was
white.
If the lion was advised by the fox, he would be cunning.
1
These few exceptions, however, do not justify us in regarding any
of his works, even the shortest, as didactic in character; and the
fact is very remarkable when we consider the age in which he lived,
and recollect, further, that he had a great doctrine to reveal to the
world. Mysticism is not, as a matter of fact, in any way antagonistic
to didactic poetry. The world of the unknown and the eternal has
its laws; and it is part of the mystic's duty to make us acquainted
with them. He might write, as Swedenborg did, a treatise, a descrip-
tive account of Heaven, a kind of guide, as it were, to these unex-
plorable countries. His work, whether prose or poetry, might quite
well be didactic, Blake, on the contrary, gives us only scattered
fragments of vision, without caring whether we see them clearly or
not; heedless of our ignorance, since he writes only for those who
have no need of explanations, and sings only for himself, as the
syrens sung to the closed ears of Ulysses' companions, or as a mathe-
matician might proudly proclaim his new discoveries to an audience
1 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, pp. 7-10.
216
WILLIAM BLAKE
:
incapable of understanding his technical expressions. And, indeed, he
- had much to say. Even in the early Songs of Innocence, he shows
us the immense love of God for the weakest of His creatures, the
celestial working of mercy and pity, the sense of brotherhood that
enters into all beings, from the earthworm to the star, the need for
sorrow in order that divine consolation may follow it. Such ideas
are more numerous in the Songs of Experience. The conception of
evil now appears: the tiger takes his place beside the lamb: beauty
is blighted at its birth, as the rose is devoured by the worm life
wastes itself in pleasures or deceptions: men's desires are destroyed
by the Law our existence fades into nonentity. And the further we
advance in the Prophetic Books, the wider and more exalted are the
ideas we encounter, and the more deeply do we find ourselves pene-
trating into the realm of pure thought and of metaphysics. It is in
the Prophetic Books especially that Blake expounds his doctrines of
the impotence of reason and the falsity of science, of the unity of the
whole universe and the laws of the Eternals. Here it is that he intro-
duces all the mysterious creations of his brain; the Zoas, with their
endless struggles, the Titans, and all the complex world of the human
spirit. And beneath all this runs a current of profound thought, out
of which arises not only the elaborate doctrinal system I have tried
to sketch, but also the mass of Blake's theories relating to art, science,
religion, morality, and, in a vague sense, the whole history of man.
Truly, Blake is, as he himself asserts,
the Bard
Who Present, Past, and Future, sees,
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walk'd among the ancient trees. 1
It is not in his choice of subjects therefore, but in his treatment of
them, that Blake is undidactic. He lacks (and this because he deliber-
ately rejected it) the first quality of a teacher: namely, clearness.
His works are perhaps the most obscure in the whole range of liter-
ature, and their obscurity is due not so much to any great complexity
in the writer's ideas as to his manner of expressing them, which he
seems to have purposely made as confusing as possible. And this
obscureness of treatment may be traced almost entirely to two great
causes his inaptitude for composition, arising from his disdain of
1 Songs of Experience: Introduction.
THE INFLUENCE OF MYSTICISM UPON POETRY 217
اگر
logic; and the use of symbolical language, to which he was drawn
by his poetic faculties.
He either could not or would not set his ideas in order. All the
clear, precise passages in his works are quite short pieces, never
exceeding a few lines in length. He seems to have been incapable of
putting together a whole book, or even a whole chapter. His writing
consists of forcible assertions; and he hated argument, possibly
because he could not follow it. In the same way, he could not follow
the connection between his different visions. His thoughts came to
him singly, as if a painter were to see now an arm, now a leg, and now
an eye of his model, but never the whole figure. In his mental world,
as in the world of Urizen, there are only vast, disjointed forms, like
those that we see in the illustration at the end of Ahania.
And his world teem'd vast enormities
Fright'ning, faithless, fawning,
Portions of life; similitudes
Of a foot, or a hand, or a head,
Or a heart, or an eye: they swam mischievous.
1
As a painter, however, he had a great feeling for construction, and
could compose very harmonious groups of figures, as in the Last
Judgment, for example, or the Descent to the Grave, or the Death of
Job's Children; though he preferred single figures or very small
groups. But his literary work shows no such ability.
He was essentially a man who wrote when inspiration came to
him, when the spirit breathed upon him and the visions appeared.
But the visions were brief, and the spirit did not breathe on him for
long. Consequently, his strength lay in short passages and isolated
details. In his theories regarding art, he always insists upon the
importance of detail, and it is often the same with his moral doctrines.
He who would do good to another, must do it in Minute Particulars. 2
He who wishes to see a Vision, a perfect Whole
Must see it in its Minute Particulars . .
General Forms have their vitality in Particulars. 3
All this is true; and the effect of life is almost always given by
individual details. But, at the same time, we must not treat each detail
as an end in itself, and forget the whole. This is what Blake failed
to understand; and this it was which made him incapable of forming
1 Urizen, VIII, 2.
2 Jerusalem, p. 55, 60.
3 id.
P. 91, 20.
218
WILLIAM BLAKE
any logical connection between the details he gave. Thus, there is
nothing to differentiate the various episodes in the lives of his chief
personages and no harder task can be undertaken than that, for
example, of supplying reasons for the conduct of the Zoas or their
sons, or of reconciling the discordant elements of their psychology.
Their actions follow each other like the successive scenes of some
incoherent dream.
1
This is a serious fault in Blake's work, and particularly so in the
greater Prophetic Books. He began to write without knowing exactly
what his subject was to be, or how he intended to treat it. The title
of Vala, for instance, was twice changed, and the one finally decided
upon is the least appropriate. Milton, as the title-page shows, was
originally planned in twelve books: but only two were written.'
Nowhere do we find any trace of a scheme consistently followed to
the end. Blake conceived the idea of a great poem, saw it stretching
out in a long perspective before the eyes of his imagination, and at
once set to work on it. But, at every stage, he changed his direction,
saw some new perspective, began a fresh piece of work, and added this
to the fragment already completed, as if it were really a sequel to it.
Thus each of his great poems seems to be only a series of beginnings.
He conceived Vala as The Death and Judgment of the Ancient Man,
and, consequently, as a history of The Four Zoas: hence these first
titles. The opening lines, however, point only to a history of Urthona :
-his "fall into Division and his resurrection into Unity "-and
this history of Urthona is then immediately abandoned, the poem
being concerned for a long time only with the doings of Tharmas.
At another moment Blake was struck by the idea of the conflict
between each Zoa and his Emanation, and straightway wrote as a sub-
title, The Torments of Love and Jealousy. Finally, the name of Vala
was given to the book, though Vala herself does not play the chief
part in it. Perhaps the writer's object here was to make the title
correspond with that of his other great poem, Jerusalem. This
changing of the title clearly shows his state of indecision with regard
to his subject, an indecision emphasised by his manner of recounting
the story of the Zoas, in fragments suddenly broken off and as
abruptly resumed, so that it is impossible for the reader to follow the
thread of the narrative, or understand the way in which the characters
vanish and appear again just where they are least expected. In
¹ It has been suggested, however, that the "I" of the figure "12" on the
engraved title may possibly be part of the decoration only; and an examination
of the original certainly gives some colour to this view.
THE INFLUENCE OF MYSTICISM UPON POETRY 219
Jerusalem, the confusion is even greater. The book seems to retell
the same story of man's fall and regeneration, symbolised this time
by the conflicts of Los and the sons of Albion. Jerusalem moves
among them, a lost and wandering spirit. It is almost impossible to
say, at any given point in the story, where the characters are meant
to be, or what it is that they desire and when, after a long and
patient reading, one has come to the end of the book, it is still more
impossible to give any connected summary of its incidents. One can
only carry away a recollection of detached fragments, and a painful
impression of having been hurled from one episode to another. The
Milton, being shorter, is easier to follow. But here also, in many pas-
sages, it is very difficult to see the drift of the poet's thought. We read,
all the time, without knowing whither we are being led.
It could not be otherwise, with such a method of writing as Blake's.
When he had finished a page, or, rather, when he had written it at
the dictation of his celestial visitants, he set it aside and thought no
more about it. Except in the case of the early collections of poems—
the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience we have very few
instances of his ever having re-read or corrected any of his works.
All his principles were opposed to such a course." The crooked roads
without Improvement, are roads of Genius."¹ So great was his
respect for inspiration that he thought he had no right to change a
single word, once it was written. Similarly, he regarded himself as
having no authority to suppress any inspired thought; so that
everything had to have a place in his work found for it by some
means or other. This explains why so many passages in the Prophetic
Books are excrescences, and ought not to be there at all, why others
again are out of their proper places, and why the reader continually
has the sensation of leaping from one subject to another. And it is
on this account also that we find pages of one book reproduced, almost
word for word, in another; parts of Urizen, for instance, recurring
in Vala, and parts of Vala in Jerusalem or America. Incoherencies,
repetitions, breaks in the continuity of the narrative-all these would
be quite enough, even if the language were clear and simple, to render
much of Blake's work incomprehensible at first sight. One would
have, in order to make it readable, to go through it and prune it
unmercifully, cutting out a good half; and then, if possible, to reduce
the remaining half to logical order. This, however, would be a
Herculean task. Messrs. Ellis and Yeats have expended an immense
¹ Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 10.
220
WILLIAM BLAKE
amount of labour upon the arrangement of the sheets of Vala, left
by Blake in disorder; and, thanks to them, we can read this book
with more intellectual enjoyment than if Blake had settled the order
of the pages himself. And still the mind is far from being satisfied.
As to the pages of Jerusalem, which Blake first classified, then dis-
arranged, and finally added to before publication, one can but think
that they also stand in need of similar readjustment. But where is
the editor who would venture upon so vast an undertaking? Better,
surely, to leave these works as they stand, with all their disordered
strength of imagination, and to read them simply as collections of
isolated but richly suggestive fragments, united only by a common
bond of thought and inspiration. Regarding them thus, we shall find
their faults of composition diminish till they all but disappear, while
the genius of the poet and the splendour of the artist's visions are
shown in a light which will enable us to appreciate them more
completely.
B
XV: SYMBOLISM IN LANGUAGE
LAKE'S symbolic language is perhaps even more largely
responsible than his want of logic for the obscurity of his
writings. His use of this symbolic language was a natural
result of his views upon the nature of the world and upon
art. To him, the spiritual world revealed itself not in abstract terms,
but in concrete symbols, which were the visible things of this world.
He saw the supernatural, instead of merely imagining it. The living
spirit was symbolised and made visible to men by lifeless matter.
The created world was an expression of the Divine Humanity in all
its forms.
But the artist's creation should be an analogous kind of expression.
His abstract ideas ought only to be represented by words which
designate concrete things. A thought can only be expressed by a
symbol. The artist must therefore create a symbol for every thought,
and must speak always in metaphors. He will learn to live in the
symbolic world created by his own mind, as we live in the midst.
of that vast, composite symbol which is the universe. And just as we
see concrete objects without thinking of the metaphysical ideas they
represent, so Blake, having created his symbols, proceeds to use them
as living personages without regarding the idea that underlay them
and had brought them into existence. He comes to feel, think and
speak in symbols. Urizen and Los cease to be allegorical figures, and
become actual persons, like Hamlet or Polonius, like Milton or Blake
himself. This process takes place in the mind of every poet, but Blake
carried it further than all the others.
His symbolism is not a mere employment of allegorical or meta-
phorical language, the meaning of which is generally quite easy to
discover. When Blake is content to use it, his poetry is perfectly clear.
One can easily interpret such lines as
Think in the morning, Act in the noon, Eat in the evening, Sleep in the
night.
1
It is an easy thing
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter-house
moan. 2
1 Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 9.
2 Vala. Night II, 400.
222
WILLIAM BLAKE
No greater difficulty is presented by little allegories like
The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble Sheep a threat'ning horn ;
While the Lilly white shall in Love delight,
Nor a thorn, nor a threat, stain her beauty bright. 1
A little practice will soon teach us to translate
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 ? 2
by: "The depths of knowledge and feeling are revealed to the
simplest and most modest creatures," or, in the words of the Evange-
list, "Thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and
hast revealed them unto babes." 3
Similarly, when we read of cold snows gathering round Urizen's
loins, we can interpret it as meaning that Reason devoid of Faith
has lost its creative power; while " The Guardian Prince of Albion
burns in his nightly tent,
<<
can be rendered as There still remains
in the darkened soul of man an instinct which reminds him of his
eternal origin."
4
Such metaphors as these are to some extent comprehensible because
there is a visible analogy between the concrete thing and the abstract
idea represented by it. But this is not always the case with symbols.
When the Early Christians represented Christ as the Good Shepherd,
there was no difficulty in understanding what was meant by the
symbol. But when they represented Him by a fish, because of the
letters forming His name, they created a new symbol, which only
the initiate could understand or guess at, and which was no longer a
metaphor, but a conventional sign. A symbol, therefore, may have
either an allegorical or a conventional origin, though it may not be
always possible to distinguish between the two. From one or other
of them, however, spring all the different kinds of symbolical language,
from the poet's similes to the popular "Language of Flowers."
There is no need here to show how, in the case of certain symbols,
the original allegory has been forgotten, and how, in other cases,
the convention can be traced to some known historical source. It
is enough to point out that in Blake the two kinds of symbols are
¹ Songs of Experience: The Lilly.
2 Book of Thel: Thel's Motto.
3 St. Luke, x, 21.
America, p. 3, I.
SYMBOLISM IN LANGUAGE
223
constantly mingled, and to show how he created more and more
symbols, in proportion as he found more ideas to express. Sometimes
he uses quite common ones, such as the myrtle to symbolise marriage,
or the serpent with its tail in its mouth to represent eternity: but
he is generally rather sparing of these, and prefers symbols of his
own invention. And here begins the difficulty.
To grasp the thought underlying his words, we must have eyes
like his own, capable of reading his books as he read the world, with
the faculty of double or triple vision. His symbolism becomes more
and more complex as we go on. In the earlier poems, his language is
generally comprehensible, and his metaphors are fairly clear. Often
he even adds a few words of interpretation when necessary. For
example :
I went to the Garden of Love,
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires. 1
Sometimes, however, the explanation he gives of a symbol is itself
symbolic and obscure. Thus the allegory of the "Little Girl Lost "
is explained by another allegory.
In futurity
I prophetic see
That the earth from sleep
Shall arise and seek
For her maker meek ;
And the desart wild
Become a garden mild. 2
In the Prophetic Books, he disdains to use ordinary language;
and the explanatory passages are few and brief. His allegories become
more and more obscure. Many even of the shorter pieces, such as the
Mental Traveller and the Crystal Cabinet, admit of various interpreta-
tions, all equally problematical. As for the long poems like America,
the Song of Los and, above all, Vala, Jerusalem and Milton, they defy all
commentators. Several laborious attempts at interpretation have been
made, but even the makers have recognised that they fall far short
of giving every shade of meaning. Sometimes, too, the interpretation
1
¹ Songs of Experience: The Garden of Love.
Songs of Experience: The Little Girl Lost.
224
WILLIAM BLAKE
is almost as obscure as the text, and no small degree of faith is needed
to reconcile the one with the other. The work of Messrs. Ellis and
Yeats, entirely admirable as it is in its display of patient labour,
learned ingenuity and poetic divination, cannot possibly be regarded
as the final explanation of Blake's myth. Though no student can
afford to ignore this book, it is quite possible that other writers may
give us other interpretations just as elaborate, which will perhaps be
quite different, and yet no less plausible or less doubtful.¹ The reason
of this is to be found in Blake's creation of new symbols, to which
he gave no key, and which themselves very often changed their
meaning. A clear allegory can, as a rule, only bear one interpretation.
A symbol may have several. The "Clod of Clay," for instance,
symbolises soulless matter; but it represents also man's first mother,
and the milk of human kindness And we have seen how many
different meanings are hidden in the symbolic figures of Urizen, Los
and Enitharmon.
At first, we find the symbols used by Swedenborg predominating :
angels, devils, their colours and their dwelling-places, and the
animals of the Bible, the serpent, eagle, lion and ox. 2 But other
creations follow in rapid succession. The poet endows his devils
and angels with new names. We lose sight of Satan and Elijah, and
find, instead, Thel, the daughter of the Seraphim, Tiriel the Titan,
Har, father of a lawless race, and finally the Zoas and all their worlds.
And all these personages are introduced suddenly and without
preparation of any kind. Blake knew them well, and never troubles
to tell us who they are. What, for instance, can we say of a poem
which opens in this way?
Eno, aged Mother
Who the chariot of Leutha guides
Since the day of thunders in old time
Sitting beneath the eternal Oak
Trembled and shook the stedfast Earth. 3
We know nothing of Eno, or Leutha, or the eternal Oak; nor does
the rest of the poem throw any light upon either of them. To arrive
It is
1 This must on no account be considered as a disparagement of the book.
impossible to exaggerate the immense debt we owe Messrs. Ellis and Yeats, not
only for their admirable and complete edition of Blake, but also for the explanations
they have given of his symbols. It is mostly to them I am indebted, among other
suggestions, for the theories of the Zoas, some of the views on the Spectre and
Emanation, and especially the clue to the geographical symbolism.
Book of Los, I, 1.
2 Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
SYMBOLISM IN LANGUAGE
225
at any sort of understanding, the reader's mind must work partly
by conjecture and partly by reference to other books. From Eno's
lamentations, from the regrets she pours forth for the joys of love
in Eden, now lost, and from her title of " ancient mother," we may
suppose her to be "the mother of Desire, the ancient and essential
nature of man, which creates his energies and his longing for joy."
But this can only be a guess. For Leutha, we must refer to the
Visions of the Daughters of Albion, where we read how Oothoon
plucks the flower of Leutha's vale, and from Oothoon's words and
from the general sense of the book, gather that this flower is the
gratification of the desire for love. Turning next to Europe, we find
Leutha, there called the "lureing bird of Eden . . . . silent love”:
"silken queen."
>>
Leutha, the many colour'd bow delights upon thy wings,
Soft soul of Flowers, ¹ Leutha !
1
Sweet smiling pestilence!
2
This corroborates our first surmise, but does not absolutely confirm
it. Finally, in the much later Jerusalem, we see the Oak-tree pictured
close to the Rock of Ages upon which Albion lies, and we meet with
the phrase, "the Oak of Weeping. "3 Thus little by little, this
mysterious figure of Eno becomes clearer to us, though we can still
never feel quite sure that our interpretation is the only correct one.
In many cases, comparison is impossible, because the myth is only
mentioned once, or reappears with too many different meanings.
We have already seen the chief mythical personages in our study of
Blake's cosmogony. Once we are familiar with them, we can read
many of the books-or at any rate long passages out of them—
without too much difficulty. This is especially the case with Vala,
which is perhaps, as a whole, the most beautiful of all, and the least
incomprehensible.
But now other myths appear, which are still more enigmatic. We
have had ordinary allegories-the mills of thought, the wheels of
philosophical discussion, the tigers of wrath, the lions of pride, the
bare cold rocks of abstract philosophy, the furnaces of Los and the
looms of Enitharmon, emblems of creation. Here was already a
varied assemblage. Next came the myths of the Zoas and their worlds,
the regions of the human spirit: Beulah, Golgonooza, Ulro. And
now we are to encounter, especially in Jerusalem, personal myths,
2 Europe, p. 12.
3 Jerusalem, p. 23, 24.
1 i.e. their desire of love.
Q
226
WILLIAM BLAKE
historical myths and hardest of all to decipher-geographical myths.
All these new symbols give the crowning touch of obscurity to a style
already quite obscure enough.
There are not many strictly personal myths. As we know, Blake
regarded himself as a symbol; in Milton it is through him that Los,
the prophet of eternity, speaks. Felpham, where he was then living,
is the temple of the poetic spirit; his wife is his Emanation. Only
one of his contemporaries appears, under his own name, in Blake's
mythology. This is Scholfield, the soldier whom Blake forcibly ejected
from his garden, and who, in revenge, caused him to be arrested on
a false charge of treason. In Jerusalem, "Skofield" is one of the
sons of Albion, and personifies brute force.1
The historical myths are more numerous and more complex.
They were not among Blake's earliest inspirations. Little by little,
as he became more conscious of his prophetical mission, he began to
adopt what he believed to be the Biblical manner of writing. Now
to him, as to Boehme, all the historical books of the Bible appeared
to have a double meaning, and it was the same with the events re-
corded in them. These were, first of all, episodes in the history of the
Jews; and the question of their accuracy was not a very important
one. But they were also symbols of all that befalls man in Eternity.
Blake, like Boehme and Swedenborg, had undertaken to rewrite the
Bible from this new point of view, and has left us a few very brief
but very characteristic indications of what his interpretation would
have been, in the following list of chapter-headings to the Book of
Genesis.
I. The creation of the Natural Man.
II. The Natural Man divided into male and female, and of the tree of
Life and the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.
III. Of the Sexual Nature, and its fall into Generation and Death.
IV. How Generation and Death took possession of the Natural Man.
Of the Forgiveness of Sins written on the Murderer's forehead. 2
To this may be added the little drama engraved upon two plates
and entitled The Ghost of Abel, which treats of the mysteries of
Redemption and Forgiveness.
1 A reviewer in the Athenæum (27 July, 1907) suggests that "Hand," in Jeru-
salem, may possibly be connected with the Richard Hand whose name appears
in a contemporary Royal Academy List. And Mr. Herbert Jenkins has identified
several others of the mythical names in Jerusalem with those of persons present
at Blake's trial for treason.
2 Ellis & Yeats: William Blake, Vol. I, 169.
SYMBOLISM IN LANGUAGE
227
But if the events related in the Bible are only symbolical of meta-
physical ideas, why should it not be the same with all historical events?
Why could not one write the history of the Eternal Soul of Humanity
under the semblance of a history of nations, with historical characters
serving as symbols? This is what Blake did, mingling human actors
with his celestial personages, and perpetually bringing scenes from
Eternity on to the stage of time. At first (in the newly discovered
French Revolution) the forces of eternity are only seen in the back-
ground, either sending prophetic visions to the bishop of Paris or
covering with dark clouds the palace of the King, and shaking as
with a weird terror the towers of his Bastille. The men, though
idealised, are still recognisable as representatives of a class or of an
idea, and the actual succession of events is followed in the main,
though from some distance above. In America Blake goes much further.
We find him recounting, in his own way, the story of the American
War of Independence, magnified and distorted, with angels and spirits
intervening and finally bringing about the deliverance not so much of
America as of the human spirit.
The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent.
Sullen fires across the Atlantic glow to America's shore ;
Piercing the souls of warlike men, who rise in silent night,
Washington, Franklin, Pain and Warren, Gates, Hancock and Green,
Meet on the coast glowing with blood from Albion's fiery Prince.
1
And, in order that we may give both men and events their sym-
bolical meaning only, the poem is introduced by a prelude showing
how Orc, grown to manhood and nourished by Enitharmon's milk,
becomes too strong for his chains, and breaks them in his desperate
struggles. This is what was happening in Eternity, while the revolt
of the Colonies against England symbolised it in Time.
The same kind of symbolism, only still more obscure, is to be seen
in the Song of Los, where we have described to us the mystical origin
of the authoritative religions, the religions of death, over which
"the Grave shrieks with delight," 2 and also in Europe, in which
the seer hails the advent of those revolutionary movements that
characterised the age he lived in; taking them to symbolise the
awakening of the children of Los and Enitharmon, calling upon all
men to consummate their energies, and making nature feel thro'
all her pores the enormous revelry"; while Orc arises, terrible,
¹ America, p. 3, I.
2 Song of Los, pp. 1. 2.
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WILLIAM BLAKE
seeing the dawn in the East, and shows the light of his fury in "the
vineyards of red France." Thus Orc becomes the herald of the
French Revolution. And no doubt the last chapters of Blake's poem
on this subject contained a description of the "strife of blood"
presaged in the concluding lines of Europe and foreshadowed also
in the roaring of Rintrah2 and the prophetic cries of the Song of
Liberty.
All the other historical myths are constructed in the same way.
The names of real men are only applicable in part to the personages
designated by them: their main purpose is to indicate a general
spiritual tendency. Thus Newton personifies the mistaken belief in
science; Locke is abstract philosophy; Voltaire the spirit of denial;
Rousseau, natural religion; Charlemagne, imperial power; Con-
stantine, ecclesiastical dominion; Washington, the spirit of
liberty, Siêyes, the power of the people, and Milton the poetic
genius.
Blake's geographical symbolism is much more intricate. Our
knowledge of any celebrated historical personage enables us to
divine with some degree of accuracy the significance attaching to him
as a symbol. But what can be the symbolic meaning possessed by a
town, a street, a river or a mountain? We must know this if we wish
to understand many important passages in Blake's work; and the
principles upon which our knowledge must be founded are not
always very clear. Nowhere is this kind of symbolism carried farther
than in Jerusalem, which takes its name from a spirit who is at once
a woman and a city. Blake has made it almost unreadable, except for
those who have been given, or those who can find for themselves the
key to its meaning. One example, chosen haphazard from among the
less difficult passages, will show the way in which he employed
these geographical myths. What is a reader to think when he comes
suddenly upon such lines as the following, which describe one of
the sons of Albion, and his doings?
Bath ... is the Seventh, the physician and
The poisoner; the best and worst in Heaven and Hell ;
Whose Spectre first assimilated with Luvah in Albion's mountains.
A triple octave he took, to reduce Jerusalem to twelve,
To cast Jerusalem forth upon the wilds to Poplar and Bow,
To Malden and Canterbury in the delights of cruelty:
The Shuttles of death sing in the sky to Islington and Pancrass,
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 2.
¹ Europe, pp. 11, 12, 13.
2
SYMBOLISM IN LANGUAGE
229
Round Marybone to Tyburn's River, weaving black melancholy as a net,
And despair as meshes closely wove over the west of London,
Where mild Jerusalem sought to repose in death and be no more.
She fled to Lambeth's mild vale and hid herself beneath
The Surrey Hills where Rephaim terminates. 1
We should need Ariadne's thread to extricate us from such a hope-
less labyrinth unfortunately, the clue that Blake gives us is a very
slender one, and often unreliable. And slight, as it is, we must go a
long way round to find it and so reach any explanation of these few
lines that shall be even approximately satisfactory. Let us attempt
the task. However tedious it be, it will at any rate have served to show
us Blake's method, and the difficulty of interpreting a book like his
Jerusalem.
The first thing to be remembered is the analogy between man and
the universe, arising from their common origin and their primal
union. The result of this is that man can be symbolized by the uni-
verse, and the various elements composing his spirit by the different
regions of the world. Each of the four cardinal points of the compass
corresponds to a particular metaphysical attribute, just as, in the
Book of Job, a distinction is made between the East Wind, dry and
burning, which fills the belly of man with vain knowledge, 2 and
the South, out of which "cometh the whirlwind," and whence.
the sun shines and the vision of God appears. The ancients recog-
nized certain quarters of the heavens as propitious and others as the
reverse; and the sages and occultists of the Middle Ages ascribed,
in the same way, definite localities to their various spiritual beings.
Swedenborg shows more clearly than any other writer the close con-
nection between the regions of the horizon and the different kinds of
spirits inhabiting them. Thus :
In Heaven, this region is called the East; and here the Lord appears,
like the sun: opposite is the West. The South in Heaven is to the right,
and the North to the left; and this is so wherever the angels turn their
faces and their bodies. Thus, in Heaven all the cardinal points are deter-
mined from the East. It is called the East, or Orient, because there the
Lord appears, like the sun, and thence springs, as from the sun, the
source of all life. This is also why, in the Bible, Our Lord is called the
East. . . . In Heaven, the East and the West are the dwelling-places of
those who possess the virtue of love: in the East are those who perceive
this virtue clearly, in the West those who have only a dim perception of it.
2 Job xv, 2.
³ Job xxxvii, 9.
4
¹ Jerusalem, p. 41, 1.
• Heaven and Hell: § 141.
3
230
WILLIAM BLAKE
To the North and South dwell those who possess the wisdom that is born
of this love to the South, those who are in the full light of that wisdom,
to the North those who are in its less clear light. 1
Blake has followed the same principles, without giving any ex-
planation of them. Thus he places Luvah, the spirit of love, who
becomes incarnate in Christ, in the east, and Tharmas the weaker
form of the same spirit, degraded to physical love and the love of
life, in the west. Thus also Urizen, the unhindered contemplation of
truth, dwelt originally in the south, and Urthona, the prophetic
spirit, the dim vision of God, in the north. Whenever, therefore, we
read North, South, East and West, we ought to understand the
words as meaning the regions of Instinct, Intelligence, Love and
Physical Life. This explains in some measure the allegory of the gates
of Golgonooza, and shows why the gate towards Eden is walled up
until the end of time, love and human brotherhood being able to
attain perfection only in eternity.
We may proceed further than this, and substitute for the words
North, South, East and West, the names of countries or towns.
situated in those regions. The Atlantic-in the west-is the world of
Tharmas, the region of organic life: Asia-in the east-is the region
of the emotions. But it must be remembered that the positions in-
dicated by the cardinal points are relative only, and not absolute.
The Rhine is westward from the Danube, but eastward from London.
There are therefore two ways of regarding a geographical name in
accordance with its position on the map. We may determine its
position either absolutely, taking the whole map as one unit, or we
may determine it relatively, having regard to the other names
mentioned in the context. Thus when Blake speaks of Great Britain
as a unit, Scotland and Edinburgh will represent the north, the dark
region of prophecy, and London, Bath or Surrey the south, the region
of the intellect. In the second case, where no indication is given
of regarding the map as a unit, it is the direction of any movement
that is important. To go from the Rhine to the Danube-from west
to east-is to pass from the material to the region of the affections.
When Blake writes,
we must read :
On the Euphrates Satan stood,
And over Asia stretch'd his pride,
2
"Satan was on the river of the east; that is to say,
2 Jerusalem, chap. 2. Preface.
1 Heaven and Hell: § 148.
SYMBOLISM IN LANGUAGE
231
the false religion ruled the course, formerly free, of the joys ex-
perienced by the human soul. These religions "stretched their
pride over Asia; that is, they dominated all the affections, loves
and hatreds of our hearts.
To" cast Jerusalem forth to Poplar " (near the East India Dock
in the East of London) " and Bow" (a part of the same distrtict),
and then further still towards the east "to Malden and Canterbury,"
means to transfer the Divine vision into the region of the emotions,
to speak only to the heart instead of to the intellect, and to make
religion an affair of mere feeling.
Blake, unlike Swedenborg, did not always regard the universe
or the earth as a unit. In obedience to some vague patriotic sentiment,
the growth of which can be traced to some extent in his earlier work,
he preferred to take England as his unit. The mythical personage
whom, at the beginning of Vala, he calls “the Eternal Man," is
called "Albion " at the end of the poem and in all his subsequent
poems. He gladly accepts the old English tradition, shared by so
many other countries, that England was the birthplace of the first
man, the home of the giants who built the world.
Can it be? Is it a Truth that the Learned have explored? Was Britain
the Primitive Seat of the Patriarchal Religion? If it is true, my title-page
is also True, that Jerusalem was and is the Emanation of the Giant Albion.
It is True, and cannot be controverted. ¹
Blake's spiritual eyes saw Abraham and Heber, Shem and Noah,
as ancient priests or Druids. The Giant Albion was the progenitor
of all of them during his sleep, Satan, Adam and the whole world
were created by the Elohim. But in reality they proceeded forth
from Albion, in whom they were all comprised.
All things Begin and End in Albion's Ancient Druid Rocky Shore. 2
One of the illustrations to Jerusalem shows his vast body bearing
upon it the whole universe, the sun, the moon and the stars, which,
after the creation, were to separate themselves from his mighty limbs.
Then one step further brings us to the conception of Albion the man
as identified with his country England. The different parts of England
become the regions of the human spirit, London being the east,
the heart, Luvah's city; Edinburgh, the north, the city of Urthona
and of the instinct," cloth'd with fortitude"; 3 Verulam, the south,
the abode of Urizen and the home of science; and York (in defiance
¹ Jerusalem, ch. 2. Preface. 2 Jerusalem, ch. 2. Preface. 3 Jerusalem, p. 38, 51.
232
WILLIAM BLAKE
of geography) the west, the dwelling-place of Tharmas, the centre of
mild vegetative life," crown'd with loving kindness." ¹ And, to the
poet's exalted vision, cities and men seem to become as one.
I see thee, awful Parent Land, in light, behold I see!
Verulam! Canterbury! venerable parent of men,
Generous immortal Guardian golden clad! for Cities
Are Men, fathers of multitudes, and Rivers and Mountains
Are also Men; every thing is Human, mighty, sublime! 2
Districts and towns can themselves be subdivided. Kent is the east
in the south, Surrey the north in the south; the one representing
love mingled with intelligence, and the other the intellect combined
with a certain proportion of instinct. It is the same in the case of
London. Blake's references to its different districts can be explained
with the aid of a map of London as it was in his time. We find that
Norwood, Blackheath, Hounslow and Finchley were then the most
outlying quarters to the south, east, west and north respectively;
while many others of the places he alludes to come between them,
St. Pancras and Islington, for example, towards the north, Lambeth
in the south-west, Tyburn and Marylebone towards the north-west.
Besides the topical meaning of places there are other symbolical
elements to be taken into account. Thus Canterbury will acquire a
new significance as the seat of the English Primate: Tyburn suggests
the gallows and the authority of the law: Bath will be a town of
sickness and of healing: Lambeth, Blake's home, is the refuge of
the poetic spirit: Stonehenge, with its dolmens, symbolises the
theocratic religions. In the case of other place-names, we must seek
their meaning in Biblical etymology. Thus Peor, where the religions
strive against each other, signifies "an abyss": Ebal is "the
mountain of curses"; Schechem, the summit of a hill. One must be
acquainted with the geography of Palestine, as well as with that of
England, the details of both being continually mingled in these myths.
All this being understood, we can now return to the enigma pre-
sented by our text, and attempt to read it. Jerusalem, the Emanation
of Albion, is, as we know, the feeling of brotherhood between God
and all men. Bath, the south, is the power of the intellect employed
for good or evil, as well as the city of health and sickness, “the
Physician." It is the seventh son of Albion, seven being the number
of manifestation and of explanation, and is therefore intelligence
1 ¹ Jerusalem, p. 38, 51.
2 Jerusalem, p. 38, 44.
SYMBOLISM IN LANGUAGE
233
applying itself to interpretation, as the physician applies himself to
diagnosis: it is religious criticism. The Spectre of Bath was as-
similated with Luvah in Albion's mountains; that is, the reasoning
power first attempted to analyse religious faith in a spirit of love
and in the highest regions of the human soul. But he took a triple
octave-twenty-four-which he tried to reduce to twelve; he wished
to divide the Bible into two parts, and to see in it only the book of
the twelve tribes, otherwise the Old Testament, thus upholding the
religion of Jehovah instead of the eternal Gospel of Christ. Casting
Jerusalem forth to Poplar, Bow, Malden and Canterbury, he en-
deavours to make Christ's teaching a purely emotional thing, quite
independent of the intellect, and therefore to be believed or rejected
according as each man is inclined. The shuttles of death, singing to
Islington and Pancrass, round Marylebone to Tyburn's river (from
north to west) mark the progress of materialism (the western region).
The black net of melancholy and the meshes of despair closely woven
over the west of London signify that all the purely vegetative and
physical part of human life is really dead, and that man can only
attain true life through the Divine Vision. This Divine Vision,
Jerusalem, would have perished utterly, if there had been no other
regions of the spirit. But she found a refuge in Lambeth, a quarter
of the south, where the prophet lived, and where there is still some
light. There, beneath the southern and consequently luminous
Surrey hills, which are the highest peaks of our little human in-
telligence, she stayed her course and rested. It is there that Rephaim,
the world of giants, terminates,
The Atlantic Vale,
Which is the Vale of Rephaim dreadful from East to West,
Where the Human Harvest waves abundant in the beams of Eden,
the region of Eternal, divine Love, into which Jerusalem may not
yet enter.
1
An ordinary person would have simply said: "The Churches
undertook to interpret the scriptures: their criticism relegated
Christ's Gospel to the domain of pure sympathy, while demanding
entire faith in the law and in the theocratic system borrowed from the
Old Testament. Thus the very essence of Christianity was in danger of
being lost among the mists of sentiment. But it still remained, hidden
in a corner of the human intellect, and especially in the poetic genius,
where it dwells until the time comes for it to reveal itself again in
¹ Jerusalem, p. 48, 32.
234
WILLIAM BLAKE
the Eternal World of the future." If some punctilious critic asks us
wherein lies the wisdom of these sayings, and what proof can be given
of their truth, we are compelled, as far as Blake's work is concerned,
to leave his questions unanswered. If he doubts the exactness of our
interpretation, we cannot venture to blame him. And if, finally, he
desires to know why such enigmatic language is employed, and quotes
to us La Bruyère's famous saying " You wish to tell me that it is
cold, Acis: then say, 'It is cold '"--we must come very near to
agreeing with him.
Such a method of expressing abstract ideas does_not_make them
either clearer or more forcible. It does not strike the reader's imagi-
nation, since no one can describe these ingenious riddles as imagina-
tive poetry. It is a mere convention; an almost mechanical stylistic
process, like some code-writing the key to which has been lost.
It is ingenious, certainly; and the maintaining of this cryptographic
style to the end shows great patience and strength of mind, as would
also the making of abstruse mathematical calculations, or the solving
of difficult problems in chess. But it is not a fit employment for the
poetic genius at best, we can only call it a deflection of that genius
into ways altogether dangerous and wrong.
And Blake, blinded by, his enthusiasm, never knew when to stop.
Not satisfied with transforming the human soul into a map of
England or a plan of London, he must needs go further. Albion had
children: he was the progenitor of the Jews, the twelve tribes.
So Blake must next divide England, Scotland and Ireland into twelve
portions, as Palestine was divided, and assign each portion to one of
the tribes; must subdivide all these into twenty-four, so as to give
each of Albion's sons and daughters a part of the land; must as-
sociate men with provinces, according to a system so complicated
that one might well call it entirely capricious; and write at the end
long lists of names filling some of the most senseless pages that ever
claimed to rank as poetry. And, by way of further complications,
men and cities are made to change places, as the states of their souls
change there is sometimes a doubt as to which they are. "Go
thou," says Los in one passage, 1 "to Skofield: ask him if he is Bath
or if he is Canterbury." Skofield does not give any answer, and the
ordinary reader scarcely regrets it. Skofield, Verulam, Canterbury
and Los himself whirl before his eyes as if in some wild, infernal
dance, a medley of indistinguishable shapes, from which, in the end, he
¹ Jerusalem, p. 17, 59.
SYMBOLISM IN LANGUAGE
235
{
averts his gaze. If it should ever become necessary to show how literary
symbolism, pushed to extremes, leads to the destruction of all real
poetry, one could hardly find clearer proofs than are to be found in only
too many passages of the Prophetic Books, and especially in Jerusalem.
It is no excuse, in Blake's case, that he followed what he believed
to be the example of the Old Testament writers. The Bible certainly
contains whole pages filled with historical or geographical names,
and we also find in it innumerable references to the cities, rivers and
mountains of Palestine. But the details given in these passages can
be of no interest, in our day, except to a professional historian.
They add nothing to the value of the book in which they appear,
and we are quite indifferent to them. It is of little consequence whether
Saul lost his army at Gilboa or elsewhere, whether his body was found
at Bethshan and buried at Jabesh. His defeat and his death are all
that interest us. It was otherwise with the Jews, because to them
all these names represented well known places. It was otherwise
with Blake, on account of the spiritual significance which he attributed
to places, and which he believed to have been given to them by God
Himself. Why then should he not do as the Prophets did, and why
should modern geographical names seem stranger to us in this
connection than did Jewish names? He did not see that what was
reasonable and necessary in a record of actual events became absurd
in an exposition of metaphysical ideas. We can attach a certain strictly
conventional meaning to such names as Dan and Beer-sheba, which
are those of places far off and unknown. But no metaphysical idea can
connect itself in our minds with Finchley, Islington or Canterbury,
through the streets of which we have often walked. And if, by chance,
these places do evoke some such idea in us, it will be because of some
recollection or some definite fact. Tyburn or the Bastille might
suggest the idea of tyranny, but never that of materiality or of love,
from the mere fact of their position in London or in Paris. One
wonders why the discordance between the two meanings, between
the spiritual fact and its symbol, which we cannot regard as symbolis-
ing it at all, should never have been felt by Blake, since it is universally
evident. Only the depth of his mysticism, and his contempt for the
whole visible world, can explain his insensibility to it.
The reader can only understand these things by following the
poet's example, by suppressing the material object, and regarding
only the world of the spirit. Let him climb one of the heights over-
looking London, to the topmost point of Hampstead Heath, for
236
WILLIAM BLAKE
instance, and gaze down upon the forest of roofs, chimneys and spires
that stretches away beneath him, half lost and obliterated in the vast,
misty distance. There, if he can put himself in Blake's place, and lose
himself in the dreams that Blake dreamed, he may fancy that it is
not London that lies before him, hidden in its grey mantle of fog,
but some new-born city of the millennium, the Heavenly Jerusalem,
come down to earth. Then, little by little, his imagination will fill
the mist with rays of light, and tinge its gloom with gold. The
splendour of the sun of righteousness will shine through it. The smoke
of the factories will become clouds of incense rising to Heaven. It
will no longer be the Monument or the dome of St. Paul's that he
sees all the city will have become the Temple of the Lamb, whence
the Good Tidings are sent forth to the people. That sombre fortress
from which everchanging lights are reflected is no longer the Tower:
it is the translucent gateway of the Heavenly City, and in the further
distance shine its other gates. And "every several gate was of one
pearl: and the street of the city was pure gold, as it were transparent
glass." ¹ And the vast hum of the city is the music of joyous hymns
that rise to God's throne; and all around are green pastures where
Christ and his chosen saints walk in eternal bliss. London has
vanished from the beholder's eyes, and he sees instead Jerusalem,
decked as a bride to welcome her divine bridegroom.
The fields from Islington to Marybone,
To Primrose Hill and Saint John's Wood,
Were builded over with pillars of gold,
And there Jerusalem's pillars stood.
Her Little ones ran on the fields,
The Lamb of God among them seen,
And fair Jerusalem his Bride,
Among the little meadows green.
Pancrass and Kentish-town repose
Among her golden pillars high :
Among the golden arches which
Shine upon the starry sky.
She walks upon our meadows green :
The Lamb of God walks by her side:
And every English Child is seen,
Children of Jesus and His Bride. 2
1 Revelation, xxi. 21.
2 Jerusalem, chap. 2. Preface.
SYMBOLISM IN LANGUAGE
237
Here the two myths become almost inextricably mingled. Jeru-
salem is both a city and a woman, and appears sometimes as the one
and sometimes as the other in the course of her capricious wanderings.
But we cannot follow Blake much further. Even this fair picture
of the Heavenly Jerusalem is only evoked by an effort. And the effort
will be altogether beyond our powers when the Vision extends itself
to the whole of England, to Europe, to the universe, and to the worlds
added to it by the poet's imagination; when its stage is trodden by
all kinds of personages, real and symbolical; when every individual
in all this multitude, and every place upon this vast map, is but a
complex and everchanging symbol, behind which we have to discover
some spiritual reality. We lack the mystic's all-seeing eye that can
pierce the thick walls of our material world; and we would rather
that he did not go beyond the limits of our vision. But Blake always
ignored the limitations to which we ordinary men are subject. The
peculiar tendency of his mysticism prevented him from seeing at
what point his symbols would become inaccessible to us. Besides,
did he not write for the dwellers in Eternity, who understand all
things? And, further, his language needs a special dictionary,
which it would be almost impossible to compile, and the use of
which would be destructive of any real poetry. It is the poet's right
and his duty to show us gleams of light from the world of the Eternal,
but our eyes should be able to see them in the world of time. This
last condition Blake too often omits to fulfil, and therein lies his
condemnation.
XVI: THE FEELINGS AND THE EMOTIONS

HE feelings evoked by the music of Blake's poetry are not
many, but what they lose in variety and number they often
gain in intensity. Many of the sentiments common to poetry
T
are, in his work, almost entirely absent, submerged in the
flood of his mysticism. Why should the mystic, who regards the whole
world as a dream, interest himself in, or attach himself to, the fancied
image which the first rays of the rising sun will cause to vanish?
It is not the created universe that we must love or desire. Our hopes
and our love must go out only to that which is eternal. "We must
raise our souls above all earthly things, must pass out of ourselves,
and fly higher even than our own souls; and so shall we see, O great
Creator, that thou hast naught in common with the created world.
. . . He who has not separated himself from the love of the creature
cannot freely devote himself to the things that are of God." 1
Blake's mysticism, however, did not attain to the height of absolute
renunciation insisted on by the monkish author of the Imitation.
True, he found no attraction in riches, glory, or any of the good
things of this world, and he never sought them for himself. He
condemned the love of money in the most forcible terms.
Pray'st thou for Riches? Away! away!
This is the Throne of Mammon grey.
The accuser of sins by my side doth stand,
And he holds my money bag in his hand.
For my worldly things God makes him pay,
And he would pay for more if to him I would pray.
He says, if I do not worship him for a God,
I shall eat coarser food, and go worse shod;
So, as I don't value such things as these,
You must do, Mr. Devil, just as God please.
2
But if wealth had no temptations for him, there were other good
things in life, to which he was by no means indifferent.
¹ Imitation of Christ, III, xxxi.
2 Mammon, Rossetti MS. No. 130.
THE FEELINGS AND THE EMOTIONS
239
Since all the Riches of this World
May be gifts from the Devil and Earthly Kings,
I should suspect that I worship'd the Devil
If I thank'd my God for worldly things. 1
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 secret hoard up in his treasury.
2
He had, therefore, a high regard for joy and for the love of all
creatures, seeing in them a symbol and a particle of the Eternal
World, and loving them, if only for God's sake.
These ideas, however, do not obliterate all the feelings in which
religion has no part. They transform them, and change only their
relative importance. Everything being holy, and all joy and all desire
sacred, there is no reason why one affection should be stronger than
another. Of what use is it to speak of great passions, seeing that, in
the world of Eternity, they are of no more importance than the humble
aspirations of a poor sparrow. In the sparrow, also, there is a spark
of the divine brotherhood, the inextinguishable fire of Orc, the
burning desire of the Eternal Man. Mysticism therefore has a sort
of sedative influence upon the feelings, and calms the violence
of passion. And Blake himself was naturally incapable of violent
passions. The mildness of his character, and his peaceful mode of
life, are well known to us already. If, at one period of his existence,
strong desires sometimes took possession of him, and caused him
to protest against all moral and social laws, these desires were in the
nature rather of a whirlwind passing over him than of a profound
disturbance stirring his whole heart for any length of time. He was
never able to depict the great storms that shake men's souls. His
youthful attempt at drama is quite devoid of passion, and his titanic
poems, despite the subjects they are concerned with, never describe
the deep and violent loves of humanity. These, indeed, can only
result from a too strong attachment to the symbol which passes,
and a neglect of the essence which endures. They must lose them-
selves in calm and peaceful communion with the unchangeable
reality. Passion, in the mystic, gives place to contemplation; and
Blake is no exception to this rule.
The love of woman, which is the inexhaustible theme of most
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WILLIAM BLAKE
poets, does not, at least as a personal feeling, occupy any important
place in his work. Some scattered songs of his youth, and, later on,
some lines of lamentation, are almost the only allusions to it that we
can find. In spite of all the love and gratitude he felt towards his wife,
and of all her devotion and unselfishness, there is not a single line
addressed to her in the whole of his work. And this is not because
she was his wife, and under the barren shade of the nuptial myrtle.
Even when Blake seems to be protesting most strongly against the
bondage of wedlock, we find nothing that can be construed into an
apostrophe of even an imaginary woman. At one time, indeed, his
poetic soul had not risen above the passions of man. He had felt love,
and sought to express it. But this was in his boyhood, when mysticism
had not yet thrown its golden cloud around him, and when, moreover,
this youthful love could have been no more than a vague sentiment,
a dumb yearning towards the child-god, a love of Love. We know
nothing of the Clara Woods who jilted him, and very little of the
young girl who became Mrs. Blake. It is not in his biography, but
in his few love-songs, that we must search if we wish to know what
was the nature of this love of his. His first song is exquisite in its
harmony and ethereal poetry: one can scarcely believe that its
author was little more than a child. The music of the Elizabethan
poets seems to sound again in its rhythm.
How sweet I roam'd 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 shew'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,
And Phoebus fir'd 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. 1
1 Poetical Sketches: Song.
THE FEELINGS AND THE EMOTIONS
241
These last lines seem to show that his love had a definite object.
Even a boy does not lose his liberty unless someone takes it from
him. But whoever the first girl who won Blake's love may have been,
it was not she that attracted him, but rather love itself, and the joy
of loving. The golden cage did not prevent him from playing it
was not a prison whose bars he could never break. He was more like
a boy, who roams about, and gazes wonderingly all around him,
conscious for the first time of the existence and the beauty of woman.
He flies hither and thither like a butterfly, attracted by all the flowers
in turn, till finally he alights upon one. Then, in place of vague love,
there comes to him a definite desire-it is too much to call it a
passion-for one girl. Her name matters little. In one poem she is
called " Kitty "; in another " my black eyed maid": her dwelling-
place is always in the country, never the town. This might apply to
Catherine Boucher; but Blake did not know her at the time when
most of his love-poems were written. However that may be, it is
only the character of his love that matters. His avowal of it is common-
place, and the reverse of impassioned.
I love the jocund dance,
The softly breathing song,
and he proceeds to set forth all the delights of a rustic festivity, ending.
with
I love our neighbours all,
But, Kitty, I better love thee;
And love them I ever shall;
But thou art all to me. 1
If he loves her, therefore, it is merely as the personification of all
these pleasures. The sentiment is still rather attenuated. Then he
appears to become gradually better acquainted with her, or rather,
he fashions in his own mind an angelic form which she will resemble.
Was this during his separation from Catherine, in the year preceding
their marriage? Perhaps. In any case, the object of his love is now
no longer Clara nor Kitty nor any woman. She has become a creature
of his imagination, a holy angel. Here we see the first influence of
mysticism upon him. Nothing of her bodily form remains in his
vision or his description of her, except her eyes. Is this because the
eyes are the clearest mirror of the soul? Is it because, when the lips
are dumb, or utter only indifferent words, the eyes speak a profounder
1 Poetical Sketches: Song.
R
242
WILLIAM BLAKE
language, reach to the inmost recesses of the heart, and reveal, in
one glance, a whole world of inexpressible thoughts? Men like Poe
or Petrarch might have remained in contemplation of their beloved
one's eyes, have felt them burning into their souls, and making all
the other features vanish in their radiance. It was not so with Blake.
The eyes undoubtedly struck him more than the other features;
but the eyes also fade away. They are of the earth, and his vision
transcends the earth. He sees his black-eyed maid as Dante saw
Beatrice, with the wings of an angel. She is celestial without being
immaterial, since heaven is more real than earth. Like the goddesses
of old, who shed ambrosial scents about them, she sows peace and
love around her as she walks.
Like as an angel glittʼring in the sky
In times of innocence and holy joy ;
The joyful shepherd stops his grateful song
To hear the music of an angel's tongue.
So when she speaks, the voice of Heaven I hear;
So when we walk, nothing impure comes near;
Each field seems Eden, and each calm retreat;
Each village seems the haunt of holy feet. 1
This is the knight's mute adoration of his ideal lady, the mystic's
love for the Virgin who comes down to him from Heaven in a golden
nimbus. But it is not the passion that burns in man's blood, the
eternal love of Paolo and Francesca. It may be the love of the saints
in Heaven; but it is not altogether human. The Blessed Damosel
dwells too far above us: we can only love her when we see her tears
falling on the earth. Blake's love, poetical as it is, strikes, so to speak,
but one note that of ecstasy and adoration.
It scarcely admits of jealousy, which is too personal a feeling to
mingle with the adoration of the mystic. He cannot even see that his
vision may be shared by others; nor, indeed, does the vision, as he
perceives it, ever belong to anyone but himself. Blake only once gives
expression to jealousy, and then in a quite hypothetical sense.
O, Should she e'er prove false, his limbs I'd tear
And throw all pity on the burning air ;
I'd curse bright fortune for my mixed lot,
And then I'd die in peace and be forgot.
2
These lines come rather from the head than from the heart. The
¹ Poetical Sketches: Song.
2 Poetical Sketches: Song.
THE FEELINGS AND THE EMOTIONS
243
poet is practising upon one string of his lyre. Now too, and with much
more success, he sets himself to sing of unrequited love. There is
intense pathos in this lament of a deserted maiden.
My silks and fine array,
My smiles and languish'd air,
By love are driv'n away;
And mournful lean Despair
Brings me yew to deck my grave :
Such end true lovers have.
His face is fair as heav'n,
When springing buds unfold;
O why to him was't giv'n
Whose heart is wintry cold?
His breast is love's all worship'd 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
! 1
Here, for the first time after so many years, we hear an echo of
the tuneful lamentations of Beaumont and Fletcher.
Lay a garland on my hearse
Of the dismal yew.
Maidens, willow-branches bear,
Say I died true.
2
The same quality of pathos is found in the Mad Song.
The wild winds weep,
And the night is a-cold;
Come hither, Sleep,
And my griefs unfold. 3
And it is in the portrayal of love tormented and afflicted that,
later on, we shall find Blake giving voice to his sincerest utterances.
The mystic's vision, though it may not be shared with anyone else,
may at times withhold itself from him; he may pursue it in vain,
and, feeling himself abandoned by his God, may experience, if not
¹ Poetical Sketches: Song. 2 Beaumont and Fletcher, Maid's Tragedy, III.
8 Poetical Sketches: Mad Song.
244
WILLIAM BLAKE
jealous anger, at any rate all the pangs of disappointed hope and
unsatisfied desire. We have heard his complaints in Ahania's lament
for Urizen: we shall hear them again in the cries of Enion bewailing
her loss of Tharmas, in the lamentations of Oothoon forsaken by
Theotormon, 2 in those of Luvah 3 and those of Los sighing for
Enitharmon.
1
Why cannot I enjoy thy beauty, lovely Enitharmon?
All things beside the woeful Los enjoy delights of beauty!
Once how I sang and called the beasts and birds to their delight,
Nor knew that I alone, exempted from the joys of love,
Must war with secret monsters of the animating worlds.
Oh, that I had not seen the day! Then should I be at rest!
Nor felt the strivings of desire, nor longings after life,
For life is sweet to Los the wretched. 4
No less poignant are the lamentations of the Spectre pursuing the
Emanation, and imploring her to pardon and forget.
But the appeal is always general rather than personal, and speaks
of a longing for love and its joys, but not for any one particular
woman. Thus the individual sentiment becomes always less notice-
able. It is not Blake's own lamentation that we are listening to:
hardly even that of any man. It is a voice, a spirit, "a fiend hid in a
cloud," howling with the wind and tossed by the storm. The lover
has become one of those dim shapes that Dante saw passing like great
flights of cranes before the gate of Hell, and whose wailings he heard,
though they did not stay to relate their histories.
This vague love has its moments of exultation as well as its out-
bursts of grief. Nothing is more characteristic of Blake than his song
of love triumphant. In one of the poems the lovers are two birds
upon a branch. And in the best-known of them all, it is no human
lover who sings, but some spirit, neither male nor female, altogether
outside our world. The two lovers are here purely ideal: they are
like two trees, whose branches meet and embrace. Nay, they have
become the two trees themselves; one covered with fruit, the other
with flowers and they live for ever. All that is peaceful and fresh
in youth and in gladness is gathered around them. Sweet singing
birds sit upon their boughs, and the turtle-dove builds her nest there,
and lulls them to rest with her heavenly music. The whole poem is
1 Vala. Night I, 123.
• Vala. Night II, 90.
2 Visions of the Daughters of Albion.
4 Vala. Night VII, 182.
THE FEELINGS AND THE EMOTIONS
245
so impersonal that the lovers in this mystical song might equally
well be love, poetry, music, beauty, man or woman.
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,
I 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 charming nest doth lay,
There he sleeps the night away;
There he sports along the day,
And doth among our branches play. 1
Such is love, as represented in Blake's poetry: a vague feeling of
reverence and adoration, mingled with intense desire. Its deceptions
produce at one time the tender lamentations of a maiden, at another
the wild howlings of a fiend. Its triumph is a hymn of joy, chanted
in a garden of eternal youth. But it is not human love, as we know it,
with its deep and at times heartrending music, its sudden ebullitions
and overmastering storms.
If, however, mysticism has the effect of destroying or attenuating
this personal love and its selfish passions, it has the compensating
result of increasing the sentiment of universal sympathy and the
primitive feeling of fellowship with all created beings. Blake's work
is full of this sympathy and this feeling.
His love has as its object, not only man, but all creatures,
animals, even all plants and stones, beneath each of which he per-
ceived a soul resembling his own. None of his predecessors had ever
enjoyed such intimate communion with the world of animals and of
¹ Poetical Sketches: Song.
246
WILLIAM BLAKE
inert nature. Others had regarded these as wonders of creation, as
examples of God's goodness; had admired them for their beauty,
caressed and praised them as faithful servants or lovable companions.
But no one had ever loved them as equals, as a brother or a sister
might be loved. We must go back to the old Indian philosophers, or
to mediæval mystics like St. Francis of Assisi, to find this sentiment
of brotherhood with animals, plants and inanimate things, this
immense feeling of tenderness towards them, in which there is
neither condescending pity nor any sense of man's superiority. To
Blake, they were all spirits, like himself. He went farther even than
most mystics: to him, the stone, the cloud, the clod of clay, were
not merely each the abode of a spirit, but the spirits themselves, thus
made visible to our eyes. He, who could "see a world in a grain of
sand," who found in the caterpillar on the leaf an image of the sorrows
of motherhood, who heard the cherubim's song interrupted by the
wounding of a lark, was able also to describe in touching words the
emotions of the flower or the sparrow, the desire for love felt by the
clod of clay, the sadness of the sick rose, or the infinite longings of
the sunflower. To him, nothing is insignificant: all things are equal
in the world of the eternal. What seems a trifle to others, fills him
"full of smiles or tears." He represents himself as a sower who would
cast his seed on the sand rather than tear up "some stinking weed.” ¹
Of him, as of the Man of Sorrows, might it have been written that
he would not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax.
Blake would never have declared that he loved the spider and the
nettle because other men hated them. That would have been the
love that springs from pity. He loved them because they were his
equals. Sterne's hero refused to kill a fly, since the world was large
enough for it and him. Blake thought the same. But he went further,
and saw the fly as a man, and himself as a fly. He ended by identifying
himself with it.
1 Rossetti MS
No. 12
Little Fly,
Thy summer's play
My thoughtless hand
Has brush'd away.
Am not I
A fly like thee ?
Or art not thou
A man like me?
THE FEELINGS AND THE EMOTIONS
247
For I dance
And 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
Or if I die. 1
His soul is one with the soul of all creatures: he feels with them
and for them. His immense sympathy is like God's.
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,
Weeping tear on infant's tear? 2
He has brought his own feelings into harmony with those of all
these dumb creatures. But, at least as far as we can understand them,
they are very simple feelings, very usual and at the same time very
indefinite. What kind of emotions can be shared by all animals?
Only the desire for life and the joy of living, physical needs and their
satisfaction, and, in certain cases, affection for offspring and other
animals of their own species, or for man. If we take a plant or a
mineral, it is only by an effort of the imagination that we can endow
them with a personality-and then they will become men-or even
grant them a single feeling: knowledge of, and pleasure in, their
own existence.
The psychology of such beings must be very simple, and Blake
perceived this clearly. Perhaps because his own spirit was such a
simple one, he never endowed them with the complex soul of a man.
His incapacity for psychological analysis and minute observation
here becomes a virtue. He has felt and expressed in a very remarkable
1 ¹ Songs of Experience. The Fly. 2 Songs of Innocence: On Another's Sorrow.
248
WILLIAM BLAKE
way the primitive desires, joys and sorrows of every sort of creature ;
the feelings of which the actual essence of life is composed.
He has entered into the enjoyments of the bird and the flower.
Merry, Merry Sparrow !
Under leaves so green,
A happy Blossom
Sees you, swift as arrow,
Seek your cradle narrow
Near my Bosom. 1
To the Lamb, he has spoken his own simple and tender language.
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, wooly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost 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!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
2
He has heard the ant which has lost its way among the grass,
weeping for its little ones left at home.
"O, my children! do they cry?
Do they hear their father sigh?
Now they look abroad to see:
Now return and weep for me.
Pitying I drop'd a tear;
But I saw a glow-worm near,
Who replied: "What wailing might
Calls the watchman of the night?
¹ Songs of Innocence: The Blossom.
2 Songs of Innocence: The Lamb.
THE FEELINGS AND THE EMOTIONS
249
"I am set to light the ground,
While the beetle goes his round:
Follow now the beetle's hum;
Little wanderer, hie thee home.'
"1
He has wept over the robin, perched "in the foodless winter,"
on leafless bush or frozen stone.'
"2
It is remarkable that the creatures he prefers are always the
smallest and weakest. He seldom mentions those that might provoke
any feeling of fear. The ox moaning in the slaughterhouse calls forth
his compassion. The lion is only a symbol of mighty spirits with
long golden hair. The tiger, in the poem which is perhaps the best
known among all Blake's work, arouses admiration for his strength
and his terrifying aspect.
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes
es?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain ?
In what furnace was thy brain ?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry ? 3
¹ Songs of Innocence: A Dream.
3 Songs of Experience: The Tyger.
2 Vala, Night I, 375-
250
WILLIAM BLAKE
But this is almost the only case in which Blake strikes this strong
and energetic note in singing of the animal world. Everywhere else
he depicts it as being mild like the world of childhood, with its simple
joys and quickly passing sorrows.
And this simplicity of feeling explains, to a great extent, why Blake
was, at one period, the poet par excellence of childhood. If there is
indeed, in human life, a time when our joys and desires are the same
as those of universal nature, and probably also the same as those of
Blake's supernatural world, that time is the time of childhood.
Then the soul, fresh from the bright abode in which it has slept
through all ages, is still in the ecstasy of its former bliss: it has not
yet felt the chains of the material world, which will soon press so
heavily upon it. Then, too, it still enjoys the innocence of nature and
of the angelic world, the innocence of a creature knowing neither
doubt nor evil, whose joy is pure, with no thought of the future,
and whose dreams are full of light, with no underlying shadow.
This was man's state in Eden: it is the Golden Age restored to us.
No one has ever been so well able as Blake to bring his soul into
harmony with the soul of childhood. He became as a child. Like a
child he uttered almost inarticulate cries of joy. He spoke the infantile
language, from that of the new-born baby to that of the little chimney-
sweep describing the bright dream which has consoled him. His
Songs of Innocence-real poetic jewels, every one of which deserves
quotation are just such as every child delights to listen to. In them
we find the closest intermingling of the child's life with that of the
animals, those eternal children, filled and not yet troubled by the
same desires and the same joys.
Later, when these childish feelings have come into contact with
life, their note grows sadder. Experience comes, and shows desires
checked by moral and physical laws, jealous and egotistical love
accompanying sincere, unselfish love, light struggling against darkness.
Joy turns to sorrow. But-and here we see once more the influence
of mysticism-it is sorrow mingled with resignation. The soul does
not argue or rebel. It has kept the pure faith of childhood, while
gaining the man's experience. For does not the mystic know that it is
the same hand which makes the lamb and the tiger? Does he not
await the deliverance that will quickly come, and the opening of the
golden gates? Does he not realise that sorrow is itself an illusion,
which will soon vanish for ever? His, therefore, will be a tempered
grief deep but calm, as in face of the inevitable. Blake felt this;
THE FEELINGS AND THE EMOTIONS
251
and it is this he has tried to express in the Songs of Experience, a
collection of poems which is also rich in beauties. Here we find
portrayed, for instance, the sorrows of the rose and of the sunflower.
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. 1
Here, the rose shows its thorns; the Garden of Love is filled with
graves. Here, the Spirit of the Earth groans under the restrictions
imposed upon love: youth and maiden stray from their parents,
and return only to fill them with sorrow. Here, Christianity loses its
true self, and becomes a religion of oppression: the little vagabond
turns from the cold church to the well-warmed ale-house: the
Divine Image takes on a cruel human form: deceitful smiles make
their appearance even in the dreams of a child. Little wonder that
the new-born babe, in its father's arms, struggles against its swaddling
bands, and sulks upon the breast of its weeping mother. Little
wonder that the book ends with a curse upon the mother of this
body of death and of evil, and with a cry of triumph over the deliver-
ance from it which Christ has brought.
2
Here the feelings of the mystic have already begun to be different
from ours. Looking far back into the past, we can recall a little of
what we experienced in childhood: we can perhaps dream over
again some few of those long-lost joys when we see the light that
shines in the eyes of our own children. But their simplicity of spirit
is far, indeed, from us, and far also from us the attenuated sorrow of
the Songs of Experience.
Later on, we shall find Blake becoming still more alien to us, by
reason of his peculiar sentiments. All that is purely human tends
more and more to disappear from his work. In the Prophetic Books,
his emotions are mingled with those of spirits from above: the feelings
he experiences end by fading away into vacancy. Man's soul can only
attach itself to what it can perceive and grasp. Little by little, Blake
¹ Songs of Experience: The Sick Rose.
2 A more detailed study of the Songs of Experience, with numerous extracts, will
be found in Chapter XIX.
252
WILLIAM BLAKE
passes from his love for a young girl, from his delight in the pleasures
of childhood and his grief at its sorrows, to sympathy for a bodiless
spirit symbolising an idea, like Thel or Oothoon, or even for a misty
abstract conception, as in The Mental Traveller. In the end, all that
he seems to feel is love alone, without any definite object, viewed
as the simple growth of a desire. This love, which
cannot be bound
To any tree that grows on ground.
1
is, as a consequence, incapable of any earthly satisfaction. It demands
the infinite, the Eternal, for its fruition. The mystic's ecstasy, the
Divine Vision, can alone content it. There only is to be found that
Eternal Brotherhood of Eden which is "the divine body of the
Saviour... the Human imagination." 2 Blake has himself supplied
the word: the Imagination.
And, indeed, his love is no longer a thing of the heart, but has its
source in the imagination, through which alone we can, like the
mystics, detach ourselves from this passing world. Without it, we
cannot rise to the heights that they reached. We see and wonder;
but we shall never attain. Mysticism, which in the beginning gave
its peculiar charm to Blake's poetical expression of his emotions,
ended by killing in them all that could find an echo in our own
hearts. It destroyed, in fact, one of the chief elements in lyrical
poetry, the personal and human note, which is almost entirely
absent throughout the greater part of the Prophetic Books, leaving
them to depend altogether for their interest upon the extraordinary
splendour of the poet's imagination.
1 Rossetti MS No 13. In a Mirtle Shade.
Last Judgment.
A
XVII: THE IMAGINATION
N analogous influence of mysticism, a kind of evolution
of the superhuman out of the human, can be clearly seen
in Blake's chief poetic faculty-his imagination. This
evolution is the more important because he regarded
imagination as the principal, if not the only source of poetry. We
have already seen how his imagination took possession of his abstract
ideas, transforming them into allegories and setting them forth in
symbolic language; how all his feelings, his affections, his sympathy
for all created beings, needed imagination to give them vital force.
It is at the root of all his poetry and of all his doctrine: to it his
writings as well as his worlds owe their existence. It is his directing
power, the embodiment, for him, of all poetic inspiration: he assi-
milates it with all the other faculties, and makes it control them. Nay
more, it is the one link between man and the world of the Eternal :
it is, to use his own expression, " the divine body of the Saviour.'
At all events, it is the soul of his poetry and of his art.
>>
Imagination is, for him, the direct vision of the visible world, and
also of the world of the unseen. It is a faculty quite different not only
from the imagination of ordinary men but from that of most poets.
With very rare exceptions, all that imagination can do is to create a
mental picture of actual objects which, for the time being, are not
before us, or to form some fanciful combination of elements belong-
ing to the world of reality. But it very seldom annihilates this world.
When we are looking at any particular scene or object, its sole effect
is to make us see certain portions of it in a stronger light, and cast
others into the background, to strengthen and vivify the image pre-
sented by our eye, and, as Shelley so forcibly puts it, " to create that
which we see." ¹ But underneath, there always remains some found-
ation of reality perceptible by the senses. Even the most imaginative
among the poets never lose sight of this reality, and all that many of
them can do is to evoke it by their words when it is absent.
For Blake, the material image does not exist, except as a glass
through which we must look to see the truth. Those who look no
further are blind, and possess only the power of "single vision,'
1
¹ Defence of Poetry.
>>
254
WILLIAM BLAKE
from which "God us keep." Now, it is single vision that produces
all descriptive poetry. It gives us Thomson's
Yellow wall-flower stained with iron brown 1
and Pope's pheasant, with
... his glossy varying dyes,
His purple crest and scarlet-circled eyes,
His painted wings and breast that flames with gold. 2
Three-quarters of the poetry of the eighteenth century are of this
kind. And from this single vision come also the magnificent descrip-
tive passages which abound in the work of our modern poets. They
show us splendid scenes and exquisite landscapes: but it is all for
the delight of the eyes, and it gets no further.
Our poets stop short at mere fancy, evoking images which please
the mind by their beauty or their unexpectedness. The poets of the
Romantic School soon began to make a distinction between this
"fancy" and "imagination," which perceives the soul behind the
visible object, and which is the true creative faculty, the power that
as Wordsworth says, is given us to awake and sustain the eternal side
of our nature, while "fancy" can only please the temporal side. 3
It is this kind of imagination which was to play so great a part in the
poetry of the nineteenth century, and which Blake calls "double
vision."
›› 5
<<
His own vision, indeed, is never single." Behind every material
form there is a soul, which he can perceive. When the ancients saw
in the narcissus a god-like youth languishing for love of his own
beauty, when Shakespeare wrote of "pale primroses, that die un-
married," when Shelley called the dead leaves " pestilence-stricken
multitudes or invoked the spirit of the wind, when Wordsworth
felt the soul of the nightingale or of the lark, they all saw with double
vision. And the greatest poets have been those who, like Wordsworth
and Shelley, have seen most clearly the soul and the life underlying
the dead material form. Blake is one of these. He, however, tries to
go even further; and, not content with double vision, must needs
have threefold or fourfold vision. "A double vision is always with
me.” 6
Now I a fourfold vision see,
And a fourfold vision is given to me. 7
1 The Seasons: Spring, 533.
2 Windsor Forest, 115.
4 Winter's Tale, Act IV, Sc. 4.
7 To Mr. Butts.
3 Preface to the edition of 1815.
5 Ode to the West Wind.
6 To Mr. Butts
THE IMAGINATION
255
He sees not only the first plane, that of the material world, and the
second, wherein lies the soul of things, but also a third, the mystical
plane, the world of those beings which do not come within the field
of our vision, of the angels who preside over all things, the powers
that struggle in the soul of inanimate nature as well as in man's soul,
the proud and jealous Urizen, the indolent Tharmas, Orc the
passionate, the Theotormon the unhappy. They are in all things
and behind all things. It is towards them that the prophet's threefold
vision is directed. And who knows whether, in these spirits them-
selves, who appear to him as living men, there may not be hidden a
deeper soul still, another new principle, perhaps some spark of Los's
fire, perhaps some sense of the great primal unity, perhaps one of
the Eternals, perceptible only through his faculty of fourfold
vision?
And so the process may be continued to infinity. Every external
form conceals an internal principle, which itself encloses another,
and so on always, until we come to the pure Essence, the Indivisible;
that is to say, to God. In like manner, the Theosophists see in man
seven principles superimposed upon each other, beginning with the
material body and ending with the highest "Manas," which is an
integral portion of the Divine. One thinks of those anatomical plates
composed of overlying sheets, each representing some organ, and
lifting to show another organ underneath. And it was actually in this
way that Law constructed the illustrations for his translation of
Boehme, which show the different principles of the soul of man and
of the universe, culminating in the perfect, empty circle, the very
essence of the Infinite. This was exactly what Blake's eye did, im-
mediately and unconsciously, with all living creatures, and all
material things; traversing plane after plane, and piercing veil after
veil. This power of multiple vision is the chief characteristic of his
imagination. At least three planes of vision are perpetually mingled
together in his mind. He passes without warning and with the utmost
swiftness from one to the other, and compels us, whether we will or
no, to follow him.
As long as he remains upon the first plane, he is quite a common-
place writer: we follow him easily and without enthusiasm. When his
mysticism draws him into the second, without making him forget the
first, he gives us poetry more delightful than any that his age had
heard, and than most that we have listened to from his successors.
But when he is carried still further, when he moves upon the third
256
WILLIAM BLAKE
or the fourth plane, and becomes entirely oblivious of the lower
ones, then we find in his work only the fevered dreams of the mystic.
We can feel their strange beauty, divine their power, and admire;
but they no longer conform to our mental conception of poetry,
and this fact is their death warrant. The mystic has destroyed the
poet. It is the critic's duty, nevertheless, to follow him through all
these stages to see what exquisite poetry he was capable of writing,
to watch his struggles and his final submersion in the waves of
mysticism that, mounting always upwards, ended by taking possession
of the man's whole soul.
There is not much to be said about his work on the first plane,
that of single vision. Blake possessed this faculty in a fairly high
degree, as some of his early sketches show. He was able, when he
chose, to paint material objects by a word or two, to bring certain
details into striking relief, to make, so to speak, an etching in a few
lines. It is in his youthful poems that we find such little pictures as
the following:
When silver Snow decks Susan's cloaths
And jewel hangs at th' shepherd's nose,
or
1
Oft when the summer sleeps among the trees,
Whisp'ring faint murmurs to the scanty breeze,
2
or this Tennysonian apostrophe to the Evening Star, in which the
influence of the second plane is already making itself felt,
Scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak silence with thy glimmering eyes,
And wash the dusk with silver. 3
Later on, we shall still find, though more rarely, the same character-
istics of the "painter in words.'
An Ear, a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in. 4
Upon its green stalk rose the corn, waving innumerable. 5
The Mole clothed in velvet.
6
The Nettle that stings with soft down. 7
¹ Poetical Sketches: Blind-man's Buff.
6.
2 Poetical Sketches: Song.
4 Thel, P.
6 Milton, p. 24, 14.
3 Poetical Sketches: To the Evening Star.
• Vala, Night I, 176.
7 Milton, p. 24, 25.
THE IMAGINATION
257
He seems, however, in his descriptions of external occurrences,
to have preferred extraordinary scenes, such as never came under
his own observation: pictures of death, of storms and battles. One
of his earliest poems (King Edward III) is full of such passages.
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; the parched heavens
Rain fire into the molten raging sea.
1
And long after he had passed the period of essays and imitations,
with their conventional epithets, he retained this liking for the terrific.
And then the storms become visible, audible and terrible,
Covering the light of day, and rolling down upon the mountains,
Deluge all the country round. 2
He approached the East,
Void, pathless, beaten with eternal sleet, and eternal hail and rain. 3
6
4
Even in these examples it is curious how little his descriptions
accord with the everyday world, even when they relate to material
objects. It is difficult to find, in the whole body of his work, a hundred
lines which describe only the external appearance of ordinary things;
and there are not more than two or three quite short pieces that can
be characterised as purely descriptive (Blind-man's Buff, Good
English Hospitality, 5 Phebe drest like beautie's Queen). Moreover,
these poems are in no way remarkable save for their presence among
others so entirely different. They are really mere dialogues in rhyme,
like the author's critical fragments; and Blake would not have called
them poems at all. He would, no doubt, have classed them rather
with prose pamphlets, such as the Descriptive Catalogue and the
Public Address, which, though they are not poetry, contain admirable
descriptive passages, clear-cut little sketches of his pictures, or-in
the case of The Island in the Moon, malicious portraits of his enemies.
Obtuse Angle entering the room, having made a gentle bow, proceeded
to empty his pockets of a vast number of papers, turned about, sat down,
wiped his face with his pocket handkerchief, and shutting his eyes, began
to scratch his head. 7
But Blake never paid close heed to the material form. The art
1 King Edward III, Sc. vi.
▲ Poetical Sketches.
2 Milton, p. 22, 25
Island in the Moon.
'The Island in the Moon, quoted by Ellis and Yeats
3 Vala, Night VI, 137.
6 Island in the Moon.
(William Blake : Vol. I, 188).
S
258
WILLIAM BLAKE
critics accuse him, rightly enough sometimes, of disregarding ana-
tomy; and there is no exactness of detail in his drawings or in his
so-called historical pictures. He could never have written the long
poetical descriptions with which the pages of Thomson and Cowper
abound, to say nothing of such detailed and almost photographic
word-pictures as those of Swift or Defoe. He could not detach himself
from the object described, nor look at it without always projecting
into it something of his own imagination, which changed its shape
or its colour, and often, to ordinary eyes, transfigured it entirely.
men
Here came in the faculty of twofold vision, the power to see the
soul of things, which is more real than the ephermeral form perceived
by our eyes. We know already that he regarded all things as
seen from far." This feeling of humanity in all things, which never
left him, changed the character of all his poetry. From it proceed all
these epithets implying moral sense which he uses so naturally in
writing of physical things: "the ravenous hawk" and "the meek
camel"; "the eager spider, watching for the fly"; "the pear-
tree mild, the frowning walnut, the sharp crab"; "the terrible
wandering comets "; " the ambitious spider in his sullen web"
the indignant Thistle, whose bitterness is bred in his milk.”6
Hence comes also the facility with which he finds in the phenomena
of the material world symbols of his ideas and of his abstract laws.
Thus the transitory nature of life will be represented as being
1
4
2
like a wat❜ry bow and like a parting cloud :
Like a reflection in a glass; like shadows in the water,
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. 7
•
5
If he wishes to say that every man ought to follow his own instincts,
and not obey the same laws that govern others, he expresses the idea
in an infinite number of different metaphors.
Does the whale worship at thy footsteps as the hungry dog?
Or does he scent the mountain prey, because his nostrils wide
Draw in the ocean? does his eye discern the flying cloud
As the raven's eye? or does he measure the expanse like the vulture?
Does the still spider view the cliffs where eagles hide their young?
Or does the fly rejoice, because the harvest is brought in?
Does not the eagle scorn the earth, and despise the treasures beneath ? 8
¹ Visions of the Daughters of Albion, p. 3.
3 Vala, Night I, 172.
• Milton, p. 24, 26.
4
America, p. 5.
7 Thel, p. 1.
2 Vala, Night I, 386.
5
Milton, p. 24, 15.
8 Visions of the Daughters of Albion, p. 5.
THE IMAGINATION
259
And so he goes on, accumulating and unfolding images in inexhaustible
profusion, as if each succeeding one were an additional proof.
This ease with which he saw the moral significance underlying the
material fact is responsible for his habit of expressing the one by the
other, and also for his invention of the symbolic language which
plays so large a part in his poetry, and which we have already studied
in Chapter XV.
But this power of twofold vision had another and a better influence
upon him as well. His perception of the soul of things made him the
forerunner of the great poets of the nineteenth century: it showed
him the existence of mythical beings beneath all the great phenomena
of nature, and thus prepared the way for a more poetical conception
of the universe. Nothing is more characteristic of this tendency
than some of his first Poetical Sketches, particularly his four poems
on the seasons. One might have expected to find in them reminis-
cences of Thomson's richly coloured pictures or Cowper's emotional
music, or perhaps even some echo of that delight in nature to which
the Elizabethan poets gave such fresh and tuneful expression, and
which Collins recalled in his Ode to Evening. Nothing like this is to
be found in Blake's work. He did not see snow-covered fields or
yellow leaves whirling in the wind. He did not hear the song of birds
singing to welcome the reawakened flowers. He never gazed upon
the rich summer pastures or the freshness of the shady riverside.
Or rather, seeing all this, he disregarded it. What attracted him was
what had so far attracted no writer except Spenser, the most fanciful
and imaginative of all the sixteenth century poets. What he depicts
are the spirits that preside over all these evanescent and delusive
phenomena, the allegorical figures of the seasons, Spring with her
dewy locks" and "angel eyes" coming like a lover to woo the
expectant earth. He beseeches her to stay, to deck the love-sick land
with her fairy fingers he hears the hills singing for joy at her
approach. Then we have Summer, borne by "swift steeds" with
flaming nostrils. Autumn, " laden with fruit, and stained with the
blood of the grape," rests for a moment beneath his shady roof.
And Winter he sees as "a direful monster, whose skin clings to his
strong bones," and who "strides o'er the groaning rocks," and
"withers all in silence." 1
In the same way, Morning becomes a "virgin clad in purest
white," who will awake the sleeping dawn, and salute the sun: the
1 Poetical Sketches.
260
WILLIAM BLAKE
Evening Star is a "fair-hair'd angel," to whom, with the faith of
some priest of old, the poet's soul goes confidently out in prayer
and affection.
Light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed! 1
And, like children afraid of the spirits that haunt the night, he
addresses his supplication to her.
The fleeces of our flocks are cover'd with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence. 2
4
All this is to him more than mere metaphor. He really sees the lily
of the valley as the "gentle maid of silent valleys and of modest
brooks"; the cloud as the lover of the dew, flying upon light wings;
the worm as a helpless, naked infant; the clod of clay as the mother
of all things, exhaling her life " in milky fondness." And such is the
intensity of these visions that the artist's pictures reflect with an
almost painful exactness the dreams of the poet. In the illustrations
to the Book of Thel, we are shown the figure of the virgin rising out
of the flower and bowing her head before Thel, the cloud flying
away in the form of a youth, the pale worm as an infant lying on a
leaf, and the clod of clay as a woman who bends over it.³ In the
same way, the sun appears as an angel borne in a chariot; the moon
is drawn through the sky by a fairy; the primeval snows are
represented by a white-haired woman seated frozen among the rocks; 5
and the very organs of man, the lungs and the stomach, have their
directing spirits, the Daughters of Albion, who, like the Fates of old,
weave the tissue of every living body. Even when he is illustrating
the work of other poets, the intensity of his vision makes him give -
their ideas a concrete and material form. Thus, in the illustrations
to Young's Night Thoughts, we see the "Senses freed from the
restraint of Reason," as a nude woman running wild over the moun-
tains, and about to be enveloped in the shroud which is falling upon
her from above. "Death, great proprietor of all," is represented by
a man whose foot tramples upon kings, while his hand grasps the sun.
"Sickness attacking Temperance" empties vials of poison over the
flocks and into the ears of the shepherd. If the poet speaks of man
Poetical Sketches.
6
3 Thel, pp. 2, 4, 5.
5 Book of Los (Frontispiece).
To the Evening Star.
2 Poetical Sketches. To the Evening Star.
Jerusalem, p. 8 (Illustration).
• Jerusalem, p. 25 (Illustration).
THE IMAGINATION
261
conversing with the hours that are past, Blake pictures them as
spirits flying before his eyes. When the text describes the just man
who lays hold upon Heaven and lets earth roll by, Blake represents
him literally as so doing. Such things are, to him, actual realities.
Equally realistic are the pictures of the " Soul exploring the recesses
of the Grave,"¹ of Los taking his globe of fire to journey through
his kingdom, 2 and of Nature as the woman-serpent.
4
3
But, in all this, what becomes of nature itself and the visible world?
They simply disappear. Blake has scarcely perceived them, or, seeing,
has straightway forgotten them. If he draws a landscape or a flower,
they are like nothing on earth. His animals are monsters; his plants
form part of a decorative scheme; his rocks and seas belong to
some chaotic realm, outside of space. Even when he does condescend
to depict our mortal world, he adds to it something of his own,
showing the sun rising and the moon setting at the same moment,
in the same quarter of the heavens, and with the same brilliance of
light; or enormous stars, almost within reach of a man's hand; or
the fire of a sacrifice diminishing and twisting itself into a point,
as no earthly fire has ever done. In other cases, where he has been
compelled to follow more closely some description of material things,
as, for instance, in the woodcuts for Phillips's Pastorals, he either
leaves the picture so unfinished, or plunges his subject into such deep
shade that the reader must trust to his imagination for all the details,
and never experiences any sense of reality. Some of these woodcuts
are exactly like the drawings of a modern Impressionist born a century
before his time: Sabrina's Silver Stream, for instance, or the twilight
landscape through which the traveller is hastening, or the sombre
night-scene where nothing is distinguishable except the feeble light
shed by the waning moon upon the stagnant water of the pool, and
the leaves of the willows fringing it. Here again, the meaning is all :
the material fact is nothing. The mystic's contempt for reality reveals
itself as much in the illustrator's work as in the poet's.
On the other hand, it is to his mysticism that Blake owes his
extraordinary power of projecting into all things some small portion
of his own soul, of causing lifeless things to live, love and act, as we
have seen him do in our study of his feelings. His tenderness of soul,
joined with his power of vision, enabled him to describe, in words of
exquisite delicacy, all creatures that are small and feeble; and these
¹ Blair's Grave. 2 Jerusalem (Frontispiece).
♦ Book of Job.
* Vala (Illustration to MS.)
262
WILLIAM BLAKE
he seems to have loved almost as ardently as he did the gigantic
beings that peopled his dreams. Moreover, the soul of the lily, the
lamb or the glow-worm is as great as that of the lion, the oak or the
mountain. The humble flower has no less vast a usefulness than the
planet.
Thy breath doth nourish the innocent lamb: he smells thy milky garments.
He crops thy flowers while thou sittest smiling in his face. ¹
To be the food of worms is a sublime privilege.
If thou art the food of worms, O virgin of the skies,
How great thy use, how great thy blessing. 2
The more feeble the creature, the more wonderful is the soul that
he invests it with and makes us feel in it.
Art thou a Worm? image of weakness, art thou but a Worm?
I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lilly's leaf:
Ah weep not little voice, thou can'st not speak, but thou can'st weep.
Is this a Worm? I see thee lay helpless and naked: weeping,
And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mother's smiles. 3
He lends an eloquent voice to those that are dumb: he feels all
the forces of the life that animates nature, like the beating of his
own heart. And, having penetrated deep into the inmost soul of things,
he knows how to express not only their griefs, but their joys and their
triumphs also. No one, before or after him, has ever written anything
like the hymn sung by the clod of clay, the Magnificat of the earth,
mother of men and of all things.
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 says:
And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast,
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. 4
Such passages, common in his earlier work, become more rare
later on. But even in Milton, he can still express the swarming activity
of the insect life that throngs about the winepress of Los.
1 Thel, p. 2.
2 Thel, p. 3.
• Thel, p. 4.
3 Thel, p. 4.
THE IMAGINATION
263
1
The ground Spider with many eyes: the Mole clothed in velvet,
The ambitious Spider in his sullen web: the lucky golden Spinner:
The Earwig arm'd: the tender Maggot, emblem of immortality. ¹
Even finer is his brilliant description of the awakening to life of
the birds and the flowers. And it matters little that, to him, the whole
scene is only part of a lamentation of Beulah over Ololon." The fact
any way the intellectual pleasure which we
derive from the beauty of the lines; and we enjoy them all the more
because they are set in the midst of metaphysical abstractions and
descriptions of incomprehensible mythical beings.
does not diminish in
Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring:
The Lark, sitting upon his earthy bed, just as the morn
Appears, listens silent; then springing from the waving Corn-field,
loud
He leads the Choir of Day! trill, trill, trill, trill,
Mounting upon the wings of light into the Great Expanse,
Re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining heavenly Shell:
His little throat labours with inspiration: every feather
On throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence Divine.
All nature listens silent to him, and the awful Sun
Stands still upon the mountain looking on this little Bird.
Thou perceivest the Flowers put forth their precious Odours.
First ere the morning breaks joy opens in the flowery bosoms,
Joy even to tears. ... First the Wild Thyme
And Meadow-sweet downy and soft waving among the reeds
Light springing on the air lead the sweet Dance: they wake
The Honeysuckle sleeping on the Oak: the flaunting beauty
Revels along upon the wind: the White-thorn, lovely May,
Opens her many lovely eyes: listening the Rose still sleeps:
None dare to wake her: soon she bursts her crimson curtain'd bed,
And comes forth in the majesty of beauty: every Flower,
The Pink, the Jessamine, the Wall-flower, the Carnation,
The Jonquil, the mild Lilly opes her heavens: every Tree
And Flower and Herb soon fill the air with an innumerable Dance.
Yet all in order sweet and lovely. Men are sick with Love.
Such is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon. 2
And the question keeps on repeating itself: How can such fresh-
ness and such power of imagination have become so spoiled? Why
1 Milton, p. 24, 14.
2 Milton, p. 31, 28.
264
WILLIAM BLAKE
did this man, possessing, as he did, the genius to create these exquisite
pictures, lose himself in the gloomy and chaotic wilderness of his
invisible universe?
The reason is that even this twofold vision did not satisfy him.
The mystic in him went further than the poet. Behind our world of
Time and Space he saw the world of the Eternal, which we can never
behold until the door of death opens and reveals it to us. He himself
had crossed its threshold, and returned, laden with the treasures of
his threefold or fourfold vision, the "Flowers of Eternal Life."
It is when he leaves our world to describe the other that his
imagination attains its full creative power. His creations are no longer
the personification of a material object, the soul of some lifeless thing,
the embodiment of a metaphor: they come whole from his brain,
produced out of nothing. In these far-off regions, our world has
ceased to exist, even as a delusive mirage. "Nothing is, but what is
not. "1 This imaginative quality Blake regarded as indispensable in
all true art. "The man who never in his mind and thoughts travelled
to heaven is no artist." 2 Now, therefore, the trend of his imagination
is towards the evocation of things without form, the creation of beings
that exist only in the nebulous kingdom of his dreams.
But, according to his own view, it is the true sign of genius to see
the things of the imagination as clearly as we see the things of the
material world, in the same abundance, and with the same precision
of detail, the same distinctness of line, form and colour.
A spirit and a vision are not, as the modern philosophy supposes, a
cloudy vapour, or a nothing. They are organised and minutely articulated
beyond all that the mortal and perishing nature can produce. He who does
not imagine in stronger and better lineaments and in stronger and better
light than his perishing and mortal eye can see, does not imagine at all.
The painter of this work (i.e., Blake) asserts that all his imaginations
appear to him infinitely more perfect and more minutely organised than
anything seen by his mortal eye. Spirits are organised men.
3
We might expect, therefore, to find in his representation of his
dreams the same impression of strength and solidity that we ourselves
get from contact with material things. And this is just what we do find
in his pictures. One need only glance rapidly through the illustrations
to the Book of Job or Blair's Grave to see how real the human soul
or the spirits of evil, or the angels, or God Himself, were to him.
1 Macbeth, Act I, Sc. iii.
2 Notes to Sir Joshua Reynolds: Discourse III.
3 Descriptive Catalogue: No. IV.
THE IMAGINATION
265
The spirit that passes before the face of Eliphaz is as human and as
solid as the forms of the spectators. The dreams that scare Job upon
his bed are no less substantial than himself, and only their grinning
faces enable us to distinguish them from the sleeper. The angels of
the morning stars who sing together are as opaque as the human
figures below. The soul of the wicked man, flying out through the
open window, shows a muscular development identical with that of
the agonised body it has just quitted. And, in the drawing of Paolo
and Francesca, 1 we see, above the whirlwind of fire, a picture,
haloed with light but as real as Dante and Virgil themselves, of the
lovers, their lips meeting in the immortal kiss.
It is the same in his poems. His most vigorous descriptions are
those of visionary scenes: Los working at his forge and engaged in
the building of Golgonooza; the Zoas waging their eternal wars in
the human soul and becoming vast personalities, each with his own
universe; creations that are half symbolic, half allegorical, the
languishing Thel, the love-tormented Oothoon, the jealous Theo-
tormon, Vala tender and sinful, Jerusalem the divine bride. We have
only to recall all these myths to realise the power of their creator's
imagination. It is in this, then, that Blake's strength lies in the
faculty that enabled him to create a world wholly different from
ours, freed from the laws of time and space, existing only in his
dreams, and as far removed from reality as the wildest ideal can be.
Nowhere else can we find Titans like the Zoas, worlds as terrific as
Urizen's, a paradise as sweet as the “ moony" Beulah, or bodiless
creatures of the air like the spirits by which the Prophetic Books
are peopled.
But it is to this faculty that Blake's weakness also is to be traced.
He no doubt saw his visions in a clear and definite way: his pictures
are a sufficient proof of this. But here the poet's art was unfortunately
inferior to the painter's. Or rather, the painter was obliged to give
his creations a definiteness of form and outline which the poet could
not feel to be equally necessary, and which, consequently, is wanting
in his written descriptions. His mythical beings rage and roar, tremble
and supplicate, bestride the ocean and shake the universe; but they
all perform their actions in the same vague and indefinite way. They
are never clearly individualised, except in the illustrations. If here
and there, by chance, we are allowed to see them distinctly, it is only
to find that, a moment later, they have floated away again into the
1 Illustrations to Dante: Inferno.
1
266
WILLIAM BLAKE
mists of infinite space; and they can no more be identified than can
clouds whose shape changes at every instant with the wind. It is to
a great extent on this account that Blake's poems, when separated
from their illustrations, give only a very imperfect idea of his thoughts
and his visions. The poet needs the artist to complete and give shape
to his conceptions, just as the artist needs the poet to explain the
various forms that spring from his pencil, and to endow them with
a soul.
This is not a direct result of mysticism. Other mystics and dreamers
have travelled, as Blake did, through the regions of pure fancy, and
have brought back a clear account of the things they saw there. Most
of the descriptions given by Isaiah, Ezekiel and the author of the
Apocalypse, all those of Dante, and almost all those of Milton call up
before us scenes that are as actual as any transcription of reality.
Blake's vagueness arises from a deficiency of mental precision and
observation. A man who is incapable of seeing and describing
material things will be equally incapable of making us see the things
that are invisible. To us, any presentation of the spiritual world,
whether literary or pictorial, must show it as composed of elements
similar to those which compose our own world. We cannot imagine
mountains or oceans that have nothing in common with those we
have seen: we cannot conceive of spirits who do not think and act
in a way somewhat resembling ours. We may picture all these things
to ourselves as greater or smaller than the things that we know, or
as being differently organised; but never as composed of elements
that are entirely strange to us. If, therefore, the things imagined by
Blake appeared no less real to him than material things appear to us,
his descriptions of them ought to give us an impression of equal
reality. The Vision of Christ in the Apocalypse is something quite
material.
His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his
eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they
burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. 1
Blake seldom gives us anything like this. He does sometimes
describe his own pictures forcibly enough, especially in prose; but
no one could make a pictorial representation of any of his visions
from his poetical description of them. Some quality of precision,
some material element, is always wanting. His epithets borrow too
1 Revelation, I, 14, 15.
THE IMAGINATION
267
much from the moral, and not enough from the physical world: they
show what sort of impression he desired to produce, but they fail
to produce it. To say of any scene that it is frightful or terrible does
not of itself convey the sensation of terror, nor does the mere use
of the word " enormous suffice to crush us under a feeling of
immensity. We need something more definite and more impressive ;
something, in short, more material.
>>
When Blake tries to be precise, however, in the manner of the
Hebrew poets, he can only give us long inventories, which have not
even the quality of plausibility. We have seen how he attempts to
draw out a geometrical plan of Golgonooza, the city of Los, and to
number and describe its walls and gates. But he fails, with all his
wealth of detail, to give us any striking impression of actuality.
He had measured the city, but he had not really seen it. Figures and
dimensions can increase the feeling of reality-Defoe and Swift both
knew their value in this respect--but they cannot give it by themselves.
There are no figures or measurements in Victor Hugo's description
of the city of Tubal Cain.
Alors Tubal-Cain, père des forgerons,
Construisit une ville énorme et surhumaine.
Le granit remplaça la tente aux murs de toile;
On lia chaque bloc avec des nœuds de fer,
Et la ville semblait une ville d'enfer.
L'ombre des tours faisait la nuit dans les campagnes.
Ils donnèrent aux murs l'épaisseur des montagnes.
Sur la porte on grava: "Défense à Dieu d'entrer.” 1
But a few touches like those given in the three last lines produce
the feeling and the visual impression of vastness far more effectively
than any array of empty and lifeless figures. These touches demand a
strength of vision, a power of evoking the real and a capacity for
observing material things which Blake lacked, but which most great
poets possess. Victor Hugo could convey in a few words the dominant
impression produced by a material object; and the same power was
possessed by the Biblical writers and by Blake's great predecessor
in the kingdoms of Heaven and Hell, Dante.
It has often been observed with what precision Dante's imagination
acts, simply because he was so acute an observer of terrestrial things.
In depicting the spiritual world, he never loses sight of the earth and
1 Légende des Siècles: La Conscience.
268
WILLIAM BLAKE
its familiar scenes. Almost every page of his works can show many
instances of this. The flames that issue from the mystical candle-
sticks approach him like brushes drawn through the air, and leaving
behind them trails of vivid colour. 1 The souls in torment resemble
frogs that squat beside a marsh with their bodies hidden and only
their heads visible. 2 The celestial lights move in a limited orbit like
crows that fly hither and thither in the morning to warm themselves,
some going out of sight and returning to their place of departure,
while others wheel in circles round the same point. 3 Some of his
similes are even more exact, and resemble entries in a traveller's
diary. The graves of the heretics are just such as can be seen in the
cemeteries of Arles or Dola, and the rocks among which the Centaurs
dwell appear like the hills after the great landslip that changed the
course of the Adige at Trent.
*
5
Blake's genius rarely gives us such touches as these. The material
world became too indistinct to his eyes when he had passed out of
the planes of single and double vision. He chose rather to remain
among the mists of the higher regions; and, as a consequence, his
work, strange and mysterious as it often is, fails to give the reader
any impression of strength or picturesqueness. Sometimes, he builds
up his visions out of quite abstract ideas.
The stones are pity, and the bricks, well wrought affections;
Enamel'd with love and kindness, and the tiles engraven gold,
Labour of merciful hands: the beams and rafters are forgiveness :
The mortar and cement of the work, tears of honesty; the nails
And the screws and iron braces are well wrought blandishments.
. the floors, humility;
The ceilings, devotion: the hearths, thanksgiving. 6
Thus the poets of the Middle Ages constructed their allegorical
cities and palaces. And in this way also certain modern poets have
tried to give expression to their visions of the supernatural.
Ce qui jamais ne meurt, ce qui jamais ne change
L'entourait. A travers un frisson on sentait
Que ce buccin fatal, qui rêve et qui se tait,
Quelque part, dans l'endroit où l'on crée, où l'on sème,
Avait été forgé par quelqu'un de suprême
Avec de l'équité condensée en airain. 7
¹ Purgatorio, XXIX.
↳ Inferno, IX.
2 Inferno, XXII.
Inferno, XII.
6
3 Paradiso, XXI.
• Jerusalem, p. 12, 30.
7 Victor Hugo: Légende des Siècles: La Trompette du Jugement.
THE IMAGINATION
269
Like Victor Hugo, Blake also could express the unreal and the
indefinite in numberless metaphorical ways.
They began to weave curtains of darkness.
They erected large pillars round the Void,
With golden hooks fasten'd in the pillars:
With infinite labour the Eternals
A woof wove and called it Science.
Sometimes he creates monsters that have nothing of the earth in
them, and remind us of the dragons in the old tales of knightly ex-
ploits. Such, for instance, is the Spectre of Urizen.
Scales covered over a cold forehead and a neck outstretched
Into the deep to seize the shadow. Scales his neck and bosom
Covered; scales his hands and feet. Upon his belly falling
Outstretched through the immense; his mouth wide open, tongueless
His teeth a triple row, he strove to seize the shadow in vain,
And his immense tail lashed the abyss. His human form a stone ;
A form of senseless stone remained in terrors on the rock,
Abominable to the eyes of mortals who explore his books. 2
Such is also Orc, in the " serpent form.”
Orc augmented swift
In fury, a serpent wondrous amongst the constellations of Urizen.
A crest of fire rose on his forehead, red as a carbuncle,
Beneath, down to his eyelids, scales of pearl, then gold and silver
Immingled with the ruby, overspread his visage down
His furious neck; writhing, contorted in dire budding pains,
The scaly armour shot out. Stubborn down his back and bosom
The emerald, orange, sulphur, jasper, beryl, amethyst,
Stood, in terrific emulation which should gain a place
Upon the mighty fiend. 3
In spite of all the adjectives, we fail to be impressed by the enormity
of the monster, though we cannot deny that the effect produced by
the description is mysterious and extraordinary. Blake's creations,
like those of Milton, are magnified to a gigantic size and veiled in
mystery. But whereas Milton's fiends and angels are men, and have
a logical consistency of character which distinguishes them from
each other and makes them at least recognisable, Blake's personages
are too misty and, at the same time, too changeable and too illogical :
they resemble one another too much, and they are also too much
1 Urizen, V, 12.
& Vala. Night VIII, 64.
2 Vala. Night VIII, 417.
•
270
WILLIAM BLAKE
unlike themselves. Whatever the grandeur of a conception like that
of Urizen, it can never have the same force as Milton's conception
of Satan, because Urizen is not sufficiently definite, and represents
too many different ideas. He loses in strength all that he might gain
in comprehensiveness. Perhaps this fault is inherent in the very
essence of Blake's creations, which personify states of the soul that
are themselves necessarily changeable and indefinite; but it is also
largely due to the tendency of the poet's own mind and his peculiar
imperfections.
Notwithstanding all this, however, Blake, when he has once entered
upon the plane of threefold vision, is perhaps more at his ease in
the world of infinity than was Milton. This may possibly result from
the fact that he lost sight entirely of the material world and its laws,
while Milton and the others never forgot them. The other poets are
always struck with wonder and astonishment at the vastness of their
own creations: they set their characters in action, and then watch
their acts in terror and admiration. Blake has left the earth so utterly
out of sight that his personages do not appear to him as gigantic at all.
He has no longer any consciousness of what is possible or impossible
from man's point of view. He has forgotten all the physical laws
which his characters are perpetually defying. He feels no wonder at
seeing them die and come to life again, divide and become absorbed
in each other, traverse measureless abysses, crush whole worlds in
their titanic struggles, and make the infinite resound with their
shouting. To him, there is nothing miraculous in all these things.
They are the common phenomena of his visionary universe, and his
poems are full of them. It is from this that the Prophetic Books derive
the tone of more than Miltonic grandeur which is so often their chief
characteristic, and which makes them read like fragments of a great
epic history, re-echoing the tumults of vast prehistoric wars, or the
thunders of some frightful cosmic revolution in the world of the
infinite.
The fall of Urizen and Ahania through space can almost bear
comparison with the fall of Lucifer in Paradise Lost.
A crash ran through the universe; the bounds of Destiny were broken.
The bounds of Destiny crashed direful, and the swelling sea
Burst from its bonds in whirlpools fierce, and roaring with human voice,
Triumphing even to the stars at bright Ahania's fall.
Down from the dismal North the Prince of thunders and thick clouds,
As when the thunder-bolt down falleth on the appointed place,
THE IMAGINATION
271
Fell down rushing, ruining, thundering, shuddering,
Into the caverns of the grave and places of human seed,
Where the impressions of despair and hope enroot for ever
A world of darkness. Ahania fell far into nonentity.
She continued falling. Loud the crash continued, loud and hoarse.
From the crash roared a blue sulphurous fire, and from the flame
A dolorous groan that struck with dumbness all confusion,
Swallowing up the horrible din in agony on agony.
Through the confusion, like a crack across from immense to immense,
Loud, strong, a universal groan of death louder was heard
Than all the elements, deafened and rendered worse
Than Urizen and all his hosts in curst despair down rushing.
1
Very few passages can be found in any other poet to compare with
the description of Los "fixing the changes of Urizen" in the Book
of Urizen, or with that of Urizen's journey through the terrors of the
abyss in the sixth " Night " of Vala. And more wonderful still, per-
haps, is the whole " Vision of the Last Judgment," which, with its
eight hundred lines of solemn and majestic poetry, recalling at times
the work of d'Aubigné or Cynewulf's Christ, deserves to be included
in every anthology by reason of its powerful and magnificent pictures
of the infinite.
Folding like scrolls of the enormous volume of heaven and earth,
With thund'rous noise and dreadful shakings, rocking to and fro,
The heavens are shaken, and the earth removed from its place.
The foundations of the eternal hills are all discoverèd.
The thrones of kings are shaken, they have lost their robes and
crowns.
The
poor smite their oppressors, they awake up to the harvest.
The naked warriors rush together down to the sea-shore,
Trembling before the multitude of slaves now set at liberty
They become like wintry flocks, like forests stripped of leaves. 2
And all the while the trumpet sounds-Awake, ye dead, and come
To Judgment. From the clotted gore and from the hollow den,
Start forth the trembling millions into flames of mental fire,
Bathing their limbs in the bright visions of Eternity.
Then like the doves from pillars of smoke, the trembling families
Of women and children throughout every nation under heaven
Cling round the men in bands of twenties and of fifties, pale
As snow that falls around a leafless tree upon the green.
1 Vala. Night III, 136.
2 Vala. Night IX, 14.
272
WILLIAM BLAKE
Their oppressors have fallen, they have stricken, they awake to life,
Yet pale. The just man stands erect, and looking up to heaven,
Trembling and stricken by the universal stroke. The trees uproot,
The rocks groan horrible and run about. The mountains and
The rivers cry with a dismal cry. The cattle gather together;
Lowing they kneel before the heavens. The wild beasts of the forests
Tremble. The Lion, shuddering, asks the Leopard: "Feelest thou
The dread I feel, unknown before? My voice refuses to roar,
And in weak moans I speak to thee. . . . This night,
Before the morning's dawn, the Eagle called to the Vulture,
The Raven called to the Hawk-I heard from my forests black-
Saying: Let us go up, for soon I smell, upon the wind,
A terror coming from the south. The Eagle and Hawk fled away
At dawn, and ere the sun arose, the Raven and Vulture followed.
Let us flee also to the north. They fled. The Sons of Men
Saw them depart in dismal droves. The trumpets sounded loud,
And all the Sons of Eternity descended into Beulah.
It would be easy to fill a whole volume with passages like these,
disjointed, but all glowing with the same wealth of suggestion and
the same flashes of light thrown across limitless spaces. Unhappily,
this is almost the only note struck by the Prophetic Books, the general
style of which is that of some interminable Apocalypse. There is
little variety in Blake's purely imaginative passages, so true is it that
even the clearest vision lacks the force and richness of the real. The
boundless abundance of the visible world could have supplied the
poet with a wealth of colours, forms and tones that he could never
find in the kingdom of his dreams. There, indeed, he beheld only a
projection of his own mind: if he had been willing to look about him,
he could have contemplated all the infinite riches of the universe,
and, to a certain extent, made them his own. As it is, his characters
lose their strength through being constantly repeated. Our ears are
deafened and tired from always listening to the same peals of thunder,
and our eyes wearied with gazing beyond our own world at things
which no longer astonish us. We come down from the monotonous
altitudes of his plane of threefold vision, and return with a sensation
of comfort to the more human writer who has given us the Poetical
Sketches, the Songs of Innocence and the Book of Thel.
it is
It is these books that we would like to linger over always
under the influence of their charm that we would wish to take leave
of Blake. They were composed before he had become a prophet,
1 Vala. Night IX, 42.
THE IMAGINATION
273
""
before he had begun to write down his visions of Eternity, so that
the angels might read. His conceptions of the Zoas, of Vala and
Jerusalem, were not to come to him for a long time. Tharmas was
still only the shepherd who, free from care, follows his sheep all the
day, and whose mouth is "filled with praise "; the black-gowned
priests, ministers of Urizen, had as yet scarcely shown themselves
to him: Urthona had not even a name, but was merely the " porter
of "the northern bar" who allows Thel to enter his kingdom.
God walked still upon the earth, and the children could see Him.
The poet called himself the "Ancient Bard"; but he did not yet
know that he was Los, the Eternal Prophet. Undoubtedly, he already
had the power of multiple vision; and this power enabled him to
mingle the eternal with the material, but without giving the former
undue predominance. The dreams of the mystic coloured but did not
obliterate those of the poet, giving them a luminous splendour which
no single vision, and perhaps even no double vision, could ever have
bestowed. It was in such dreams that Blake beheld the Eden of the
Songs of Innocence, where the valleys bloom with an eternal summer,
and all is joy and brightness.
Even afterwards, when experience has saddened the child's first
view of the world, the mystic vision remains, unshakeable, beyond it,
making the darkness which surrounds us all the deeper by its own
brilliance, and at the same time showing us that the fire of eternity
is not quenched, guiding us like a beacon, reviving our hopes, and
renewing the "fallen light.
>>
But it is in our own world (whether it be roseate or sombre in the
poet's vision) that we still find ourselves, rejoicing in the joys of our
fellow-men, and weeping human tears. The landscape belongs to
our earth, in spite of the celestial shapes and colours that have des-
cended upon it. We cannot be sure whether the flowers that encircle
the weeping Thel are not flames: we have never seen such graceful
and delicate curves as those of the willows that bend over her head.
Never have there been leaves like those which we see making them-
selves into a pillow for her, or surrounding her like caressing hands.
Never, above all, has our sky shown us such shades of sapphire and
gold, softening and stretching out to a vast horizon, penetrating and
tinting leaves, flowers and earth-if, indeed, one can give the name
of earth to the luminous emptiness upon which all this airy landscape
rests. But what matters it? What matters it even that out of the heart
of the flowers youths and maidens spring forth, and take their flight
T
274
WILLIAM BLAKE
through space, like troops of angels in the sunlight? This title-page
of the Book of Thel is exactly typical of Blake's poetry at this period.
We know that all these things do not belong to the earth, but we can
understand what they are. We have dreamed of them and desired
them. Our prophets and priests have assured us that they shall be
ours when the bitterness of death is past; and our poets have already
enjoyed them. We can admire them and recognise in them our most
cherished dreams and hopes.
Why must we so soon find ourselves on the rocky shore of the
sons of Albion, where unknown Titans are imprisoned, or in the
subterranean darkness where Urizen is coming to birth, or among the
strange spectral beings of the Jerusalem, in worlds where men melt
away and become trees, where the stars are woven in the limbs of
Albion, where that weird figure of a man with a cock's head sits
waiting and gazing into the unknown, where the beasts of the
Apocalypse mingle with men and with strange spirits, and where
only the mythical and the allegorical have any existence? Here
indeed mysticism has made of Blake's poetry and his pictures a book
sealed with seven seals that only the initiated can open.
Why could not Blake remain upon the earth? He had beautified
our world by sending his angels to it, and making it radiant with
celestial colours. He had peopled it with visions so bright that they
make us feel as if the illuminated pages of some old missal had sud-
denly come to life, or as if the haloed and many-coloured saints from
some cathedral window had come down to walk in our midst. Why
need he have sought to go further, and transport us into that heaven
of his own, where we find nothing of all that we have loved upon
earth, and where our only pleasure lies in the glimpses he still
sometimes allows us of our poor lost world?
But it is useless to complain. Blake himself would have regarded
such a reproach as high praise. His poetry was the food of angels and
Eternals, not milk for children like ourselves. We, however, are men ;
and it is as men that we must judge him. And therefore we cannot
do otherwise than deplore this mysticism of his, which transformed
all his imaginative powers, attacked all his poetic faculties, and
like the poison upon which flowers are sometimes nourished for this
purpose-made them blossom for a time with unnatural brilliance,
only to kill them, as far as we are concerned, in the end.
XVIII: CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY OF HIS WORK—
T
1
(1) PROSE WRITINGS ¹
HE history of Blake's work, even if it be condensed into a
bare chronological list of titles, is inextricably involved in
the gradual development of that mystical tendency which
permeated and finally destroyed all his poetic faculties, and
which becomes more and more clearly visible as our study of him
progresses.
The entire body of his work may be divided into four groups,
corresponding roughly with the four periods of his life.
In the first group, we may place all his prose work, written for the
most part at the beginning of his literary career, but continued, in
the form of letters, up to the last years of his life. He himself would
not have classed these writings among his literary work at all, except
in the case of one or two quite short pieces.
The second group comprises the lyrical poems, written during
his youth, and without any expressed "prophetic " intention. The
chief of these are King Edward III, the Poetical Sketches, the Songs
of Innocence and of Experience, and various lyrical poems taken from
the MS. Books and published separately, as a rule under some such
heading as Shorter Poems.
""
In the third group may be classed all the lesser " prophetical
works: Thel, Tiriel, Visions of the Daughters of Albion, The French
Revolution (a fragment), the books of Urizen, Los and Ahania,
and the tetralogy-Europe, Asia, Africa and America—two
sections of which (Asia and Africa) are included in the Song of
Los. These were written at various times, but almost all between
the early, or purely lyrical, period and the final period of the great
Prophetic Books.
The fourth and last group, and the most important in Blake's
own eyes, consists of the three great Prophetic Books Vala, Jerusalem
and Milton, which represent the whole poetic output of the second
half of his life.
¹ See Chronological Table at the end of this volume.
276
WILLIAM BLAKE
FIRST GROUP: PROSE WRITINGS
A complete list of the prose writings would include :
(1) The letters, written for the most part to Flaxman, the "Dear
Sculptor of Eternity," to Mr. Butts, the purchaser of so many of
Blake's pictures, to Hayley, the poet's sometime “ protector
protector" and
friend, and to John Linnell, the generous patron of his last years.
These letters are chiefly biographical in their interest. Some of them
were published by Gilchrist; and in 1906 appeared The Letters of
William Blake, edited by A. G. B. Russell, a collection which is of
genuine value to all students of the poet.
(2) Certain detached notes written in pencil on the margins of
books in Blake's possession. There are three series of these notes;
the first (which is of considerable length) containing Blake's comments
upon the Discourses of Sir Joshua Reynolds, and giving incidentally
a great many of the poet's views on the subject of art. Messrs. Ellis
and Yeats have published these notes in their William Blake, and
they are also printed in Mr. Ellis's The Real Blake. The second series,
which is much shorter, consists of notes written in a copy of Sweden-
borg's Divine Love and Wisdom. These remained unpublished until
1907, when they appeared almost simultaneously in The Real Blake,
and in the original edition of the present work. The third series-the
notes on Lavater's Aphorisms-may also be found in The Real Blake.
(3) The prose passages in the unfinished MS. entitled The Island
in the Moon, which Mr. Ellis printed at full length in The Real Blake.
This fragment, which in no way adds to Blake's literary reputation,
is apparently an attempt to satirise various people whom the poet
had met with at the house of Mr. Mathew.
<<
(4) The Descriptive Catalogue, the Public Address and the Account
of the
Last Judgment," in all of which, in addition to describing
his own pictures, Blake gives expression to his views upon art,
inspiration and mystical vision.
(5) The prose works properly so called, comprising (1) a single
leaflet entitled The Ghost of Abel; (2) another single sheet, On
Homer's Poetry; (3) The collection of aphorisms called There is no
Natural Religion, and (4) The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, with its
Memorable Fancies, which describe several visions of the super-
natural, its Proverbs of Hell, and the Song of Liberty.
In these writings are to be found almost every known detail that
Blake himself has given-us regarding his own life and character, as
PROSE WRITINGS
277
well as the material required for a reconstruction of his artistic and
philosophical theories, and, above all, the fundamental principles of his
mysticism. Numerous extracts from them have been given in the course.
of this work, and we need not further allude to them in this relation.
But for the literary critic, these prose writings have another and
an even greater value. They show us the writer apart from the mystic;
the man speaking in his ordinary language. They therefore help us
to determine what were his chief mental characteristics, apart from
his faculty of vision and his mysticism. In these writings he is clear,
concise and, above all, energetic. He has no feeling for the finer shades,
and troubles himself very little about the terms he uses. But he is
always careful to express his meaning in the most forcible way.
Strength is the dominant feature of his prose style, and his dogmatism
and his horror of anything like logical argument help to produce this
effect. It is not that he could not argue in a logical way-his series of
theorems designed to disprove the existence of natural religion show
that he could—but he preferred to proceed by way of affirmation,
often paradoxical affirmation, without proof and without excuse.
He does not give us time to wonder or dispute, but carries us along
on the torrent of his thought, disregarding all obstacles.
This indicates a certain narrowness of mind; and indeed, on many
subjects, Blake held views that were the reverse of liberal. But this
only made them the more forcible. Blake's habitual style is a weapon
of offence: he seeks only to vanquish his opponent, no matter by
what means. He does not shrink from the most violent and un-
measured terms of expression." Why should Titian and the Venetians
be named in a Discourse on Art? Such Idiots are not Artists":
"A polished Villain, who Robs and Murders!": "The Man who
says that Genius is not Born but Taught, is a Knave": such phrases,
together with interjections like "Never! Never!" and "Damned
Fool!" are frequent in the notes on Reynolds. Of himself he speaks
with the utmost enthusiasm. "Mr. Blake defies competition in
colouring." And he pronounces judgment on his fellow-artists,
as one having divine authority. “O Artists, you may disbelieve all
this, but it shall be at your own peril." 2 All this is in bad taste, of
course; but it is at least strenuous; and that is what he always
desired to be." Away with your reasoning and your rubbish! All
that is not action is not worth reading."
¹ Descriptive Catalogue, No. V.
3 Descriptive Catalogue, No. V.
> 3
2 Descriptive Catalogue, No. VIII.
278
WILLIAM BLAKE
"
The very violence of his mode of thought often made him write
concisely, hammering and condensing what he wished to say into a
few words. His notes abound in examples of this." All Equivocation
is Self-Contradiction." 1" Genius has no Error. It is Ignorance that
is Error." 2" A fool's Balance is no criterion, because though it goes
down on the heaviest side, we ought to look what he puts into it." 3
Error is created. Truth is Eternal." 4 There is no good will.
Will is always evil.” 5 Sometimes his enthusiasm carries him away
in a sustained flight, and he gives us pages of which every line is full
of striking and original thought. Of this kind is his Canterbury
Pilgrims, which discovers a wealth of meaning in Chaucer's various
characters that had never been shown before. Had he confined himself
to literary or artistic criticism, his work would have been a mine of
valuable suggestions, and his opinions would have impressed them-
selves indelibly upon men's minds. But passages of this sort are rare.
He could neither write a coherent chapter, nor connect the different
sections of an argument, nor put together his thoughts so as to form
a whole. He was content to fling out his forcible assertions as they
occurred to him, and let them do their work as best they could. Single
sentences of this sort, each expressed in very remarkable words, are
scattered like pearls throughout his work. In one place he has gathered
together a whole sheaf of them: the Proverbs of Hell, a collection of
aphorisms from which I have already quoted. And finally, in the
Memorable Fancies, he has for once succeeded in imitating the ease,
the clearness and simplicity of Swedenborg's homely narrative style.
One quality, that of humour, was entirely lacking in him. All his
attempts at humorous writing have been pitiable failures. The Island
in the Moon is full of almost childish efforts in this direction. It
requires very little wit to call one's characters "Obtuse Angle
<<
" or
Inflammable Gas," to make one of them say to a lady "I thought
I had read of Phoebus in the Bible," or to write of a preacher," Mr.
Huffcap would kick the bottom of the the pulpit out with passion
-would tear off the sleeve of his gown and set his wig on fire, and
throw it at the people." All this is, at best, only caricature or farce
of the lightest kind. This want of humour has often been noticeable
in poets who possess the largest share of passion and imagination;
but it is not a result of those qualities. Shakespeare, Dickens, Heine,
Byron and de Musset are all proofs to the contrary. Want of humour
3 Notes on Reynolds.
1 Notes on Reynolds.
4 Last Judgment.
2 Notes on Reynolds.
5 Notes on Swedenborg.
PROSE WRITINGS
279
is due to the absence of certain qualities wiiich are more earthly and
more prosaic: calm reasoning power, keen insight into men's minds,
delicacy of thought. Humour is the quiet laughter of reason at absurd-
ity or inconsequence. How could one expect such laughter from a
man who does not believe in reason, but lives always in the land of
the supernatural, which is so near to that of the absurd, and where
even a smile is unknown?
Such, then, is Blake's prose: clear and forcible as a rule, con-
centrated into short aphorisms, or breaking out in incisive little
phrases; now and then trying to be humorous, but devoid of humour,
sprinkled with flashes of imagination, but lacking in wit; simple
and natural when describing the most extraordinary things; and,
when it does spread out to passages of any length, deficient in
construction. It is a weapon suitable only for attacking, the weapon
of a man who ignores argument, who brooks no contradiction, and
who fights with the aid of paradoxes, always aggressive in character.
It cannot be called classical or eloquent is too irregular, too unequal
for that. But, like all the rest of his work, it contains many fragmentary
passages which, by reason of his sincerity and intense feeling, are
not unworthy of the great classical writers.
I have here and there quoted at some length from his letters and
from the Descriptive Catalogue, and have given several examples of
his aphorisms. It will be enough now if I add a few further extracts
illustrative of his style and his manner of thought.
1
Take first the series of arguments by which he seeks to demonstrate
the reality of inspiration and the lawfulness of belief.
The Argument: Man has no notion of moral fitness but from Education.
Naturally, he is only a natural organ, subject to sense.
I. Man's perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception; he
perceives more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover.
II. Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same
that it shall be when we know more.
III. From a perception of only three senses or three elements, none
could deduce a fourth or fifth.
IV. None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if he had
none but organic perceptions.
¹ The most interesting specimen, perhaps, would be the Canterbury Pilgrims ;
but it is too long to be quoted in full, and it would be very difficult to make selec-
tions. I have already given a short analysis of it; and any reader desirous of
studying it in its entirety will find it reprinted at length in the "Canterbury
Poets" edition of Blake's Poems, as well as in The Real Blake and other more
expensive editions.
280
WILLIAM BLAKE
V. Man's desires are limited by his perceptions; none can desire what
he has not perceived.
VI. The desires and perceptions of man untaught by anything but
organs of sense must be limited to objects of sense.
Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is.
The two extracts that follow are taken from the Descriptive Cata-
logue. In the first, Blake sets forth his own view of history, a view
which, in some respects at any rate, seems to anticipate modern
opinion on the subject.
The antiquities of every nation under Heaven are no less sacred than
those of the Jews. They are the same thing, as Jacob Bryant and all
antiquarians have proved. How other antiquities came to be neglected and
disbelieved, while those of the Jews are collected and arranged, is an inquiry
worthy both of the Antiquarian and Divine. All had originally one language
and one religion: this was the religion of Jesus, the Everlasting Gospel.
Antiquity preaches the Gospel of Jesus. The reasoning historian, turner
and twister of causes and consequences, such as Hume, Gibbon, and
Voltaire cannot with all his artifice turn and twist one fact or disarrange
self-evident action and reality. Reasons and opinions concerning acts are
not history. Acts themselves alone are history, and these are not the ex-
clusive property of either Hume, Gibbon or Voltaire, Echard, Rapin,
Plutarch or Herodotus. Tell me the acts, O historian, and leave me to
reason upon them as I please. Away with your reasoning and your rubbish!
All that is not action is not worth reading. Tell me the What: I do not
want you to tell me the Why, and the How. I can find that out myself
as well as you can, and I will not be fooled by opinions that you please to
impose, to disbelieve what you think improbable or impossible. His
opinion who does not see spiritual agency is not worth any man's reading.
He who rejects a fact because it is improbable must reject all history and
retain doubts only. 1
In the second, he discusses the respective merits of drawing and
painting, and gives us a page of art criticism in which he almost
recalls Ruskin by the independence of his judgment and the clearness
of his thought.
The distinction that is made in modern times between a painting and
drawing proceeds from ignorance of art. The merit of a Picture is the same
as the merit of a drawing. The dauber daubs his drawings; and he who
draws his drawings draws his Pictures. There is no difference between
Raphael's cartoons and his frescoes or Pictures, except that the Frescoes
1 There is no Natural Religion.
2 Descriptive Catalogue, No. V.
PROSE WRITINGS
281
or Pictures are more finished. When Mr. B. formerly painted in oil colours
his Pictures were shown to certain painters and connoisseurs, who said
that they were very admirable drawings on canvas, but not Pictures;
but they said the same of Raphael's Pictures. Mr. B. thought this the
greatest of compliments, though it was meant otherwise. If losing and
obliterating the outline constitutes a Picture, Mr. B. will never be so foolish
as to do one. Such art of losing the outlines is the art of Venice and Flanders.
It loses all character and leaves what some people call expression";
but this is a false notion of expression. Expression cannot exist without
character as its stamina, and neither character nor expression can exist
without form and determinate outline. Frescoe Painting is susceptible of
higher finishing than Drawing on Paper or any other method of Painting.
But he must have a strange organisation of sight who does not prefer a
Drawing on Paper to a Daubing in Oil by the same master, supposing both
to be done with equal care.
The great and golden rule of art as well as of life is this;—that the
more distinct, sharp and wiry the boundary line, the more perfect the work
of art,—and the less keen and sharp, the greater is the evidence of weak
imagination, plagiarism and bungling. Great inventors in all ages knew this.
Protogenes and Apelles knew each other by this line. Raphael, Michael
Angelo, and Albert Dürer are known by this and by this alone. The want
of this determinate and bounding form evidences the idea of want in the
Artist's mind, and the pretence of the plagiary in all its branches. How do
we distinguish the oak from the beech, the horse from the ox but by
the bounding outline? How do we distinguish one face or countenance
from another but by the bounding line and its infinite inflexion and move-
ments? What is it that builds a house and plants a garden but the definite
and determinate? What is it that distinguishes honesty from knavery
but the hard and wiry line of rectitude and certainty in the actions and
intentions? Leave out this line, and you leave out life itself. All is chaos
again, and the line of the Almighty must be drawn out upon it again.
before man or beast can exist. Talk no more then of Correggio or Rem-
brandt, or any of those plagiaries of Venice or Flanders. They were but
the lame imitators of lines drawn by their predecessors, and their works
prove themselves contemptible, disarranged imitations, and blundering,
misapplied copies. 1
¹ Descriptive Catalogue, No. XV.
XIX: CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY—(2) LYRICAL POEMS

T
HE lyrical poems include the Poetical Sketches, the Songs
of Innocence and Experience, and a number of separate pieces.
In all these, we see Blake almost unaffected by any mystical
tendency, or at any rate very slightly influenced by it, so
that his work is in no way spoiled or obscured. It is on these poems,
perhaps, that his fame will always depend, since it is here alone that
he remains genuinely and entirely human.
The Poetical Sketches, written in early youth, are a series of ex-
periments, full, as was only to be expected, of imitations of other
poets, abounding in promise, and containing also many faults.
A great part of the book is devoted to an essay in drama, King
Edward III, of which, however, only the first act was completed.
It is obviously an imitation of Shakespeare; and this return to the
Elizabethan manner, at a time when the fashionable style had so long
been quite different, and was only just beginning to alter, shows a
new tendency in poetry, the tendency to restore the imagination to
its old supremacy. But even in this first attempt Blake's weaknesses
are evident. He could not make the sustained effort required for the
carrying through of a five-act drama. And not only did he abandon
his work at the end of the first act, but even in that first act he gives
no indication of such dramatic situations as would form a well-
constructed plot or lead up to an effective conclusion. The single
issue of an approaching battle does not provide a sufficiently strong
interest, because here the writer has not been able to connect it with
the great human interests that depend upon it. The fragment before
us can scarcely be called an attempt at dramatising a page of history.
We certainly see, as we do in Shakespeare's historical plays, prepar-
ations for battle, conversations between the officers, meetings of
royal councils, and so forth. But all this is only the external form of
drama. There are no clearly drawn characters. Blake had in his mind
certain general types: the warrior, the bishop, the man of commerce,
but he did not know how to invest them with an interesting person-
ality. His inability to infuse a soul into his creations is evident
already.
The play contains nothing that is in any way remarkable except
LYRICAL POEMS
the scraps of lyrical and even epic poetry which are scattered thro
it, and which show the young author's taste for the majestic and
terrible. Such, for instance, is the description of the Spirit of England,
throned on the deep, with the ocean playing around her feet and
acknowledging her sovereignty. And even more characteristic is the
patriotic song of the minstrel who calls the English to arms, and
celebrates at the same time his country's past and future greatness.
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 the prey; nor shall the young
Crave or be heard; for plenty shall bring forth,
Cities shall sing, and vales in rich array
Shall laugh, whose fruitful laps bend down with fulness.
Our sons shall rise from thrones in joy,
Each one buckling on his armour; Morning
Shall be prevented by their swords gleaming. 1
Here we find already the grandiose images and far-off visions that
Blake always loved; and several other passages of the same aspiring
nature give a foretaste of what his poetry was to become. They are
at any rate an ample compensation for the prosaic versification, the
familiar imagery, the many reminiscences of other writers, the trite
and well-worn epithets that here betray the youthful and inexperi-
enced author.
The other imitations in this volume are much shorter, and are
chiefly of interest as showing the tendency of their writer's mind,
which is, like that displayed in his drama, always in the direction of
the terrific. There is a fragment of a Samson, into which phrases
from the Bible and from Milton are copied almost word for word.
There are two imitations of Ossian-Contemplation and The Couch
of Death-written, like Macpherson's poems, in rhythmical prose;
a short piece entitled Gwin, King of Norway, also much in the manner
of Ossian's battle scenes; a ballad (Fair Elenor) modelled upon the
bloodthirsty and terrific style of the Border Tales; and finally, an
Imitation of Spencer, which strikes a new note of light and fanciful
imagination, forsaking the horrible, and leading us into a world of
beauty and pure lyricism.
To this world the fifteen remaining poems in the volume belong.
Here we find more than mere promise. The poetic faculty now seems
¹ King Edward III.

WILLIAM BLAKE
ave burst forth into full flower: Blake has outgrown the age of
vile imitation, and is now, for the first time, singing of his own
dreams and his own feelings. Here are to be found almost all the
poems I have mentioned or quoted above:¹ the early love-songs,
with their sentiment of adoration for the woman beheld as an angel
by the young lover's eyes; the maddening tortures of unrequited
love; the brief cry of jealousy, and the exulting song of love trium-
phant. Here also are the poet's first impressions of nature: the
invocations to the Seasons, the prayers to Morning and to the
Evening Star, goddess of the night. And over all of them imagination
pours its wealth of colour, giving them a fervour, a spontaneity free
from all rules and conventions, a luminous lightness, a soft harmony,
which had been missing from poetry for more than a century, and
which seem to mark their author as a forerunner of Keats and Tennyson.
We may leave unnoticed a not very successful attempt, inspired
by a passage in Milton's l'Allegro, at a realistic description of rustic
sports (Blindman's Buff), and close the book upon a fierce war-song,
a call to arms sounded by the Angel of Death, in which we seem to
hear the shout of a whole nation advancing to battle.
The arrows of Almighty God are drawn !
Angels of Death stand in the low'ring heavens!
Thousands of souls must seek the realms of light,
And walk together on the clouds of heaven!
Prepare, Prepare.
Soldiers, prepare! Our cause is Heaven's cause;
Soldiers, prepare! Be worthy of our cause:
Prepare to meet our fathers in the sky :
Prepare, O troops, that are to fall to-day!
Prepare, Prepare. 2
But these trumpet-blasts cannot drown the sound of those flute-
like notes, so soft and so celestial, with which Blake's songs of light
and joyous love have filled our ears.
SONGS OF INNOCENCE
And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of
them, and said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become
as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 3
1
2 A War Song to Englishmen.
Chapter XVI.
St. Matthew, xviii, 2, 3.
LYRICAL POEMS
285
Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for
of such is the kingdom of God.
And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed
them. 1
How often must these words of the Gospel have recurred to Blake
during the writing of the Songs of Innocence! He was now (1789)
thirty-two years old. He had had seven years happy married life,
and was about to publish, for the first time, one of his own books in
a form of his own choice and his own invention, with no interference
from printer or publisher. It was to be a book upon which the artist
and the poet would work in collaboration, the one completing and
explaining the other, and in which everything, down to the very
shape of the letters, the design and colouring of the pages, would
combine to make the reader feel something of the joy, the peace, the
brightness that pervaded the author's dreams. I have given, in Chapter
II, an account of the way in which it was engraved. Each page con-
tains a poem surrounded by a bordering of design, interwoven with
and almost forming part of the text. Not only does the principal
motif of this design illustrate the subject of the poem-a shepherd
following his flock, a baby on its mother's lap encircled by flowers,
a child playing with a lamb, or angels comforting the distressed-
but from this motif spring garlands of flowers and foliage, streaming
flames, gracefully curving lines of decoration, which mingle with
the text, divide line from line and verse from verse, and make every
page as delightful to the eye as the music of the poems is to the ear,
and the sweetness of the thought and imagery to the mind.
The book is diminutive in size, the plates measuring only about
five inches by three; and the poems are few in number and very
short. But each of them is a marvel of simple lyrical beauty The
whole volume is informed with joy and childish happiness, a radiant
vision of nature and the open country, filled with the freshness of
all things that live in innocence and rejoice to be alive. The poet
has become as one of those children whom Jesus took up in His
arms and blessed. He has entered with them into the kingdom of
God; and, with childish purity of soul, he sings of the happy beings
who dwell there.
But we also must become as little children if we would feel the
charm of these poems, and understand the language in which the
book is written. At first sight, there seems to be nothing at all in the
1 St. Mark, x, 14, 16.
286
WILLIAM BLAKE
Songs of Innocence. They are just little poems of child-life, as Blake
supposed it to be, or as we ourselves might imagine it. There is no
narrative, scarcely any description, very few imaginative passages,
no moving outbursts of passion, nothing, in short, or almost nothing
that resembles human life as we know it. What the book does reveal
to us is Heaven: the Heaven that we see reflected in the eyes of our
own little ones. By an extraordinary effort of imagination, or rather
by the spiritual power that his mysticism naturally gave him, Blake
carried himself back into the days of childhood, when all was joy and
innocence, and when the new-born soul felt no other emotions but
life and the joy of living. This happy state he tries to describe in
words that "every child may joy to hear." He indicates the general
character of his poems in the Vision which forms the prologue of the
book, a prelude full of grace and joyous harmony.
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 chear.
Piper, pipe that song again ;
So I piped he wept to hear.
<<
<<
Drop thy pipe, thy happy pipe ;
Sing thy songs of happy chear :
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
Every child may joy to hear. 1
So the pen that had once tried to carve, as on a rock, the story of
Samson, and " the words of truth, that all who pass may read," was
now to become a delicate reed, and write simple sentences for any
child to spell out.
1 Songs of Innocence: Introduction.
LYRICAL POEMS
287
Other poets, greater than Blake, have sung of childhood. English
literature, in particular, abounds in books about children and books
written for children. The English spirit seems to have retained always
a great love of childhood, just as it has always shown, in the intervals
of a strenuous business life, and in hours of rest and relaxation, an
element of simple, spontaneous childishness, that has often puzzled
men of other nationalities.
But none of the books written either for children or about them
strike the exquisite note that Blake gives us here. The books put into
children's hands take them into enchanted countries where their
imagination loves to wander: they appeal to their curiosity, their
love of the fantastic, their insatiable desire for novelty; but they do
not reveal the child's soul. They are toys made by skilled workmen
and given to him to amuse himself with: but they are not in the
least like the child himself.
Novelists have often portrayed children with extraordinary fidelity
and charm: they have created characters that the reader can never
forget, have shown the fragile and delicate mechanism by which
these small human beings are actuated, and studied their psychology
with such sympathy and insight as will always make us love them.
But we feel that these children, whether they are Dickens's, almost
too angelic for this world, or George Eliot's, full of life and actuality,
or even Kipling's, with all the charm of their complex, enigmatical
little souls, are all, in some subtle way, grown-up men and women
already. They have the desires and fears of older people, though the
things they desire and fear may be smaller; they know something
of older people's sins and hatreds; and many of them have already
shared older people's sorrows. They live in a hard and cruel world:
their faces are white, but not always with the clear pallor of happy
innocence, and their eyes are often bright with tears that are not
tears of joy. What we see in them is the life of childhood, but not its
poetry, pure and simple.
Poems dealing with childhood are not so common. Very few poets
have been able to tear themselves away for a time from the world
about them, to abandon their dreams and their lofty thoughts, and,
forgetting the passions that torment and transfigure the souls of men,
to stay and watch the quiet beauty of a little child, or listen to its
charming and inconsequent prattling. And when any of our poets
have been able to do this, it has only been for a few brief instants.
Life, and its complex and burning problems, have soon reclaimed
288
WILLIAM BLAKE
their attention; and poems of childhood fill only a very small place
among their works. Of all the greater poets, there are perhaps only
two-Wordsworth and Victor Hugo-from whom we could make a
collection of poems about children. And their treatment of the subject
is quite different from Blake's. They both saw the poetry of childhood,
but they saw it from the standpoint of a man. Victor Hugo's most
delightful poems are those in which he depicts, not the soul of a
child, but the wonder he himself feels in contemplating it. He con-
trasts the innocence and joy of childhood with the sin and sorrow
of our later years.
Car vos beaux yeux sont pleins de douceurs infinies,
Car vos petites mains, joyeuses et bénies,
N'ont point mal fait encor;
Jamais vos jeunes pas n'ont touché notre fange.
Tête sacrée, enfant aux cheveux blonds, bel ange
A l'auréole d'or. 1
Exquisite indeed, are the songs of love and adoration that he sings
to children he sees all the purity of the child's soul, but without
entering into it: he is the children's worshipper and their poet, but
he cannot become one of them himself.
Wordsworth approaches nearer to them. He can almost speak the
language of childhood, and has been often wrongfully accused of
childishness on this account. In reading his poems about children,
we scarcely feel ourselves in the presence of a poet. We are tempted
to ask whether any child would not have talked just as he does.
The poetry of these simple things must reveal itself to us as it did
to him. The words are only a mirror which reflects without adding
anything to them.
4
3
But we still recognise in these poems the work of a man long past
the golden age of youth, one who no longer shares the simple faith,
the innocent thoughts, of childhood. His wonder at the little girl
who sees no difference between the dead and the living; 2 his love
for Lucy Gray, the joyous child of the moorland, ³ his pity for Alice
Fell, the orphan girl; even the emotion he experiences in recalling
his own childish feelings 5-all these show the hand of the mature
writer. The sight of a six-years-old child fills him, in the poem which
Blake described as "in the highest degree imaginative and equal
¹ Victor Hugo: Feuilles d'Automne.
2 We are Seven.
8 Lucy Gray.
4 Alice Fell.
5My Heart Leaps Up:
LYRICAL POEMS
289
to any poet," with presentiments of the gloomy and uncertain future
which was already overshadowing its happiness.
Thou faery voyager! that dost float
In such clear water that thy boat
May rather seem
To brood on air than on an earthly stream;
Suspended in a stream as clear as sky
Where earth and heaven do make one imagery!
O blessed vision! happy child!
Thou art so exquisitely wild,
I think of thee with many fears
For what may be thy lot in future 1
years.
He analyses the soul of a little girl of three with feminine delicacy
of touch, and also with all the insight of a skilled psychologist,
whose eye can appreciate the finest shades of character.
Loving she is, and tractable, though wild :
And innocence hath privilege in her
To dignify arch looks and laughing eyes,
And feats of cunning. 2
We find nothing of this sort in Blake's poems of childhood. His
intuitive mode of vision, which never reasoned and never regarded
details, could show him only those things that children themselves
seem to see. His children live and play, trusting absolutely in all
those who surround them: they are free, careless and happy. They
have scarcely learned to think they cannot reason, and are content
to repeat the words of love and joy that they have heard from others.
They give us the impression of being even younger than Wordsworth's
children, nearer to that world of Eternity whence they have so lately
come. Compare, for instance, the child talking to the lamb in Words-
worth's The Pet Lamb with the child of the Songs of Innocence.
Wordsworth gives us a picture of delightful simplicity. The little
girl has tethered the lamb to a stone she is kneeling before it and
feeding it. And as it eats from her hand, it seems " to feast with head
and ears; and his tail with pleasure shook."
Drink, pretty creature, drink," she said in such a tone
That I almost received her heart into my own.
Then, as she goes away, she looks back, and sees the lamb pulling
2 Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old.
U
1 To H.C., Six Years Old.
290
WILLIAM BLAKE
at its string. Thereupon, her mind fills with a whole world of thoughts,
which the poet sees reflected in her face, and tries to express for her.
CC
What ails thee, young one? What? Why pull so at thy cord?
Is it not well with thee? well both for bed and board?
Thy plot of grass is soft, and green as grass can be ;
Rest, little young one, rest; what is't that aileth thee?
She tells the lamb of all the things that ought to make it happy :
of its beauty, its strength, the grass all around it, the trees that
shelter it. She reminds it of its earliest days and of the care she gave
it, and promises it many happy hours when it is older and can play
with her. But she cannot quiet it; and so she goes her way, wondering
what can be the dreams and the desires that trouble it, and warning it
against the dangers of that free life on the hills which it seems to long for.
The poet watches her as she goes, and continues his reverie.
And it seemed, as I retraced the ballad line by line,
That but half of it was hers, and one half of it was mine.
Again and once again did I repeat the song.
<<
Nay," said I, more than half to the damsel must belong,
For she looked with such a look, and she spake with such a tone
That I almost received her heart into my own.
"1
Now read once again Blake's poem, The Lamb, which I have
already cited at length in Chapter XVI.
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, wooly, bright ;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
And the child tells it that its maker was the Lamb of God, who was
Himself a child, and whose name they both bear.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by his name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
1 Wordsworth: The Pet Lamb, a Pastoral.
LYRICAL POEMS
291
Wordsworth, in spite of all his simplicity, is more complex than
Blake. The two poets do not even speak the same language. Words-
worth's style is so simple as to have sometimes brought upon him the
charge of being childish: Blake's is even simpler. His words, always
sweet and childlike, and his repetitions of the same phrase, like the
repetitions in a child's talk, are all part of the charm of these poems.
Indeed, it is perhaps these peculiarities of style, or rather this absence
of style, that we first notice. Anywhere else they would shock us :
here we feel them to be only an added attraction. Wordsworth, even
when he makes his children talk, does not dare to go as far as this.
A further point in Blake's favour is the apparent carelessness of his
writing. He seems to pay very little heed to grammar, and still less
to the logical sequence of his sentences. Later on, we shall find poems
of his that contain incomplete sentences, and others in which there
is no visible connection between the subject and its verb. And yet
the manuscripts of these poems are the only ones that he seems to
have corrected. The carelessness is therefore intentional. It is a
simple way of suggesting the child's manner of speech Here also
Wordsworth, whose grammar is always correct, falls snort of Blake.
But the difference between them goes further than this. Words-
worth reasons out his impressions of childhood: Blake merely
states them. The one gives us descriptions, the other only sugges-
tions. Wordsworth's little girl thinks and argues like a grown-up
person: Blake's child has only vague feelings of joy and thoughts
that he cannot interpret. He never dreams of possible dangers: he
remembers nothing of the past, and takes no thought of the future.
For him, the present alone, with all its delights, has any existence.
Wordsworth took the sweetness of the child's soul into his own, but
he gave it, at the same time, something of his own soul's pensive
melancholy. Blake added nothing to it except those dreams of Para-
dise that he saw reflected in the pure eyes of children. Leaving it
still childish, he made it more angelic and took away from it all traces
of the absurd. Wordsworth's children are more realistic, more like
the children we know. Blake's are rather those we have dreamed of.
If we wish to give a definition of childhood as Blake saw it, we can
only arrive at it by a progressive elimination of psychological char-
acteristics. The mystic's vision never grasps the whole complex
nature of living reality; and Blake perceived in childhood only two
or three very simple fundamental traits. We can never understand
him if we say, with La Bruyère, that children are already men; for
292
WILLIAM BLAKE
it is only when they grow up that they become men, and as yet they
have not lived at all. We must, on the contrary, go close to their
cradle. “There is a time," says this same La Bruyère, “ when reason
does not yet exist, when we only live by instinct, like the animals;
and of this time we can remember nothing."¹ It is to this time that
we must carry ourselves back. We shall find all our lost memories of
it reflected in Blake's vision; and that animal instinct which La
Bruyêre seems to despise is, in Blake's eyes, a spark of the eternal
fire. No wonder, then, that he saw in childhood the realization of his
ideal of Eternity, as far as it could be realized on earth.
The elements that combine to form this ideal are, seemingly, very
few. They are perfect happiness, resulting from ignorance of all
evil; perfect innocence, which is chiefly due to the absence of any
restrictive law; unhindered communion between the child's own
life and that of the animals and the things that surround it, and,
lastly, the clear vision of the divine world, and of these spiritual
beings who are always ready to protect and love the child. All these
elements are very simple. They are seen intuitively; felt rather than
analysed by Blake, and expressed in a language which is as simple as
his conception of them.
Happiness shows itself in the child even at its birth. It rejoices to
be alive, though it knows not why. Its murmurs of happiness can
scarcely be expressed in words; and its song-if we can call it a
song is like the almost inarticulate sounds that we hear from the
cradle. There are no thoughts, scarcely even any words: but short,
tender cries, repeated over and over again, like a mother's kisses.
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 ! 2
1 De l'Homme.
2 Songs of Innocence: Infant Joy.
LYRICAL POEMS
293
Has any writer ever evoked more perfectly for us that moment,
so precious and so soon past, when we listened to our child's first
cries, and watched its first smile? And by what miracle has this
childless poet been able thus to capture that fleeting instant, and
make it live before us for ever?
A little later on, joy ceases to be this almost speechless feeling,
sprung from the mere sense of existence. The child not only exists :
he lives. His days are spent in play. His eyes, instead of reflecting
only the calm, still radiance of heaven, begin to sparkle with pleasure.
His mouth no longer gives us that sweet suggestion of an angel's
smile, but opens in peals of happy laughter. All things, the fields, the
woods, the animals, laugh with him; and we have the Laughing Song.
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,
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!" 1
Thus the children's day passes, and their nights are as quiet and
restful as their days are happy. We are shown a charming little
picture of one of these days, in which we see even the old folk joining
in the children's merriment, and becoming young again.
1
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' chearful sound,
While our sports shall be seen
On the Ecchoing Green.
Songs of Innocence: Laughing Song.
294
WILLIAM BLAKE
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,
In our youth time were seen
On the Ecchoing 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
On the darkening Green. 1
No disturbing element, not even a shade of melancholy, can be
seen in this childish joy. Our own joys are always mingled, either
with remembrance of some past sorrow or with fear of evils to come.
In Shelley's well-known words,
We look before and after,
And pine for what is not;
Our sincerest laughter
With some pain is fraught. 2
And even if no recollection and no fear come to trouble them, we
feel always that our joys are fleeting. We know that the moment of
happiness we now enjoy will be soon gone, never to return. Perhaps
this very feeling may give us a certain morbid pleasure, like that of
the last embrace before a parting; but it always prevents our joy
from being quite pure and perfect. The child alone can enjoy the
present as if it were to last for ever: he remembers no past suffering,
fears no future sorrow. The laws of time do not seem to exist for him :
he is truly like one of the blessed, in eternity. To us, his moment of
happiness seems to be past already. What does that matter to him,
seeing that this moment fills his whole life, and all the rest is hidden
Songs of Innocence: The Ecchoing Green.
2 To a Skylark.
LYRICAL POEMS
295
from him? He alone is like the poet's bird: he sings as if he were
a creature "born not to shed a tear." It is part of Blake's peculiar
charm that he has been able to describe this child-soul, that he too
could become again, for a moment, ignorant of life and all its sorrows,
and sing to us of the pure joys of the golden age.
The second great characteristic of childhood-innocence—is
perhaps less evident; and this was no doubt intentional on Blake's
part. But it does not mean that he set less store by it, seeing that he
called his book the Songs of Innocence. He was, moreover, in a few
years' time, to contrast this innocent state of the human soul with
that other state described in the Songs of Experience, in which sin
and sorrow were to make their appearance. But the innocence of
children is so perfect that only their mouths can give expression to it.
Every man who says "I am innocent" recognises the existence of
guilt and of guilty people. The words "guilt " and " innocence"
should be unknown alike in the world of angels and in that of children.
The Songs of Innocence contains only one poem in which the innocence
of children is specifically referred to, and there Blake is speaking in
his own person.
"Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
The 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 sit 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. 1
66
These boys and girls are charity children "; and Blake seems,
in this one instance, to lay stress upon their innocence as a sort of
protest against the contempt which their position might bring upon
them.
In the case of other children, their innocence reveals itself in their
joy, and needs no definite expression. How, indeed, could it? It is
one of the conditions of childhood to be subject to no law save that
of its own instinct. In childhood alone, therefore, Blake could see
the realisation of his ideal morality, which was that of the Abbey of
Thelema " Do what thou wilt." He could not even think of a child
as affected by any restrictions. And, indeed, there is a time when the
1 Songs of Innocence: Holy Thursday.
296
WILLIAM BLAKE
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child is still too weak to desire anything that its little strength cannot
attain to. Its wants seem to be so few that it can easily satisfy them
all. Blake has prolonged this period, which in reality only lasts for a
few months; and none of his children ever says
I cannot." Thus,
for the child, the laws of physical impossibility simply do not exist ;
and still less can he feel any moral restraint. Those moral laws,
against which Blake fretted all through his life, and which he was to
condemn, in the Songs of Experience, as unjust and oppressive, have
not, as far as the child is concerned, been created at all. And, there
being no law, neither can there be any sin. Later on, as we have already
seen, Blake was to curse the Decalogue, and break the tables of the
Law, which he regarded as the work of Urizen-Jehovah the tyrant :
but that time was not yet come. It is the absence of all law, however,
that makes his children so happy, and it is this, too, that makes a
state of innocence their only possible condition.
Blake's children always do what they wish to do. Even the orders
that are given them are not really orders. They have but to protest,
and any order is at once withdrawn.
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,
And we cannot go to sleep ;
Besides, in the sky the little birds fly,
And the hills are all cover'd with sheep."
"C
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 ecchoed. 1
These two characteristics, perfect happiness and absolute innocence,
combine to make up an existence which consists only of the joyful
sensation of being alive and of obedience to the great primal instincts
of all created beings. This is the life of nature also, at least as far as
we can conceive it. Hence proceeds the intimate communion of the
child with nature, his love for the natural objects that surround him,
his conversations with them, and his constant thoughts of them.
In the Songs of Innocence, we find only that part of nature
1 Songs of Innocence: Nurse's Song.
LYRICAL POEMS
297
which is easily accessible to children, and in which they feel
interested the green grass, certain flowers, and a few familiar
tame animals. It is these last, in particular, that, for children,
represent nature.
Blake did not make any special psychological study of these animals,
or observe their character and way of life. He saw them just as a
child sees them, that is, as comrades to play with, as happy, innocent
beings like itself. There could only be very few such animals. Blind
as he was to the things of this world, even he could not ignore the
existence of wild beasts; nor, on the other hand, could he give his
children-except in visions of the supernatural world-wolves and
vultures for their playmates. There is, indeed, one poem in which
beasts of prey are introduced; but he transports them at once into
a world where they become mild and gentle, the world to which
children who die are carried by the angels.
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.
Is driven away
From 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.” 1
1
But, except in this celestial region, the animals that the child has
for playmates are all gentle, weak and tender as himself. Chief among
them is the lamb, the perfect symbol of his own nature, and his
constant companion. We have already seen how they talk together. 2
What a sense of absolute comradeship, of love as between equals,
these little poems reveal! We can scarcely tell which is the animal
and which the child. How full of subtle and delicate charm are the
lines that follow!
1 Songs of Innocence: Night.
2 The Lamb (above)
298
WILLIAM BLAKE
Little 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,
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. 1
2
We have seen (in Chapter XVI) the picture of the child playing at
hide and seek with birds and flowers, and also the description of the
ant who, lost and anxious for her expectant little ones, is guided on
her homeward way by the glow-worm and the beetle.3 All these
creatures live (like Tharmas, who was to personify them later on
in Blake's mythology) the simple life of the open fields, a life full of
sweetness and love. Their world resembles Paradise before the fall,
when the animals were man's companions and played about his feet.
Or, again, it is the regenerated world of Isaiah's vision, in which the
lion and the lamb lie down together, and a little child leads them.
And, like Eden and the new universe of which the prophet speaks,
Blake's world of innocence has its supernatural visitors. Angels come
to bend over the children's cradles, and weave dreams of gold for
them. God Himself draws near to comfort the afflicted. He sends
visions to those who are too tender to bear the reality; He promises
to all alike a life of perfect happiness in His kingdom. To the child,
all these things are not dreams, but living truths. The world of eternity,
from whence he has but just come, still remains with him. Its
inhabitants still hover round him; and he does not deceive himself
when he seems to hear the beating of their wings. Here again, it is
Blake's mysticism that gives his poetry its peculiar character. He
¹ Songs of Innocence: Spring.
3 Songs of Innocence: A Dream.
2
Songs of Innocence: The Blossom.
LYRICAL POEMS
299
1
makes the visionary world and our own world meet and mingle
without effort. Both are equally real. The child passes naturally from
one to the other, and neither he nor the poet are in any way as-
tonished at it. Already we are aware of a spirit that is familiar with
things outside this world of ours, and walks among them at its ease.
In one poem it is God Himself who appears to the lost child,
“like his father, in white," and leads him by the hand back to his
weeping mother. In another, it is again God Himself who soothes
all griefs, not only those of children but those of the birds also.
And it is only in such passages as these that we find any suggestion
of sorrow. Paradise itself would be incomplete if no shadow of
trouble hung over it: the poet desires to find a place for the con-
solations of divine love, which would be wanting if there were no
sorrows to console. The age of innocence ought to know no tears.
And, though Blake does give it some, they are only given in order
that they may be dried at once. Thus grief itself becomes a sweet
and sacred thing.
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,
Weeping tear on infant's tear;
And not sit both night and day
Wiping all our tears away ?
O, no! never can it be !
Never, never can it be ! 2
This God, who is so sweet, so kind and protective, never deserts
one of his children. He it is who gives the little chimney-sweep the
radiant vision which sends him out happy to his work. The whole
song is admirable in its simplicity and its childlike faith, and almost
reminds us of one of the New Testament parables.
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.
¹ Songs of Innocence: The Little Boy Found.
2
Songs of Innocence: On Another's Sorrow.
300
WILLIAM BLAKE
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​There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curl'd like a lamb's back, was shav'd: 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,
As Tom was a sleeping, he had such a sight!—
That thousands of sleepers, 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 open'd 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,
He'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.
Tho' the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm :
So if all do their duty they need not fear harm. 1
Here we see Blake's theories beginning already to show themselves.
The angel who will set little Tom Dacre free is, of course, the Angel
of Death. But it is doubtful whether the black coffins in which all
the children are locked up are real coffins. I think it much more
likely that the poet intends them to symbolise the soot-blackened
bodies that imprison the pure, innocent souls of these children.
Blake already holds the view, which he was to set forth a little later
in the Book of Thel, that our earthly life is the real death, and that our
bodies are the outward sign of our souls' captivity. The same idea
appears in the lesson which another child-a little negro boy-learns
from his mother, and which he repeats to us. Here again the idea
is associated with that of death as a liberator. This is perhaps the
only one of the Songs of Innocence in which Blake rises above the
child's mode of thought, giving expression, instead, to his own
ardent faith, and adding his own explanation, at once profound and
ingenuous, of the reason of our life on earth.
¹ Songs of Innocence: The Chimney Sweeper.
LYRICAL POEMS
301
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 sun-burnt face
Is 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
And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice." 1
Thus our life here should be only an apprenticeship, to prepare us
for the perfect enjoyment of God's love in Eternity. Our bodies do
not allow us to see more than a very small part of the Infinite, with
all its wonders, or to feel more than a few feeble rays of the divine
splendour, enough, as it were, of God's love to warm us, but not
enough to consume us: When this darkened life of ours shall have
accustomed us to our restricted vision of Him, then He will reveal
Himself fully to us, and we shall be able to endure His glory. In just
the same way, the tempered heat of some "shady grove" makes us
better able to bear the full force of the sun's rays. This idea of Blake's
was worth noting here, since he does not seem to have given ex-
pression to it in any other part of his works. Soon we shall see him
taking the view that life is man's greatest curse, and explicable only
as the result of Urizen's mad folly, in separating himself from the
world of the Eternals. But, on this hypothesis, there could be no
reason for the joy that children and animals feel in it. We could
understand only the lamentations of a spirit condemned to enter
into the “ vegetative" life of mortality. These lamentations we shall
soon hear in the Songs of Experience and the Book of Thel. But during
the happy period of the Songs of Innocence, life itself is a good thing,
because it is a preparation for the eternal joys that are to follow it.
Even its sorrows only come in order that pity and divine consolation
may change them into happiness. As for death, it is only the natural
complement of life: the end of our time of trial, and the entrance
into a world of bliss unending.
Men themselves are like God, full of love and pity.
For Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is God, our father dear,
And Mercy, Pity, Peace, and Love
Is Man, his child and care.
1
¹ Songs of Innocence: The Little Black Boy.
302
WILLIAM BLAKE
For Mercy has a human heart,
Pity a human face,
And Love, the human form divine,
And Peace, the human dress. 1
When men are no longer there, when the night comes, and only
God and nature are left, when
The moon, like a flower
In heaven's high bower,
With silent delight
Sits and smiles on the night, 2
the same peace and the same pity are shed over all things by the
angels.
Farewell, green fields and happy groves,
Where flocks have took delight.
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves
The feet of angels bright;
Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom,
And each sleeping bosom. 3
Finally, it is in the sleep of childhood, and in the dreams that
hover over the cradle, that we find gathered together all that is
sweetest in humanity, in earth and in heaven-the mother's smiles
and tears of joy, the invisible presence of the God who was Himself
a child. Blake has united all these in a picture of luminous sweetness,
and calls them up before us in a song full of purity and tenderness ;
a vision at once earthly and celestial-that of a mother rocking her
child to sleep-in which we see reflected all his most enchanting
dreams of Paradise.
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.
¹ Songs of Innocence: The Divine Image.
3 Songs of Innocence: Night.
2
Songs of Innocence: Night.
LYRICAL POEMS
303
Sweet smiles, in the night
Hover over my delight;
Sweet smiles, Mother's smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.
Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thine eyes.
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.
Sleep, sleep, happy child,
All creation slept and smil’d.
Sleep, sleep, happy sleep,
While o'er thee thy 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,
Who became an infant small;
Infant smiles are his own smiles;
Heaven and earth to peace beguiles.
1
With this poem we may close the Songs of Innocence. It recalls
and, as it were, sums up all the others in the feeling that it leaves with
us of sweetness, of peace, and radiant, childlike simplicity. We shall
never hear this note again in English literature; and Blake himself
rarely strikes it in any of his other writings.(This was a time in his
career when life had not begun to throw its shadows over the bright-
ness of his youthful visions./Reality had not yet brought him any of
those sufferings and disillusions that it keeps in store for all of us.
His soul could still enjoy the bliss of an eternal Eden, where no
thought of sorrow might enter, and no Tree of Knowledge spread its
branches laden with forbidden fruit. He could still sing, in happy
confidence, of the child and the bird, enwrapped and protected, like
1 Songs of Innocence: A Cradle Song.
304
WILLIAM BLAKE
the whole universe, by the divine love. His faith and his mystical love
shed over all his visions a pure radiance in which they still shone,
bright and spotless. And, on the other hand, his thoughts, at this
period of his intellectual development, had not yet drawn him into.
a world that was alien from our own. His dreams had in them all
the splendour of heaven, but they still kept their profoundly human
character. His children and his angels made a bond of union between
his heaven and our earth: they were beings that we can understand.
His dreams of the supernatural have still something in common with
the poetry of man's world: they illuminate it, but do not yet blind us
with their brightness. Thus it was only at this precise moment in his
life that Blake could produce these wonderful poems, whose calm
sweetness is disturbed by no hint of discord.
SONGS OF EXPERIENCE
Five years elapsed between the engraving of the Songs of Innocence
(1789) and that of the Songs of Experience (1794). In strict chrono-
logical order, several of Blake's works come between these two
collections of poems, among them Thel, Tiriel, The Marriage of
Heaven and Hell, The French Revolution, Visions of the Daughters of
Albion, The Gates of Paradise and America. But the Songs of Innocence
and the Songs of Experience are so much alike in plan and in feeling
that they must, almost of necessity, be studied together. Moreover,
Blake himself afterwards issued the two collections of poems in a
single volume, engraving both on plates of the same size, and with
the same kind of decoration, and furnishing them with a general title :
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Shewing the Two Contrary
States of the Human Soul.
Many changes, however, had taken place in the poet's mind during
those five years. We can trace them, stage by stage, in the various
short poems written in the interval, among which were the first of the
Prophetic Books. But the change is perhaps even more clearly visible
in the contrast offered by the Songs of Innocence and the Songs of
Experience themselves. The writer's mental and spiritual point of
view has entirely changed. He has grown older, and his conception
of childhood is less joyous. His children have had experience of life,
of the world, and of men. They have eaten of the tree of knowledge
of good and evil: they know that sorrow, sin and the law exist.
LYRICAL POEMS
305
They have quitted the Eden in which their first happy years were
spent, to enter into a wicked world of hardship and selfishness, and
the Gates of Paradise have closed for ever behind them. Blake has
followed them, full of pity, and his song has grown sadder and gloom-
ier. In point of expression also, a great change is to be seen in his work.
The poet has now become a prophet: he begins to speak in parables,
and to make use of symbolic language. And this symbolic language,
not yet so obscure as that of the Prophetic Books, gives his poetry
an element of strangeness and mystery, but without in any way
detracting from its charm. We even find here a certain strength which
was lacking in the Songs of Innocence; and the splendour of some of
the pictures, the sphinx-like beauty of the symbols, add their
enchantment to that of the underlying thought, which is now
riper and more complex, and that of the melody, which is as
harmonious as ever.
The Introduction itself clearly shows this changed mode of thought
and expression, and sets forth the leading idea, the general tone of
the whole collection. It was ignorance of evil and the absence of
restrictive laws that made all the happiness of childhood. With the
coming of experience came the law and the knowledge of evil. Here,
for the first time, Blake gives expression to his theory that all law is
evil, because it restrains men's desires and crushes their joys. As we
have already seen, this theory was the foundation of his whole moral
system, and he never tired of expressing it in every possible form,
the most common being that of rebellion against the bond of marriage,
and impassioned advocacy of free love. For several years, from 1790
to 1795, that is to say, between the ages of thirty-three and thirty-
eight, he seems to have been completely obsessed by this idea—at
least, if we can draw such an inference from the frequency of the
subject in his verses. To him the marriage ring was apparently a
symbol of all the chains that hinder the soul's aspirations: all his
own desires seem to have been concentrated into a longing for a love
that should know no bounds; and this longing was in perpetual
conflict with the laws of the State and the laws of morality. According
to him, love unfettered would assure the happiness of all men: love
enchained must doom them to everlasting misery So his Introduction
is the Earth's despairing plea for freedom to love, a plea in
which we must read also a cry of revolt against all tyrannies,
physical, moral and social. The Bard thus addresses the Spirit of
the Earth:
V
306
WILLIAM BLAKE
Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, and Future sees;
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walk'd among the ancient trees,
Calling the lapsed soul,
And weeping in the evening dew;
That might controll
The starry pole,
And 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 7?
The starry floor,
The wat'ry shore,
Is giv'n thee till the break of day.” 1
Thus the Earth is in darkness: the soul of all mankind has sinned,
and can no longer hear the voice of the poet-seer who proclaims the
coming of day, the rising of the bright sun of innocence and eternal
joy. Till that day dawns, there will still be the stars and the sea to
remind us of limitless space and the infinite splendour of eternity.
But our souls turn obstinately away, and refuse to listen to the Bard's
song of hope.
Earth's reply is at once a lamentation and a call for help.
Earth rais'd up her head
From the darkness dread and drear.
Her light fled
Stony dread!
And her locks cover'd with grey despair.
"'Prison'd on watʼry shore,
Starry Jealousy does keep my den:
Cold and hoar,
Weeping o'er
I hear the father of the ancient men.
1
Songs of Experience: Introduction.
LYRICAL POEMS
307
"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,
Or the plowman in darkness plow?
"Break this heavy chain
That does freeze my bones around.
Selfish! vain!
Eternal bane !
That free Love with bondage bound." 1
The Earth will not be able to lift up her head and look into heaven
until the stars cease to be jealous; until the religions that should help
and comfort her cease to bind her down with their restraining laws;
until, like a blossoming flower, she can give free growth to her loves,
her joys and her desires; until she can satisfy her energies in the
sunshine, like the sower who scatters his seed; until the Law which
says "Thou shalt not covet" is broken, and there is no longer any
hindrance to the infinite aspirations of "the virgins of youth and
morning." It is the Bard, the Eternal Prophet, " father of the ancient
men and herald of the new age, who must break the chains of
serfdom, and set mankind at liberty.
""
How different this is from the Introduction to the Songs of Innocence
the bright vision of the child on a cloud, who only bade the poet sing
him "songs of happy chear," and wept with joy on hearing them !
Now, he will sing only songs of sorrow and anger. These songs are
more numerous than the others. Is this because sin and sorrow can
take so many different forms, while perfect joy has only one? Or is
it because men are always more eloquent and more lavish in their
descriptions of suffering and their cries of revolt than in the quiet
portrayal of their happiness? However this may be, this second
collection contains twenty-eight poems, as against nineteen in the
irst. In several cases the contrast is emphasised by the very titles of
Songs of Experience: Earth's Answer.
308
WILLIAM BLAKE
the poems, which are the same in both volumes.¹ But it is the poet's
conception of life, even more than his treatment of his subjects, that
impresses us as so different.
Children are again the chief actors in the Songs of Experience, but
now we hear only of their troubles and their disillusions. Does
Blake look around him in London? The sight of the children.
being taken to church on Holy Thursday now only fills him with pity.
He no longer sees happiness in their faces; or thinks of anything
but their poverty and their destitution.
Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduc'd to misery,
Fed with cold and usurous 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,
And their fields are bleak and bare,
And their ways are fill'd with thorns;
It is eternal winter there.
For where-e'er the sun does shine,
And where-e'er the rain does fall,
Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall. 2
Here the natural indignation of the man speaking to other men
has made the poet forget, for the time, his symbols and his mystical
dreams. He has put into this vindication of the rights of the orphan
\Compare the poems mentioned below, pair by pair.
Songs of Innocence :
Introduction
The Lamb
The Blossom
The Chimney Sweeper
The Little Boy Lost
The Little Boy Found
A Cradle Song
The Divine Image
Holy Thursday
Nurse's Song
Infant Joy
Songs of Experience:
Introduction-Earth's Answer.
The Tyger—The Fly
The Sick Rose
The Chimney Sweeper-The Little Vagabond
The Little Girl Lost ("In futurity, etc.")
The Little Girl Found
§ A Cradle Song
A Divine Image
Holy Thursday,
Nurse's Song
M
fant Sorrow
§ Not engraved, but clearly intended as a companion piece to the Cradle Sor
of the Songs of Innocence. Most editors include it among the Songs of Experien
2 Songs of Experience: Holy Thursday.
LYRICAL POEMS

and the outcast all the strength and clearness of his mind. I
always written like this, he might have become the precursor o
men who, half a century later, were to plead so eloquently and
passionately on behalf of the children and the destitute. But his min
could never rest for long upon any actual fact, any definite wrong.
For him, the individual case only typified all the ills of humanity ;
and, like his revolutionary friends, he tried to attack what he believed
to be the root of the evil-the principles on which society is founded.
And so his efforts, having no definite aim or object, were all wasted.
Thus the pathetic complaint of the little chimney-sweep, sold into
slavery by his father, ends in an attempt to fix the responsibility
for his cruel fate upon the priests and the kings.
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,
They think they have done me no injury,
And are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a heav'n of our misery."
So too the little vagabond laments because the church allows him
to go cold, hungry and thirsty, while the alehouse is pleasant and
warm.
"Dear Mother, dear Mother, the Church is cold,
But the Ale-house is healthy and pleasant and warm,
Besides I can tell where I am used well,
Such usage in heaven will never do well.
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 live-long day
Nor ever once wish from the Church to stray.' » 2
A most unorthodox conception of the Church, especially in Blake's
time ! But Blake always thought that the sole object of the priesthood
¹ Songs of Experience: The Chimney Sweeper.
2
Songs of Experience: The Little Vagabond.
WILLIAM BLAKE

wer. One of his poems is the story of a child accused of heresy
use he declared that no one can love another more than himself,
know anything greater than his own thoughts. He is taken by
The priests and burned in a holy place. And, lest anyone should think
that this dreadful story relates to bygone times, the poet ends by
exclaiming," Are such things done on Albion's shore?" Albion is,
to him, the England of our own days as well as the England of history;
and his hatred of the Church so blinds him that he confounds the
past with the present. 1
After the tyranny of the family and the Church comes the tyranny
of school, which destroys the child's freedom and happiness.
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
In sighing and dismay. 2
We must remember, of course, that the poet is speaking of the
rough schools and too often brutal masters of his own day. But it is
curious to see our ordinary arguments about the necessity of school
as a preparation for life used as a weapon against us by the child
who would remain free and happy.
O father and mother, if buds are nip'd
And blossoms blown away,
And if the tender plants are strip'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,
When the blasts of winter appear ? 3
How can we wonder that, after a childhood thus tyrannised over
and made empty of all joy, the man is wicked and unhappy, that the
poet, looking around him in London, sees only evil and misery, and
marks of sorrow in every face that meets his gaze?
1 Songs of Experience: A Little Boy Lost.
Songs of Experience: The School Boy.
Songs of Experience: The School Boy.
LYRICAL POEMS
311
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
Every black'ning Church appalls ;
And the hapless Soldier's sigh
Runs in blood down Palace walls.
But most thro' midnight streets I hear
How the youthful Harlot's curse
Blasts the new-born Infant's tear,
And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse.
These are definite charges; and, despite the revolutionary and
exaggerated style of the writer, we cannot but admire the forceful
eloquence with which they are set forth. Blake has for once got to
close quarters with life, and writes with the living reality before his eyes.
But this soon gives place to vague reflections on the human soul,
on the passions and their conflicts with the Law; and the language
of symbolism at once comes into use again. The preacher of revolution
can no longer speak to us except in poetical metaphors, and soon
draws us away from reality into the mystical world of his dreams.
In most of his conceptions, however, the symbolism is still clear
enough for us to follow and interpret it without any great difficulty.
Take, for example, the picture of the Garden of Love, spoiled and
made desolate by the priests.
I went to the Garden of Love,
And 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 turn'd to the Garden of Love
That so many sweet flowers bore;
And I saw it was filled with graves,
And tomb-stones where flowers should be:
And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds,
And binding with briars my joys and desires. 2
í Songs of Experience: London.
2
Songs of Experience: The Garden of Love.
312
WILLIAM BLAKE
Almost as easy to interpret is the description of the happy young
girl who gives herself entirely to her love.
In the Age of Gold,
Free from winter's cold,
Youth and maiden bright
To the holy light,
Naked in the sunny beams delight.
When the "holy light" has "just remov'd the curtains of the
night," they meet. She forgets her fears, and,
Tired with kisses sweet,
They agree to meet
When the silent sleep
Waves o'er heaven's deep,
And the weary tired wanderers weep. 1
But in those days (that is, in our own days) "Love, sweet love,
was thought a crime." When the young girl comes back to her father,
he has only lamentations and reproaches for her. And Blake dedicates
the poem to "Children of the future age" who shall read
"this
indignant page."
Love, then, is no longer what it was in the Age of Gold. The poet
overhears the pebble of the brook declaring that married love is
selfish and jealous, while the clod of clay maintains true love to be
all sacrifice of self for others. 2 Only selfish love is sanctioned by the
Law. All other desires must remain for ever unsatisfied. What sadness
there is in the two short verses in which Blake symbolises these vain
longings by the constant but ineffectual turning of the sunflower
towards the sun! The poem itself is an unfinished sentence, sug-
gesting the soul's endless travels in search of the unattainable.
Ah, Sun-flower! weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the Sun ;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime,
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 Sun-flower wishes to go.
¹ Songs of Experience: A Little Girl Lost.
2 Songs of Experience: The Clod and the Pebble.
3
Songs of Experience: Ah! Sun Flower.
3
LYRICAL POEMS
313
In this sad, gloomy, selfish world, the very animals are different.
It is no longer the lamb that the child plays with, but the fly whose
little life he crushes out with a careless hand, forgetting that the fly
is human like himself. Instead of the gentle lamb, we have the tiger,
with all his strength and cruelty, created in order to terrify us with
his Maker's power and, at the same time, to make us doubt His love.
I have already quoted the poems-the one so extraordinary in its
breathless energy, and the other full of light and airy grace. And then
there is the sick rose, drooping on its stalk because a worm "has
found out" its "bed of crimson joy" and, like a selfish lover, has
slowly eaten away its heart.
All things in this world are evil. If the child plays, his time is wasted.
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.
If he sleeps, his sleep is not exempt from cares.
Sleep, sleep! beauty bright,
Dreaming o'er 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,
Smiles as of the morning steal
O'er thy cheek, and o'er thy breast
Where thy little heart does rest.
O the cunning wiles that creep
In thy little heart asleep.
When thy little heart does wake
1
Then the dreadful lightnings break.
2
Like the child, the "human form divine" has also changed, and
is now clothed with cruelty; and God's Image has become a symbol
of jealousy, selfishness and fear.3 This is because the Tree of Mystery,
1
Songs of Experience: Nurse's Song.
9 A Cradle Song: Rossetti MS. No. 6 (usually included among Songs of Experience.)
3 Songs of Experience: A Divine Image.
314
WILLIAM BLAKE
which spread around Urizen, has grown up in man's brain also, with
its religions and its laws of false love, full of hypocrisy, degrading
humility and cruelty, hidden under a deceptive exterior.
The angels that once came and went around us have flown away.
In the age of innocence, we believed in them: we told them our
short-lived troubles, which their consoling presence soon transformed
into blessings. Now, we keep our joys hidden from them, because
we have learned a religion of suffering and renunciation; and when
sorrows come, we seek only human healing, and no longer look
trustfully for the consolations of divine love. Thus, all help from on
high is denied us, and we grow old in solitude, parted from the Divine
Vision. Such, at least, appears to be the meaning of the poem called
The Angel, which is so full of mournful thoughts and, at the same
time, of angelic sweetness.
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 tears away,
And I wept both day and night,
And hid from him my heart's delight.
So he took his wings and fled;
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. 1
2
What, then is the child to do, in this world of despair? No wonder
that he should complain so bitterly against that Mother of his
"mortal part" who gave him his "body of death," and that his
first cries of joy should be replaced by a gloomy, sulking silence.
Read once more the sweet murmurs of Infant Joy, and compare
them with the same child's bitter lamentations in the Songs
of Experience.
1 Songs of Experience: The Angel.
2 Songs of Experience: To Tirzah.
LYRICAL POEMS
315
My mother groan'd, 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. 1
In all these sombre but powerful pictures, there is only one bright
spot, one hope of deliverance. We know that Mercy has "chang'd
Death into Sleep," that we shall some day awake, and that this world
of evil is not eternal. Experience would never show us this consoling
truth, which is, nevertheless, always present, hidden deep in the
poet's soul. Even while he curses our earthly maternity, the knowledge
of this truth draws from him the triumphant cry, " The death of Jesus
set me free," and enables him to foresee the time when everything
in this mortal world" shall be consumèd with the earth, to rise from
generation free." The same truth inspires him to add to the mournful
music of the Songs of Experience one phrase full of glorious promise,
one touch of celestial harmony. It is in this sense that we must, I
think, interpret the two poems, The Little Girl Lost and The Little Girl
Found, in which the story of Lyca is contained. We notice that Blake,
as soon as he lost sight of the evils of this world, and lifted his eyes
to heaven, ceased, at the same time, to speak the language of men,
and began to express himself only in mystical symbols. One of the
earliest instances of this is the story of Lyca, which is set among his
more human and more comprehensible poems, and gives us, as it
were, a foretaste of his later visionary writings. In it we can almost
trace the transformation of the poet into the mystic. The two opening
stanzas show us that the story is to be interpreted in a spiritual sense.
In futurity
1
I prophetic see
That the earth from sleep
(Grave the sentence deep)
Shall arise and seek
For her maker meek;
And the desart wild
Become a garden mild. 2
¹ Songs of Experience: Infant Sorrow. 2 Songs of Experience: The Little Girl Lost.
316
WILLIAM BLAKE
This awakening of the earth must, it seems to me, be the awakening
of death, which is only a return to God. It is so, at any rate, for each
of us, until the coming of that long deferred hour when the Divine
Vision shall shine upon the living and the dead alike. This individual
awakening to freedom is illustrated by the fate of the lost Lyca, and
that of her parents, who seek for her, and at last find her. Lyca is
seven years old. She lives" in the southern clime," where it is always
summer, and she has been wandering about, listening to the songs
of the birds. Now she is lost in the desert, and night is coming on.
The thought of her parents, who weep for her, keeps her from sleep-
ing; but presently, comforted by the hope that her mother may be
asleep, she lies down and sleeps herself. Now the beasts of prey
surround her, and the lion carries her off to his den.
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
O'er the hallow'd ground.
Leopards, tygers, 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
Loos'd her slender dress,
And naked they convey'd
To caves the sleeping maid. 1
The whole picture is full of poetry, and we might well rest content
with the charm of the allegory, and not trouble about its meaning.
We could enjoy it as the work of a poet, forgetting that the poet was
a prophet also. If, however, we wish to go more deeply into it, we
I' Songs of Experience: The Little Girl Lost.
LYRICAL POEMS
317
must recollect the part played by the wild beasts in the Song of
Innocence called Night. It is they who kill the sleeping creatures :
but, when the angels have carried the souls of their victims to a new
world, it is the lion who watches over them there, while his ruddy
eyes flow with tears of gold. Lyca's sleep is therefore the sleep of the
grave, whither she has been borne, naked, by the mighty guardians
of the souls of the dead. She has wandered for seven years in this
desert world of experience, listening only to the songs of liberty that
the birds sing, and now the hour of her own deliverance has
come.
Next we are told how, for seven days, Lyca's parents search for
her in the desert, " tired and woe-begone," pursuing the "fancied
image " of the child as they picture her, hungry and crying piteously.
The mother is worn out, and the father carries her in his arms, until
suddenly they come upon a lion crouching in their path. They stop,
and, terrified by his heavy mane, fall to the ground. So far, the poet
has spoken clearly. He has seen only the father and mother wandering
through the gloomy desert of life. They have no thought for anything
but their child; and to them, death seems the supreme calamity,
since they must leave her suffering. At last they also, when the time
is come, see before them the liberator sent from heaven. We are now
no longer in our own world, and must follow where the mystic leads
But whither? Are we in some bright land of the grave, or among
the spirits of the blest? Is this really death, or only a counterfeit ?
Lyca's parents have perceived no change, and yet all has changed
with the swiftness of a dream. The lion still stands before them;
but he has become " a spirit arm'd in gold."
us.
On his head a crown ;
On his shoulders down
Flow'd his golden hair.
Gone was all their care.
"Follow me," he said,
Weep not for the maid;
In my palace deep
Lyca lies asleep."
Then they followed,
Where the vision led,
And saw their sleeping child
Among tygers wild.
318
WILLIAM BLAKE
To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell;
Nor fear the wolvish howl
Nor the lion's growl. 1
Thus parents and child are once more united. But does Lyca
awake? Do they know each other? Have they forgotten their former
dwelling-place? There is no answer to all these questions. Can we
even feel sure of having interpreted Blake's vision rightly? We dare
not affirm even this much other explanations might quite easily
occur to us. This, however, matters little. We feel ourselves carried
by this strange fantasy of the poet into a new world full of light,
peace and happiness, and we willingly surrender ourselves to its
charm.
But the impression still remains of an unsolved riddle, of that
vague and mysterious something that we have already felt in several
of the other poems. This sense of mystery recalls to us that vision
of the Earth-Spirit which we were shown as prelude to the Songs
of Experience; and it gives us also the note that is henceforward to
dominate all Blake's work: the note of the unknown, and, only too
often, the inexplicable.
Before passing, now, to a less detailed study of Blake's other books,
I must apologise for having lingered so long over these poems, which
fill so small a space in the enormous volume of his work, and also
for the undue length and number of my quotations from them. But
these Songs are, in reality, the most purely poetical of all Blake's
writings. In them we find all that is exquisite and perfect in his work.
It is to them that he owes all the attention he has attracted, and the
position that has been accorded him among the great poets. And
probably it is by these Songs alone that his name will live in the
history of English poetry. The note that he strikes in them will never
be heard again, because we shall never again find a poet possessing
at once the faith to endow him afresh with the simple soul of a child,
and the mythical spirit which enabled Blake to live wholly in the
Paradise of his dreams, and to see our world only as it might have
been seen by some angel come for a short time to live among us.
Unhappily, we shall not often find this note again in his own work.
He has kept us, thus far, on the boundary line that separates poetry
from mystical vision. This line we are now to cross. Hitherto, we
have had from him, for the most part, poetry that was concerned with
ngs of Experience: The Little Girl Found.
LYRICAL POEMS
319
human life and the human heart. Henceforth we are to have only
the dreams of a visionary, who forgets that we are but weak men,
and loses himself in dazzling regions outside of space, regions where
our eyes cannot follow him, nor our ears hear his words.
SHORTER POEMS
The "Shorter Poems" comprise all those that Blake did not
include in any collection, or publish under any general title. They
have been recovered from his note-books, where they were written
in no definite order, some being unfinished, and couplets or poems
of two or three verses only being scattered haphazard among pieces
that fill several pages.
Their latest editor, Mr. John Sampson, has arranged these poems
in two sections: (1) those in the Rossetti Manuscript, and (2) those
in the Pickering Manuscript, which, lost sight of for many years, has
lately been rediscovered. Earlier editors had divided them into
(1) Couplets and Fragments, all of which are to be found in the Rossetti
MS. and (2) Minor Poems, taken from both manuscripts.
The Rossetti MS. is in three parts: (1) Poems written about the
year 1793, most of which are variations upon the Songs of Experience
or were intended to find a place among them; (2) Couplets and
fragments written between 1800 and 1810, and (3) several longer
fragments composing The Everlasting Gospel, written about 1810.
The Pickering MS., which is much shorter, comprises a number of
poems almost all symbolical in character (The Mental Traveller,
The Crystal Cabinet, Auguries of Innocence, Mary, William Bond,
and The Land of Dreams), several of which are of considerable
importance. All these were written between 1801 and 1803.
I prefer to keep to the more usual division into Couplets and
Fragments and Minor Poems, noting the principal contents of each
section, without regard to the manuscript sources. The first section
has not much in it that is of real consequence; short pieces, usually
of a few lines only, and often incomplete, in which the poet pours
forth his scorn of his contemporaries, or gives expression to his
paradoxical views upon questions of art or religion.
The second section is of greater importance; the poems it
contains are in some cases purely lyrical, in others mystical and
metaphorical.
320
WILLIAM BLAKE
The lyrical poems deal, for the most part, with the same subjects
as the Songs of Experience. We find in them the feeling of anger
experienced by the prophet or the thinker, when taken out of the
calm atmosphere of his own ideas and compelled to face the world
and its troubles. In several poems (Love's Secret, The Will and the
Way, Smile and Frown) he exposes, with no small degree of psycho-
logical insight, the sins of deceit and hypocrisy. In others (The
Defiled Sanctuary, Night and Day, In a Mirtle Shade) he protests,
in his own peculiar language of symbol and metaphor, against the
laws of marriage and of society. In Opportunity and Young Love, he
exhorts us to give open and immediate satisfaction to our desires.
And further on we find him expounding, in allegories that are fairly
easy to interpret, his spiritual conflicts with the world (The Two Songs)
the principles of his faith (Scoffers), his defence of political freedom
(Thames and Ohio), his contempt for wealth (Riches), and his feeling
of love for all things (Seed-Sowing). Two Poems (The Birds and the
Song by a Shepherd) seem to recall the music of the love-songs in
the Poetical Sketches.
All these show Blake's ordinary qualities of imagination and
sentiment. Here and there, perhaps, as in Scoffers and Idolatry,
the tone becomes more polemical than usual, or the symbolism, as in
The Golden Net, more obscure. But, for the most part, we find here
the same melody as that which characterised the Songs of Innocence
and the Songs of Experience; and several of these poems might well
find a place in one collection or the other. Such, for instance, is the
vision of that land of dreams which Blake loved so well-a vision
full of intense, melancholy longing.
Awake, awake, my little Boy!
Thou wast thy Mother's only joy;
Why dost thou weep in thy gentle sleep?
Awake! thy Father does 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 lillies by waters fair.
"Among the lambs, clothèd in white,
She walk'd with her Thomas in sweet delight.
I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn,
O! when shall I again return?"
LYRICAL POEMS
321
Dear Child, I also by pleasant streams
Have wander'd all Night in the Land of Dreams;
But tho' 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,
Above the light of the Morning Star." 1
The more metaphysical poems belong to various periods and
exhibit many differences of style, length and character. In all of them,
Blake shows himself as a prophet rather than a poet, carrying his
readers off into a world of visions, of symbols and allegories. We find
here, certainly, the same wealth of imagination, the same intense
sincerity of feeling, the same mental force as before; but they are
too often obscured by vague imagery and complex symbolism, as
well as by the paradoxical nature of his theories.
In Mary, we have the story of a young girl brought to misery by
her too openly avowed love. In William Bond, angels and fairies meet
over the bed of a man who lies dying, with his wife and his mistress.
on either side of him, to show him that true love must be sought
among the wretched and the outcast. There is no doubt some
allegorical meaning in Long John and Little Mary Bell, a short poem
bordering on coarseness, and perhaps not worthy of being examined
too closely. I have already given some extracts from the two poems
addressed to Mr. Butts, which contain Blake's theories of "single
vision" and of the symbolism of the universe. The Auguries of
Innocence develop this latter theory, and teach the community of
feeling that exists between all creatures. We find in this series of
aphorisms in verse almost the whole of Blake's system of morality:
his gospel of love, pity and faith; his hatred of all tyranny and violence;
his contempt for material vision and logical reasoning. The Gates
of Paradise teaches the law of forgiveness of sins; and the Keys of
the Gates, written by way of explanatory notes to a set of engravings,
describes, in a series of very obscure metaphors, the history of the
human soul, its fall into terrestrial existence, its life, death, and
regeneration. I have quoted several of these couplets above. Spectre
and Emanation, or Broken Love, 2 symbolises the state of the soul
1 The Land of Dreams.
2 Blake gave no title to this poem, and his editors have found various names
for it, to suit their own interpretations. The best known is Mr. W. M. Rossetti's
Broken Love.
X
322
WILLIAM BLAKE
divided by sin; the Spectre pursuing and accusing the Emanation,
and beseeching her to return and forgive. But we can also hear in it
the bitter lamentations of unrequited love, the voice of despair, and
the supplication of the humbled: it is like an echo of the Mad Song
in the Poetical Sketches.
He scents thy footsteps in the snow,
Wheresoever thou dost go,
Thro' the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?
When wilt thou return and view
My loves, and them to life renew?
When wilt thou return and live?
When wilt thou pity as I forgive?
Finally, there are two fairly short poems, The Mental Traveller
and The Crystal Cabinet, the interest of which is entirely philosophical.
For the literary critic, they are two enigmas, two labyrinths with
no guiding thread. The symbols are here clear enough, and the
underlying thought is no doubt quite definite in Blake's mind, but
the meaning entirely eludes us. Nearly all the commentators have
tried to explain these two poems, verse by verse. Their interpretations
are all ingenious, all equally possible, and all equally unsatisfactory
and unconvincing. And, indeed, it matters very little from a literary
point of view whether the Mental Traveller (the story of a child
abandoned at its birth, which strikes all men with terror, then taken
away and tortured by a woman, then lost and forgotten, subjected
to mysterious transformations, born anew and doomed to endure
the same fate over again) be the history of a thought passing from
generation to generation, or that of a passion in the soul of a man, or
a Sun Myth, or a symbolical account of man's conception, generation
and birth, or a vision of Time, or all these at once. It matters as little
whether we see in The Crystal Cabinet (which describes how some
elf-like creature is caught by a maiden " in the wild," and imprisoned
in a cabinet that opens within upon a new world, a "moony night,"
another England and another London, and how in the end he breaks
the cabinet and escapes) an allegory of the creation of a soul, or of
the growth of the poetic spirit. Blake offers us no key to either.
LYRICAL POEMS
323
And, even if he had done so, it is doubtful whether we could ever
follow his train of thought through all its complex wanderings.
His "fourfold vision " must here have traversed all the planes from
which he drew, or to which he carried, his conceptions. I shall not
attempt to discuss the merits of these different interpretations, or
to suggest others, which must be at least equally doubtful; but will
content myself with calling attention to these two poems, as the
most easily accessible examples, for the ordinary reader, of the way
in which Blake's mystical tendencies ruined his poetry, by leading
him to express himself in unintelligible terms. It is to no purpose
'that he has expended upon them a wealth of beautiful imagery.
The only thing that strikes us in them is their air of mystery,
and we cannot even accord them our admiration. The doctrines
they contain may be original, profound and full of truth. But of
what use are they, expressed, as he expresses them, in a strange
tongue which we cannot understand, and to which we soon refuse
to listen?
It is almost with a sense of relief that we come to the last long
poem of this group, which marks the transition between the Lyrical
Poems and the Prophetical Books, properly so called. It is entitled
The Everlasting Gospel, and it contains Blake's interpretation of the
acts and words of Christ. I have already quoted several passages from
it in the chapter dealing with Blake's system of morality; and I
have shown how peculiar to himself, and how strongly opposed to
all orthodox teaching, was his conception of the Saviour. We need
now only notice that here, as in all the works which set forth his
doctrines in ordinary language, the ideas are extraordinarily forcible,
and the descriptive passages magnificent in their imaginative power.
Blake seems to make the scenes of the Gospel story live again for us,
not only through his interpretation of them, but also by reason of his
splendid and majestic narrative style. Here we find the preacher and
the enthusiast giving voice to his most energetic and most authoritative
utterances; and these are at times clothed in the grand imagery of
the Old Testament prophets, while still remaining unclouded by the
mists of symbolism. The whole poem ought to be read, as
well for its originality of thought as for the brilliancy and vigour
of the writing. I will only cite one passage that in which the
poet contrasts the harsh laws of Jehovah with the new gospel
of love exemplified in Christ's forgiveness of the woman taken
in adultery.

324
WILLIAM BLAKE
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,
All away began to roll.
The Earth trembling and naked lay
In secret bed of mortal clay;
On Sinai felt the Hand Divine
Pulling back the bloody shrine;
And she heard the breath of God,
As she heard by Eden's flood:
<<
Good and Evil are no more!
Sinai's trumpets cease to roar!
Cease, finger of God, to write !
The Heavens are not clean in thy sight.
Tho' thy oath turn'd Heaven pale,
Tho' thy covenant built Hell's jail,
Tho' thou didst all to chaos roll
With the Serpent for its soul,
Still the breath Divine does move,
And the breath Divine is Love.
Mary, fear not ! " 1
In this, and other similar passages, the prophetic spirit has in no
way harmed the poet's work, but has, on the contrary, inspired him
to heights of grandeur where he leaves far beneath him even the most
subtle allegories and the most complex and mysterious symbols.
1 The Everlasting Gospel.
XX: CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY-(3) THE EARLIER
PROPHETIC BOOKS¹
TIRIEL, THEL, VISIONS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF ALBION
T
HE Books composing this group exhibit almost the same
process of development as the lyrical poems, in their
mingling of mysticism and true poetry, and also in the
complicated symbolical style adopted by the writer.
The three most familiar books, which are also the first in chrono-
logical order, are Tiriel, the Book of Thel, and Visions of the Daughters
of Albion. 2 They were written about the same time as, or immediately
after, the lyrical poems, and form a sort of trilogy. Blake's theories
are here expressed in allegories that we can comprehend. His myth-
ical personages move in a strange world, but they have not yet put
off their human character. We can picture them to ourselves, can
enter into their feelings, and understand the language they speak.
The ideas they represent come within our own knowledge, and, to
this extent, we recognize ourselves in them.
The subject of all three books appears to be very similar to that
of the Songs of Experience: namely, the poet's grief at the spectacle
of our world under the rule of Law, and his rebellion against it.
Blake had by this time lost his first enthusiasm for the innocent joys
of childhood, and could only see the wretchedness of fallen man ;
but he had not yet seen, in the world outside of ours, his glorious
visions of regeneration and of eternal happiness to come. This, how-
ever, is only the dominating note, the principal motif, as it were, of
these books, and he almost drowns it in an elaborate orchestral accom-
paniment of thought, sentiment, and pictorial description. It is only
in the finales, when all subsidiary melodies are silenced, that the main
theme is heard by itself, and leaves our ears ringing with its last cries
of revolt and lamentations of despair. But in the meantime, we have
often forgotten or ignored it, being in turns terrified, fascinated, or
lulled to sleep by the varying harmonies of the poet's music.
1 The entire series of the "Minor Prophetic Books" is now for the first time
easily accessible to the ordinary reader in Mr. John Sampson's 'Oxford Edition'
of Blake's Poetical Works, 1913. Price 3s. 6d.
2 Visions of the Daughters of Albion is chronologically separated from Thel by
The French Revolution, to be examined further on.
326
WILLIAM BLAKE
}
The first of the group, in point of date, is probably Tiriel. This is
the only one of the Prophetic Books which Blake did not engrave,
and, as a result, it has no accompanying illustrations. Like all the
other books, it probably contains some hidden symbolical meaning ;
but this makes no difference to the general impression it produces
upon the reader. It is, first of all, a book of curses directed against
all mankind. Tiriel, king of the West (who here does not yet seem
to be one of Urizen's sons) has cursed his children, after the death of
his wife, and has left his house, to wander, blind and age-bent, about
the world. He is kindly entertained for one day by Har and Heva,
the parents of all men, and is then brought home by Ijim, his terrible
brother and his enemy. Again he curses his children, calling down
destruction upon them. And in the end, led, like Ædipus, by his
youngest daughter Hela, whom his curses have driven mad, and
mocked by his other brother Zazel, whom he had enslaved, he returns
once more to the kingdom of Har, and dies at Har's feet, after first
cursing him as the "mistaken father of a lawless race." He is a sort
of Lear in his dotage, mad, and only opening his mouth to curse and
rail upon his children and his brothers, who will not submit to his tyran-
nous yoke. His maledictions are as vehement as those of the aged king
Where art thou, Pestilence, that bathest in fogs and standing lakes?
Rise up thy sluggish limbs, and let the loathsomest of poisons
Drop from thy garments as thou walkest, wrapp'd in yellow clouds!
Here take thy seat in this wide court; let it be strewn with dead;
And sit and smile upon these cursed sons of Tiriel!
Thunder and fire, and pestilence, hear you not Tiriel's curse? ¹
The whole poem is in this key, and reads like a fragment of some
ancient epic describing the wordy battles of the Titans.
In the Book of Thel we hear a different and much softer tone. Thel
is a
Daughter of the Seraphim," a spirit who is about to be im-
prisoned in our mortal clay, to be "vegetated" and born into this
world, and to become a human soul endued with a body. To her,
this means death; and already she has left her sisters and
sought the secret air,
2
To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day.
But here the poet leaves the plane of multiple vision, and returns to
earth. Thel laments over her fate, and now we only see her as a young
girl doomed to die, and expressing, in words full of melancholy
¹ Tiriel, V.
2 Thel, p. 1.
THE EARLIER PROPHETIC BOOKS
327
beauty, the sadness that fills us at the death of any creature that is
fair and gentle. She is like Chénier's "Captive," but bereft of all
hope; and she only asks that her death may be like a sleep.
Down by the river of Adona her soft voice is heard,
And thus her gentle lamentation falls like morning dew.
O life of this our Spring! why fades the lotus of the water?
Why fade these children of the Spring? born but to smile and fall.
Ah! Thel is like a wat'ry bow, and like a parting cloud,
Like a reflection in a glass, like shadows in the water,
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 gently hear the voice
Of him that walketh in the garden in the evening time." 1
All the gentle creatures that are around her take pity upon her,
but they cannot save her from death. They can only show her that
death is but another form of life, that we die only in order that others
may live, that "we live not for ourselves." The Lily of the valley,
"breathing in the humble grass," dies to nourish the lamb and the
cow who crop her flowers. The little cloud that descends before
Thel's eyes must indeed dissolve, but it is only to find his partner,
the dew, in the vale.
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 ey'd dew, to take me to her shining tent.
2
The worm, for whom she is to become food, appears before her
in dumb supplication; and the clod of clay, at once symbol of mor-
tality, nurse of the earthworm and mother of all living things, sings
her its song of triumph.
Then Thel becomes once more the Spirit about to receive a body.
The clod of clay has reminded the poet of his original vision. It is
of clay that our mortal bodies are made: so the clod of clay invites
Thel to enter the house of death, the grave, which is also the source
of earthly life. She traverses this unknown land.
She saw the couches of the dead, and where the fibrous roots
Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists:
A land of sorrows and of tears, where never smile was seen. 3
1 Thel, p. 1.
2 Thel, P. 3.
3 Thel, p. 6.
328
WILLIAM BLAKE
She listens to the "voices of the ground," the lamentations of
the material world. And at last she comes to her own grave-the
body in which she is about to be imprisoned—and hears a sorrowful
voice issuing from the pit, and mourning over the body and it's
organs which restrict the soul and are the source of all evil. Why
must there be an eye, a tongue, an ear, a nostril ?
Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy?
Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire? 1
Thel shrieks and flies away, terror-stricken, leaving us uncertain
of her fate. But her story has at once soothed and saddened us,
making us feel all the pathos of the love and death that await all
mortal beings. It is one of the most beautiful elegies in the whole
range of English poetry.
Visions of the Daughters of Albion is Blake's song of love and long-
ing. Here, more than anywhere else, he gives expression to his anger
against those laws which condemn free love and its joys as a crime.
I have cited some of the most significant passages in the chapter on
Blake's system of morality. Many commentators have shrunk from
this interpretation of the book, regarding such a revolt against the
laws of marriage and the conventions of society as too audacious,
and forgetting Blake's friendship with Godwin and Mary Shelley.
But why should anyone try to suppress this part of his creed, as some
people wished to suppress the incestuous love in the first edition
of The Revolt of Islam, and others the atheistic pantheism of Queen
Mab or the irreligious trifling of Don Juan? Blake's genius, like that
of Byron and Shelley, could never bow itself to pass beneath the
Caudine Forks of law and convention; and Swinburne, the only
one of his interpreters who was also a great poet, saw this clearly,
and dared to say it.
Oothoon, the virgin who "gave up woman's secrecy," has plucked.
the flower of love in Leutha's vales, and Bromion the violent has
possessed her. Thereupon Theotormon, who loved her, and whose
love she returns and ardently desires, abandons her and accuses her
of impurity. She and Bromion," the adulterate pair," are bound back
to back in Bromion's caves, terror and meekness compelled to
dwell together. It is in vain that Oothoon reflects in her soul the pure
image of her loved one, that she proclaims the sanctity of all the joys
of life and the love which purifies all things, that she curses jealousy
1 Thel, p. 6.
"
THE EARLIER PROPHETIC BOOKS
329
and its laws, that she preaches the gospel of love," happy love, free
as the mountain wind," and sings, in words full of enthusiasm, the
enormous joys" of the virgin who gives herself for love. Theotor-
mon wanders for ever around her, bewailing her impurity and re-
fusing to believe in her love, while the "Daughters of Albion," who
are man's amorous desires, can only listen to her lamentations
without helping her.
It is, indeed, possible that Oothoon may symbolize the poet's
inspiration, which can treat of love without being defiled. But all
Blake's mystical writings are capable of two, or even three, different
interpretations, and this meaning may be as correct as the one that
first suggested itself. Because the marriage-law is taken to symbolize
the subjection of the poetic genius to binding rules, it does not follow
that the marriage-law is in any way more justifiable. Poetical rules
and social rules share the same condemnation. And besides, for the
literary critic, the most obvious interpretation suffices. Here again,
the idea is expressed with an extraordinary wealth of imagery: the
poet's anger against all restrictions and his enthusiasm for love
inspire him to speak in vehement terms.
But silken nets and traps of adamant will Oothoon spread,
And catch for thee girls of mild silver, or of furious gold:
I'll lie beside thee on a bank and view their wanton play
In lovely copulation bliss on bliss with Theotormon;
Red as the rosy morning, lustful as the first born beam,
Oothoon shall view his dear delight, nor e'er with jealous cloud
Come in the heaven of generous love; nor selfish blightings bring. 1
In these three books, as we see, the proportion of symbolism is still
small, or can at any rate be reduced to insignificance. The poems
may be read without any necessity for interpretation. The allegory
is itself beautiful enough. It is concerned with our own life and our
own feelings, and can therefore be described as poetry in which the
human element still predominates.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION
This poem, whose existence was known, but which was regarded
as utterly lost, has lately been found among the papers of the Linnell
family, and published for the first time in Mr. J. Sampson's very
valuable edition of Blake's poems (1913). Unfortunately, we have
¹ Visions of the Daughters of Albion, p 7.
330
WILLIAM BLAKE
only the first book of it, instead of the seven which were, in 1791,
announced as complete and to be issued in their order. It was found
merely in the form of proof-sheets, and, according to Mr. Sampson's
conjectures, had never been printed in book form. The bookseller
and publisher Johnson, perhaps afraid of its too liberal tendencies,
put off its publication day by day, and probably, after refusing to
print the rest, destroyed the manuscript. These proof-sheets only
seem to have escaped by a miracle.
The poem, if complete, would rank among the most important of
Blake's works. As it is, this first book is of the greatest interest,
showing us the poet's imagination at work upon real and contempor-
ary events. Having been printed in 1791, it is to be placed chrono-
logically between the Books of Tiriel and Thel (1789) and Visions of
the Daughters of Albion (1793). Blake's genius was then undergoing a
process of rapid evolution. He had already lived in the world of
spirits, but had not yet fully created his special universe, and could
still take some account of earthly things, even though visions of
another plane were mixed with them. The visions did not yet obliter-
ate them, as they were soon to do, in his America.
In The French Revolution we still follow the historical facts, but
magnified, compressed together, brought into spiritual significance,
transferred from the region of history to that of epic poetry. By a
natural bent of his imagination, Blake was able to conceive and trans-
form a report of yesterday's or to-day's events as Homer transformed
the remote story of the siege of Troy ; and this is a very rare pheno-
menon in literature. Such a transformation is only possible, as a rule,
when we are treating of the remote past, and can see the great massive
lines instead of the numberless details of the historical pictures.
Distance shows us the vital significance of events in the life of
nation or even in the life of mankind. Blake, however, had no need
of this. In the Revolution, he saw his ideals of liberty beginning to
triumph; he beheld the struggle between the forces of the Past and
the eternal energies of the Spirit of Man which were creating the
Future. For him, it was pre-eminently a contending of invisible
powers, speaking and acting through visible men, and driving them
to their doom, a conception which we find expressed, much later,
all through Carlyle's French Revolution, or put into a dramatic form
in Hardy's Dynasts, as in ancient times it had been found to some
extent in the Iliad and the Æneid.
The process of epic transformation is nowhere better marked than
THE EARLIER PROPHETIC BOOKS
331
in such a poem, where we can compare the poetic vision with the real
facts. It seems as if the poet saw everything from some remote point
in time, a mountain-summit of years, whence only the strong outlines
and the great masses appear, but whence also the unseen powers
that soar above our common earth and move it become visible as
storm-clouds, sending their lightnings below, and blasting men and
cities. From such a point there will be a great shortening of time, a
compressing of several events, of several men into one, fully repre-
sentative of the whole, and a clear vision of the superhuman beings
who play their part in the contest.
Even this first book with its 306 long lines, is sufficient to show
clearly the characteristic features of this epic vision. It gives us a
description of the King's state of mind, of the strength of the Bastille,
of the fears of the Nobility and Clergy contrasting with the hopes of
the people. Then there is a Council held by the King and his Nobles,
at which the Duke of Burgundy and the Archbishop of Paris, in
passionate and prophetic speeches, urge the King to resistance.
The result is the immediate exile of Necker, the popular minister.
At that same sitting of the council (or apparently so) Aumont an-
nounces the coming of Sièyes, who brings a message from the Nation.
Even before hearing it, Bourbon utters threatening words, while the
Duke of Orleans pleads for peace, moderation and justice to the people.
But Sièyes, like an ancient prophet before some proud king of Israel,
describes the wrongs and oppressions of the poor, asks for their
redress, and, as a preliminary step, requires, in the name of the
National Assembly, the withdrawal of the King's foreign troops from
the neighbourhood of Paris. He obtains only a harsh and sarcastic
refusal, and goes back to the Assembly with that answer. Then, on
Mirabeau's motion, La Fayette is appointed to the command of the
National Army. He, forthwith, from the Louvre itself, orders the
departure of the King's soldiers. All obey instantly; the foreign
troops withdraw more than ten miles from Paris, and the Assembly
can deliberate in peace.
Such were indeed some of the momentous events that took place
in June and especially in July, 1789, but profoundly altered, if we
consider only the historian's point of view. Part of the alteration may
indeed be due to the reports, probably inaccurate, that reached.
Blake's ears, but a still greater part was due solely to his own imagi-
nation. He describes all this as done in one day, whereas it took several
weeks. It was on the 17th of June that the Third Estate called itself
332
WILLIAM BLAKE
the National Assembly, on the 20th that it swore to give a Constitution
to France, on the 23rd that it resisted the King's order, sending him
Mirabeau's famous answer: "We shall go away only under the force
of bayonets." On the 27th the other orders joined the Third Estate
and the Assembly was complete. Meanwhile the King had been mostly
at Marly, beset by his own family, and by influential members of the
Nobility and Clergy, especially the Comte d'Artois (later Charles X)
and, it is said, the Archbishop of Paris, all beseeching him to save the
State and Religion. He was won over to their side, and had Paris and
Versailles filled with foreign regiments, as if to coerce both the
people and the Assembly (June 30th). The latter required from the
King the withdrawal of his troops (July 8th) and received a somewhat
sarcastic and threatening answer (July 10th). It was then that the
Revolution really began. The people of Paris organised their militia
against the King's troops: infuriated by Necker's dismissal (July
11th) and by a new refusal of the King to disband his regiments
(July 13th) they came to open rebellion; and the next day the detested
Bastille fell, and with it Louis XVI's authority. On the 15th only,
the King announced the withdrawal of his troops and promised to
recall Necker. As for La Fayette, he was then-and not till then---
given the command of the National Guard of Paris; and on the 17th
he received the King at the Hôtel de Ville, and forced him to ac-
knowledge the Revolution, and to accept the tricolour cockade, then
distributed for the first time.
This mere summary of events is sufficient to show Blake's in-
accuracies; the council, the set speeches, the choice of La Fayette
by the Assembly, his orders to the foreign troops and their sudden
obedience, without even an allusion to the fall of the Bastille. But
this strikes us only when we study the events day by day. When we
look back upon them now, after the lapse of more than a century,
do they not pass in such rapid succession as to seem merely the work
of a moment? The King was oscillating; the Nobility and Clergy
tried to resist; but the Nation spoke, and all was accomplished, as
if at the waving of an enchanter's wand. Thus all these events ap-
peared to Blake's eyes transported into a plane of the mind where
time is an illusion, and where everything happens in an eternal
present.
In the same way, the poet's imagination simplified and altered the
actors in this great drama. They became at once epic characters,
losing the complexity of their minds, and standing simply as the
THE EARLIER PROPHETIC BOOKS
333
:
representatives of a thought or of a class of men. Hence the material
truth had to suffer somewhat. Thus, it was not the Duke of Burgundy
(a title unused since 1761) but the Comte d'Artois whose influence
on the King was so great, neither was it Sièyes alone who carried
the message of the Assembly. But these slight inaccuracies matter
little to the epic poet. All these men are symbols: the Duke of
Burgundy is the Nobility hostile to the People, Sièyes, the People
itself; the Archbishop of Paris represents the privileged Clergy;
the Duke of Orleans, the liberal party among the Nobles; La Fayette
the Nation in arms. Thus considered, they are even historically true
in their chief features, and it is mere justice to recognise that Blake
has given them the characters which they had in the popular imagi-
nation and which they have kept in history. He saw them magnified,
as through a misty halo of centuries, but he did not otherwise alter
their features.
In his poem, they speak as the spirit of their class would have spoken,
at least according to Blake's conception of it. They all express their
thoughts in the language of a prophet or a seer; they behold the
invisible world, and give a voice to the dumb powerful forces which
swayed to and fro the unconscious masses of men, and which really
made the Revolution. But those forces were actually a part of Blake's
mind; we recognise him as they speak: the childlike spirit unable
to see how complex and difficult are all social and political problems,
the tender and simple soul, full of universal sympathy for all those
who toil and suffer, the hater of tyrants, the enthusiastic admirer
of liberty. In all their speeches there is an epic grandeur which we
shall find later on in the utterances of Los and Urizen.
Like Los or Urzien, they are rather spirits than men. They blaze
and burn, not only in their own souls, but actually in Blake's vision;
their stature seems to rise to gigantic heights and tower above the
whole nation; phantoms of the living and the dead fly in clouds
around them as the thought of them passes through their minds.
Thus the stage of the drama is widened; the walls of Time crumble
away; the Revolution is not merely a transient though fearful social
earthquake; it is the rising up of hundreds of generations from the
Past, the revolt of the Eternal Spirit of man, chained for thousands
of years, his triumphal song of liberty, re-echoed by the numberless
generations to come. In all the speeches, in all the descriptions, we
breathe an atmosphere of Eternity, we live and move in the midst
of stately forms, which are not all of the earth; the men we see and
334
WILLIAM BLAKE
hear have already the symbolical and majestic features of the demi-
gods and heroes of old.
One might quote instances of this almost at random: the very
first line is characteristic of the whole.
The dead brood over Europe: the cloud and vision descends over cheerful
France. 1
The description of the Bastille is much more symbolical than
material: a prison of the soul, with its seven towers, Horror, Darkness
Blood, Religion, Order, Destiny and God, through which pass, as
forerunners of death, many mysterious groanings and howlings of
despair, with a fearful light, which is the dawn of Liberty.
the spirits of ancient Kings
Shivering over their bleached bones. 2
The King sees
The Duke of Burgundy rises
red as wines
From his mountains; an odour of war, like a ripe vineyard, rose from his
garments,
And the chamber became as a clouded sky; o'er the Council he stretch'd
his red limbs
Cloth'd in flames of crimson; as a ripe vineyard stretches over sheaves of
corn,
The fierce Duke hung over the Council; around him crowd, weeping in
his burning robe,
A bright cloud of infant souls: his words fall like purple autumn on the
sheaves. 3
The Archbishop of Paris-the Church-is like a dragon and rises
In the rushing of scales, and hissing of flames, and rolling of sulphurous
smoke. 4
He has seen the spectre of Religion
An agèd form, white as snow, hov'ring in mist, weeping in the uncertain
light,
5
and the dismal vision has prophesied the ruin of priests and
kings.
When Sièyes comes towards the Louvre, the ghost of Henry IV
walks before him in flames, and frightens horses and soldiers. The
2 French Revolution, 72. • French Revolution, 83.
1 French Revolution, 1.
• French Revolution, 127.
5 French Revolution, 131.
THE EARLIER PROPHETIC BOOKS
335
Duke of Orleans speaks like Blake himself, and rarely have feelings
of sympathy from man to man been uttered in more eloquent words.
And can Nobles be bound when the people are free, or God weep when
his children are happy?
But go, merciless man, enter into the infinite labyrinth of another's brain
Ere thou measure the circle that he shall run. Go, thou cold recluse, into
the fires
Of another's high flaming rich bosom, and return unconsum'd and write
laws. 1
In the words of Sièyes, we hear the bard " Who present, past and
future sees.” Like Blake, he sees the beginning of tyranny and slavery
in the materialisation of the Spirit World:
When the heavens were seal'd with a stone, and the terrible sun clos'd in
an orb, and the moon
Rent from the nations, and each star appointed for watchers of night,
The millions of spirits immortal were bound in the ruins of sulphur heaven
To wander enslav'd; black, depress'd in dark ignorance, kept in awe with
the whip
To worship terrors, bred from the blood of revenge and breath of desire
In bestial forms, or more terrible men; till the dawn of our peaceful
morning,
Till dawn, till morning, till the breaking of clouds, and swelling of winds
and the universal voice. 2
Blake, alone, was thus able to connect in his thoughts the French
Revolution with the fate of the whole universe, and the liberation of
France with the deliverance of every creature, just as the apostle Paul
had once seen the whole creation groaning to be delivered, and
expecting eagerly through its darkness the triumph of the Saviour
and the resurrection of Man. 3 So also, Victor Hugo was later on
to see, in the victory of Liberty in his own day, the destruction of all
evil on the earth, and, in the invisible world, the end of Satan. 4
When Sièyes has finished speaking, the princes murmur like -
"the mountains of France" or "like a voice in the vineyards of
Burgundy "—an image of which Blake seems particularly fond ;
no doubt because for him it symbolises France and its products,
and suggests at the same time the blood flowing as from the winepress
of the wrath of God and the intoxication of newly found liberty.
1 French Revolution, 186. 2 French Revolution, 211.
$ Romans, VIII, 22.
* La Fin de Satan (especially Book III, unfinished, and Chap. IV., Šatan
pardonné.)
336
WILLIAM BLAKE
>>
The King's answer, uttered by the Duke of Burgundy-like
thunder from a cloud-is fraught with menace. He will dismiss his
army only when Sièyes has commanded the Bastille to depart and
"take its shadowy course across the river, and when the fortress
has obeyed. Such were not indeed the words of the King, though
they were no less sarcastic: he threatened the Assembly to have them
removed far from Paris, to Soissons or Noyons. In Blake's poem the
answer has a deeper significance. It was only a few days later that
the Bastille actually disappeared, demolished by the people, at the
very moment when Louis XVI was ordering the removal of his troops.
Blake seems to have overlooked that great event of the 14th of July
since he does not even mention it, though he shows how the word of
La Fayette sufficed to disperse the King's army. The storming of the
Bastille must have been reserved for another book-which no doubt
justifies the prominence given to the description of the fortress at
the beginning of the poem and the alteration just noticed in the
King's answer. But on that point there can be only idle conjectures.
We must be content with the description of the army retiring with
noise of trampling and wind of trumpets," and the vision of the
king, whose spirit is sick with fear.
""
Here again, the symbols and metaphors become living things:
the peers are
pale like mountains of the dead,
Cover'd with dews of night, groaning, shaking forests and floods. The
cold newt
And snake, and damp toad on the kingly foot crawl, or croak on the awful
knee,
Shedding their slime. ¹
And the whole universe, visible or invisible, plays its part:
shaken the forests of France, sick the kings of the nations,
And the bottoms of the world were open'd and the graves of the archangels
unseal'd:
The enormous dead lift up their pale fires and look over the rocky cliffs. 2
The last lines bring us back to the world of history, with the Assembly
full of hope, preparing the New Age.
and the Senate in peace sat beneath morning's beam. 3
What lurid flashes of lightning were to come and mix with this
1 French Revolution, 296.
"French Revolution, 306.
2 French Revolution, 299.
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337
morning beam, what convulsions of the mountains of France had to
make the world tremble before the end was accomplished, Blake had
perhaps told us in the following books, whose loss we can but deplore
still more bitterly, after we have listened to the noble and thunderous
voice of the first. The Song of Liberty (engraved about 1792) was, no
doubt, a kind of epilogue to the whole poem, a vision of all tyrannies
and false religions destroyed, of kings and their armies falling in
ruins on the dens of Urthona (here mentioned for the first time),
while Liberty proclaims the end of all cruel Laws and the holiness
of everything that lives.
1
In this work, as a whole, Blake had reached one of the highest
summits of human poetry. He had accomplished what Victor Hugo
was to plan later on in his mind without having time to finish it:
the legend of the Revolution, represented in his works only by a few
chaotic and powerful fragments, ¹ mixing, as Blake does, visible and
invisible things, and by the titles of unwritten poems. 2 Like Victor
Hugo, Blake could, at that moment, see in the development of
mankind its "historical and legendary aspects. "3 It was the latter
that the imagination of both poets grasped most firmly, the "con-
centrated historical reality "4 which constitutes the epos of Man.
Nowhere perhaps has Blake been nearer to Victor Hugo, with
whom he had so many characteristics in common, than in this French
Revolution, where, though seeing and showing through the great
events of history the action of the Eternals, he still evokes in our
minds a clear vision of actual facts and events, and where the symbols
do not yet obliterate the images of reality but lend them an un-
paralleled splendour. The vehemence of the feelings it arouses, the
height of its epic imagination, make it read like some new chapter of
the Légende des Siècles.
THE BOOK OF URIZEN. THE BOOK OF LOS. THE BOOK OF AHANIA. 5
A great difference is noticeable in the three next books, Urizen,
Los and Ahania, which are all written in a very short metre, and
which also form a kind of trilogy. Here we are for the first time
introduced into the world of the Zoas, or rather, we are suddenly
1 Victor Hugo: La Fin de Satan: La Prison; Les Squelettes dans la Bastille.
2 Victor Hugo: La Fin de Satan: Camille et Lucile; La Prise de la Bastille.
3 Victor Hugo: Légende des Siècles, Préface.
* Victor Hugo: Légende des Siècles, Préface.
The arrangement of the books which follow is not strictly chronological, being
ased rather on similarity of style and subject matter.
Y
338
WILLIAM BLAKE
set down in it without introduction; and the books are of much less
interest to the literary critic than to the student of mysticism.
The longest and most important is the Book of Urizen, or, according
to Blake's engraved title-page, the First Book of Urizen, though no
second is known to have been written. It describes the separation of
Urizen from the Eternals, his creation by Los, that is, his "fall into
Time," and the resulting birth of Enitharmon, who is at once Space
and the first woman. Then follows the marriage of Los and Enithar-
mon, whose offspring, Orc, is bound down by his father upon the
Mountain of Jealousy. Finally, we read of Urizen's travels through
his kingdom, the world of Time, and also of the birth of his first
children. The Book of Los, which is very short, shows us the same
series of events from Los's point of view: his separation from Eter-
nity, and his building of the world of Space, up to the point at which
the backbone of Urizen appears upon the waters. The Book of Ahania
is also very short, and tells how Ahania, the Emanation of Urizen,
separates from him; how Urizen's son, Fuzon, rebels against him,
and is struck down by his father with the Tables of the Law. Then,
as Urizen goes further away from the Eternals, we see him writing
with both hands in the book of Experience, while around him the
Tree of Mystery, upon which Fuzon is to be crucified, grows and
spreads its branches. The book ends with the lament of Ahania,
weeping upon the void," and bewailing the time when she and
Urizen were one in Eternity, and enjoyed all the delights of infinite
love.
I have quoted so freely from these books in my account of Blake's
cosmogony, that I need not here give any further extracts, or comment
upon them at any length. The stories they unfold are bizarre,
mysterious, chaotic. Poetry is here almost entirely shrouded in the
mists of symbolism, which hinder us from admiring as they deserve
to be admired such prodigious pieces of description as that of Urizen's
changes" through whole geological ages of sufferings and con-
vulsions, or eloquent and pathetic passages like the lament of Ahania,
full of despairing sadness.
We have now entered upon the period when even the shortest of
Blake's poems can only be enjoyed in fragments. He could still, in
spite of the limitations of his genius, produce short poems of extra-
ordinary beauty but he desired to unite and extend these so as to
form long books having a sustained interest, and he failed. There is
no doubt some logical sequence in the spiritual meanings hidden
THE EARLIER PROPHETIC BOOKS
339
under this chaos of symbols; but the symbolic narrative lacks all
order, and the meaning remains undiscoverable. Unless we are
prepared to plunge into the obscure depths of Blake's metaphysics,
we ought to read these books only in detached passages, as one might
read a single chapter of the Bible, or some isolated page of one of the
vast epics of antiquity. Reading thus, we are less apt to be repelled
by the want of continuity and the obscurity of the sense, and can
still find much to admire in the beauty of the lines and the grandeur
of the images.
THE SONG OF LOS. AMERICA. EUROPE
These three books are even more obscure in their general sense,
though they contain many brilliant and illuminating passages. We
are surrounded by a crowd of mythical personages, sons and daughters
of the Zoas, who move in a world of their own and, at the same time,
in our world, so that we cannot see when they pass from one to the
other. They play a part in the history of mankind: indeed, it is they
who make it, while man himself remains quite insignificant, an empty
and ephemeral symbol of these mighty powers. But history, as Blake
sees it, is a new history, transformed, unrecognisable, set upon a
spiritual plane where everything is altered, where we no longer know
what is real and what is not, where tendencies become men and men
are nonentities, where countries and worlds are all confused together,
where nothing seems to happen but the impossible and the
absurd.
Still we can dimly see, as through a mist that at once magnifies
and almost effaces them, the great events of history, or rather, those
of the history of the human soul: its gradual enslavement by the
laws of religion, its revolts, and its aspirations towards liberty. And
we feel that, in all these great movements, men and nations are of no
account. All history is a vast conflict between spiritual beings who
take the human soul as their battlefield; sometimes, indeed, becoming
incarnate in men, but moving always over lands and seas that are
different from our own.
The Song of Los, America, and Europe are all concerned with
history, as it appears to the Prophet of Eternity; and the Song of
Los is itself made up of two very short sections-Africa and Asia-
which describe the fall of the primeval man and what Blake calls his
" contraction " or shrinkage when fallen from his eternal state :
340
WILLIAM BLAKE
that is to say, the introduction into his spirit of religion in its various
forms, philosophical, sensual, or theocratic.
America tells us the story of his revolt. In America, which is the
West, the "region of vegetative feelings," the passions and desires
of our bodies have remained active, and, as a consequence, the longing
for the infinite and the need of liberty have persisted also. It is
therefore this part of the human spirit that rises in rebellion against
the tyrannical powers of the world. Humanity awakes: the voice of
Freedom resounds through space among the constellations and the
clouds of Jehovah-Urizen. The standard of revolt is unfurled: angels
fulminate against the false religions and false governments of the
world the Earth, which has so long worshipped a vain shadow,
opens her eyes and sees the truth; and the flames of a new birth
spring up round the universe. All this is symbolised by the war of
American Independence: but the poet only makes use of one or
two of its incidents, and embodies his principles in a few only of its
chief personages, who appear for a moment before us, and then
vanish. He sees only the vast conflicts that are waged in the eternal
soul of humanity, and that end in the destruction of the five gates
of the senses by the fires of passion. And while the text of the book
is concerned with America and the war, the illustrations depict the
history of the human soul, and we see symbolic figures of Orc wrapped
in flames, of the Scarlet Woman preaching falsehoods, of the Earth
bowing down before vacancy, of Urizen in his heaven, of the new-
born man sheltered beneath the waving stalks of the cornfield of
life, of old age seeking rest in the grave, and of the regenerated sou
rising out of corruption.
The reader, puzzled by the inconsequence and unreality of the
narrative, cannot help being impressed by the wild enthusiasm o
this song of resurrection, and the sensation that it gives of a new life
heralding, as it were, the dawn of a whole world's freedom.
The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations
The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up:
The bones of death, the covʼring clay, the sinews shrunk and dry'd,
Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing! awakening!
Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds and bars are burst :
Let the slave grinding at the mill, run out into the field:
Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air :
Let the enchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years,
THE EARLIER PROPHETIC BOOKS
341
Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open.
And let his wife and children return from the oppressor's scourge:
They look behind at every step and believe it is a dream,
Singing," The Sun has left his blackness, and has found a fresher morning,
And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night;
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion and Wolf shall cease.
Resurrection, freedom, Spring-the symbols are all mixed, but
they all speak to us of regeneration and of the triumph of life over
death.
In this book, too, we find some of Blake's bitterest attacks upon
the religion of the churches, and some of his cries of exultation over
the destruction of the Decalogue by the immense force of man's
desires. The hatred felt by entire nations towards priesthood and
monarchy is expressed in these fiery lines.
Who commanded this? what God? what Angel?
To keep the generous from experience till the ungenerous
Are unrestrain❜d performers of the energies of nature;
Till pity is become a trade, and generosity a science,
That men get rich by, and the sandy desart is giv'n to the strong.
What God is he, writes laws of peace, and clothes him in a tempest ?
What pitying Angel lusts for tears, and fans himself with sighs ?
What crawling villain preaches abstinence and wraps himself
In fat of lambs? No more I follow, no more obedience pay ! 2
Thus America is at once a scourge of satire and a trumpet of
revolution, with all the biting force of the one and all the strident
music of the other.
In Europe, the vision is darker still. The book is apparently intended
to describe the growth of Christianity and civilisation in Europe
during eighteen centuries. All this time, as Blake tells us in his own
misty way, men had a religion preached to them which destroyed
the ancient love of beauty and of nature. These were the eighteen
hundred years of Enitharmon's sleep. But nature revenges herself.
Little by little, science and philosophy grow and spread, until at last
there arises a "natural religion" which kills the false Christianity
of the priests. The children of Enitharmon strive against the children
of Los-the powers of nature against those of prophecy. The former
build a temple at Verulam: the Baconian philosophy of the senses
and of reason. There all the world comes to worship, until thought
› America, p. 6.
2 America, p 11.
342
WILLIAM BLAKE
has "chang'd the infinite to a serpent," and science has narrowed
all our conceptions of Eternity. The end of false Christianity is at
hand. The world awaits the "trump of the Last Doom." Albion's
angel has not strength to sound it: but Newton arises, and, seizing
the trumpet, blows the enormous blast." It is the blast of science
destroying all that is left of religion. The legions of angels fall like
autumn leaves, going to their graves. But now Enitharmon awakes:
the love of Nature resumes its sway. She and her children are enve-
loped in the fires of Orc: that is to say, the passions of men, stronger
than all laws, conquer the whole world. Here, as in America, this is
the signal for the coming of freedom, which shows its light " in the
vineyards of red France." The French Revolution has begun, and
Los calls" all his sons to the strife of blood."
The whole book is obscure in the extreme, and written in sym-
bolical language, to which the poet gives us no key. It marks a com-
plete change of style in Blake's work. We are now among personages
of his own creating : Rintrah, the "furious king"; Leutha, the
"silent love"; Antamon, "Prince of the Pearly Dew," Sotha and
Thiralatha, secret dwellers of dreamful caves." The clouds are
Albion's council chamber: he himself is confined to the world of
the five senses. The characters of the Book of Urizen appear un-
expectedly and then vanish. Regarded as literature, the book makes
very little impression upon us except that of irritation at its strange-
ness and obscurity, and amazement at the power of vision which
could create and handle with ease a whole universe of its own.
But now the poet has surrendered himself entirely to his mysticism.
The prophet will write no longer for men. This book exhibits in the
few pages that compose it all the characteristics that are to dominate
Blake's work from this time forward. A patient reading of it will
constitute the best preparation for the study of the three great Pro-
phetic Books, which we have now to examine in detail.
XXI: CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY-(4) THE GREAT
T
PROPHETIC BOOKS :
VALA, JERUSALEM, MILTON.
HESE three books form a separate section of Blake's work.
They are by far the longest of all his poems. Vala contains
more than four thousand lines; Jerusalem an even greater
number, and Milton about twelve hundred. The metre is a
very long one, each line consisting of fifteen or sixteen syllables.
Blake himself regarded these books as the most important of all
his writings, and believed that by them he would become famous,
at any rate in the world of his visions. They are vast epic histories,
all written in symbolical language, and concerned with the adventures
of mythical personages. Their action passes in no special place or
period. The events described in them take place in eternity, outside
of time. All three books have as their subject the fall and regeneration
of the Universal Man; but each treats it from a different point of
view.
Vala deals chiefly with the struggles of the four Zoas for mastery
over the soul of man, who lies asleep upon the Rock of Ages. In
Jerusalem we read of the labours of Los among the sons and daughters
of Albion, and the persecutions endured by Jerusalem, Albion's
Emanation. Milton recounts an episode of the same story, seen from
far off, in the world of the Eternals, where we find Los employing
Milton, and also Blake himself, for his own purposes. Blake wrote
these three poems "without premeditation," a few lines at a time,
just as the inspiration came to him. The separate pages were never
worked up into a harmonious whole, and rarely subjected to any sort
of revision, since it mattered very little to Blake whether or not any
logical connection existed between one vision and another.
For this reason it is extremely difficult to give any connected
summary of these books, as difficult as it would be to rearrange the
disordered occurrences of some feverish dream. There is no clear
sequence of events, each episode standing alone and unconnected
by any relation of cause and effect with those that precede and follow
it. An analysis of these pages would resemble the contents-tables of
two or three different narratives shuffled together like a pack of cards,
344
WILLIAM BLAKE
with repetitions in one place and gaps that cannot possibly be filled
in another.
The illustrations do not greatly assist us in deciphering the text.
Those of Vala are at the foot of each page of the manuscript. Messrs.
Ellis and Yeats have included a few facsimiles of them in the third
volume of their William Blake. In Jerusalem, the pictures surround
and mingle with the lettering. In Milton, they are fewer in number,
and more roughly executed. And, particularly in the two first-named
books, they seem to have little or no connection with the text, which
they do not illustrate, in the ordinary sense, at all: still less do they
explain it. At best, they only supply a sort of commentary, and express
certain ideas of Blake's that are sometimes suggested by a page or a
line of the text, but which more often appear to be entirely unrelated
to it.
One might possibly make a connected story out of each of these
books by dismembering them and suppressing all that did not fit
in with the course of the narrative, by filling up certain gaps and
making clear many obscure passages. But Blake would have been
the first to condemn such treatment of his work; and, in any case,
it could not produce the masterpiece that he dreamed of. All that one
can do, therefore, is to indicate the broad lines of each book, without
attempting any accurate description, and to point out some of the
most remarkable passages.
VALA
""
This title is less appropriate than either of the other two-The
Four Zoas and The Torments of Love and Jealousy-which appear
on the first page of the manuscript. The nine cantos or "Nights
of the book were intended to contain the history of the " Four Mighty
Ones" who "are in every Man," and especially that of Urthona-
his " fall into Division and his resurrection into Unity," which must
bring about also man's return to his primal state of unity with God
and the universe. As a matter of fact, the subject of the book is much
more involved than this; and we have to follow its development
through three distinct series of events.
The first and most important of these, at any rate in the early part
of the poem, is the division of each Zoa into Spectre and Emanation ;
the pursuit of the one by the other, the Emanation always rejecting
and eluding the Spectre, and their final reconciliation and reunion
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
345
after many wanderings and vicissitudes. The " torments of love and
jealousy" are the consequence of their separation and their quarrels.
But this division of each Zoa is accompanied or followed by a
further element of disorder-the changing of their places within man
and in the universe: and this forms the second part of the book's
subject. Urizen is the first to fall, leaving his seat in the North, after
he has cast Ahania down. His fall leads to vast disturbances among the
other Zoas, to struggles in which they all take part, to endless travels
through the realms over which they preside. But at the end, each finds
his own place again, and, at the same time, his Spectre and his
Emanation are reunited.
The third part of the subject is the effect that all these occurrences
have upon Albion, who falls from Eternity, and comes under the rule
of the Zoas. He is watched over by Luvah, the Lamb of God, taught
by Los, and guarded while he sleeps upon the Rock of Ages, during
all these spiritual wars. And, after the Last Judgment, he too shares
in the great final reconciliation, becomes regenerate, and is admitted
once more to the feast of the Eternals.
scorn and
This threefold history has to be pieced together from an immense
number of separate episodes. First, we see Tharmas wandering
through the abysses of space in search of his Emanation, Enion: we
hear her lamentations as she hovers, weeping, upon the verge of non-
entity we see Urizen proclaiming himself as the only God, and Man
stretched in the sleep of death upon the Rock of Ages. (Night I.)
Next comes an account of the labours of Urizen: his building of the
Mundane Shell, in which Los and Enitharmon pursue each other
with "alternate love and hate " on his side, and on hers
jealousy," and Ahania floats upon the winds, endlessly lamenting her
desertion by Urizen. (Night II.) Then we are shown the fall of
Urizen from world to world, amid the groanings of a chaotic Universe,
and the advent of Tharmas, who rises upon its ruins. (Night III.)
Once more, Blake recounts the "fixing of Urizen's changes" by
Los, who himself puts on the shape of enslaved Humanity; and we
learn how our "body of death" was created, so that man might be
saved from shrinking into nothingness. (Night IV.) Once more we
read of the birth of Orc, the incarnation of Luvah; and we have the
story of his growth to manhood, his binding upon the Mountain of
Jealousy, and his struggles, which shake even the subterranean realms
of Urizen, and bring about the latter's determination to visit his
kingdom. (Night V.) We accompany Urizen in his voyage through
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WILLIAM BLAKE
<<
the wild and gloomy splendours of his universe, and are deafened by
the clash of his armed legions, which hurl themselves against those
of Tharmas and Urthona, and make ready for the great conflict with
the powers of Luvah-Orc. (Night VI.) We follow the vicissitudes of
all the Zoas during the wars of Urizen and Orc-law striving against
passion-and lose ourselves in a hopeless tangle of adventures. We
see the flight of Tharmas; the growth of the Tree of Mystery around
Urizen; the birth of the serpent which issues forth from the limbs
of Orc, and throws its coils about the tree; the first defeat of Luvah
(now distinct from Orc) and his crucifixion for six thousand years;
the dividing of Urizen after his victory; his new birth as the son of
Enitharmon and so subject to Los; the division of Urthona into his
Spectre and Los, and the reunion of the two through Enitharmon's
mediation; the exile of Vala, the Emanation of Luvah; the building
of Golgonooza by Los and Enitharmon, and the birth of their numer-
ous children (Night VII). In the next " Night," the Lamb of God
descends from Heaven, and at the same time, the creation of in-
dividual men takes place, each man receiving a vegetative body.”
Satan also appears as well as Rahab and Tirzah. Rahab triumphs
over the Lamb, who is condemned and crucified by the Sanhedrim
of Satan, is buried by Los, and wept over by Jerusalem, the Emana-
tion of Albion. We see also the death of Urizen (the result of his
conjunction with Rahab), and his transformation into a senseless
stone and a terrifying Spectre. (Night VIII.) The confusion now
increases but the end is at hand. The ninth "Night" describes
the Last Judgment. Christ sets free the spirits of Los and Enitharmon
from their bodies; and they then destroy the world of matter.
Urizen repents of his pride, and resumes his former station; his
Spectre comes back to life, and finally reunites with Ahania for the
sowing of the human harvest. Orc, consumed in his own flames, is
born again as Luvah. Luvah and Vala, the twofold sinless soul,
return once more to the bliss of the Eternal Gardens, where are also
Tharmas and Enion, now at last reunited and transformed to two
little children. All is ready for the gathering of the harvest and the
pressing of the great vintage of regenerated humanity, and for the
final rising of Albion from his couch of death-the universe awaking
with him—and his return to his own place at the banquet of his
brothers the Eternals.
It is a long and rambling story, indeed, even when thus stripped of
the many subsidiary details that encumber it and it is far from
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
347
satisfying the classical ideal of epic poetry. We must not compare it
with the Iliad or the Divine Comedy, but rather read it as we should
read some northern Saga, or one of the interminable epics of
ancient India. The student must not attempt, at the outset, to under-
stand the myths and allegories contained in it. He must regard Urizen,
Los, Enitharmon, Tharmas, and all the rest as demigods, of protean
shapes and subject to no logical rules; as gigantic heroes of a pre-
historic age; as beings like Odin, Balder or Siegfried. He must bear
in mind that our laws of time, space and causality have nothing to do
with the Eternals, and must take no notice of any seeming absurdity
or inconsequence. The unreal and the impossible must not surprise
or hinder him. He can wander, for a time, with Blake in the strange
world of the poet's imagination, but must never ask whither he is
being led enough if he boldly follows his guide, and looks about
him as he goes. He will pass through secret chambers and winding
passages all hung with splendid tapestries, whose pictured figures he
will come, little by little, to recognise. He will find nothing here that
is mean or ridiculous. At times he may be blinded by the flames of
some burning universe, deafened by the thunderous voices of the
Titans, lost among the mists that envelop this world of the Infinite.
But he will feel always that he is in the presence of something nobler
and higher than our ordinary life; that he is being guided, by some
power superior to his own, through the loftiest regions of poetry and
of imagination, with no fear of ever falling into the commonplace or
the insignificant. The very mists that surround him are not fever-
laden marsh fogs, but, as Swinburne says, the vapours of some great
cloud charged with thunder.
From one end to the other of these four thousand lines, Blake
shows us all the strength of his genius: its wealth of imagery, its
vehemence, its enthusiasm, its pathos, its music now softened into a
love-song and now bursting forth in hymns of ecstasy. A whole an-
thology might easily be made from this one book. If, as a whole, it is
defective, its separate passages are, without exception, rich in beauties.
I have quoted a good many of these passages in my account of Blake's
doctrines, as well as in the chapter dealing with his system of morality.
But many others might be mentioned. We wander, as through the
world of Tharmas, "In secret of soft wings, in mazes of delusive
beauty."¹ I can only indicate a few: the description of Enion brood-
ing over the rocks, while all life" vegetates," swarming, around and
1 Vala, Night I, 37.
348
WILLIAM BLAKE
beneath her (Night I. 169); the song of nature at the nuptial feast
of Los and Enitharmon (Night I. 356); the lamentation of Enion,
full of sympathy for all the suffering of the world (Night I, 373);
the love song of Enitharmon calling to Los and "reviving him to
life" (Night II, 335); the picture of Urizen's fall through the sunder-
ing universe (Night III, 136); the Cyclopean description of Los
rebuilding the world (Night IV, 164); the lament of Urizen, half-
proud, half-sorrowful, the song of a vanquished God (Night V, 190);
the strange vision of that nightmare land through which Urizen
passes in his despair (Night VI, 89); his cries of anguish which are
like those uttered by Satan (Night VI, 186); his invectives against
society, so bitter in their forceful simplicity (Night VII, 115); the
complaint of Los, robbed of Enitharmon's love, while all around him.
is joy (Night VII, 182); the invocation to Vala, the new Magdalen,
sung by the spirits on the eve of battle (Night VII, 672); the fervent
cry of the Daughters of Beulah to the Lamb of God, with its prayer
that might almost have been taken from some chapter of the Reve-
lation (Night VIII, 236); the terrific picture of Urizen's Spectre
(Night VIII, 409); and the whole of Night IX with its majestic
vision of the Last Judgment, from the first shaking of the earth to
the final apotheosis of man and the world in a dazzling radiance of
eternal light.
And amid all this music, many isolated phrases haunt the memory,
caressing the ear like some sweet melody, or delighting the imagination
by their fanciful charm.
. . the march of the long-resounding, long-heroic verse
Marshalled in order for the day of Intellectual battle. ¹
Let her lay secret in the soft recesses of darkness and silence. 2
And wishing that the earth could ope her eyelids and behold
Such wondrous beauty opening in the midst of all his glory. 3
thy soul,
That dark and dismal infinite where thought rolls up and down. 4
Beauty all blushing with desire, mocking her fell despair.
Beulah, a soft moony universe, feminine, lovely,
Pure, mild and gentle, given in Mercy to all those who sleep.
1 Vala, Night I, 2.
• Vala, Night I, 90.
2 Vala, Night I, 26.
Vala, Night I, 156.
6
3 Vala, Night I, 67.
5
• Vala, Night I, 198.
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
349
But Enitharmon answered with a dropping tear and frowning
Dark as a dewy morning when the crimson light appears.
1
But the bright sun was not as yet. He, filling all the expanse,
Slept as a bird in the blue shell that soon shall burst away.
2
But these quotations should be sufficient; and we have not yet
exhausted the first half of "Night " I.
Such is this first of the three great Prophetic Books: a series of
beauties, spoilt by its very length and by its extraordinary faults of
composition, which make of it only a collection of scattered fragments.
But the fragments themselves are exquisite. They belong to the best
period in the mystical evolution of Blake's poetry, when he was no
longer, indeed, as in the Songs of Innocence, the true poet just
beginning to be affected by mysticism, but while he was still the
mystic vivified by his poetic gifts. His creations are, no doubt, already
too remote for us to understand them completely. Our mind cannot
properly appreciate them on account of the complex and often in-
soluble problems which we must feel to be involved in them. But their
poetry is still sufficiently human in character to be enjoyed for its
beauty; and, though we are walking all the time upon the uncertain
line which separates the sublime from the absurd, we can still gain
many glimpses of the one without ever falling into the other.
JERUSALEM
Of the Sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through
Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.
This theme calls me in sleep night after night, and ev'ry morn
Awakes me at sun-rise; then I see the Saviour over me
Spreading his beams of love, and dictating the words of this mild song.
3
Such is the subject of Jerusalem, as set forth in the opening lines
of the poem: the sleep of Ulro, that is to say, the error and the
illusion of the world of matter; man's fall, and his regeneration.
Blake never tires of these immense problems; and we have already
seen how he treats them in the earlier Prophetic Books, and in Vala.
Here, the point of view is a different one. We are no longer concerned
with the Zoas and their conflicts; or, at any rate, these no longer
occupy the foreground of the picture, which now becomes the scene
of man's dreams during that sleep which is our mortal life. The
1 Vala, Night I, 229.
2 Vala, Night I, 321.
& Jerusalem, p. 4, I
8
350
WILLIAM BLAKE
principal figure in the book is Albion, the Universal Man, Jerusalem
being only the aggregate of his Emanations, of his affections and
feelings. The poem describes how, after his fall, she wanders far
away from him, to find him once more and be reunited with him.
when he awakes to Life Eternal. But, like Vala in the preceding poem,
she does not fill the greater part of the book, which gives most
prominence to the forces that seek to banish or destroy her and
those that protect her. Among the former are Albion and his family :
among the latter, Los and his sons.
The hidden meaning is here very obscure; more so than in any
of the other books. As is the case with all Blake's symbolical writings,
the text can bear various interpretations, and adapt itself, more or
less exactly, to all of them. The artist may see in Jerusalem a per-
sonification of the imaginative faculty striving against the rules and
conventions that would fetter poetry and painting: the politician
may regard her as the goddess of Liberty enslaved by tyrant govern-
ments; and the moralist as the free growth of human desires and
instincts, checked by moral and religious laws. All these interpreta-
tions and others as well-can be justified by the words appended
to one of the principal illustrations: "Jerusalem is named Liberty
among the Sons of Albion." ¹ And if we bear in mind that the Spectre
is the reasoning power which makes laws, we shall see that neither
of these renderings is in conflict with the motto, quoted in an earlier
chapter, which appears, in reversed lettering, beside another of the
most important designs in the book, representing Albion after his fall.
Each Man is in his Spectre's power
Untill the arrival of that hour,
When his Humanity awake
And cast his Spectre into the Lake. 2
The most obvious meaning appears to be the last of the three :
Jerusalem is moral liberty, the power to expand and satisfy our
energies. The design that accompanies the title, on page 4 of the book,
shows a draped female figure-Rahab or Tirzah-stretching out her
arms to grasp Man, who tries to elude her, and is freed by Jerusalem,
a nude figure floating in the air. Thus the poet symbolises the state
of humanity enslaved by those false religions which are clothed with
chastity, and seeking to escape from them to unveiled liberty.
True religion, which, as we have seen, meant for Blake universal
¹ Jerusalem, p. 26.
1
2 Jerusalem, p. 41.
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
351
love and the accomplishment of all man's desires, is, according to
him, always in conflict with two great philosophical systems: on the
one hand all the orthodox religions and moral codes which restrain
desire, and write the "Thou shalt not " of the Decalogue; and, on
the other, the religions founded on science and reason, which deny
revelation and concentrate all man's aspirations upon himself.
Judaism is a type of the first, and Deism of the second; and Blake
represents the one by Rahab, the religion of the Law, of sin and
punishment, and the other by Tirzah, the religion of nature and
materialism. Jerusalem, therefore, treats principally of the growth of
these two kinds of religion, after the fall of man, their final destruction,
and man's regeneration through Liberty.
The book is divided into four chapters, each preceded by a short
introduction partly in prose and partly in verse.
The first chapter, after a brief prologue addressed" To the Public "
and setting forth some of Blake's general theories, describes the
situation of Albion at the moment of his fall, and shows how he divides
Los into two distinct beings: the prophet and his Spectre. Then
begins a struggle between these two, the one trying to destroy Albion
and the other to save him. Albion's sons now separate themselves
from him, and proceed to fill the world with their false doctrines ;
while Los builds Golgonooza, the city of art and imagination, in
which everything exists eternally. After this, we see Albion's fall,
and his abandonment by Jerusalem and Vala. We hear their lamenta-
tions, and those of Albion himself, who bewails and curses his unhappy
state, and can see no remedy for it. He gives way to despair, being
now entirely in his Spectre's power.
The second chapter is chiefly concerned with man's primal error:
his adoption of the false religion of the Law. Its preface is therefore
addressed to the Jews, and contains a very remarkable little poem
in which we are shown the Heavenly Jerusalem shining over London,
darkened by Satan's victory, brought to judgment, and, in the end,
redeemed by Christ. The whole chapter is a desultory account of
how the false religions were formed and how Los strove to check them.
Man makes a God in the image of his own fears, and falls prostrate
in adoration before him; and Urthona, the Spirit of Prophecy, who
kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble," prays and calls upon
the Saviour for help. Then come Los's travels through the human
soul, in search of sins which he desires only to forgive; then the
creation of Satan, the reasoning power in every man, and the building
352
WILLIAM BLAKE
up of the terrible religions of the Law, while at the same time Vala
(feminine beauty) gains dominion over Albion-that is to say, woman
begins to rule over man, and introduces the idea of a legalised and
jealous love. From this moment, Albion shrinks further and further
away from universal love. He becomes egotistical, and believes in the
law of vengeance for sin, and in the false principle of redemption
through sacrifice of the innocent. He is fast falling into the state of
eternal death. It is in vain that Christ creates Adam, the "Limit of
Contraction," to save him from utter annihilation, that He displays
before him the Eternal Vision,
In loves and tears of brothers, sisters, sons, fathers and friends,
Which if Man ceases to behold, he ceases to exist. ¹
•
In vain do the Divine Family, all man's desires, symbolised by the
towns of England, follow him and try to recall him. In vain does Los
expound to him at length the doctrine of forgiveness and its appli-
cation in this world. Jerusalem has gone from him: she must perforce
hide herself in that " grain of sand "in Lambeth, where Satan cannot
find her, the last remaining spark of the imaginative faculty, preserved
in Blake himself. And Albion, drawn by the wheels of his own reason-
ing power, falls into non-entity. While Bath gives utterance to the
lamentations of the Divine Family over him, he dies, and is received
into the arms of the Saviour. Jerusalem takes refuge in Beulah.
Only Erin, an Emanation of the Divine Family, symbolising the
poetic spirit of England, is left alive on earth. She recounts how,
as a result of his contraction, man has become possessed of a material
body, and how the Zoas have been changed into physical organs.
Her concluding words are at once a lesson and a message of hope,
setting forth afresh the true doctrine of forgiveness. The chapter
closes with a prayer from the Daughters of Beulah to the Lamb of
God to come and take away the remembrance of Sin.
The third chapter is meant to be an indictment of Natural Religion,
its preface being headed: "To the Deists." But it seems to have very
little bearing on its subject, except as regards its exposition of Blake's
views upon the nature of the human body and the material world.
Just as the existence of the body results from the contraction of
man's spirit, on the principle of a gas first liquefied and then solidified
by compression, so the existence of visible nature is due solely to an
illusion of man's senses and of reason. His Spectre or reasoning power
¹ Jerusalem, p. 38, 12.
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
353
stands over him, saying "I am God." The Eternals have chosen
seven from among their number to watch over humanity, the seventh
being Jesus, who forms the one link between man and the Infinite.
And there is to be an eighth, whose name we are not told: perhaps
Milton, perhaps Blake himself. But the sons of Albion, having woven
the" vegetative " life of man and of his organs, now build the world
of generation, and its temple-the firmament, the earth, the Mundane
Shell. This work is completed by the daughters of Los, who, labouring
at the golden looms of Cathedron, create all those earthly beings that
are weak and gentle the silkworm, the caterpillar, the spider, the
bird and the lamb. Thus the infinite becomes circumscribed: Jeru-
salem, the desire that knows no bounds, must dash herself perpetu-
ally against the limits and restrictions imposed by physical im-
possibilities. She opposes herself to the world of reality, which calls.
her "Sin"; and she is herself filled with doubts and fears. The
Divine Vision consoles her by showing her how Mary, accused by
Joseph of impurity, glories in the "pollution" that has won her
God's forgiveness. So Jerusalem is comforted, and hopes again,
trusting in the words of Christ-
Repose on me till the morning of the Grave: I am thy life.
Tho' thou art taken to prison and judgment, starved in the streets,
I will command the cloud to give thee food, and the hard rock
To flow with milk and wine, tho' thou seest me not a season,
Even a long season and a hard journey and a howling wilderness ;
Tho' Vala's cloud hide thee and Luvah's fires follow thee,
Only believe and trust in me. Lo, I am always with thee! ¹
But within Albion all is war and tumult. Tharmas is slain by Luvah :
that is to say, natural pity and natural life are destroyed by the religion
of sacrifice and hatred. Man turns his hand against his brother.
Tyranny and bloodshed menace the world. The battle rages round
Vala; in other words, the rival systems meet in conflict before the
mystery of nature; and Luvah, the spirit of tenderness, is-as in
the Book of Vala-conquered and crucified. The various natural
religions become tyrannical, and sacrifice victims upon their altars.
As symbolised by Rahab and Tirzah, they work unceasingly at the
building of the vegetative world: they preach the cult of the body,
deny the existence of immortality, and bring man under the influence
¹ Jerusalem, p. 62: 1 and 24.
Ꮓ
354
WILLIAM BLAKE
of a false sense of pity. As a result, his passions usurp the place of his
intellectual faculties, and the warriors sing the praises of the goddess,
Woman. The masculine powers make egotistical laws, dividing Eng-
land among themselves; and to this division is added that of all the
other nations, which we find placed within the gates of Jerusalem,
now become a city. The chapter comes, at last, to an almost incoherent
close with a new account of the labours of Los and the troubled state
of the Zoas, a description of the Spectre, a confused invocation of the
Holy Spirit by the poet, and an enumeration of all the Churches
of the world.
The subject of the fourth chapter is man's resumption of immor-
tality through a right interpretation of Christ's doctrine. It therefore
opens with an address" to the Christians," in which they are warned
against wrongful interpretations and false religions, against that
"wheel" which is the law of Caiaphas and not Christ's law. The
narrative is just as obscure as in the preceding chapters. There is
scarcely anything that can be called action or incident. Albion's
sleep continues his sons are all the time divided into Spectres and
Emanations, reason warring against the affections, and seeking to
destroy our fallen humanity. Los perseveres in his duties as guardian
and prophet. We hear the lamentations of Jerusalem bewailing her
former grandeur, both as a city and as a queen, and also those of Vala,
goddess of nature, whose delusive character is soon to be revealed.
Next, the Daughters of Albion make for Jerusalem a Body repug-
nant to the Lamb," ¹ a Christianity which is in no way better than
the law of Moses, an ideal of chastity that will enable woman to rule
over man; and one of them is careful to preserve the old false law
of retaliation. Los labours incessantly: he is almost worn out, and
finds himself compelled to evoke for himself a vision of the New
Jerusalem. He falls a victim to love, and Enitharmon struggles against
him. She introduces into religion the doctrine that he who loves
Jesus must hate the love of woman; and she would make God Him-
self "A Male subservient to the Female.” 2 And thus is formed the
1
Covering Cherub," the false Christianity within which Jerusalem,
the true Christianity, is hidden. Then comes the symbolical division
of men into male and female by bodily generation. But Christ Him-
self will assume this mortal body, that, by putting it off, he may
destroy this law, and so become the Saviour of mankind. All this
time, Los is repeating his messages of love and forgiveness, and
¹ Jerusalem, p. 80, 65.
2 Jerusalem, p. 88, 21.
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
355
sending away his Spectre, the reasoning power, so that he may keep
only the imaginative, or inspiring faculty. Then all the philosophical
systems built up by the Spectre vanish.
All his pyramids were grains
Of sand; and his pillars, dust on the fly's wing; and his starry
Heavens, a moth of gold and silver mocking his anxious grasp.
1
From this time on, humanity becomes united : egotism disappears
from love. Enitharmon raises her head "like the mild Moon," 2 and
sees the sexes destroyed and herself forgotten. The divine breath
awakes Albion, who walks towards Heaven clothed in flames, while
England enters his bosom rejoicing. Jesus stands beside him: He
is the Divine Humanity, and He tells how He has died that Albion
may live, according to the eternal law of self-sacrifice. The Zoas
resume their proper stations. Man's "Body of Death is driven
outward to eternal death and eternal resurrection among the
flowers of Beulah. All nature rejoices over the downfall of the false
religions. All the human forms hidden in tree, metal, and stone
awake also in Albion's bosom. And all things are united by love,
which is the sum of all their Emanations, and which is named
"Jerusalem."
""
""
(c
Thus ends, in a majestic vision, one of the most irritating and
most chaotic books ever written.
This analysis, disjointed, formless and illogical as it must appear,
fails to convey any exact impression of the incoherence and obscurity
of the poem itself. It is scarcely ever possible to say, at any given
moment, where the characters are, or whence they have come. They
undergo the most inexplicable and unexpected changes. One hardly
knows whether they are alive or dead. They are absorbed by each
other, become separated again, and assume new personalities. It
is not even like a kaleidoscope, in which we do, for a moment, dis-
tinguish clear shapes and lines, though we know that they will alter
immediately. Jerusalem has not even this momentary clearness. The
reader might as well climb a hill on a windy day, watch the clouds
gathering on the horizon, and try to fix the outline of each as it
scatters, mingles with the others, and reappears in a new and quite
different form, perpetually changing just at the moment when he
attempts to seize its shape. The only consistent and recognizable
character is Los, who dominates the whole book, like the dark centre
¹ Jerusalem, p. 91, 47.
¹ Jerusalem, p. 93, I.
2
356
WILLIAM BLAKE
of the cloud from which the lightning flashes and the thunder re-
echoes incessantly.
And indeed, the one thing in the book that really impresses us is
this thunderous rolling of Los's voice. Jerusalem cannot be regarded
as a record of events, or even as a kind of epic history like Vala. It is
above all a collection of prophetic expositions and declamations.
Three quarters of it are made up of Los's harangues and the
lamentations of Jerusalem and Vala, intermixed with Blake's own
visionary hymns. The passages that have been most frequently quoted
are taken from the Prefaces, where the poet is speaking in his own
name: the vision of the Monk of Charlemagne, for instance (from
Chapter III); that of the Wheel of Religion (Chapter IV), and the
description, to which I have already referred, of the Heavenly
Jerusalem (Chapter II). More even than any of the other Prophetic
Books, this one must be read as a series of detached fragments,
each page being often complete in itself. Indeed, Blake wrote each
of them singly, or almost singly, at the dictation of Christ Himself
and the spirits. Then, however, when the time came to put them
together in a book, he determined to have four chapters of exactly
the same length. Such fanciful caprices must prove destructive to
any literature. They ruined his book, as a whole. To arrive at the
desired number of pages, he added some that were written at
different times and under a different inspiration, and suppressed
others which might have thrown a little light on the story; all this
without troubling to make any connection between old and new
matter, or to fill the gaps he had left. Moreover, there is scarcely a
page in which the reader does not find some new symbol, or some
enigmatic sentence, that puzzles and brings him to a standstill,
tempting him to close the book in despair. We must perforce rest
content with understanding only short detached passages. But there
are enough of such passages to give life to the book. We shall find all
through it the same sincerity of conviction, the same passionate
vehemence, the same wealth of imagination, as in Vala.
It certainly has in it more dark valleys where no light can
come; but perhaps it has also some high peaks upon which the
sun shines more dazzlingly. We are always being transported
without warning from the ridiculous to the sublime. There is
hardly ever any resting-place to be found between the summits
and the abysses.
Here again, the passages worthy of citation are many. Now we
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
357
have some precept or definition whose energetic wording impresses
it strongly on the mind.
Without Forgiveness of Sin Love is Itself Eternal Death. ¹
She who adores not your frowns will only loathe your smiles. 2
It is easier to forgive an Enemy than to forgive a Friend. 3
A Sigh is the Sword of an Angel King:
And the bitter groan of a Martyr's woe
Is an Arrow from the Almightie's Bow. 4
1
More often, it is a description of one of the prophet's visions, such
as that of Babylon and Jerusalem in the lament of the fallen Albion.
The Walls of Babylon are Souls of Men: her Gates the Groans
Of Nations: her Towers are the Miseries of once happy Families.
Her Streets are paved with Destruction.
Yet thou wast lovely as the summer cloud upon my hills
When Jerusalem was thy heart's desire in times of youth and love.
Thy Sons came to Jerusalem with gifts. She sent them away
With blessings on their hands and on their feet, blessings of gold,
And pearl and diamond. 5
Or the vision of the Wheel of Religion.
Even as a Wheel
Of fire surrounding all the heavens: it went
From west to east against the current of
Creation, and devour'd all things in its loud
Fury and thundering course round heaven and earth. 6
Or, again, we have the picture of Albion's awakening.
The wrath of God breaking bright, flaming on all sides around
His awful limbs: into the Heavens he walked, clothed in flames
Loud thund'ring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning and pillars
Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms. 7
And that of his desolation during the sleep of death.
His Children exil'd from his breast, pass to and fro before him,
His birds are silent on his hills, flocks die beneath his branches,
His tents are fall'n; his trumpets, and the sweet sound of his harp,
¹ Jerusalem, p. 64, 24.
2 Jerusalem, p. 95, 24.
Jerusalem, Chap. III, Preface.
Jerusalem, Chapter IV, Preface.
3 ³ Jerusalem, p. 91, 1.
5 Jerusalem, p. 24, 31.
7 Jerusalem, p. 95, 6.
}
358
WILLIAM BLAKE
Are silent on his clouded hills, that belch forth storms and fire.
Where once he sat he weary walks in misery and pain,
His Giant beauty and perfection fallen into dust.
In the dark world, a narrow house! he wanders up and down,
Seeking for rest and finding none ! and hidden far within,
His Eon weeping in the cold and desolated Earth.
1
We have Jerusalem's prayer for forgiveness, on page 20; the curses
pronounced by Albion upon humanity (p. 24); the creation of a false
religion which produces the world of matter (p. 49); the battle that
rages around Vala (p. 65); the lamentations of Jerusalem (pp. 78,
79, 80); the radiant vision of the Heavenly Jerusalem, "wing'd with
Six Wings" (p. 86); the enthusiasm of Los as he works at his anvil
(pp. 88, 91); and, in a different key, the prophet's pathetic appeal
to England.
England! awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy Sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death,
And close her from thy ancient walls?
Thy hills and valleys felt her feet
Gently upon their bosoms move:
Thy gates beheld sweet Zion's ways:
Then was a time of joy and love.
And now the time returns again :
Our souls exult, and London's towers
Receive the Lamb of God to dwell
In England's green and pleasant bowers. 2
Quite different from any of these, but perhaps even more remark-
able, is the interpolated passage which describes Jerusalem's vision
of Joseph and Mary. Joseph wishes to cast her off as a prostitute and
an adulteress, while she glorifies the love that has polluted her, and
won her the divine forgiveness.
If I were pure, never could I taste the sweets
Of the Forgiveness of Sins; if I were holy, I never could behold the tears
Of love! of him who loves me in the midst of his anger in furnace of fire.
3
Joseph embraces her, and joins her in proclaiming the grandeur of that
forgiveness which knows no restrictions, no bounds and no conditions.
1
¹ Jerusalem, p. 19, 1. 2 Jerusalem, Chapter IV, Preface. Jerusalem, p. 61, 11.
³
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
359
Doth Jehovah forgive a Debt only on condition that it shall
Be Payed? Doth he Forgive Pollution only on conditions of Purity?
That Debt is not Forgiven! That Pollution is not Forgiven!
Such is the Forgiveness of the Gods, the Moral Virtues of the
Heathen, whose tender Mercies are Cruelty. But Jehovah's Salvation
Is without Money and without Price, in the Continual Forgiveness of Sins,
In the Perpetual Mutual Sacrifice in Great Eternity!"
1
Then Mary burst forth into a Song: she flowed like a River of
Many Streams in the arms of Joseph, and gave forth her tears of joy
Like many waters.
2
Her song is a new Magnificat, different, in its note of praise and
exultation, from the orthodox hymn, but filled with the same
eloquence and the same humble and triumphant gratitude towards the
Redeemer.
Does the voice of my Lord call me again? am I pure thro' his Mercy
And Pity? Am I become lovely as a Virgin in his sight, Who am
Indeed a Harlot drunken with the Sacrifice of Idols, does he
Call her pure as he did in the days of her Infancy, when She
Was cast out to the loathing of her person? The Chaldean took
Me from my Cradle. The Amalekite stole me away upon his Camels,
Before I had ever beheld with love the Face of Jehovah : or known
That there was a God of Mercy: O Mercy, O Divine Humanity!
O Forgiveness and Pity and Compassion! If I were Pure I should never
Have known Thee! If I were Unpolluted I should never have
Glorified thy Holiness, or rejoiced in thy great Salvation. 3
The presence of such passages as this in the book shows that the
poet, in his moments of genuine inspiration, had lost none of his
former gifts. And in the same way, the illustrations show the high
artistic power that underlies all his supernatural visions of Spectres
contending against Emanations; of the man with a cock's head who
sits waiting for the dawn; of Jehovah-Urizen creating man and woman
from the heart of the fire of life; of the regenerated man in the chariot
drawn by two monstrous human-headed beasts, which are driven
by serpents with hands, and by gnome-like figures typifying the
intellect; of Albion resting in the arms of the Saviour; of Jerusalem
caught up to God's bosom; of Reuben taking root in Canaan; of
the Daughters of Albion weaving the material universe about the
¹ Jerusalem, p. 61, 17. 2 Jerusalem, p. 61, 28. 3 Jerusalem, p. 61, 36.
360
WILLIAM BLAKE
limbs of their father; of the ark of generation floating upon the
dark waters of the Deluge; and-most wonderful of all—the picture,
so distinguished and incisive in its workmanship, of Christ nailed,
not upon the cross, but upon the huge trunk of the tree of generation
and "vegetative " life, irradiating the black depths of infinity with
the light that shines from His body, while the poet, whose face it
illumines, stands before Him in an ecstasy of love and prayer.
And at the same time, it is into this book that Blake's mysticism
and his use of symbolical language have introduced more obscurities
and absurdities than are to be found in all the others. It is here that
his geographical symbolism runs riot; the suburbs of London and
the towns and rivers of England being mixed up, in the most capri-
cious fashion, with the cities, mountains and rivers of Bible lands.
Here we see first England, and then Scotland and Ireland, carefully
divided between the Twelve Tribes of Israel, whole pages being filled
with lists of names entirely devoid of interest or meaning. Jerusalem,
which certain enigma-loving critics affect to regard as the finest of
all Blake's poems, seems to me, on the contrary, to be the one in
which poetry has suffered most from the influence of mysticism.
It can only be studied, or perhaps even read in its entirety, by those
who will essay the task of winding its golden thread into a ball, and
wresting its secrets from the labyrinth where they lie hidden, who
will attempt to explain its symbols, to interpret its allegories, and, if
possible, to bring some order into its chaos. Many readers will no
doubt postpone so hazardous an enterprise until the appearance of
some lengthy commentary, which would follow the text line by line
and word by word, deciphering and explaining it, and extending,
like the Biblical Commentaries, to whole volumes. But even if such
a commentary were to be written-those already in existence are
far from satisfactory-it could never make the book of any real
interest except to the metaphysician or the student of mysticism.
Moreover, it is not in these obscure works that Blake is really great,
however profound they may seem to be. We see his poetry at its best
when he speaks as a man to men, and not as a prophet to an assembly
of initiates. We may know little or nothing of his doctrines; but we
can understand his more human poems without a commentary, and
all, even the uninitiate, can perceive and enjoy their charm. In
Jerusalem, though there are fragments here and there of incomparable
beauty, they are fewer, more widely scattered, and, above all, more
spoilt by their environment, than is the case in any of his other books.
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
361
MILTON
Milton is the last in order of the books engraved by Blake himself,
the date on its title-page being 1804. It consists of forty-five plates,
with a relatively small number of illustrations, about twenty in all,
and very light decorative borders. The designs are altogether less
elaborate than those in Jerusalem, some being quite rough sketches.
One example of the book contains four additional pages, numbered
3, 8, 17 and 32; but these are not in sequence with any part of the
text, and some of them appear to be quite unrelated to it.
The title-page shows Milton, or the Prophetic Spirit, as a nude
figure-who bears no physical resemblance to the author of Paradise
Lost-entering into the flames of inspiration, in order to "Justify
the Ways of God to Men." The other illustrations adhere fairly
closely to the text, and depict various moments of inspiration: Milton
as a star descending upon Blake; Los standing behind him; Ololon
coming down from heaven to Blake's cottage; Milton about to
awake Albion; Christ walking through the world of darkness, and
supporting the corpse of the fallen Man; the eagle of poetry flying
in the air, while humanity lies asleep on the rock below. The preface
is an indictment in prose of the Greek and Roman classics and their
imitators, even Shakespeare and Milton, who were to a certain extent
influenced by them. It is followed by a short rhymed appeal by the
author for the restoration to poetry of the imaginative element, on
behalf of which he himself is ready to maintain the " Mental Fight.
All this indicates clearly enough the nature of the book's main
subject the history of the Poetic Genius in Eternity, as Blake
conceived it, or, in other words, the passing of the spirit of the
Eternals first into Milton, and then into Blake himself, through the
intermediary of Los. Blake's threefold vision seems here to have
become fourfold. He has almost abandoned Albion, his Spectres
and Emanations and their offspring, and to have lost sight of all the
Zoas, except Los. We now find ourselve. among the Eternals; and
myths of which, hitherto, we have only had glimpses, are now
developed and made to play the most prominent part.
The book may be divided into three sections, two of which are
included in the first chapter. The first section is the song, sung by
one of the Eternals at their feast, which induces Milton (the Prophetic
Spirit) to go down among men (pages 1-12). The second gives an
account of Milton's journey through the land of eternal death
362
WILLIAM BLAKE
(pages 12-30). The third describes the descent of Ololon into Blake's
cottage, the visions that he sees, and his preparations for the " Mental
Fight" in which he is about to engage.
All these events are narrated in the symbolical language so dear
to Blake, and are interwoven with many complex side-issues. Thus
the Bard's song gives us incidentally the classification of the children
of Los into the Elect, the Redeemed and the Reprobate; Satan, the
"mild" one, belonging to the first class, Palamabron, the inspired
prophet, to the second, and the furious Rintrah to the third. It tells us
also the story, which has already been referred to in Vala,¹ of how
Satan borrowed Palamabron's harrow, and maddened the horses by
his unskilful driving; of the great debate between the Eternals to
settle the dispute between Palamabron and Satan; of Rintrah's
entrance into Satan, who thus became one of the Reprobate, and
proclaimed himself the only God; of the judgment given by the
Eternals against Rintrah on the ground that " one must die for another
throughout all Eternity "2 in order to save the guilty from eternal
death; of the banishment of Satan and Palamabron from the world
of the Eternals, and their flight to Enitharmon's world of Space; of
the devotion shown by Leutha, the soul of love, who accuses herself
of complicity in Satan's misdoing and goes to share his exile; of
the choosing of seven Eternals to watch and to sacrifice themselves; 3
of the sacrifice of Jesus alone, who put on the Satanic body of matter;
and finally of the marriage of Leutha and Palamabron, presided over
by the chaste Elynittria, and the birth of their children, Death, the
Spectre of Sleep, and Rahab, mother of Tirzah. All these things
are sung of by the Bard, who asserts that he knows them through
inspiration, and repeats, until we almost grow weary of it, his warning
refrain: "Mark well my words! they are of your eternal salvation."
Thus the revived myths of the fall of the angels and of the Redemption
are mingled by Blake with his own ideas regarding the decline of real
poetry, when he makes the softer emotions (Satan) take the place of
inspiration (Palamabron), and produce a sentimental instead of an
imaginative literature; when he represents Rintrah, the spirit of
war, as entering into poetry and causing the death of real inspiration,
and love itself (Leutha) assisting to create a poetry of death (the
Greek and Latin Classics) which the old gods were powerless to
preserve, but which is in the end revivified by Christ, the "Divine
Imagination" incarnate. We have all this set forth in an interminable
¹ Vala, Night VIII, 380. 2 Milton, p. 9, 18. 3 See also Jerusalem, p. 55, 30.
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
363
history, written in a sort of rhythmical prose, interspersed here and
there with certain of Blake's obscure aphorisms, and with exclama-
tions of grief and rage, and illumined by flashes of the mystic's former
imaginative vision, such as, for instance, the picture of Leutha.
And Leutha stood glowing with varying colours immortal, heart-piercing
And lovely; and her moth-like elegance shone over the Assembly. 1
This song of the inspired Bard, who is perhaps Los, prompts
Milton to sacrifice himself, to take off the robe of the promise, and
ungird himself from the oath of God, and to" go to Eternal Death." 2
It is not Milton the poet with whom we have to do here, but only
the spirit that he is made to personify. His task is to deliver the
nations from the "detestable Gods of Priam " 3 from the old religion
and the old poetry, and to preach the doctrine of resurrection and
eternal life through self-annihilation. He promises to abandon the
"daughters of memory " and follow the " daughters of inspiration";
that is, to leave the Classics and lay hold upon Christ's Gospel, obey-
ing no rule but that of his unrestricted genius. In so doing, he be-
comes Lucifer, rightly rebelling against the laws of Jehovah, as Christ
did against the Mosaic law.
I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One!
He is my Spectre ! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells,
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.
""
4
And here we may recall Blake's former assertion that Milton's
Satan was his greatest creation, “because he was a true Poet and
of the Devil's party without knowing it." 5
The spiritual Milton fulfils his promise, and dies: that is to say,
enters into his mortal body, or “shadow," thus becoming the Milton
of history, and the spirits of the seven Angels of the Divine Presence
enter with him. So his shadow falls,
Precipitant loud thund'ring into the Sea of Time and Space. 6
Blake sees him descending, like a falling star, and entering his
left foot, the lower region of the imagination. Then Milton, in his
pilgrimage of sixty years upon the earth, beholds " the Three Heavens
of Beulah," represented by his three wives, and continued after them
by his three daughters; he sees the Mundane Shell, travels across
parched deserts, passes round the "Mundane Egg," between Luvah
1 Milton, p. 9, 32.
4 Milton, p. 12, 30.
3 Milton, p. 12, 15.
6 Milton, p. 14, 46.
2 Milton, p. 12, 14.
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, p. 6.
364
WILLIAM BLĄKE
<<
1
and Urizen (the spirit of Christ's love, and the thunders of Jehovah),
endeavouring always to give life to Urizen's inanimate creations
(to breathe the Christian spirit into secular poetry). He is tempted
by Rahab and Tirzah is attracted, that is, by Natural Religion,
which would cause him to sing to
the Grecian Lyre," and to stray
into the realm of philosophy, "upon the deeps of Entuthon." ¹
Finally, he forms a "bright Urizen "-perhaps the Jehovah of
Paradise Lost-out of his "Redeemed portion," the poetry that can
be found even in the Law; and he falls" thro' Albion's heart, travel-
ling outside of Humanity."2 His personal task is accomplished,
though his end has not been fully attained.
Then Los recollects an old prophecy to the effect that Milton
should ascend from the vale of Felpham. Blake, still with Milton in
his left foot, sees all the regions of the Imagination: the visible world
becomes, to him, as a sandal which he puts on in order to walk through
Eternity, the poet thus making use of material things to express the
eternal. And at the same time Ololon, the immortal muse, the river
of poesy, laments over Milton's fall, and, in her turn, descends into
Ulro to restore him to life.
From this point onward, Los, Milton, Ololon and Blake all become
confused together in the story. Los stands behind Blake and binds
on his sandals: he shows him his twofold function as the Eternal
Prophet and as Time; not one moment in six thousand years, nor
one atom of space, being lost: so that, for the poet, all the history
of the past is an open book and an eternal present. At the gate of
Golgonooza, Rintrah and Palamabron, the inspiring forces of poetry
in the past, meet them, and beseech Los to restrain Milton-Blake,
whom they fear as a creator of new religions, one of those leaders
of the Church who had " shorn " the giant Swedenborg, and against
whom God had raised up Whitefield and Wesley, the founders of
Methodism and preachers of the Gospel of Love. They fear the
Milton of Paradise Lost if he should be won over to orthodox religion.
Los, however, reassures them, declaring that he is in Blake, defining
his own position once more, explaining the myths, and announcing
the "Last Vintage." They all now descend into the lower regions;
and Los, (as Time) labours in his wine-press. He calls all nature to
him, the world of spirits, the souls of animals and plants; and all
obey his summons. His sons labour also, creating nations, and
spreading them over the earth. They divide men into three classes-
1 Milton, p. 17, 35.
2 Milton, p. 18, 41.
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
365
the Elect, who cannot believe in Eternal Life until they are born again;
the Reprobate, who have always held the true faith; and the Re-
deemed, who live in fear and doubt. The first class seems to consist
of the priests and saints who, seeing only the dead Law, and believing
themselves to be the chosen of God, have need of the enlightenment
which death will bring them. In the second are the true prophets
and the men of genius, whom the world condemns because they
cannot submit themselves to the Law. The third class is made up of
those devout souls whom the priests have seduced into accepting
their doctrine of the Redemption, and who can only find salvation.
with difficulty. Los destroys the false gods, as time does away with
false doctrines. Then all his sons create bodies, which they endow
with animal forms: some of them build the minutes, the hours and
the ages, while others stretch out the sky like a tent, and unfold the
universe that each man owns, the space he can see with his own eyes.
To-day they are still at their work; and the universe is ever being
created by the poetic genius.
Thou seest the Constellations in the deep and wondrous Night.
They rise in order and continue their immortal courses
Upon the mountains and in vales with harp and heavenly song,
With flute and clarion; with cups and measures fill'd with foaming wine.
Glitt❜ring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude,
And the calm Ocean joys beneath and smooths his awful waves :
These are the Sons of Los, and these the Labourers of the Vintage.
1
The third section shows the working of two forces in Blake's spirit :
that of Milton, who has already entered into him, and that of Ololon,
who descends from Beulah to inspire him. The journey of Ololon
to Blake's cottage is described at length. She traverses and then leaves
Beulah, the land of rest; and all Beulah weeps at her going. We hear
this harmonious lamentation. The nightingale begins his song in
springtime; the lark rises from the waving cornfield. All the birds
awake all the flowers open and exhale their scents.2 All this is “a
Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon "; and with these
songs is mingled the voice of God, denouncing the sinfulness of those
who created the laws of selfishness, and promising redemption through
Milton.
Ololon next visits Ulro and the kingdom of the dead, the chaotic
universe of the Zoas, and finally comes to Blake's house at Felpham.
1 Milton p. 25, 66.
2 Milton, p. 31, 28. (Quoted in Chapter XVII.)
366
WILLIAM BLAKE
Here we see a very curious instance of the way in which the poet
regarded the symbolism of nature. Ololon descends to Los and
Enitharmon, entering the world of time and space, and seats herself
by a fountain, close to a plant of wild thyme.
The Wild Thyme is Los's Messenger to Eden, a mighty Demon,
Terrible, deadly and poisonous, his presence in Ulro dark.
Therefore he appears only a small Root creeping in grass,
Covering over the Rock of Odours his bright purple mantle,
Beside the Fount above the Lark's Nest in Golgonooza.
Luvah slept here in death, and here is Luvah's empty Tomb. ¹
The lark also has his part to play. It is he who conveys Los's
messages from Eden to our world. One lark rises from his nest of
wild thyme in Golgonooza, soaring until he meets a second, to whom
he gives Los's message. The second communicates it to a third, and
so on. Finally, we see a lark mounting up from the earth to the
zenith, where he meets the last of the invisible messengers, and
descends to us again, bringing us the words of the Eternals. Thus it is
that Blake sees Ololon in his cottage garden. He welcomes her, and
bids her comfort his wife, his "Shadow of Delight," who is " sick
with fatigue."
But Ololon desires to see Milton, whose "shadow " appears at
her call; and thereupon a marvellous vision unfolds itself before
Blake's eyes.
Descending down into my Garden, a Human Wonder of God,
Reaching from heaven to earth, a Cloud and Human Form,
I beheld Milton with astonishment, and in him beheld
The Monstrous Churches of Beulah, the Gods of Ulro dark,
Twelve monstrous dishumanised terrors, Synagogues of Satan.
2
He proceeds to enumerate the Twenty-seven Churches, the
founders of religions from Adam to Luther (all these forming the
"covering Cherub," or false doctrine) and also the " Twelve Gods "
who are the Spectres of Satan. Then he stands, with Milton, in
Satan's bosom. He sees the Satanic universe, the mystery of Babylon,
and hears the dispute between Satan and Milton, the former pro-
claiming his divinity, and the latter preaching the gospel of self-
annihilation, and evoking a vision of Albion's awakening. Then Satan
and his Spectre fly away across the sea like a storm-cloud, leaving
Blake alone with Milton and Ololon. Ololon's eyes are opened: she
¹ Milton, p. 35, 54.
2 Milton, p. 37, 13.
THE GREAT PROPHETIC BOOKS
367
sees how, by her poetry, she has helped to create Natural Religion,
and she repents. This leads to the appearance of Rahab, or Moral
Virtue, seeking to gain dominion over the Muse: and Milton must
needs set forth all the doctrines of the true poet and prophet, and
explain his functions.
To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour
To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration,
To cast off Bacon, Locke and Newton from Albion's covering.
To take off his filthy garments and clothe him with Imagination,
To cast aside from Poetry all that is not Inspiration
That it no longer shall dare to mock with the aspersion of Madness. 1
Then Ololon realises that she is the opposite of Milton, his Emana-
tion; and she flies "into the depths of Milton's Shadow." Hence-
forth, the imagination will reign supreme in poetry. Man is regenerated
through it: the eight Eternals appear before Blake as one man-Jesus.
Albion and his cities arise upon their thrones to judge the earth.
"
But at this moment the poet awakes from his trance. He is once
more in his " vegetative body," and his sweet" Shadow of Delight
stands trembling beside him. All is ended. The lark soars heavenward
from Felpham's vale, and the wild thyme sheds its perfume over the
hills of Wimbledon. Los and his sons make ready to reap the great
harvest of the nations. Poetry, restored to new life, is to regenerate
the whole world.
This last of Blake's poems contains fewer beautiful passages than
any of its predecessors: the finest being the description of the awaken-
ing of the birds and the flowers, quoted above. 2 On the other hand
Milton is not so encumbered as Jerusalem with obscure symbolism
and tangled narrative. Blake seems, among other things, to have
abandoned the symbolic geography which was responsible for so many
difficulties. Moreover, he often tries, in this book, to explain his
myths, and to give a clear statement of his views on the subject of
poetry. Was this a reversion to some simpler mythological system?
Was his mind coming back to a saner conception of literature? Did
the poet, when he spoke of poetry, forget his obligation to express
himself only in enigmatic parables? There are certain pages in
Milton that almost tempt us to take this view.
Nevertheless, the book as a whole, composed as it is of visions
foreshadowed in earlier poems, of phrases and theories that have
2 Chapter XVII.
1
Milton, p. 43, 3.
368
WILLIAM BLAKE
often been made use of before, forces on us the question whether
Blake's consciousness of his prophetic mission had not by this time
entirely destroyed the poetic faculty so abundant in his earlier years,
and now become so attenuated. Vala was a marvel of epic poetry
obscured by clouds of mysticism: Jerusalem a masterpiece of
enigmatic symbolism, of dim visionary beauty, lighted by frequent
gleams of superb poetry. In Milton the mysticism has become much
less profound, but the poetry is much less splendid. If we except a
few pages, we find here only doctrines that have grown dull with
repetition and pictures reminding us of others that we have already
seen. Was this indeed the end, this mingling of an enfeebled mysticism
with the ashes of the poetic fire that it has itself extinguished ?
What could have come after this? We cannot say. Milton is the last
example of Blake's poetry that we possess. The remaining years of
his life were entirely consecrated to those two superb creations of
his pencil and his graver: the illustrations for the Book of Job and
those for the Divine Comedy.
XXII: HIS LITERARY MODELS AND HIS IMITATORS
S
UCH a chapter as the present one must be almost super-
fluous, since it can only show that Blake really had no models
and no imitators. His poetry is distinguished by so much
originality; it is the expression of a state of mind so singular,
and the result of such imaginative power, joined with such a lack
of the more solid qualities possessed by most writers, that it
remains unique in English literature.
There have been many mystics, before and after him; but very
few of them have possessed the poetic spirit which gave his visions
their colour and vitality. Of all the poets, no other has ever disregarded
so completely the most elementary laws of composition, nor mani-
fested such gross defects: none has ever torn himself so entirely
away from this world, in order to draw his readers into the quick-
sands of mysticism. He followed no school, nor did he found any,
either in poetry or in painting.
This does not mean that he was altogether uninfluenced by others,
that he evolved his art with no aid from external sources, and ignored
all the literature of the past. Though he had neither means nor leisure
for much reading, he was not an ignorant man. All the great names
and the great works of English literature were known to him, if not
absolutely familiar. The comments that he has here and there made
upon them—his criticism of Chaucer, his invectives against Pope,
even his imitations of Ossian-are sufficient proof of this. He does
not seem to have been well acquainted with the Greek and Latin
classics; but he could read the Italian of Dante, and the Greek of
the New Testament. His knowledge of Boehme, Swedenborg and
the Bible was profound.
Of the mystical writings which had preceded his own in English
literature, he appears to have been almost entirely ignorant. It is
remarkable that no trace of any of them is to be found in his works.
He must certainly have been unacquainted with the English vision-
aries of the Middle Ages; with that Saxon dreamer who saw, in his
"Vision of the Cross," the crucifix growing to such gigantic size
that it reached from earth to heaven, and dripping with blood; or
Cadmon, who also was visited by angels, and who sung of the
AA
370
WILLIAM BLAKE
creation of the world and the fall of Satan. He may have heard
Langland's name: but it is doubtful whether he ever read Piers
Plowman he cannot, in any case, have felt the influence of this work,
whose satire is only now and then relieved by the mystical sense of
Christ's presence.
The much later and more widely read Pilgrim's Progress is likely
to have made a stronger impression on him. He even illustrated
certain of its episodes. But he borrowed very little from it for himself.
Its allegory, closely imitated from Spenser, and interspersed with
Biblical texts, could not but appeal to him as a vivid representation
of another world. But that other world was too unlike the world of
his own dreams. Bunyan's characters, with their abstract names and
vivid personalities, belong to our earth. We meet them every day in
the street, though they may not now be so clearly labelled. There is
too much logic in their way of thinking, too much order in their
actions, to make them at all tempting in Blake's eyes as models for
imitation. The very qualities that we admire them for must have
seemed to him defects. The final description of the Heavenly Jeru-
salem might perhaps have attracted him, if he had not known the
still more radiant vision of the Apocalypse. And the general tone of
the book, clear, simple and admitting only the most transparent
allegories, could exercise but little influence over a poet whose own
dreams were so misty and so obscure.
Blake was more open to the subtler influence of poets who were
not mystics at all. It is difficult, however, to class him as a follower of
any of these. We can trace their influence in certain details of style,
in the construction of sentences, in particular expressions copied or
imitated; but we never find him adopting any of their best or most
striking characteristics.
He hated the classical writers, as worshippers of Reason in art.
Reason, to him, was spiritual death. Doubly dead, therefore, was the
poetry of his own age, modelled upon the classics: a pale copy of
something itself without life. He was acquainted with it, however,
and to some extent affected by it. It must have been from Pope that
he unconsciously learnt the balancing of epithets in poetry: the
almost obligatory correspondence of one with another. In his earliest
works, a substantive scarcely dares show itself without its adjective.
The glittering youth of courts must gleam in arms!
The aged senators their ancient swords assume ! ¹
¹ Prologue to King John.
1
HIS LITERARY MODELS AND HIS IMITATORS 371
Weep from thy silver fountains, weep from thy gentle rivers! ¹
Blossoms
Flourish down the bright cheek of modest eve,
Till clust'ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
And feather'd clouds strew flowers round her head. 2
O holy virgin! clad in purest white,
Unlock heav'n's golden gates. 3
Is not this exactly the style of Pope's
But anxious cares the pensive nymph oppress'd? 4
It is only fair to say, however, that Blake soon abandoned all these
commonplace epithets, and that, as early as the period of the Songs
of Innocence, he had almost ceased to write in Pope's manner.
<<
;
Much more powerful was the influence exercised upon him by
Shakespeare and the other Elizabethan dramatists, and especially by
the lyrical songs scattered through their plays. Whole lists have been
made of phrases in Blake's poems which are only echoes of these
older writers. Such expressions as "Pass over as a summer cloud";
Deathy dust"; "Beaten brass "; Rich as midsummer
"The ribs of death," are to be found in Ben Jonson as well as in the
Poetical Sketches. My silks and fine array recalls Come away, death
in Twelfth Night, as well as the song of Aspasia in Beaumont and
Fletcher's Maid's Tragedy and the Gravedigger's song in Hamlet.
The Mad Song has been called a mosaic of reminiscences, the idea
of it being suggested by the Fool in King Lear, the phrase " A fiend
in a cloud" by a passage in Macbeth, and "The morning peeps
by Milton. I have pointed out how the scene before the battle of
Crecy in King Edward III is imitated from the scene before Agin-
court in Shakespeare's Henry V. Some writers have gone further, and
refused to allow Blake the merit of abandoning the poetry of his own
age for older and better models, on the ground that his age was also
that of the first great Shakespearean critics like Warburton and Malone,
and that he was only following the fashion of the day. But to study
an author with the admiring curiosity of the critic is a very different
thing from absorbing his spirit and imitating his poetry. We see a
likeness to the work of the Elizabethan poets in Blake's juvenile
attempt at drama as well as in his early lyrics, and this likeness is not
due merely to his adoption of their phraseology.
1 Prologue to King John.
• Poetical Sketches: To Morning.
2 Poetical Sketches: To Autumn.
4 Pope: Rape of the Lock, IV, 1.
372
WILLIAM BLAKE
He wrote a so-called Imitation of Spenser, which has little of the
Spenserian music in it, and does not even reproduce the Spenserian
metre accurately. A more faithful imitation is to be seen in the poems
on the Seasons, which Blake describes as they are described in the
Second Canto of Mutabilitie (VII. 28 to 31) in the unfinished book
of the Faerie Queene. His mind was much more impressed by Spenser's
imaginative allegories than by his pictures of his own contemporaries.
But Spenser's symbolism is only an excuse for superb descriptions,
and his characters are real men, acting in a logical fashion. Blake
could never rival his wealth of scenic effect and his minute realism,
much less his wonderful gifts of composition, or the logical unity
which holds together all the episodes of his long but still unfinished
narrative.
It is possible, too, that Herrick may have influenced Blake in some
degree, though we find no reference to him, and no such direct
imitation of his style as would enable us to affirm this with any
certainty. But there are undeniable points of resemblance between
Blake's early poems (the Poetical Sketches and Songs of Innocence and
Experience) and the Hesperides of Herrick, in the structure of the
lines and the " charming disorder " which the older poet purposely
introduced into his verses for the sake of variety. From Herrick also
Blake might have taken the idea of personifying flowers and plants,
which appealed so strongly to his "twofold vision." One cannot read
of the worm weeping like an infant in the Book of Thel without
thinking of Herrick's "Why do ye weep, sweet babes ?" addressed
to the primroses, and his description of them as Whimpering
younglings."¹ But, as far as we can judge, the resemblance ends here.
<<
In any case, Blake soon shook off this youthful tendency to imitate
the work of other writers; and we find very few traces of it after
the period of the Poetical Sketches. Certain authors, however, made
a deeper and more lasting impression upon him, even his last poems
showing marks of their influence, though none of them had any part
in the shaping of his mind, or any damaging effect on his
originality.
There can be no doubt at all that popular ballads like those edited
by Percy, the style of which he certainly copied in Fair Elenor,
helped to give him his taste for those strange wild scenes of mystery,
ruin and death scattered through the Prophetic Books; while in his
artistic tastes, as in his admiration for Gothic art (“ Living Form,”
1 Hesperides: To Primroses filled with Morning Dew.
HIS LITERARY MODELS AND HIS IMITATORS 373
as he calls it), he was closely allied to the Romantic spirits of the
nineteenth century.
The influence of Milton is even more clearly evident. Milton was,
to him, the Poet par excellence, the typical representative of the
prophetic spirit, the very incarnation of Los, in spite of his having
accepted the religion of Jehovah. To Milton Blake owes the most
obvious features of his style; for instance, his habit of accumulating
epithets, supplementary or contrasting. Lines such as
or
The dismal situation, waste and wild, ¹
He, with his horrid crew,
Lay vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded, though immortal. 2
1
are at once recalled by Blake's " Urizen, unhappy though immortal,”
and further by several passages in Vala-
He approached the East,
Void, pathless, beaten with eternal sleet, and eternal hail and rain. 3
Hiding the male
Within as in a tabernacle, abominable, deadly. 4
A furnace of dire flames,
Quenchless, unceasing.
5
Like a crack across from immense to immense,
Loud, strong, a universal groan of death
though this grouping and opposing of epithets is much more frequent
in Vala than in Milton or Jerusalem.
Blake also copied, with some exaggerations, the structure of Milton's
lines, and their almost habitual running on of the sentence from one
to another. Much more important, however, than any of these details
was the inspiration which he found in the incidents of Paradise Lost ;
the description of Satan and the account of his fall having clearly
suggested the fall of Urizen, and the battle of the angels, the various
conflicts between the Zoas and their families. From Milton, too,
Blake learned to make his characters move outside the world of reality,
to import into his poems a whole host of spiritual beings, and to fill
an immense epic history with their wars.
Another author who exercised a permanent influence upon him
1 Paradise Lost, I, 69.
Vala. Night VIII, 111.
2 Paradise Lost, I, 53.
5 Vala. Night VI, 256.
3 Vala. Night VI, 137.
• Vala. Night III, 150.
374
WILLIAM BLAKE
was Ossian. Macpherson's works were then in everybody's hands ;
and no doubt as to their authenticity had yet overshadowed the
general enjoyment of the supposed bard's poetry, which must have
awakened whatever Celtic instinct Blake possessed. The Ossianic
spirit entered into him before passing on to inspire the modern
Romantic poets. His two obvious imitations of Ossian in rhythmical
prose-Contemplation and The Couch of Death-might, but for their
devotional tone, have been written by Macpherson himself. From
him Blake took some of his names, such as Urthona and Leutha,
which strongly resemble Ossian's "Oithona "and" Utha" or "Loda,"1
while others, like Sotha and Thiralatha, have a genuine Ossianic
sound. And we find him borrowing a number of Ossian's phrases:
"The sounding hills," 2 "The dismal sign of war," 3 "The watery
beam,'
"4" He shook his agèd locks," 5 "The sounding mail," and
various others.
”2
7
From Ossian, again, come Blake's frequent comparisons of a battle
to a storm on land or sea, and his taste for descriptions of this kind.
And Ossian, rather than Homer, must have been his model for the
invectives with which his warriors assail one another before their
combats, the maledictions of the Zoas, and the constant howling and
roaring of the spirits who take part in the Ossianic wars, as they do
in those of the Prophetic Books. Like Ossian, too, Blake endows all
the great phenomena of nature with life, not only the birds and the
flowers but, more particularly, the embodiments of its power and
majesty the hills, the clouds, the sea. Blake makes them join in
the conflicts of the spirits; Ossian in those of men. Thus in Blake's
poems we often find the sun frowning, the hills leaping for joy or
the ocean trembling with fear. The same metaphors are common in
Ossian's works.
The sun returns with his silent beams. The glittering rocks, and green
heads of the mountains smile. 8
The silent valleys of night rejoice. 9
Arise, winds of autumn, arise; blow along the heath! Streams of the
mountains roar ! roar tempests, in the groves of my oaks. 10
And Blake's spirits, lamenting upon the clouds or upon the verge of
1 Ossian: Oithona: Carrick-Thura.
2 3 4 5 6 Ossian: Battle of Lora.
7cf. Ossian: Fingal, III and IV, and The Death of Cuthullin.
⁹ Ossian: Battle of Lora.
10 Ossian: Songs of Selma.
9 Ossian: The Death of Cuthullin.
HIS LITERARY MODELS AND HIS IMITATORS 375
nonentity, are only imitations of the Ossianic phantoms, who cry
in the winds and take the shapes of immense black clouds.
Ha! what cloud is that? It carries the ghosts of my fathers. I see the
skirts of their robes, like grey and watery mist.
I saw the ghost who embroiled the night. Silent he stood on that bank.
His robe of mist flew on the wind. I could behold his tears. An aged man
he seemed, and full of thought ! ]
1
Thus Ossian's chief characteristics-his bizarre and romantic
imagination, his misty visions of the supernatural, his power of
enduing nature with a spirit of fear, his choice of rhythmical prose
as his medium-all combined to make him one of the poets whose
influence on Blake is most marked.
A chapter on Blake's literary models would be incomplete without
some reference to those that he has himself indicated: Dante,
Boehme, Swedenborg and the Bible. By Dante, however, he was very
slightly affected, and, though he no doubt admired him greatly, the
two had nothing in common except their faith in the invisible, the
mystical nature of the subjects they treated, and the force of their
invective against anything that aroused their hatred.
The translations of Boehme and Swedenborg served him not so
much as models for style as sources for his doctrines, with which
we are not here concerned. But Boehme's scriptural interpretations,
and certain of his expressions, may have had some influence in the
formation of Blake's mystical language. And the simplicity of Sweden-
borg's writing, and the natural way in which he spoke of his visions,
were certainly reproduced by Blake in The Marriage of Heaven and
Hell; while traces of his concise, orderly style can be seen in Blake's
little prose tractate entitled There is no Natural Religion, and in
others of his polemical works.
In the Bible he found a far more fruitful source of inspiration,
though here it was the manner rather than the matter that he ap-
propriated. From the Book of Job he drew the solemn magnificence
of his imagery; from Isaiah the vehemence of his objurgations and
the moving pathos of his prayers; from the Historical Books, his
minute nomenclature; from Ezekiel, the descriptions of his visions
and of the cities and palaces he saw in them; from the Revelation
the somewhat disordered grandeur of the pictures, the evocations
of Rahab and Tirzah, and the radiant vision of the New Jerusalem;
1 Ossian: Conlath and Cuthona
376
WILLIAM BLAKE
from the Gospels, his words of affecting tenderness; from the
Epistles, his enthusiasm for teaching; and from the whole book the
intensely religious sentiment which dominates all his work, and the
authoritative tone of his inspired prophetic utterances. We see,
therefore, that the Bible, which has so strongly influenced English
literature in general, was one of the most important of Blake's models,
if not the most important of all.
What imitators could Blake possibly have? In no other writer
do we find his unquestioning simplicity of faith, his intense hatred
of logical demonstration and of doubt, his intuitive perception of the
spiritual, owing nothing to reason or the physical senses, and his
combination of all this with a powerful imagination which made him
turn all his dreams into poetry. The few who have known and admired
him have never been able to copy him. They have all possessed too
logical a mind, too much common-sense, too much faith in the
reality of life and of the material world. They all lacked his simplicity
of soul. Wordsworth might have come nearest of all to him; and
Blake recognised this, regarding Wordsworth as the greatest poet
of his time, and as inspired, like Dante, by the Holy Ghost. Crabb
Robinson tells us how strongly he was impressed by the Ode on
Intimations of Immortality, adding, however, that the parts of the ode
which Blake most admired were its obscurest passages, those which
he himself could least comprehend and enjoy. And he cites the lines—
But there's a tree, of many, one,
A single field which I have looked upon,
Both of them speak of something that has gone :
The pansy at my feet
Doth the same tale repeat :
Whither is fled the visionary gleam?
Where is it now, the glory and the dream ?—
as having thrown Blake "almost into an hysterical rapture." Other
passages in the Ode must have also appealed strongly to him, especi-
ally the one in which Wordsworth gives voice to the ideas that
underlie the whole of the Songs of Innocence and Experience:
Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie
Thy soul's immensity;
Thou best philosopher, who yet dost keep
Thy heritage, thou eye among the blind,
That, deaf and silent, read'st the eternal deep,
HIS LITERARY MODELS AND HIS IMITATORS 377
Haunted for ever by the eternal mind,—
Mighty prophet! seer blest!
On whom those truths do rest,
Which we are toiling all our lives to find,
In darkness lost, the darkness of the grave;
Full soon thy soul shall have her earthly freight,
And custom lie upon thee with a weight,
Heavy as frost, and deep almost as life,
and that other where the poet thanks God for having left him his
recollections of infancy.
Blake and Wordsworth were, indeed, born to understand one
another. But, according to Blake, Wordsworth loved nature too well:
he was not a Christian, but a Platonist, and his writings were too full
of Atheism, that is, of reverence for the material world. The two men
differed, again, in their conceptions of style in poetry; and Blake
characterised Wordsworth's prefaces, setting forth his views on the
subject, as "very mischievous." At the same time it is only fair to
add that Blake expressed himself to Crabb Robinson as quite willing
to be corrected by so great a man. Wordsworth fully reciprocated
Blake's admiration; and, as Crabb Robinson further points out,
there is a certain affinity between them, like the affinity between a
well-regulated imagination and the incoherent fancies of a dream.
It is just this that differentiates the two poets. Wordsworth was
sensible and reflective, even in his moments of inspiration. The years
had brought him a philosophic mind. We have seen how much less
childlike he was in his simplicity than Blake-if, indeed, one can
speak of degrees in relation to inspired work, or to that world of art
in which, according to Blake, as in the kingdom of heaven, none can
be greater or less than another. But this very reflectiveness prevented
Wordsworth from giving a free rein to his imagination; and his
poetry is, as a consequence, human in its interest. It is not of the stuff
that dreams are made of, and such echoes as it gives of the note
struck by Blake are few and scarcely audible.
Coleridge also, one of the greatest among dreamers, ought to have
had many points of resemblance to Blake, whom he visited several
times, and spoke of in terms of high admiration. Blake, for his part,
might almost himself have written the weird story of The Ancient
Mariner or the dreamy and fairylike Kubla Khan. But Coleridge's
lyrical poems have none of Blake's infantile simplicity; and it is
378
WILLIAM BLAKE
only very rarely that, in his longer works, he is able to travel, as
Blake did, beyond the confines of our world.
For this very reason, both Wordsworth and Coleridge produced
verse that was greater and more perfect than Blake's: but neither
of them strikes quite the same poetic note that he did. It would be
entirely wrong to call them imitators of Blake. Any points of re-
semblance between their work and his are unintentional, and arise
from those general tendencies of the age to which I referred in the
Introduction to this volume, and from the spiritual affinity that
always exists between the contemplative poet, gifted with a strong
imagination, and the pure mystic.
It is useless to search among the other poets of the nineteenth
century for one who at all approaches Blake. Neither Byron, with
his rebel spirit, his sarcasm and his despair, nor Shelley, whose
poetic soul responded to every mood of the universe, had anything
in common with him except their attitude of impatient resistance to
social conventions, narrow religions and oppressive laws. And the
same may be said of Swinburne, who, nevertheless, understood him
so well and did so much to secure him the appreciation that was
his due.
As for the classic purity of Keats, Scott's romantic erudition, the
dialectics of Browning, the studied and formal elegance of Tennyson,
all these are too complex in their character and too alien in their
inspiration to bear any comparison with Blake. It is very rarely that
we find in the work of these men anything that recalls the Songs of
Innocence, while the Prophetic Books, with their atmosphere of
cloud and mystery, are of a nature to defy all attempts at imitation.
Two poets only, and those almost of our own period, have been
named as bearing some likeness to Blake. These are Christina
Rossetti and Walt Whitman. The former, in her poems of childhood,
shows something of Blake's simplicity of spirit, his delicate feeling,
his faith in a God ever present and ever good, his ignorance of all evil.
But these poems form only a small and unimportant part of her work,
the bulk of which is overshadowed by a melancholy quite strange
to Blake; and she shows neither his amplitude of imagination nor
his vehement eloquence. Besides, her mysticism is of too orthodox
a kind to allow of the comparison between them being carried further.
In Whitman we find a larger proportion of flashes of genius
mingled with enormous faults; and, to this extent, he resembles
Blake more closely. In him, too, we see the same dominant sense of
HIS LITERARY MODELS AND HIS IMITATORS 379
man's importance, the same feeling of brotherhood with all humanity,
and, in his writing, the same superb contempt for rules and con-
ventions. But how vast, also, is the difference between the two!
Whitman has an intense love for all material things. He believes as
ardently in our visible world and its value as in the existence of
the soul. He is a realistic painter of the life that is all around us, and
not a visionary who leaves the earth and takes us with him into the
world of dreams. And his verse, more distorted and more chaotic
even than Blake's, has no suggestion of Blake's music, though it may
at times re-echo something of his energy. All that his poetry has in
common with Blake's is its unlikeness to the work of any other writer.
If, therefore, it is hard to trace Blake's connection with his pre-
decessors in literature, it is still more difficult to find among later
authors any who followed in his steps or even imitated his methods.
1
¹ This chapter would be far from exhaustive if it claimed to include all the poets
whose mystic tendencies give them some of the features of Blake's work. There
have been many such in the past and recently. I have purposely avoided naming
any living writer. Yet I should like to make an exception in favour of the poets
of the Irish School, especially Mr. W. B. Yeats, who not only has been one of
the most penetrating of Blake's interpreters, but who has also made us feel
through his own poems as if much of the spirit of our great mystic were again
living in him.
I
XXIII: CONCLUSION
S it necessary, in concluding this short attempt at an ap-
preciation, to pronounce any general and definitive judgment
upon the man and his work? Will not the opinions formed
of him vary perpetually with the reader's turn of mind, the
tastes of his age, the durability of his impressions? Blake will always
be loved by poets and artists, by the dreamers and the thinkers.
The psychologist will regard him as a curious and interesting pheno-
menon. Men of purely logical and scientific mind will leave him
out of consideration as a mystic, without common sense or reason.
But they too will find some interest in him if science, while adding
to their sum of knowledge, has also widened for them the horizon
of that world of the unknown into which we all desire to penetrate.
And perhaps this is why Blake is finding more readers and admirers
at the present day than ever before. A scientific age is not always
the one that takes the least degree of interest in mysticism, or pro-
duces the fewest dreamers.
But though no judgment of Blake can be final, I have neverthe-
less given, in various places, some fragmentary opinions of him. I
have sought to make clear the extraordinary personality of this man,
so proud and independent in spirit and yet so humble and mild in
his private life; so revolutionary in his theories and so orderly in
his conduct; so poor and so bound down by the necessities of his
daily labour, and at the same time so rich in his visionary treasures,
so happy in his supernatural existence; innocent as the child who
is admitted into the kingdom of heaven; daring as the "violent
who "take it by force."
>>
Feeling our way among the mists that he gathered around him,
we have tried to dissipate some of the clouds which obscure his
visions, to accustom our eyes to the unearthly light that shines upon
them, and to see them as he saw them. We have made some attempt
to codify his doctrines and his system of morality, and to trace his
theories to their source. We have always found in him a rebel against
the established social and religious order, but at the same time a man
of noble and enthusiastic impulses, deeply imbued with the feeling
of universal brotherhood and of love for all God's creatures. No one
has ever been more keenly sensitive than Blake to that element in
our soul which only awakes in dreams or in the profoundest stirrings
CONCLUSION
381
of our instinctive life; that part of us which may perhaps have seen,
in some other existence, separated from our own-whether by a
moment or by long ages-those ideals and fancies that Plato called
"reminiscences"; that chord in us which vibrates to every pro-
found and genuine note of music and art. No one has ever felt himself
so completely in sympathy with the soul of the world, or understood
so perfectly that all the universe is one in essence, and that our little
consciousness, the consciousness of our own individuality, com-
posed as it is of egotism and experience, is the one thing that separates
us from other men, from the world, and from God. And so no one
has ever so closely associated the love of mankind and of the universe,
the doctrine of self-annihilation and renunciation, with the unres-
tricted development of the poet's prophetic instinct, the unconscious,
inspired soul of man, the soul of the universe and the breath of God.
Behind the mystic who thus makes a god of poetry and worships
it, I have tried to show the poet. His ideals were infinite, but he was
restricted in his realization of them by his very mysticism, a morbid
growth which gave his work an indescribable charm, but which ended
by ruining it, just as the devouring worm of his song destroyed the
sick rose, after first imparting a melancholy grace to its drooping
blossoms. We certainly can no longer call Blake mad, nor say that
this man, who deified the poetic spirit, was without genius. But we
cannot help seeing how much of his work remains hopelessly obscure,
and how many passages in it are devoid of art, because art has been
driven out of it by mysticism.
In spite of this, the charm of his poetry still attracts us. We our-
selves also have something of this universal soul, which stirs within
us as we come into closer contact with his soul. If we do not lose
patience, if we follow him boldly through the darkness, we shall
soon begin to see gleams of a light that cannot be mistaken. And he
has the power to lead us into regions of pure brightness, where even
children can gaze upon him with delight, and where he allows us to
roam at will, undeterred by any fear of losing our way in the light
and quickly passing mists that hang about us. If mystical visions
appeal to us, if we still regard the enigma of the Unseen as worth
the trouble of studying, we shall be carried away with him into these
mysterious realms in which he is so much at home; and we shall
bring back, when we return to earth, a little of the new knowledge,
a few of those "Blossoms of Eternal Life" which he passed through
the golden gate of death to gather.
382
WILLIAM BLAKE
And even if we are men of little faith, if we regard the world of
imagination, of inspiration and of love as an empty illusion, if we are
spirits of doubt and negation—and these, like everything else, have
their purpose in the universe-if we live only in the dead world of
Ulro, we may still see the visions that he calls up before us, and hear
the melody of his songs. Is it not possible to admire without always
understanding or believing? Have we never been entranced by some
unfamiliar music, rising or falling in the air like smoke or cloud,
triumphant, menacing, or mournfully harmonious? Has it not filled
our hearts with vague, confused feelings, our imaginations with half-
formed pictures, our minds with fleeting thoughts? Have we always
exactly understood it? Each of us has interpreted it by putting into
it a little of his own soul; but each has felt deep within him the
stirring of great hidden forces, unconscious and indefinable, but
always stronger than ourselves. And this is perhaps the best comparison
that can be found for the general impression that remains on our
minds after a perusal of all Blake's poetry: an impression of some-
thing that we must not analyse or examine too closely, but which
must be enjoyed like music, listened to like a voice heard in a dream,
remembered like the last notes of the organ echoing through the
dark, lofty arches of some great cathedral.
And perhaps this would be the highest praise that the poet could
receive when we return to our everyday life, with its prohibitions
and its harsh laws, we shall be sorry that the dream is over, that the
music has ceased and the vision gone from our sight. Like the child
in his own song, we shall sigh because we may not cross the shining
river, and reach that land beyond it which is the home of all our
ideals and all our fondest desires.
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 Lillies by waters fair.
I wept for joy, like a dove I mourn
O! when shall I again return?
Father, O Father what do we here
In this Land of unbelief and fear?
The Land of Dreams is better far
Above the light of the Morning Star.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
P
BIBLIOGRAPHY
OETICAL Sketches. By W. B., with an Advertisement by Rev.
H. Mathew. London, 1783.
There is no Natural Religion, circa 1788.
The Wisdom of the Angels concerning Divine Love and Divine Wisdom.
By Emanuel Swedenborg. London, 1788. The British Museum copy
(C. 45. e.1.) contains pencil notes by William Blake.
The Book of Thel, 1789.
Songs of Innocence, 1789.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790.
The French Revolution, Book I, 1791.
Original Stories from Real Life: By Mary Wollstonecraft. With Illus-
trations designed and engraved by William Blake. London, 1791,
1796, 1906.
America, a Prophecy. Lambeth, 1793.
The Gates of Paradise, 1793.
Visions of the Daughters of Albion. London, 1793.
Fables: By John Gay. The Tame Stag, designed and engraved by W. B.
London, 1793.
The Book of Urizen, 1794.
Europe, a Prophecy, 1794.
Songs of Experience, 1794.
The Book of Los: A Poem by William Blake, with illustrations by him.
Lambeth, 1795-
The Song of Los. Lambeth, 1795.
Leonora Translated and altered from the German of G. A. Bürger : By
J. T. Stanley, with Illustrations by William Blake. London, 1796.
The Complaint and the Consolation or Night Thoughts: By Edward
Young. With Illustrations by William Blake. London, 1797.
The Works of Sir Joshua Reynolds. 3 Vols. London, 1798. The British
Museum Copy (C. 45. e. 18-20.) contains copious notes by William
Blake.
Little Tom the Sailor, a broadside, 1800.
Jerusalem, the emanation of the Giant Albion. London, 1804.
BB
386
WILLIAM BLAKE
Milton, a poem in two books, 1804.
Ballads By W. Hayley, Esq. Founded on Anecdotes relating to Animals,
with prints designed and engraved by William Blake. London,
1805.
The Adventures of Telemachus: By F. de Selignac de la Mothe Fénelon,
Archbishop of Cambray, with 4 coloured plates by William Blake ?
London, 1807.
The Grave, a Poem: By R. Blair. Illustrated from the Original Inventions
of William Blake. Engraved by Schiavonetti. London, 1808. Re-
printed, 1813.
A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures, Poetical and Historical Inventions,
painted by William Blake in water colours, and Drawings for public
inspection. London, 1809.
The Prologue and Characters of Chaucer's Pilgrims, intended to illustrate
a particular design of Mr. William Blake, which is engraved by himself
and may be seen at Mr. Colnaghi's. London, 1812.
On Homer's Poetry and On Virgil, circa 1820.
The Pastorals of Virgil: By R. J. Thornton. Third edition. Vol. I. London,
1821. The text in Latin, with imitations in English by Ambrose
Philips, Pope, &c. The woodcut illustrations to Philips's imitation of
Eclogue I and a few etchings from antique busts are by Blake.
Blake's illustrations of Dante. Seven plates designed and engraved by
William Blake. London, 1824-27(?).
28 750 Illustrations of the Book of Job. Invented and engraved
by W. B. London, 1825.
Meditaciones poeticas: By Jose Joaquin de Mora, contains the plates
engraved for Blair's Grave. Londres, 1826.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, showing the two contrary states of
the Human Soul. London 1789-94. Printed from the original plates
on paper bearing the watermark 1831.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience. With a preface, containing a memoir
of Blake, by J. J. Garth Wilkinson. London, 1839.
The Grave, by R. Blair, 1844. Moulton's Library of Literary Criticism
quotes a MS. note by David Scott in a copy of this edition.
Songs of Innocence and of Experience, with other Poems. London, 1866.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell: By William Blake. A Reproduction.
London, 1868.
•
Poetical Sketches now first reprinted from the original edition of
1783. Edited and prefaced by R. H. Shepherd. London, 1868.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
387
Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Edited and prefaced by R. H.
Shepherd. London, 1868.
The Poems of William Blake, comprising Songs of Innocence and Ex-
perience, together with Poetical Sketches, &c. Edited with an
Introduction by R. H. Shepherd. London, 1874.
The Poetical Works of William Blake. Edited with a prefatory Memoir by
W. M. Rossetti (Aldine edition). London, 1874. Boston, Mass. 1875.
William Blake's Illustrations of the Book of Job. With descriptive letter-
press and a sketch of the Artist's Life and Works by C. E. Norton.
Boston, Mass., 1875.
Works of William Blake :
Songs of Innocence, 1789.
Songs of Experience, 1794.
Book of Thel, 1798.
Vision of the Daughters of Albion, 1793.
America: a prophecy, 1794.
The First Book of Urizen, 1794.
The Song of Los, 1794.
Reproduced in facsimile from the original editions. One hundred
copies, printed for private circulation. Note by S. R. Koehler.
London, 1876.
Jerusalem, the emanation of the Giant Albion. London, 1877. A repro-
duction of the original work published in 1804, consisting of 100 en-
graved pages, writing and design, only one side of each leaf being
engraved.
William Blake, Etchings from his Works: By William Bell Scott. With
descriptive text. London, 1878.
English Poets: By T. H. Ward. Vol. III. Selections from Blake edited by
J. Comyns Carr. London, 1880.
The Book of Thel. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir. London, 1884.
Songs of Innocence. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir. London, 1884.
The Ancient of Days. A single sheet reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir.
London, 1885.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir.
London, 1885.
The Poems, with specimens of prose writings, of William Blake. With
prefatory notice by Joseph Skipsey (Canterbury Poets) London, 1885.
Songs of experience. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir. London, 1885.
The Visions of the Daughters of Albion. Reproduced in facsimile by
W. Muir. London, 1885.
388
WILLIAM BLAKE
Century Guild Hobby Horse, Vol. I. The Ballad of Little Tom the Sailor.
Reproduced in facsimile, uncoloured, with a Note on it by H. H.
Gilchrist. London, 1886.
Little Tom the Sailor. A broadside. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir.
London, 1886.
Milton, a poem in two books. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir.
London, 1886.
There is no Natural Religion. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir.
London, 1886.
America, a Prophecy. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir. London, 1887.
Century Guild Hobby Horse, Vol. II. Blake's Sibylline Leaf on Homer
and Virgil. With a Note by Herbert P. Horne. London, 1887.
Europe, a Prophecy. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir. London, 1887.
The Gates of Paradise. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir. London, 1888.
Urizen. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir. London, 1888.
Illustrations of Milton's Comus: Eight Drawings by William Blake,
reproduced by W. Griggs. London, 1889.
The Song of Los. Reproduced in facsimile by W. Muir. London, 1890.
The Poets and Poetry of the Century By A. H. Miles. Vol. I. Selected
Poems from Blake, edited by A. H. Miles. London, 1891.
The Poems of William Blake: Edited by W. B. Yeats (Muses Library).
London, 1893.
Selections from the Writings of William Blake. With an introductory essay
by L. Housman. London, 1893.
Songs of Innocence and Experience, 2 parts in one volume, 54 plates in
plain facsimile, by E. J. Ellis. London, 1893.
The Works of William Blake, Poetic, Symbolic and Critical. Edited with
lithographs of the illustrated "Prophetic Books" and a Memoir
and interpretation by E. J. Ellis and W. B. Yeats. 3 vols. London,
1893.
The Book of Thel, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, With
Decorations by C. Ricketts. London, 1897.
Poetical Sketches. With Decorations by C. Ricketts. London, 1899.
Songs of Innocence. With designs by C. Levetus. London, 1899.
Le Mariage du Ciel et de l'Enfer, Traduction Française avec Introduction
par Charles Grolleau. Paris, 1900.
The Book of Peace: By Baroness Glenconner. With illustrations from
Blake's Drawings. 1901.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
389
Selections from the Works of William Blake. With an Introduction and
Notes by M. Perugini. (Little Library). London, 1901.
D Illustrations of the Book of Job. Invented and Engraved
by W. Blake, 1825. 21 plates in facsimile. London, 1902.
Songs of Experience. With designs by Celia Levetus. London, 1902.
Songs of Innocence. With illustrations by Geraldine Morris (Flowers of
Parnassus, No. 12). London, 1902.
William Blake: being all his woodcuts photographically reproduced in
facsimile. With an introduction by Laurence Binyon. London, 1902.
The Prophetic Books of William Blake. Edited by E. R. D. Maclagan and
A. G. B. Russell: Jerusalem, the emanation of the Giant Albion.
London, 1904.
The Grave: By R. Blair, with 11 Photogravure and one half-tone repro-
duction, after designs by William Blake. London, 1905.
The Lyrical Poems of William Blake. Text by John Sampson. With an
Introduction by Walter Raleigh. Oxford, 1905.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. (The Venetian Series, No. 2.) London,
1905.
The Poems of William Blake: Edited by W. B. Yeats. (Muses Library,
2nd edition.) London 1905.
The Poetical Works of William Blake. A new and verbatim text from the
manuscript, engraved and letterpress originals. With variorum
readings and bibliographical notes and prefaces by John Sampson.
Oxford, 1905.
Songs of Innocence (Broadway Booklets). London, 1905.
The Letters of William Blake. Together with a Life by Frederick Tatham.
Edited from the original manuscripts with an introduction and notes
by Archibald G. B. Russell. With 12 illustrations. London, 1906.
Paradise Lost: By J. Milton. Illustrated by William Blake. Liverpool, 1906.
The Poetical Works of William Blake. Edited and annotated by Edwin J.
Ellis. 2 vols. London, 1906.
Songs of Innocence. Illustrated by Olive Allen. London, 1906.
William Blake. Facsimile Reprints. Vol. I, Illustrations to the Book of Job.
With general introduction by Laurence Binyon. London, 1906, etc.
Christian Mystics: By W. P. Swainson. (No. 8, William Blake.) London,
1907.
The Heresy of Job: By Francis Coutts. With the inventions of William
Blake. London, 1907.
390
WILLIAM BLAKE
The Prophetic Books of William Blake. Edited by E. R. D. Maclagan and
A. G. B. Russell: Milton, a poem in two books. London, 1907.
William Blake: Seventeen Designs to Thornton's Virgil, reproduced
from the original woodcuts MDCCCXXI. Portland, Maine,
1909.
The Poetical Works of William Blake. Edited by W. B. Yeats. London,
1910. A re-issue with new title-page of the 1905 edition in the Muses
Library.
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and a Song of Liberty. With an
Introduction by Francis Griffin Stokes. The Florence Press, London,
1911.
Poems of William Blake. Selected, with an introduction by Alice Meynell
(Red Letter Library). London, 1911.
Songs of Experience (Langham Booklets). London, 1911.
Songs of Innocence and other Poems (Frowde). London, 1911.
Songs of Innocence (A. L. Humphreys). London, 1911.
Songs of Innocence. With a preface by Thomas Seccombe and twelve
coloured illustrations by Honor C. Appleton. London, 1911.
Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job. Glasgow, 1912.
Illustrations to Thornton's Pastorals of Virgil. Enlarged photographic
facsimiles of the 17 woodcuts. Acton, 1912.
Songs of Experience (The Arden Books, No. 8). London, 1912.
Songs of Innocence and other poems. (Bagster's Christian Classics).
London, 1912.
Songs of Innocence (The Arden Books, No. 7). London, 1912.
Songs of Innocence. Decorated by Charles Robinson and Mary H.
Robinson. London, 1912.
William Blake. Poems selected by A. T. Quiller-Couch. London,
1912.
The Poetical Works of William Blake. Including the unpublished French
Revolution, together with the minor Prophetic Books and selections
from the Four Zoas, Milton and Jerusalem. Edited with an intro-
duction and textual notes by John Sampson. London, 1913.
Illustrations to the Book of Job. Enlarged photographic facsimiles of the
21 plates. Acton, 1914.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
391
BIOGRAPHIES OF BLAKE AND CRITICISMS OF
HIS WORKS
A Father's Memoir of his Child: By B. H. Malkin. London, 1806.
The Examiner: Mr. Blake's Exhibition. London, 1809.
Vaterlandisches Museum Vol. II. William Blake, Kunstler, Dichter und
religioser Schwarmer. By Dr. N. H. Julius. Hamburg, 1811.
This article was written in English by H. Crabb Robinson and
translated by Dr. Julius, it contains a German version of some of
Blake's poems.
The Library Companion. By T. F. Dibden. Vol. II. London, 1824.
Letters of Charles Lamb. Edited A. Ainger. Vol. II. Letter to Bernard
Barton. May 5, 1824. London, 1888. New edition, 1904.
Diary and Reminiscences of H. Crabb Robinson. Edited by Sadler. Vol. I.
Account of his article on Blake. Vol. II. Letter to Miss Wordsworth.
February 1826. London, 1869.
Annual Register: Obituary Notice. London, 1827.
The Gentleman's Magazine: Memoir. London. Pt. 2 of 1827.
The Literary Gazette, No. 552. William Blake, the illustrator of the Grave.
London, 1827.
Nollekens and his Times: By J. T. Smith. London, 1828.
Lives of the most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors and Architects.
By Allan Cunningham. London, 1830.
London University Magazine. Vol. II. The Inventions of William Blake,
Painter and Poet. By H. Crabb Robinson. London, 1830.
Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV: By Lady Charlotte Bury.
London, 1838-9.
A Book for a Rainy Day: By J. T. Smith. London, 1845.
Howitt's Journal. Vol. II. Death's Door, by William Blake. London,
1848.
Sacred and Legendary Art : By Anna Jameson. Vol I. London, 1848.
Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers. Ed. G. Stanley. London,
1849.
Hogg's Intelligencer. Vol. II. A Chat about Blake: By William Alling-
ham. London, 1849.
Encyclopædia Brittanica. 8th edition. Edinburgh, 1854.
Art Journal, Vol. X. Tombs of English Artists. No. 7: William Blake.
F. W. Fairholt. London, 1858.
Littell's Living Age. Vol. LIX. Article on Blake. Boston, Mass. 1858.
392
WILLIAM BLAKE
British Artists from Hogarth to Turner: By Walter Thornbury. Vol. II.
London, 1861.
Life of William Blake, "Pictor Ignotus": By Alexander Gilchrist.
Edited by Anne Gilchrist with the assistance of D. G. and W. M.
Rossetti. London, 1863.
New and enlarged edition, with additional letters and a memoir of the
author. London, 1880.
Edited with an introduction by W. Graham Robertson. London 1907.
Littell's Living Age. Vol. LXXIX. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake.
Boston, Mass., 1863.
Register of Facts and Occurrences relating to Literature, the Sciences, and
the Arts. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake. By William Bell Scott,
London, 1863.
Revue Moderne. W. Blake: By Joseph Milsand. Paris, 1863. Reprinted
in Littérature Anglaise et Philosophie. Paris, 1893.
Art Journal, Vol XVI. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake. London, 1864.
The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XIII. Pictor Ignotus, by Mary Abigail Dodge
(Gail Hamilton). Boston, Mass. 1864.
Colburn's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. CXXX. Review of Gilchrist's
Life of Blake. London, 1864.
The Eclectic Review, Vol. VI. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake. London,
1864.
North American Review, Vol. XCIX. The Genius of William Blake:
By H. E. Scudder. Boston and New York, 1864.
Notes and Queries. 3rd ser. Vol. V. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake.
London, 1864.
Westminster Review, No. 49. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake. London,
1864.
Blackwood's Magazine, Vol. XCVIII. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake.
Edinburgh, 1865.
Fine Arts Quarterly, Vol. III. Life and Works of William Blake: By
W. F. Rae. London, 1865.
Quarterly Review, Vol. CXVII. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake.
London, 1865.
English Eccentrics: By John Timbs. London, 1866.
Temple Bar, Vol. XVII. William Blake, Seer and Painter. London, 1866.
Light Blue, Vol. II. William Blake: I. Blake the Author; II. Blake the
Artist; III. Blake the Artist (concluded). Signed P. M. Cambridge,
1867.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
393
Sharpe's London Magazine, Vol. XLVI. Article on Blake. London, 1867.
Broadway Review. Review of Swinburne's Essay on Blake. London, 1868
Fortnightly Review, Vol. IX. Review of Swinburne's William Blake: A
Critical Essay. By Moncure D. Conway. London, 1868.
Radical, Vol. III. Article by W. A. Cram. Boston, Mass., 1868.
William Blake, a Critical Essay By A. C. Swinburne. London, 1868.
New Edition, 1906.
London Quarterly Review, Vol. XXXI. Review of Gilchrist's Life of
Blake. By James Smetham. London, 1869.
Macmillan's Magazine, Vol. XI. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake.
London, 1869.
North American Review, Vol. CVIII. Blake's Songs and Poetical
Sketches By C. E. Norton. Boston and New York, 1869.
Hours at Home, Vol. XI. Article by E. P. Evans. New York, 1870.
Portfolio, Vol. II. Blake and Varley: Sketch Book: By W. B. Scott.
London, 1871.
Portfolio. Children in Italian and English Design. Part II., Blake: By
Sidney Colvin. London, 1871.
Once a Week, Vol. XXVII. Article on Blake. London, 1872.
Homes, Works and Shrines of British Artists: By F. W. Fairholt. London,
1873.
Old and New, Vol. VII. Article on Blake: By T. M. Clark. Boston, Mass.,
1873.
New Quarterly Magazine, Vol. II. William Blake: Artist, Poet, and
Mystic: By Oswald Crawfurd. Apl., London, 1874.
Academy, Vol. VII. Bibliographical Note on Songs of Innocence: By R.
H. Shepherd. London, 1875.
Athenæum. Fictions concerning William Blake: By Samuel Palmer.
London, 1875.
Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XXXV. William Blake By T. S. Perry. Boston,
Mass., 1875.
Cornhill, Vol. XXXI. William Blake. By J. Comyns Carr. London, 1875.
Same article in Littell's Living Age, Vol. CXXVI. Boston, Mass., 1875.
Encyclopædia Brittanica, 9th Edition. Article by J. Comyns Carr. Edin-
burgh, 1875. Reprinted in 11th Edition. Cambridge, 1910.
Notes and Queries, 5th Ser. Vol. IV. Three Notes on Blake. London, 1875.
Academy Notice by W. M. Rossetti Blake at the Burlington Club.
London, 1876.
394
WILLIAM BLAKE
Academy, Vol. II. Correspondence between W. M. Rossetti and W.
B. Scott on The Blake Catalogue. London, 1876.
Belgravia, Vol. XXIX. William Blake: By J. Comyns Carr. London,
1876.
Catalogue of the Exhibition of Blake's Works at the Burlington Fine
Arts Club, with Introduction by W. Bell Scott. London, 1876.
Contemporary Review, Vols. XXVIII and XXIX. Imperfect Genius:
William Blake By Henry G. Hewlett. London, 1876-1877.
Echo: The Blake Exhibition. London, 1876.
Eclectic Magazine, Vol. LXXXIV. Blake's Poems. New York, 1876.
Macmillan's Magazine, Vol. XXXIV. The Blake Drawings at the Burling-
ton Fine Arts Club: By H. H. Statham. London, 1876.
Penn Monthly, Vol. VII. Blake's Poems. Philadelphia, 1876.
Essays on Art: By J. Comyns Carr. London, 1877.
Spectator, Vol. L. Etchings from Blake: a Review of W. B. Scott's Book.
London, 1877.
American Architect, Vol. VIII. The Works of William Blake: By M. G.
van Rensselaer. Boston, Mass., 1880.
Catalogue of the Exhibition of Drawings and Engravings by William
Blake at the Museum of Fine Arts. Boston, Mass., 1880.
The Influence of Joy upon the Workman and his Work: By H. B. Hewet-
son. Illustrated by Facsimiles of Drawings by William Blake. London,
1880.
Notes and Queries, 6th Ser. Vol. II. Note on Gilchrist's Life of Blake.
London, 1880.
Scribner's Monthly, Vol. XX., William Blake, Painter and Poet. By H.
E. Scudder. New York, 1880.
Academy, Vol. XIX. Review of Gilchrist's Life, 2nd Edition: By John
M. Gray. London, 1881.
Athenæum. Notice of Blake's Etching: The Canterbury Pilgrims:
Reissue by Colnaghi. London, 1881.
Athenæum. Article on William Blake. London, 1881.
Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XLVII. Review of Gilchrist's Life, 2nd Edition.
Boston, Mass., 1881.
Critic, Vol. I. William Blake, Poet and Painter: By E. C. Stedman,
New York, 1881.
London Quarterly Review, Vol. XXXI. Review of Gilchrist's Life of
Blake. London, 1881.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
395
Magazine of Art, Vol. IV. Blake and his Wife: By J. Oldcastle. London, 1881.
Modern Review, Vol. II. Article by C. Hargrove. London, 1881.
Notes and Queries, 6th Ser. Vol. III. Note on Colnaghi's Reprint of Blake's
Canterbury Pilgrims. London, 1881.
Temple Bar, Vol. LXII. William Blake: By Frederick Wedmore.
London, 1881. Same Article in Littell's Living Age, Vol. CXLIX.
Boston, Mass., 1881, and in Eclectic Magazine, New York, 1881.
Wesleyan Methodist Magazine, Vol. CIV. William Blake, Poet and
Painter. Review by Rev. Jabez Marrat of Gilchrist's Life of William
Blake. London, 1881.
Essays from the Critic. Contains Essay by E. C. Stedman: William Blake,
Poet and Painter. New York, 1882.
The Literary History of England in XVII and XVIII Centuries: By
Margaret O. W. Oliphant. Vol. II. London, 1882.
Spectator, Vol. LV. Review of Gilchrist's Life of Blake. London, 1882.
Shelley, a Poem, to which is added an Essay on the Poems of William
Blake By James Thomson (B.V.). London, 1884.
Athenæum. Review of W. Muir's Reprint of the Marriage of Heaven and
Hell. London, 1886.
Athenæum. Review of W. Muir's Reprint of Milton, a Poem in two Books.
London, 1886.
Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers: Edited R. E. Graves.
Article by M. M. Heaton. London, 1886 and 1898.
Saturday Review, Vol. LXIV. Notice of Mr. Muir's Facsimiles. London,
1887.
Principle in Art: By Coventry Patmore. London, 1889.
Notes and Queries. 7th Ser. Vol. VIII. Notes on the 1866 edition of Songs
of Innocence. London, 1889.
Six Portraits. Della Robbia, William Blake, &c. : By M. G. Van Rensselaer.
New York, 1889.
Universal Review, Vol. VI. Blake as an Impressionist: By Laurence
Housman. London, 1890.
Athenæum. Letter by W. M. Rossetti on a mention of William Blake in
Lady Charlotte Bury's Diary Illustrative of the Times of George IV.
London, 1891.
Catalogue of the Exhibition of Drawings and Engravings, &c., of William
Blake at the Museum of Fine Arts, with a Bibliography. Boston,
Mass., 1891.
396
WILLIAM BLAKE
Notes and Queries, 7th Ser. Vols. XI and XII. Notes on Holy Thursday.
London, 1891.
Sun, Vol. IV. William Blake, Poet, Painter, and Seer: By A. L. Salmon.
Paisley and London, 1891.
Belgravia, Vol. LXXVII. Article on Blake: By E. A. Gowing. London,
1892. Same Article in Littell's Living Age. Boston, Mass, 1892.
Notes and Queries, 8th Ser. Vol. II. Notes on Holy Thursday. London,
1892.
Under the Evening Lamp: By H. R. Stoddard. New York, 1892.
Academy, Vol. XLIV. Blake's Works: By L. Johnson. London,
1893.
Art Journal, Vol. XLV. Blake and his Disciples: By A. T. Story. London,
1893.
Bookman, Review of Blake's Works in Parchment Library.: By W. B.
Yeats. London, Aug., 1893.
Literary Works of James Smetham. London, 1893.
Nation, Vol. LVII. Review of Story's Life of Blake: By K. Cox.
New York, 1893.
Poet Lore, Vol. V. Romanticism of William Blake: By L. A. Paton.
Boston, Mass, 1893.
Review of Reviews, Vol. VII. Review of Ellis and Yeats's Edition of Blake.
London, 1893.
Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, Winter
Exhibition, XXIVth year. London, 1893.
Saturday Review, Vol. LXXV. Review of Ellis and Yeats' Edition of
Blake's Works. London, 1893.
William Blake. His Life, Character and Genius: By A. T. Story. London,
i893.
Californian Illustrated Magazine, Vol. IV. Article on William Blake: By
J. V. Chesney. San Francisco, 1894.
Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. LII. Article on Blake. London, 1894.
Piers Plowman, a Contribution to English Mysticism: By J. Jusserand.
London, 1894.
Royal Academy of Arts Exhibition of Works by the Old Masters, Winter
Exhibition, XXVth year. London, 1894.
Temple Bar, Vol. CVI. Article on Blake: By A. T. Story. London, 1895.
Same Article in Littell's Living Age. Vol. CCVIII. Boston, Mass.,
1896, and in Eclectic Magazine, Vol. CXXVI. New York, 1896.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
397
William Blake, Painter and Poet: By Richard Garnett. Portfolio Mono-
graph, No. 22. London, 1895.
Art Journal, Vol. XII. William Wynne Ryland and William Blake: By
Ernest Radford. London, 1896.
Bookman. Review of R. Garnet's Portfolio Monograph on Blake. By
W. B. Yeats. London, April, 1896.
Daily Chronicle. Blake & Messrs. W. H. Smith and Son: A Letter by
Dr. Richard Garnett on their refusal to supply the Savoy. London,
1896.
English Literature: By Stopford A. Brooke. London, 1896.
Essays By A. C. Benson. London, 1896.
History of Nineteenth Century Literature: By Geo. Saintsbury. Lon-
don, 1896.
Notes and Queries, 8th Ser. Vol. IX. Note on Holy Thursday. London,
1896.
Notes and Queries, 8th Ser. Vol. XI. Books illustrated by Blake. London,
1897.
Savoy. William Blake and his Illustrations to the Divine Comedy, By
W. B. Yeats: i. His Opinions on Art; ii. His Opinions on Dante ;
iii. The Illustrations of Dante. London, 1896. Reprinted in Ideas of
Good and Evil. Stratford-on-Avon, 1903, and in Collected Works,
Vol. VI. Stratford-on-Avon, 1908.
Social England: By H. D. Trail, Vol. V. London, 1896.
Academy, Vol. II., Academy Portraits: By W. B. Yeats. London, 1897.
The Art of William Blake: By E. L. Cary. New York, 1897.
Sewanee Review, Vol. V. Article on Blake: By W. N. Guthrie. Sewanee,
Tenn, 1897.
University Magazine and Free Review. William Blake and Modern Pro-
blems By Edward Willmore. London, 1897.
From Chaucer to Arnold, Types of Literary Art: By A. J. George, New
York, 1898.
Daily Telegraph. Article: Memorial to William Blake. London, 1899.
Poet-Lore, Vol. XI. The Poetry of William Blake. Boston, Mass., 1899.
Art Journal, Vol. LII. Levebus' Illustrations to Blake. London, 1900.
Century Magazine, Vol. XXXVIII. The Poetry of William Blake: By
H. J. Smith. New York, 1900.
Die Mystik, die Künstler und das Leben: By Rudolf Kassner. Leipzig,
1900
398
WILLIAM BLAKE
Life of Lord Houghton: By Sir T. Wemyss Reid. Vol. II. Letter from
Seymour Kirkup to Lord Houghton, Mar. 25, 1870. London, 1890.
Spectator, Vol. XCVII. Article on William Blake. London, 1900.
Academy, Vol. LXI. The Poetry of William Blake. London, 1901.
Current Literature, Vol. XXXII. The Poetry of William Blake. New
York, 1902.
3
Notes and Queries, 9th Ser. Vol. X. Note on A Dream. London, 1902.
Art Journal, Vol. LV. Blake's Illustrations to the Book of Job: By R. E.
D. Sketchley. London, 1903.
Athenæum. On Earl of Crewe's Collection of Blake's Works sold at
Sotheby's. London, 1903.
Catalogue of Original Productions of William Blake, the property of the
Ist Earl of Crewe. London, 1903.
Critic, Vol. XLII. Lord Crewe's Blake Collection: By T. Nutt. New
York, 1903.
Magazine of Art, Vol. XXVII. The Blake Memorial in the Free Public
Library, Lambeth. London, 1903.
La Plume. Article by M. Stokoe. Paris, 1903.
Art Journal, Vol. LVI. The Art of William Blake. London, 1904.
Athenæum. Note on Carfax's Exhibition of Blake's Work. London,
1904.
Athenæum. Review of Maclagan and Russell's Edition of Blake's Jeru-
salem. London, 1904.
Daily Chronicle. Blake the Prophet, Review of Maclagan and Russell's
Edition of the Prophetic Books of William Blake. London, 1904.
Bryan's Dictionary of Painters and Engravers: Ed. by G. C. Williamson.
Article by E. J. Oldmeadow. London, 1904.
Catalogue of the Exhibition of Blake's Works. Carfax and Co. Note by
A. G. B. Russell. London, 1904.
History of Criticism and Literary Taste in Europe: By G. Saintsbury,
Vol. III. Wordsworth and Coleridge: their Companions and Adver-
saries. Edinburgh, 1904.
Independent Review, Vol. II. The Art of Blake: By L. Binyon. London,
1904. The same Article in The Eclectic Magazine, Vol. CXLIII.,
New York, 1904, and in Littell's Living Age, Vol. CCXLI. Boston,
Mass, 1904.
William Blake, a Study of his Life and Art Work: By Irene Langridge.
London, 1904.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
399
Catalogue of Books, Engravings, Water Colour Drawings and Sketches
by William Blake. Exhibited at the Grolier Club. New York, 1905.
Catholic World, Vol. LXXXI. Was Blake a Poet? By Percy C. Standing.
New York, 1905.
Critic, Vol. XLVI. William Blake as an Illustrator: By E. L. Cary. New
York, 1905.
Monthly Review. Vol. XXI. Blake at Felpham By H. Ives. London,
1905.
Old Masters and New: By Kenyon Cox. An Estimate of William Blake.
New York, 1905.
Academy, Vol. LXX. The Paintings of William Blake. London, 1906.
Academy, Vol. LXXI. The Poetry of William Blake By A. Clutton
Brock. London, 1906. The same Article in Littell's Living Age.
Boston, Mass., 1906.
:
Athenæum. The Family of William Blake By A. Symons. London,
1906.
Daily Chronicle. Review of Samson's Edition of Blake's Poetry and The
Lyrical Poems of Blake. By A. G. B. Russell. London, 1906.
Edinburgh Review, Vol. CCIII. The Visionary Arts of William Blake.
London, 1906.
Independent Review, Vol. IX. The Poetry of William Blake: By G. L.
Strachey. London, 1906.
Notes and Queries, 10th Ser. Vols. V and VI. Illustrations wrongly
attributed to Blake. Blake and Coleridge. Tatham's Life of Blake.
A Parallel between Blake and Buchanan. An Early Reprint of Blake's
Songs. London, 1906.
Saturday Review. Vol. CII. Swinburne's Essay on Blake: By A. Symons.
London, 1906.
Spectator, Vol. XCVI. The Text of Blake. London, 1906.
Travaux et Mémoires de l'Université de Lille : 1757-1827 Un Maitre
de l'Art. Blake le Visionnaire: By François Benoît. Paris, 1906.
William Blake By Helene Richter Mit 13 Tafeln in Lichtdruck. Stras-
burg, 1906.
The Art of William Blake. His Sketch-Book, his Water-Colours, his
Painted Books: By Elizabeth Cary. New York, 1907.
Athenæum. Review of Berger's William Blake. London, 1907.
Connoisseur. Mr. Butts the Friend and Patron of Blake: By Ada E.
Briggs. London, 1907.
400
WILLIAM BLAKE
Current Literature, Vol. XLII. The Simple and Fantastic Genius of
Blake. New York, 1907.
Current Literature, Vol. XLIII. William Blake: Pontiff of a New Spirit-
ual Dispensation. New York, 1907.
Nation, Vol. LXXXV. Review of A. Symons's William Blake. Review of
Ellis's The Real Blake. New York, 1907.
Notes and Queries, 10th Ser. Vol. VII. An Early Reprint of Blake's Songs.
London, 1907.
Outlook, Vol. LXXXVII. Review of A. Symons's William Blake. New
York, 1907.
Quarterly Review, Vol. CCVII. Mysticism in English Poetry: By C. F.
E. Spurgeon. London, 1907.
The Real Blake: By Edwin J. Ellis. London, 1907.
Studies in Poetry: By Stopford A. Brooke. The Lyrical Poetry of Blake.
London, 1907.
William Blake By Arthur Symons. London, 1907.
William Blake. Die Ethik der Fruchtbarkeit. Zusammengestellt aus
seinen Werken übersetzt und eingeleitet: By Otto Freiherrn von
Taube. Jena, 1907.
William Blake. Mysticisime et poésie: By P. Berger. Paris, 1907.
Dial, Vol. XLV. William Blake, Poet, Artist, and Man. Chicago, 1908.
Notes and Queries. 10th Ser. Vol. X. The Blake Memorial at the Tate
Central Library, Brixton. London, 1908.
Putnam's Magazine, Vol. III. Blake's Work as a Painter: By L. Binyon.
New York, 1908.
Quarterly Review, Vol. CCVIII. William Blake, Poet and Painter: By
T. Sturge Moore. London, 1908.
The Sanity of William Blake, with six Illustrations of Blake's Drawings:
By Greville M. Macdonald. London, 1908.
Shelburne Essays, Vol. IV. Life and Poems of Blake: By P. E. More.
New York, 1908.
Bibliophile. The Most Perfect Wife on Record, Catherine Blake: By
Herbert Ives (Herbert Jenkins). London, 1909.
Egoists, a Book of Supermen. By J. G. Huneker. London, 1909.
Notes and Queries, 10th Ser. Vol. XI. Illustrations wrongly attributed
to Blake. London, 1909.
Quarterly Review, Vol. CCXI. The Earliest English Illustrations of Dante.
London, 1909.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
401
William Blake By Basil de Selincourt. With Illustrations. London,
1909.
Blake's Vision of the Book of Job, with reproductions of the Illustrations.
A Study by Joseph H. Wicksteed. London, 1910.
Current Literature, Vol. XLIX. Vital Import of Esthetics as Illustrated
by Flaubert and Blake. New York, 1910.
Fortnightly Review, Vol. XCIII. Blake as a Teacher: By H. Ives (Herbert
Jenkins). London, 1910.
Library of Literary Criticism: By C. W. Moulton, Vol. V. New York, 1910.
Nineteenth Century, Vol. LXVII. The Trial of William Blake for High
Treason By H. Ives (Herbert Jenkins). London, 1910.
Notes and Queries, 11th Ser. Vol. II. A new Version of the Laughing Song.
London, 1910.
William Blake: By G. K. Chesterton. London, 1910.
Genius and Other Essays: By E. C. Stedman. William Blake, Poet and
Painter. New York, 1911.
Nineteenth Century, Vol. LXX. The Grave of William Blake: By Her-
bert Jenkins. London, 1911.
Times, Review of G. K. Chesterton's William Blake and Jos. H. Wick-
steed's Blake's Vision of the Book of Job. London, 1911.
William Blake, Mystic. A Study By A. M. Butterworth, together with
Young's Night Thoughts, nights I. and II. With Illustrations by
William Blake. Liverpool, 1911.
Blake's Symbolism and some of its Recent Interpreters: By John P. R.
Wallis. Liverpool, 1912.
English Association Essays and Studies, Vol. III. Blake's Religious Lyrics :
By H. C. Beeching, Dean of Norwich. London, 1912.
The Engravings of William Blake. By A. G. B. Russell. London, 1912.
Papers Read at the First Meeting of the Blake Society: William Blake,
the Practical Idealist, By Dr. Greville Macdonald; The Teaching of
Blake, By Herbert Jenkins; Blake and Hampstead, By Walter K.
Jealous; The Art of William Blake, By Prof. George H. Leonard ;
Blake's Burden, By F. C. Owlett. Olney, 1912.
Athenæum. Blake at the Tate Gallery. William Blake Society of Arts and
Letters. London, 1913.
Cowper and Blake By H. J. Norman. Olney, 1913.
Daily Telegraph, Blake at the Tate Gallery: By Claude Phillips. London,
1913.
CC
402
WILLIAM BLAKE
Nation, Vol. XCVII. William Blake at the Tate Gallery: By E. Pennell.
New York, 1913.
Notes and Queries, 11th Ser. Vols. VII and VIII. Blake and his friend
Butts. London, 1913.
Times, William Blake Exhibition at the Tate Gallery. London, 1913.
Spectator: The Poetry of William Blake. London, 1914.
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
DATE AND BIO-
GRAPHICAL NOTES.
WORKS BY BLAKE.
1757. William
Blake born, Nov. 28.
CONTEMPORARY
PUBLICATIONS.
1762.
1765.
Macpherson's Fingal.
Percy's Relics.
1771.
(First drawings about 1779.) Beattie's Minstrel.
1782. Blake's
marriage.
1783.
Poetical Sketches.
Crabbe's Village.
1785.
1786.
Cowper's Task.
Burns's First Poems.
1787. Death of Robert Blake.
1788.
1789.
1790.
There is no Natural Religion(?)
Songs of Innocence. Book of
Thel. Tiriel. Notes to Swe-
denborg. Notes to Lavater.
Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
*
The French Revolution.
1791.
1792.
1793.
1794.
1795.
1797.
1797.
Visions of the Daughters of
Albion. America. The Gates
of Paradise.
Songs of Experience. Europe.
The Book of Urizen.
The Song of Los. The Book of
Ahania. The Book of Los.
Illustrations to Young's Night
Thoughts.
Vala begun.
Rogers's Pleasures of
Memory.
Wordsworth's First
Poems.
406
WILLIAM BLAKE
DATE AND BIO-
GRAPHICAL NOTES.
WORKS BY BLAKE
1798.
1799.
1800. Goes to
1803. Return to
London.
1804.
}
Engraving of Milton and Jeru-
salem begun.
Felpham.
(Circa) The Mental Traveller,
etc. (Pickering MS.)
CONTEMPORARY
PUBLICATIONS.
Wordsworth's Lyrical
Ballads
Campbell's Pleasures
of Hope.
18051
1806
1807.
1808.
Illustrations to Blair's Grave.
(Circa) Notes to Reynolds's
Discourses.
Descriptive Catalogue.
(Circa) The Everlasting Gospel.
Scott's Lay of the
Last Minstrel.
Moore's Irish Mel-
odies.
Coleridge's Chris-
tabel.
Byron's Hours of
Idleness.
1809. Exhibition of
his Pictures.
1810.
1812.
1813.
Byron's Childe Harold
Shelley's Queen Mab.
1818. Introduced
Keats's Endymion.
to Linnell.
1822.
The Ghost of Abel.
1825. Meeting with
Crabb Robinson.
1825-6.
Drawings for Dante.
1826.
1827. Dies, Aug.12.
Illustrations to the Book of
Job published.
1831. Death of Mrs. Blake.
INDEX
INDEX
ACCOUNT of the last Judgement,
The, 58, 80, 89, 91, 252, 276
Adam, 118-120, 122, 164, 171, 172,
181, 203, 231, 352, 366
See also Har.
Addison, Joseph, 7, 14
Ahania, the Emanation of Urizen,
131, 140-144, 244, 270, 338, 345
See also Book of Ahania.
Akenside, Mark, 14
Albion, the Universal Man, 127,
145, 149, 160, 163, 165, 166, 168-
173, 177, 183, 203, 231, 234, 274,
342, 343, 345, 346, 350-361, 364.
Allamanda, 175
Allegory, distinct from vision, 91
Al-Ulro, 175
America: A Prophecy, 30, 125,
180, 189, 219, 222, 223, 227, 258,
275, 304, 330, 340, 341
Ancient Britons, The, 34
Angels, not objects of admiration
to Blake, 184, 185, 206
Antamon, 342
Arnold, Edwin, 74
Arnold, Edwin, Light of Asia,
quoted, 70, 97
Art, Blake's ideal in, 81
BACON, FRANCIS, 5, 44, 83, 84,
367
Bard, The, illustration for Gray,
34
Basire, James (1), 24, 25
Beattie, James, 14
Beaumont and Fletcher, 243, 371
Berkeley, George, Bishop of Cloyne,
77, 201
Besant, Mrs. A., 86, 87
Beulah, 113, 176-178, 225, 265,
272, 352, 355, 363, 365, 366
Bhagavadgita, The, 201
Bible, Blake's knowledge of the, 27,
201, 369, 375, 376
Bible, The, quoted from, 96, 120,
123, 126, 135, 141, 191, 203,
222, 229, 236, 266, 284, 285,
335
Blair, R., 13, 213
Blair, R., Grave, The, illustrations
for, 34, 35, 38, 125, 261, 264
Blake, Catherine, mother of William
Blake, 24
Blake, Catherine, wife of William
Blake, 25, 27, 30, 32, 37, 39,
41, 45, 47, 48, 156, 157, 226,
240, 241
Artois, Comte d' (later Charles X), Blake,
332, 333
Asiatic Journal, 199
Asiatic Researches, 199
Aspirations our only remembrance
of Eternity, 181
Athenæum, 226
Auguries of Innocence, 79, 87, 95-97,
319
Aumont, Duc d', 331
Blake, Ellen, grandmother of
William Blake, 24
Blake, James, brother of William
Blake, 24, 27
Blake, James, father of William
Blake, 23, 24, 27
Blake, John, brother of William
Blake (the Evil One), 24
Blake, Robert, youngest brother of
William Blake, 24, 27, 45, 49

410
WILLIAM BLAKE
Blake, William, a notable artist, a
very unequal poet, 1; his poem,
To the Muses, 9; Swedenborg's
influence on him, 13; a despiser
of logic and common sense, the
spontaneity of his lyrics, his
Poetical Sketches and Songs of
Innocence, 16; compared with
Burns, 17; his visions, 18; the
only realities, 19; mysticism the
inspiration and symbolism the
expression of his poems, 20;
his uneventful life, 22; the depth
of his character, his youth and
apprenticeship, the period of his
greatest poems, and that of his
finest engravings, 23; his parent-
age, 23, 24; his brothers and
sister, his birth, 25; his art
training, 24, 25; his friendship
with Fuseli, Stothard, and Flax-
man, 25; his marriage, 25, 26;
his studies, 27; opens a print-
shop in Broad Street, Golden
Square, 27; removes to Poland
Street, makes the acquaintance
of Johnson the bookseller, God-
win, Priestley and Tom Paine, 27;
his acquaintance with Captain
Butts, books for which he en-
graved illustrations at this period,
his poems, 29; the method of
his engraved books described,
29, 30; the works thus produced,
30; his acquaintance with Hayley
30-33; removes to Felpham, des-
cribes his cottage there, 31;
tires of Hayley's patronage and
returns to London, Scholfield's
accusation, Blake's trial and
acquittal, 32; living at South
Molton Street, and later at
Fountain Court, Strand, a letter
to Hayley, 33; the period of his
William Blake-contd.
masterpieces, 33-37; his paint-
ings, 34; illustrations for Blair's
Grave, 34, 37, 38; illustrations
for the Book of Job, 35-37; illus-
trations for Dante, 37; swindled
by Cromek and vilified by Leigh
Hunt, 38; his acquaintance with
Linnell, Lawrence and Varley,
39; with Lady Charlotte Bury
and Crabb Robinson, 40; regrets
his childlessness, 40, 190-192;
his death, 40; his burial place,
the destruction of his papers, 41 ;
his character, 43-47; his per-
sonal appearance, as his own
model in some of his drawings,
43; his freedom of mind and
self-confidence, impatient of criti-
cism, 44; opposed to all social
conventions, 44, 45; his charity
and kindness of heart, 45, 46;
Lady Charlotte Bury's and Crabb
Robinson's descriptions of him,
46; his goodness and love of his
wife kept him from the disordered
life of others with his health and
strength, 47; his visions, 48-60;
not like others who recognised
their visions were their own crea-
tions, 48, 49; his visions were
real and exterior to himself,
subject to visions all his life, 49;
his vision of a fairy's funeral,
symbolic forms of prophets and
poets, 50; his prophetic books
dictated to him, his visions his
one consolation, and his books
owe their existence to them, 51;
his powers of vision and strong
imagination, not enough known
of his family to attribute these
gifts to heredity, 53; similarity
of his visions to Swedenborg's,
Take
INDEX
41
sister of William | Byron, Lord, 14, 15, 47, 184, 278
Blake, 24, 32, 41
Body, the,
emanation of the soul,
its function to make the soul
visible, 90
Boehme, Jacob, 11, 13, 27, 72, 99,
107, 127, 199, 201-204, 226, 255,
375
328, 378
CABALISTS, The, 11, 99-102, 199
Caedmon, 74, 369
Cagliostro, Alexander, 11
Canterbury Pilgrims, The (painting),
Boehme, Jacob, Mysterum Magnum, Cambel, 172
203, 204, 211, 369
Boileau-Despreaux, N., 5, 82, 214
Book of Ahania, The, 30, 136, 138,
141, 142, 144, 217, 275, 337-339
Book of Job, The, illustrations for,
34-37, 39, 261, 264, 368
Book of Los, The, 30, 88, 151, 224,
260, 275, 337-339
Book of Thel, The, 30, 95, 119, 120,
177, 222, 256, 258, 260, 262, 271,
274, 275, 300, 301, 304, 325-328,
330, 372
Book of Urizen, The, 30, 55, 101-
107, 109, 132, 138, 144, 157, 158,
160, 187, 217, 269, 271, 275, 337-
339, 342
Bossuet, J. B., 10
34, 38, 81, 82, 278, 279
Carlyle, T., French Revolution, 330
Cathedron, 165, 174, 353
Charlemagne, 171, 228
Chateaubriand, F. R. Vicomte de,
15
Chatterton, Thomas, 14
Chaucer, G., 34, 82, 369
Chesterfield, Lord, 8
Christ in the Sepulchre (painting), 34
Christian mystics, the, 71
Chronological survey of Blake's
works, 275-367; Prose Writings,
276-281; Lyrical Poems, 282-324;
Earlier Prophetic Books, 325-342;
Great Prophetic Books, 343-367
Boucher, Catherine, afterwards wife | Clive, Robert, Lord, 6
of William Blake, see Blake,
Catherine
Bourbon, 331
Bowlahoola, 175
Brama, 137
Bromion, 171, 188, 192, 328
Browning, Robert, 15, 378
Buddha, 70, 71, 145, 199
Buffon, Comte, 7
Bunyan, John, 48, 74, 370
Bürger's Leonore, illustrations for, 29
Burgundy, Duke of, 331, 333, 334,
336
Burns, Robert, 14, 16, 17, 47, 56
Bury, Lady Charlotte, 39, 46
Butts, Captain, 29, 32, 39, 45, 276,
321
Coban, 172
Coleridge, S. T., 15, 377, 378
Collins, William, 7, 14, 259
Constantine, 171, 228
Cornelius Agrippa, 27
Correspondence, doctrine of, 93, 94,
198, 205, 206
Cowper, William, 7, 14, 16, 31, 213,
215, 258,259
Crabbe, George, 7, 14, 16
Creation of Adam, The, illustrations.
for, 29
Creation of Man, The, 117-123
Cromek, R. H., engraver, 38
Cunningham, Alan, Lives of British
Painters, 50
Cynewulf's Christ, 271
WILLIAM BLAKE
14
DANTE ALIGHIERI, 19, 27, 48,
50, 65, 74, 201, 213, 242, 244,
266, 267, 369, 375, 376
| Elijah, 185, 224
Eliot, George, 287
Ellis, E. J., The Real Blake, 276
Dante, Divine Comedy, 93, 100, 164, Ellis, E. J., and Yeats, W. B.,
176, 268
Dante, illustrations for, 37, 39, 265,
368
Daughters of Inspiration, 56
David, 171
David Simple, illustrations for, 29
Death of Job's Children (painting),
217
Death's Door, 125
William Blake, 30, 31, 37, 40, 41,
58, 66, 219, 220, 224, 226, 257,
276, 344
Elohim 101,165, 231
Elynittria, 171, 362
Emanations, Blake's doctrine of,
110-117
Emotions and the Feelings, 238-252
Enion, 151-154, 165, 345-348
Decalogue, The, the law of egotism, Enitharmon, 52, 107, 110, 117, 131,
183
Defoe, Daniel, 7, 258, 267
Delille, J., 7, 12
De Quincey, Thomas, 48
Descartes, E. D., 5, 10, 79
Descent to the Grave, The (painting),
217
Descriptive Catalogue, 34, 38, 201,
257, 264, 276, 277, 280, 281
Descriptive Poetry, 254, 255, 257
Dickens, Charles, 278, 287
Diderot, D., 7
151, 155-162, 165, 167, 170, 171,
174, 202, 207, 224, 225, 227, 244,
338, 341, 342, 345-349, 354, 355,
362, 366
Eno, 151, 224, 225
Entuthon Benython, 174, 364
Europe, a Prophecy, 30, 131, 225,
227, 228, 275, 341, 342
Eve, see Heva
Everlasting Gospel, The, 34, 60,
IOI, 120, 181, 186-188, 319,
323, 324
Disembodied spirits are the only Experience not to be refuted by
living, 120
reason, 52
Doctrines of Blake summarised, 198 Ezekiel, 52, 55, 57
Dream of the Rood, 74
Druidical religions, 183
Dryden, John, 82
Ducis, J. F., 7, 12
EDEN, 173, 174, 176, 181, 183
Eclogues of Virgil, illustrations for,
39, 361
Eighteenth century an age of or-
ganisation, in politics and religion
4-6
Eighteenth century, literature of,
5-17
FABLE, distinct from vision, 91
Fall of Man, the, 117, 203
Fancy and Imagination, 254
Feelings and the Emotions, 238-252
Felpham, 28, 31-33, 50, 226, 364-
367
Fenelon, Francois, 176
Fielding, Henry, 7
| Flaxman, John, 25, 28, 38, 40, 276
Forgiveness, 193-196
French Revolution, 4, 6, 10, 13, 28,
331-333
INDEX
411
1
William Blake-contd.
57; he was influenced by Sweden-
borg, Boehme and the Cabalists,
55; his visions the only reality
to him, they came and went in
an unexpected manner, 57; his
use of symbolism, 57, 58; not
like most visionaries, he had not
renounced the world, 59; not a
religious mystic in the ordinary
sense, 60; the general character
of his works and his system, 63-
67; in his mysticism love of
humanity and contempt of the
world strangely blended, 71;
dominated less by emotion than
intellect, 72; his visions, 73;
his mysticism, sacred in the
subjects he treats, profane in
treatment, 74; though not among
the great men of action yet his
mysticism kept his hands busy,
75; his theories the reverse of
those of his times, 76; his
system combats the evidence of
the senses and flouts human
reason, 76; he affirms the in-
adequacy of the senses and denies
the truth of their evidence, 78;
is not original in this, 79;
teaches that all external things
only exist whilst we observe them,
80; his ideal in art, 85; his
criticism of the Canterbury Tales,
81, 82; his criticism of classical
literature, 82, 83; his ideas of
science, 83; for him imagination
is the only source of knowledge,
86; never set forth his theories
to convince, but to confirm
adherents, 87; his symbolism,
89-98; his mystical conception
of the universe, 99-127; and
of the Creation, 103-109; his
William Blake-contd.
symbols change their meanings
and his myths are contradictory,
107, 108, 128, 129, 139, 151, 157 ;
his doctrine of Spectres and
Emanations, 110-117; his con-
ception of Good and Evil, 112;
his views of the Fall and Regener-
ation of man, 117-127; his con-
ception of the Sexes, 124; his
Prophetic Books mostly concern
the Four Zoas, 128-167; his
allegorical personifications are
states of the soul, 129; what
prophecy meant to him, 156;
his wife symbolised in Enithar-
mon, 156, 157; his minor
characters, 168-172, and the world
they lived in, 172-178; his
system of morality, 179-197; a
system for an ideal world, 179;
attitudes of mind not a code of
rules, 180; its first principle, the
destruction of moral law, 182;
moral anarchy its characteristic
element, 183; angels not objects
of admiration to him, 184; his
system teaches to follow impulse
not rule, 185; condemns humi-
lity, chastity, obedience, 186-190;
he had no thought of applying
his system in the society in which
he lived, 192; his doctrine of the
unity of man forbids this, 192,
193; for him forgiveness the only
commandment, 193; declares
no man a sinner, but in a state of
sin, 193, 194; his enthusiasm
for the brotherhood of men, 194,
195; the sources of his doctrine,
198-208; his doctrines sum-
marised, 198; similar ideas in
Hindu Scriptures, in Mahometan
mystics, in Plato, Cabalists and
412
William Blake-contd.
WILLIAM BLAKE
Gnostics, 199, 200; the books
he is known to have read, 201;
influenced by Boehme, 202-204,
and by Swedenborg, 204-207;
the influence of mysticism on his
poetry, 211-220; the confused
nature of his mystic writings
would have made them forgotten
but for their poetic qualities, 211;
the gradual increase of the mystic
in his poems, 212; the mysticism
in his poetry destroys all logic
and reason, 213; some of his
short poems clear and precise,
214, 215; it is in his Prophetic
Books chiefly that he expounds
his doctrine of the falsity of
reason, 216; as a painter he had
great feeling for composition and
construction, 217; his great
poems are only beginnings and
he alters his titles constantly, 218-
220; his symbolic language makes
more for obscurity than his want
of logic, 221; in some of his
symbolism there is a visible
analogy, 222; but he generally
prefers to use those of his own
invention, with no key to their
meaning, 223, 224; except by
comparing the use of them in
different books, 225; his personal
myths, 226; his historical myths,
226-228; his geographical myths,
228-237; a passage from Jeru-
salem chosen as specimen of his
use of the geographical myth, 228,
229; and elucidated, 232-234;
had no regard for riches, 238;
but much for the merry heart and
loving eye; he was incapable of
violent passion, 239; his love-
songs, 240-243; the laments of
William Blake-contd.
his
the characters in his Prophetic
Books, 244; his songs of love
triumphant, 244-245; his poems
of universal sympathy, 245-249;
the poet of childhood, 250; his
imagination, 253-274; his works
chronologically grouped, 275;
his Prose Writings, 276-281; his
prose style, 277, 279; had no
sense of humour, 278; his
Lyrical Poems, 282-324;
Poetical Sketches, 282-284; his
King Edward III, 282, 283; his
Songs of Innocence, 284-304; the
form of its publication, 285;
Songs of Experience, 304-319;
five years elapse after The Songs
of Innocence and other works
come between, 304; the contents
of the two books contrasted, 307,
308; Shorter Poems, 319-324 ;
the Rossetti and Pickering MSS.,
319; his earlier Prophetical Books
325-342; Tiriel, 326; Book of
Thel, 326-328; Visions of the
Daughters of Albion, 328, 329:
The French Revolution, 329-337;
Books of Urizen, Los and Ahania,
337-339; The Song of Los, 339 ;
America, 340, 341; Europe,
341, 342; his great Prophetic
Books, 343-368; Vala, 344-349;
Jerusalem, 349-360; Milton, 361-
368; the writers who influenced
him, 369-376; his imitators, 376
Blake, William, his residences—28,
Broad St., Golden Sq., his birth-
place, 24; Richmond, 25, 26; 23,
Green St., Leicester Fields, 27;
28, Poland St., 28; 13, Hercules
Bldgs., Lambeth, 28; Felpham, 31;
17, South Molton St., Oxford St.,
33; 3, Fountain Court, Strand, 33.


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