The Portable William Blake (8 page)

 

O dreadful Loom of death! 0 piteous Female forms, compell’ d

To weave the Woof of Death! On Camberwell Tirzah’s courts,

Malah’s on Blackheath; Rahab & Noah dwell on Windsor’s heights,

Where once the Cherubs of Jesusalem spread to Lambeth’s Vale.

Milcah’s Pillars shine from Harrow to Hampstead, where Hoglah

On Highgate’s heights magnificent Weaves over trembling Thames

To Shooter’s Hill and thence to Blackheath, the dark Woof. Loud,

Loud roll the Weights & Spindles over the whole Earth, let down

On all sides round to the Four Quarters of the World, eastward on

Europe to Euphrates & Hindu, to Nile & back in Clouds Of Death across the Atlantic to America North & South.

Hence, too, the poetic atrocities:

Which is dreadful, but only a paraphrase of the noble rant which deafens and dulls us all through the later books:

 

But in the Optic vegetative Nerves Sleep was transformed To Death in old time by Satan, the father of Sin & Death: And Satan is the Spectre of Orc, &. Ore is the generate Luvah.

 

Blake cannot get away from the materialist trappings, the naturalistic “spectre”; no one can, and his collapse as an artist in the later Prophetic Books is due to his effort to dispel the natural forms by a mythological explanation of them. He created his myth to contain his defiance, as it were; when he found it insufficient, he let it supplant life itself. On the subject of God, he even borrowed a thought from the Gnostic heresy, as he was indebted to the Jewish Cabala for his vision of the man who anciently contained all things of heaven and earth in himself. The Gnostic heresy is one the Catholic Church understandably rooted out in furious alarm—for it held that the world was dominated by Satan. It is not hard to understand how comforting this thought must have been to Blake. If this world is a mere deception, and all its natural appearances a masquerade through which man must look for spiritual vision, it is because the “real” God has been supplanted by Satan. So all spiritual vision leads us back to the “real” God, who is now Jesus. Blake’s Jesus is the defiant iconoclast, the friend of artists and revolutionaries. When one reads
Jerusalem,
one thinks of Nietzsche, who when he went mad signed himself “The Crucified One,” and of that old cry from the defeated—“Thou has conquered, O Galilean!”

Blake does not “yield” to Jesus; he creates Jesus in his own image.

 

The Son, O how unlike the Father! First God Almighty comes with a Thump on the head. Then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it.

 

But not before he has shown us the inner thread in his snarled Prophetic Books—which is the lament against his own “selfhood” and the appeal against the Accuser, “who is the God of this World.” It is impossible to read Blake’s vehement and repeated cries against the “Accuser” without being moved by the tremendous burden of guilt he carried despite his revolt and independence. The “Accuser” is Satan, who rules this world, which is “the Empire of nothing.” It is he who tormented man with a sense of sin; who made men and women look upon their own human nature as evil; who plunged us into the cardinal human heresy, which is the heresy against man’s own right and capacity to live. The “Accuser” is the age in which Blake lived and it is the false god whose spectre mocks our thirst for life. It is the spirit, to Blake, of all that limits man, shames man, and drives him in fear. The Accuser is the spirit of the machine, which leads man himself into “machination.” He is jealousy, unbelief, and cynicism. But his dominion is only in you; and he is only a specter.

The Accuser is the prime enemy, yet he is a fiction; he need not exist. But Blake fought him so bitterly that he acknowledged how great a price he had paid for his own audacity. What was it that made him long at the end, above everything else, for “forgiveness?” What was it he had to be “forgiven” for?

 

And now let me finish with assuring you that, Tho’ I have been very unhappy, I am so no longer. I am again Emerged into the light of day; I still & shall to Eternity Embrace Christianity and Adore him who is the Express image of God; but I have travel’d thro’ Perils & Darkness not unlike a Champion. I have Conquer’d, and shall go on Conquering. Nothing can withstand the fury of my course among the Stars of God & in the Abysses of the Accuser. My enthusiasm is still what it was, only Enlarged and confirmed.

 

We do not know—his only name for his “guilt” remains “selfhood”—that is, the full force of his individual claim to self-assertion. Blake was a prophet who was not delivered by his own prophecy. But if he succumbed at all to the “Accuser,” he did more than anyone else to expose him. If he failed at the complete harmony to which all his own thought is directed, it is because man, though he is a little world in himself, is little indeed when measured against the whole of a creation that was not made for him alone—or for him to know everlasting certainty in it. Blake’s tragedy was the human tragedy, made more difficult because his own fierce will to a better life prevented him from accepting any part of it. Laboring after the infinite, he felt himself shadowed by the Accuser. That is the personal cost he paid for his vision, as it helps us to understand his need of a myth that would do away with tragedy. But as there is something deeper than tragedy in Blake’s life, so at the heart of his work there is always the call to us to recover our lost sight. Blake was a man who had all the contraries of human existence in his hands, and he never forgot that it is the function of man to resolve them.

 

Men are admitted into Heaven not because they have curbed & govern’d their Passions, or have no Passions, but because they have cultivated their Understandings.

ALFRED KAZIN

PROSPECTUS

TO THE PUBLIC

 

The Labours of the Artist, the Poet, the Musician, have been proverbially attended by poverty and obscurity; this was never the fault of the Public, but was owing to a neglect of means to propagate such works as have wholly absorbed the Man of Genius. Even Milton and Shakespeare could not publish their own works.

This difficulty has been obviated by the Author of the following productions now presented to the Public; who has invented a method of Printing both Letter-Press and Engraving in a style more ornamental, uniform, and grand, than any before discovered, while it produces works at less than one fourth of the expense.

If a method of Printing which combines the Painter and the Poet is a phenomenon worthy of public attention, provided that it exceeds in elegance all former methods, the Author is sure of his reward.

Mr. Blake’s powers of invention very early engaged the attention of many persons of eminence and fortune; by whose means he has been regularly enabled to bring before the Public works (he is not afraid to say) of equal magnitude and consequence with the productions of any age or country: among which are two large highly finished engravings (and two more are nearly ready) which will commence a Series of subjects from the Bible, and another from the History of England.

The following are the Subjects of the several Works now published and on Sale at Mr. Blake’s, No. 13, Hercules Buildings, Lambeth.

1. Job, a Historical Engraving. Size 1 ft. 7½ in. by 1 ft 2 in.: price 12s.

2. Edward and Elinor, a Historical Engraving. Size 1 ft. 6½ in. by 1 ft.: price 10s.
6d.

3. America, a Prophecy, in Illuminated Printing. Folio, with 18 designs: price 10s.
6d.

4. Visions of the Daughters of Albion, in Illuminated Printing. Folio, with 8 designs, price 7
s.
6
d.

5. The Book of Thel, a Poem in Illuminated Printing. Quarto, with 6 designs, price 3s.

6. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, in Illuminated Printing. Quarto, with 14 designs, price
7s. 6d.

7. Songs of Innocence, in Illuminated Printing. Octavo, with 25 designs, price 5
s
.

8. Songs of Experience, in Illuminated Printing. Octavo, with 25 designs, price 5s.

9. The History of England, a small book of Engravings. Price 3
s
.

10. The Gates of Paradise, a small book of Engravings. Price 3
s
.

The Illuminated Books are Printed in Colours, and on the most beautiful wove paper that could be procured.

No Subscriptions for the numerous great works now in hand are asked, for none are wanted; but the Author will produce his works, and offer them to sale at a fair price.

THE YOUNG BLAKE

From
POETICAL SKETCHES

(1783)

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 comers of the earth,
Or the blue regions of the air,
Where the melodious winds have birth;

 

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!

Thou fair-hair’d angel of the evening,
Now, whilst the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves, and, while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, 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. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro’ the dun forest:
The fleeces of our flocks are cover’d with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence.

O holy virgin! clad in purest white,
Unlock heav’n’s golden gates, and issue forth;
Awake the dawn that sleeps in heaven; let light
Rise from the chambers of the east, and bring
The honied dew that cometh on waking day.
O radiant morning, salute the sun,
Rouz’d like a huntsman to the chace, and, with
Thy buskin’d feet, appear upon our hills.

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 Phœbus fir’d by 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.

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!

Love and harmony combine,
And around our souls intwine,
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.

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

 

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

 

I love the pleasant cot,
I love the innocent bow’r,
Where white and brown is our lot,
Or fruit in the mid-day hour.

 

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

 

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

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

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