SONGS OF EXPERIENCE Introduction Hear the voice of the Bard! Who Present, Past, & Future, sees; The Holy Word That walk'd among the ancient trees, Calling the lapsèd Soul, And weeping in the evening dew; That might controll The starry pole, And fallen fallen light renew! 6 One engraved plate. Not found in any MS. version. Closely connected with this poem are 'The Voice of the Ancient Bard,' by which it is immediately preceded in some copies of the Songs, and 'Earth's Answer,' by which it is followed in all copies. 1-10] Swinb. prints as a single stanza. 5 ancient] silent Swinb. 18 floor] shore Swinb. 4 Holy] ancient Swinb. 11-20] Swinb. prints as a single stanza. 19 shore] floor Swinb. 20 Is] Are Swinb., Earth's Answer Earth rais'd up her head From the darkness dread & drear. Stony dread! And her locks cover'd with grey despair. 'Prison'd on wat'ry shore, Starry Jealousy does keep my den: Cold and hoar, I 6 Weeping o'er I hear the father of the ancient men. 'Selfish father of men! Cruel, jealous, selfish fear! II 'The Earth's Answer' (MS. Book) first word deleted. Engraved on a single plate from what is obviously the original draft in the MS. Book (p. 111 reversed). Cp. the lines immediately preceding this poem in the MS* Book, beginning: 'Why art thou silent & invisible, Father of Jealousy?' Cp. also the final stanza of Ahania (engraved 1795) :— 'But now alone, over rocks, mountains, Cast out from thy lovely bosom Cruel jealousy, selfish fear, Where bones from the birth are buried Before they see the light?' 3 Her... fled] Blake's successive changes of this line are :— Her eyes fled orbs dead light fled (pencil). 4 Stony dread!] Punctuation as in MS. Book and engraved Songs; (Stony dread!) DGR; Stony, dread, WMR, EY, WBY. 6 Prison'd... shore] Prisoned on this watery shore Swinb. 7 my den:] Punctuation as in Wilk., Shep.; so also in Swinb. Essay, p. 118; other edd. read ... my den Cold and hoar; 10 father of the] del. in MS. Bk. and replaced by some 11-15 MS. Book cancelled. The original rime illegible word erased. arrangement ab aa b breaks down in this and the next stanza. II Selfish] Cruel MS. Book 1st rdg, del. 12 selfish] weeping MS. Book 1st rdg, del. 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. Eternal bane! That free Love with bondage bound.' 16 21 14 Chain'd] Clog'd MS. Book 1st rdg. del. 16-20 This stanza was an addition written in place of the third, which Blake cancelled, but restored when engraving. 16 joy] delight MS. Book 1st rdg. del. 18, 19 Does... night] Does the sower sow His seed by night MS. Book 1st rdg. del. Can the sower sow by night Swinb. MS. Book 1st rdg. del. 22 freeze] close 24, 25 Eternal... bound] Thou, my bane Hast my love with bondage bound MS. Book 1st rdg. del. Nurse's Song When the voices of children are heard on the green I And whisp'rings are in the dale, The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. Then come home, my children, the sun is gone down, 5 And the dews of night arise; Your spring & your day are wasted in play, And your winter and night in disguise. Engraved without material change from a fair copy (without title) in the MS. Book (p. 109 reversed). Nurse's Song] No apostrophe in original; Nurses' Song Wilk. R' omits. grave R' rise] are MS. Book. 4 My] And my R'. 3 my] green] Engraved on a single plate, in double columns, from what is evidently the first draft, without title, on p. 101 of the MS. Book. An uncompleted and deleted stanza shows that before hitting upon this felicitous tiny metre Blake began to write the song in a less sprightly strain 'Woe! alas! my guilty hand Brush'd across thy summer joy; He then turned to the shorter metre, preserving the 'guilty hand' in the first draft of stanza I. Then follows a deleted stanza, omitted by him in the engraved version, probably because, since writing the poem, he had used its first two lines as one of his 'Proverbs of Hell' (Marriage of Heaven and Hell): 'The cut worm Then come the second, third, and fifth stanzas in their present form, followed by two versions of stanza four, which is an afterthought. Blake then prefixed numbers to the stanzas indicating their present order. A few trifling deviations from the engraved text are given in the footnotes. a summer's] summer MS. Book. 3 thoughtless] guilty MS. Book 1st rdg. del. 8 A pictorial representation of the same idea occurs in The Gates of Paradise (engraved 1793, from the original pencil sketches in the MS. Book), in which a youth, hat in hand, chases a butterfly of human shape, while another, which he has just struck down, lies crushed at his feet. Below is the inscription 'Alas!' Cp. also Milton, f. 18, ll. 27-30. Engraved on a single plate from the first draft of the poem on pp. 109, 108 (reversed) of the MS. Book. The MS. readings, too numerous to be readily intelligible in footnotes, are given in full in the appended note on the different versions of 'The Tyger.' This poem was first printed in ordinary type in Malkin's Father's Memoirs (1806), p. xxxix, from a copy probably supplied by Blake himself, which exhibits an important variant reading of the last line of the third stanza. An early corrupt version also appeared in Cunningham's Lives of the British Painters (1830), ii. 144. 2 forests] forest Malk., Cunn., R'; Thro' the desarts Chas. Lamb (quoting from memory, in a letter to Bernard Barton, May 15, 1824). 4 Could frame] Framed Cunn., DGR, WMR (and version). 6 Burnt] Burned Cunn., DGR., WMR (2nd version); burn'd Wilk. the] that DGR, WMR (2nd version). fire] fervour Cunn., R1. of] within DGR, WMR (and version). 7, 8 dare] dared DGR, WMR (and version). |