Life of William Blake (1880), Volume 2

by William Blake, Anne Gilchrist, Alexander Gilchrist, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

LIFE

OF

WILLIAM BLAKE,

VOL. II.

T. PhillipsSchiavonetti

WILLIAM BLAKE

LIFE

OF

WILLIAM BLAKE

WITH SELECTIONS FROM HIS POEMS AND OTHER WRITINGS

BY

ALEXANDER GILCHRIST

OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW
AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF WILLIAM ETTY, R.A."

A NEW AND ENLARGED EDITION

ILLUSTRATED FROM BLAKE'S OWN WORKS

WITH ADDITIONAL LETTERS AND A MEMOIR OF THE AUTHOR

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. II.

London

MACMILLAN AND CO.

1880.

The Right of Translation is Reserved

CONTENTS OF VOLUME II.

SELECTIONS.

EDITED BY DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.

POETICAL SKETCHES.

	PAGE
Introductory Note	1
Song. My silks and fine array	3
Song. Love and harmony combine	4
Song. I love the jocund dance	5
Mad Song. The wild winds weep	6
Song. How sweet I roamed from field to field	7
Song. Memory, hither come	8
To the Muses. Whether on Ida's shady brow	9
To the Evening Star. Thou fair-hair'd angel of the Evening	10
To Spring. O thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down	11
To Summer. O thou who passest thro' our valleys in	12
Blind-Man's Buff. When silver snow decks Susan's clothes	13
King Edward the Third (Selections from)	16

SONGS OF INNOCENCE.

Introductory Note	27
Introduction. Piping down the valleys wild	29
The Shepherd. How sweet is the shepherd's sweet lot	30

	PAGE
The Echoing Green. The sun does arise	31
The Lamb. Little lamb, who made thee?	32
The Little Black Boy. My mother bore me in the southern wild	33
The Blossom. Merry, merry sparrow!	34
The Chimney-Sweeper. When my mother died I was very young	35
The Little Boy Lost. Father, father, where are you going?	36
The Little Boy Found. The little boy lost in the lonely fen	36
Laughing Song. When the great woods laugh with the voice of joy	37
Cradle Song. Sweet dreams form a shade	38
The Divine Image. To mercy, pity, peace, and love	40
Holy Thursday. 'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean	41
Night. The Sun descending in the West	42
Spring. Sound the flute!	44
Nurse's Song. When the voices of children are heard on the green	45
Infant Joy. I have no name	46
A Dream. Once a dream did weave a shade	47
On Another's Sorrow. Can I see another's woe	48
The Voice of the Ancient Bard. Youth of delight! come hither	50

SONGS OF EXPERIENCE.

Introduction. Hear the voice of the bard	51
Earth's Answer. Earth raised up her head	52
The Clod and the Pebble. Love seeketh not itself to please	53
Holy Thursday. Is this a holy thing to see	54
The Little Girl Lost. In futurity	55
The Little Girl Found. All the night in woe	57
The Chimney Sweeper. A little black thing among the snow	59
The Sick Rose. O Rose, thou art sick!	60
Nurse's Song. When the voices of children are heard on the green	60
The Fly. Little Fly	61
The Angel. I dreamt a dream! What can it mean?	62
The Tiger. Tiger, tiger, burning bright	63
My Pretty Rose Tree. A flower was offered to me	64

	PAGE
Ah! Sunflower. Ah! Sunflower! weary of time	64
The Lily. The modest rose puts forth a thorn	65
The Garden of Love. I laid me down upon a bank	65
The Little Vagabond. Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold	66
London. I wander through each charter'd street	67
The Human Abstract. Pity would be no more	68
Infant Sorrow. My mother groaned, my father wept	69
Christian Forbearance. I was angry with my friend	69
A Little Boy Lost. Nought loves another as itself	70
A Little Girl Lost. Children of the future age	71
A Cradle Song. Sleep, sleep, beauty bright	73
The Schoolboy. I love to rise on a summer morn	74
To Tirzah. Whate'er is born of mortal birth	76
THE BOOK OF THEL	77

IDEAS OF GOOD AND EVIL.

Introductory Note	85
The Birds. Where thou dwellest, in what grove	89
Broken Love. My spectre around me night and day	90
The Two Songs. I heard an angel singing	93
The Defiled Sanctuary. I saw a chapel all of gold	94
Cupid. Why was Cupid a boy?	95
The Woman taken in Adultery. The vision of Christ that thou dost see	96
Love's Secret. Never seek to tell thy love	98
The Wild Flower's Song. As I wandered in the forest	99
The Crystal Cabinet. The maiden caught me in the wild	100
Smile and Frown. There is a smile of love	102
The Golden Net. Beneath a white thorn's lovely May	103
The Land of Dreams. Awake, awake, my little boy	104
Mary. Sweet Mary, the first time she ever was there	105
Auguries of Innocence. To see a world in a grain of sand	107
The Mental Traveller. I travelled through a land of men	112
In A Myrtle Shade. To a lovely myrtle bound	118
William Bond. I wonder whether the girls are mad	119

	PAGE
Scoffers. Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau	121
The Agony of Faith. "I see, I see," the mother said	123
Daybreak. To find the western path	124
Thames and Ohio. Why should I care for the men of Thames?	124
Young Love. Are not the joys of morning sweeter	125
Riches. Since all the riches of this world	125
Opportunity. He who bends to himself a joy	126
Seed Sowing. Thou hast a lapful of seed	126
Barren Blossom. I feared the fury of my wind	127
Night and Day. Silent, silent night	127
Love and Deceit. Love to faults is always blind	128
Couplets and Fragments	129
Epigrams and Satirical Pieces on Art and Artists	132

PROSE WRITINGS.

Introductory Note	137
Descriptive Catalogue	139
Public Address	164
Memoranda by Blake of his mode of Engraving	178
Sibylline Leaves—
On Homer's Poetry	179
On Virgil	180
The Ghost of Abel	181
A Vision of the Last Judgment	185
Note upon Blake's Engraved Designs	203
Illustrations of the Book of Job
Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

ANNOTATED CATALOGUE OF BLAKE'S PAINTINGS AND DRAWINGS.

By William Michael Rossetti.

Introductory Note

205

	PAGE
List I. Works in Colour.
Section a. Dated Works	207
Section b. Undated Works, Biblical and Sacred	235
DittoDittoPoetic and Miscellaneous	245
List II. Uncoloured Works.
Section a. Dated Works	255
Section b. Undated Works. Biblical and Sacred	264
DittoDittoPoetic and Miscellaneous	267
List III. Works of Unascertained Method.
Biblical and Sacred	275
Poetic and Miscellaneous	275
Items from the Sale Catalogues of Mr. George Smith	276
Items from the Catalogue of an Exhibition of Blake's Works in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, U.S.A.	276
Account between Blake and Mr. Butts	278
Lists of Engravings.
Works designed as well as engraved by Blake	279
Works engraved, but not designed by Blake	281
Works designed, but not engraved by Blake	283
List of Writings	283
Prospectus by Blake issued in 1793	285
Descriptive Notes of the Designs to Young's "Night Thoughts," by Frederic James Shields	289
Essay on Blake by James Smetham	309
In Memoriam F. O. Finch, by Samuel Palmer	353
Memoir of Alexander Gilchrist, by Anne Gilchrist	357

alt-text=WILLIAM BLAKE [title design] SELECTIONS

VOL. II.

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 wall [text underlined by illustration]

SELECTIONS

EDITED BY

DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI.