To such influences grown men, also, do well to keep open their souls; for Blake in his 'Auguries of Innocence,' writes—
'He who mocks the infant's faith
Shall be mock'd in age and death.'
There is so much pleasure in copying out some of these fragments that we are tempted to linger a little longer over them. The silver Shakespearean song of 'Take, O take those lips away!' has always sounded like a honey-laden breeze of Hymettus. There is the same nameless spell in these words of Blake, rolled sweetly on each other as the rose-leaves curl toward the heart of the rose:—
'Never seek to tell thy love,
Love that never told can be,
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invisibly.'
Here are two stanzas, not so remarkable for their pure melody, but containing a wonderfully felicitous image:—
'Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau,
Mock on, mock on; 'tis all in vain;
You throw the sand against the wind,
And the wind blows it back again.
'And every sand becomes a gem
Reflected in the beams divine;
Blown back, they blind the mocking eye,
But still in Israel's paths they shine.'
In a motto prefixed to the 'Auguries of Innocence,' he expresses that power which is given to genuine imagination, and which so distinctively separates it from the rest of the faculties, or rather enables it both to use, and master, and transcend them all—the power
'To see a world in a grain of sand.
And a heaven in a wild flower.
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand.
And eternity in an hour.'
