85 Transfixt by Fate,-she works her witcheries,
And when she groans she shakes the solid ground.
Now Envy she controls with numbing trance,
And Melancholy sprang from her dark womb.

There is a Melancholy, O how lovely 'tis !
90 When heaven is dwelling in the heavenly mind,
For she from heaven came, and where she goes,
Heaven still doth follow her. She brings true joy
Once fled, and Contemplation is her daughter.
Sweet Contemplation!

95 'Tis she who brings Humility to Man.

'Take her,' she says, 'and wear her in thy heart, Lord of thyself, then thou art Lord of all.' 'Tis Contemplation teacheth how to know, Re-seating Knowledge on his throne, once lost,100 How lost, I'll tell. But stop the motley song! I'll show how Conscience came at first from Heaven. But oh! who listens to his voice on earth? 'Twas Conscience who brought Melancholy down,— Conscience who first was sent, a guard to Reason,105 Reason, once shining fairer than the light.

For Knowledge drove sweet Innocence away;
And Reason would have gone. Fate suffered not;
Then down came Conscience with his lonely band.

And now the song goes on, telling how Pride 110 Against her Father warred and overcame.

Down his white beard the silver torrents roll,
And swelling sighs burst forth,-his children all
In arms appear to tear him from his throne.
Black was the deed,-most black.

115 Shame in a mist sat round his troubled head,
And filled him with pale confusion.
Fear as a torrent wild roared round his throne:
The mighty pillars shake.

Now all the gods in blackening ranks appear, 120 And like to a tempestuous thundercloud Pride leads them on.

Now they surround the god and bind him fast ;-
Pride bound him, then usurped o'er all the gods.
She rode on high upon the swelling wind,
125 And scattered all who durst oppose her will.

But Shame opposing fierce

And hovering o'er her in the darkening storm,
She brought forth Rage.

And Shame bore Honour, and made league with Pride. 130 Meanwhile Strife, Mighty Prince, was born,-for Envy, In direful pains him bore, then brought forth Care. Care sitteth on the wrinkled brow of Kings;

Strife, shapeless, under thrones, like smould'ring fire
Sits, or in buzz of cities flies abroad.

135 Care brought forth Covet, eyeless and prone to th' Earth,

And strife brought forth Revenge.

Hate, brooding in her dismal den, grew pregnant,
And bore both Scorn and Slander.

Scorn waits on Pride, but Slander flies around
140 The world to do the evil work of Hate,
Her drudge and elf.

But Policy doth also drudge for Hate
As well as Slander, and oft makes use of her,-
Policy, son of Shame.

145 Indeed, Hate controls all the gods at will.
Then Policy brought forth both Guile and Fraud.
These gods, last named, live in the smoke of cities
On dusky wing,

Breathing forth clamour and destruction. 150 Alas, in cities, where's the man whose face Is not the mask to's heart?

Pride made a goddess fair, or image rather,
Till Knowledge gave it life; 'twas called Self-love.
The gods admiring, loaded her with gifts,

155 As once Pandora. She 'mongst men was sent,
And worser ills attended her by far.

160

Conceit and Policy do dwell with her,
By whom she had Mistrust and cold Suspicion.
Then bore a daughter-Emulation,

Who married Honour;

And all these follow her around the world.

Go see the city, friends joined hand in hand,
Go see the natural tie of flesh and blood,

Go see more strong the ties of marriage-love, 165 Thou scarce shall find but Self-love stands between.

Such appears to have been this early fragment as Blake thought he had written it. His perception of what he meant was always so much stronger than his perception of what he wrote, that all through life he constantly was liable to the misfortune of calling Dick (if one may say so) when he meant Harry, and then if Harry did not come, feeling aggrieved. Where it is obvious that Harry was meant, the substitution is here made. In other poems a little doubt may sometimes be felt, but the present work offers few such instances, and gives fairly evident indications of its own intention.

Even to the editor who prepared it for its first public appearance (in the August number of the Monthly Review, 1903), it was evident that Blake had not written the piece as he meant it to be read, for he had put it down as prose with no verse-division indicated at all. Those who study the version in the Review where this defect is supplied will see that mere versifying reveals many small errors while correcting one great one, and that the versifying itself is open to revision. While treating this to occasional mending, an attempt is made here to go further on the same path and take the necessary steps to enable the reader to enjoy Blake's poem without being harassed by the stuttering and stammering of the pen with which he marred it. Probably his own car heard it much more as it is now printed than as he left it in MS., for he seldom aroused his senses to the necessary attentiveness for discovering what he had put on paper. When he had the experience of hearing himself sing his own songs, as in the case of some lyrics that he sang to his friends, he escaped the perpetual slips that annoy us in most of his pages. Strong power of enthusiasm, such as that which produced the central Nights

of 'Vala,' would carry him a long way without error; and perhaps the repeated consideration necessary for engraving, as in 'Thel' or the 'Visions,' had an arousing effect, in early life, that was spoiled when his ear became trampled with argument, as in the Jerusalem' period.

The following words being removed from the present version, namely―

and after their removal the re-instatement of the following

Line 2, a (before virgin), ever (before young),

,, 27, costly (before Tyre),

28, was shown (after Jerusalem),

79, But (at beginning of line),

82, fabled (before Hecate), doth bind (before them), 85, and here (before she),

98, knowledge truly (before how),

99, And re-instates him on (at beginning of line),

108, followed, but (before Fate),

,, 132, Envy (before in, and before brought),

,, 134, sitteth (before under), of Kings (end of line),

135, the (before buzz),

152, unto his (before heart),

154, animated it (before 'twas),

160, called (before Emulation),

will, if the poem be now completely copied out as so many

VOL. I.

с

prose pages, enable us to see what the MS. of Blake was when he left it.

Perhaps a tithe of this labour will convince any one that it had better be left undone, though the means to do it are here offered that no one may feel that the editor has disguised instead of emending his author.

VALUE AS INTERPRETATION

Blake's ideas and symbols were so persistent, like his designs, of which he writes that they are

'Re-engraved time after time,

Ever in their youthful prime,'

that this early sketch helps to explain writings of a quarter of a century later.

It explains also his way of looking at the real relationship between various states of the human soul' when it is remembered that they were, to him, permanent things (like the gods), and were also like countries into which we enter, and through which we pass while travelling along our paths of life. We can see how naturally, when writing myth later on, he called them by fancy names, and treated their origins as paternity, their changes as personal events, and their results and detailed effects as children. His myths then are seen not to tell of mere unprofitable vagaries of fairy-tale monsters, made to employ an over-fluent poetic habit of writing, but to contain a psychology as the ancient myths did.

Blake saw after writing this poem that to continue to describe these gods (or moods and states) with personal adjectives, attributing to them also personal actions-like procreationcould not rightly be done while he called them by their prosc names-shame, pride, etc. He must give them mythic names. He did so, and it is the giving of these names that made him become a myth-writer, for he at once perceived that each name grew to mean a great deal more than the idea from which it first sprang. To attempt to sort up the Zoas and the ungenerated sons of Los, or even those that went through the gates of Reuben, under words like Pride, Shame, Fear, etc., would be to make nonsense instead of suggestiveness of half what he wrote about them. Yet if we forget that the invention of his ideal personages was only the next stage in mental development after that which enabled him to see the vitality and vital narrative in the generation of the moods, we lose the use of this 'Poetical Sketch.'