Whatever reason Blake may have had for investing his shepherd in this apparel, we are sure at least that it was not because he worried himself about propriety! such a concern was far indeed from him.

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PRINTED AND COLOURED PLATE FROM
“SONGS OF INNOCENCE,” 1789

After all, this matter of the combination garment is the merest quibble. The design has all the enchantment of the spring in its pale delicious tints, and the browsing sheep with the glint of gold on their fleeces bring something of Argonautic romance into this vision of April.

The flamboyant title-page of the “Songs of Innocence,” is a fine piece of decorative design and colour.

The keynote of the whole scheme is set in the perfectly simple song, and the page in which it is embodied, called “The Introduction.” The poem is written in brown, on a ground bright with tremulous colours which wane and wax in prismatic variation. Rose shoots, bent in and out, make a trellis up each side of the verses, and the result of the whole! well! you may call it a slight thing if you like, but it is as joyous as childhood, and strangely delightful! No songs ever written for children were as these songs; in especial, perhaps, “The Lamb,” of which the simplicity and tenderness are of so delicate a quality that the poem cannot be handled critically at all. It can only be felt.

The slightly richer and deeper tones of colour, and the premonitory note of mysticism in the “Little Black Boy,” afford a subtle charm:

And we are put on earth a little space
That we may learn to bear the beams of love,
And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face
Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.

Who could have written this but Blake?