THE ISLAND IN THE MOON

This was Blake's most sustained attempt at mere mockery, apart from resentment, a word here to be used further on to group the splenetic fragments of doggerel and epigram which he wrote later in life with some personal heat, and mainly to relieve his feelings. The Island in the Moon' was begun as a book-a real printable attempt at sarcasm. In a long rambling series of Platonic dialogues, interspersed with songs, eveningparties in literary drawing-rooms are represented and ridiculed. The work breaks off as it drifts into a higher poetic vein, some of the Songs of Innocence' being found in the last pages. This dates it, and had the verses of the earlier scenes been intended as poetry in earnest, they should have been placed in this collection next after the 'Poetical Sketches.'

The manuscript is in the library of Mr. Fairfax Murray, by whose kindness the first printed account of it appeared in Quaritch's edition of Blake's Works. He has permitted the present production of all the rhymed portions. The Platonic dialogue also, as far as it goes, deserves one day to be printed in its entirety.

MR. QUID'S FIRST SONG

LITTLE Phœbus came strutting in
With his fat belly and his round chin.
What is it you would please to have?
Ho! Ho!

I won't let it go at only so so!
Honour and Genius is all I ask,-
And I ask the gods no more.

Chorus, by the

No more!

No more!

Three Philosophers. J No more! No more!

MR. QUID'S SECOND SONG

I

WHEN old corruption first begun,
Adorned in yellow vest,

He committed on flesh a whoredom-
O, what a wicked beast!

II

From there a callow babe did spring,
And old corruption smiled

To think his race should never end,
For now he had a child.

III

He called him Surgery, and fed
The babe with his own milk.
For flesh and he could ne'er agree:
She would not let him suck.

IV

And this he always kept on mind,
And formed a crooked knife,
And ran about with bloody hands,
To seek his mother's life.

V

And as he ran to seek his mother
He met with a dead woman.
He fell in love and married her:
A deed that is not common.

VI

She soon grew pregnant, and brought forth
Scurvy and spotted fever.

The father grinn'd and skipt about,

And said, 'I'm made for ever!

VII

'For now I have procured these imps
I'll try experiments.'

With that he tied poor scurvy down,
And stopt up all its vents.

VIII

And when the child began to swell,
He shouted out aloud,—

'I've found the dropsy out, and soon
Shall do the world more good.'

IX

He took up fever by the neck,
And cut out all its spots;

And thro' the holes which he had made
He first discovered guts.

EPITAPH

(Quoted or composed by Mr. Steelyard.)

HEAR then the pride and knowledge of a sailor, His sprit-sail, fore-sail, main-sail, and his mizen: A poor frail man,-Got wot I know none frailer, I know no greater sinner than John Tailor.

MISS GITTIPIN'S SONG

I

PHOEBE dressed like beauty's queen,
Jellicoe in faint pea-green,

Sitting all beneath a grot,

Where the little lambkins trot.

II

Maidens dancing ;-lovers sporting;
All the country folks a-courting,
Susan, Johnny, Bob and Joe,
Lightly tripping on a row.

III

Happy people, who can be
In happiness compared to ye?
The pilgrim, with his crook and hat,
Sees your happiness complete.

'AN ANTHEM'

1st voice, Mr. Suction.

So the bat with leathern wing
Winking and blinking,
Winking and blinking,
Winking and blinking,
Like Dr. Johnson.

2nd voice, Mr. Quid.

O ho, said Dr. Johnson
To Scipio Africanus,

If you don't own me a philosopher,
I'll kick your Roman * * * *

(The asterisks are not Blake's. They represent an indecorous suggestion and a Latin word rhyming with 'Africanus.')

Grand Chorus.

Want matches?

Yes, yes, yes.
Want matches?
No!

MRS. NANNICATCHPOL'S SONG

I CRY my matches as far as Guildhall;
God bless the Duke and his aldermen all.

MR. STEELYARD'S SONG

As I walked forth one May morning
To see the fields so pleasant and gay,
Oh there did I spy a young Meadow-sweet,
Among the violets that smell so sweet,
Smell so sweet,

Smell so sweet,

Among the violets that smell so sweet.

MISS GITTIPIN'S SECOND SONG

A FROG he would a-wooing ride,
Kitty alone,- Kitty alone;
This frog he would a-wooing ride,
Kitty alone and I.

Sing, cock, I carry Kitty alone,
Kitty alone, Kitty alone,
Kitty alone and I.