"Hear the voice of the Bard,
Who present, past and future sees,
Whose ears have heard
The Holy Word
That walked among the ancient trees.
"Calling the lapsed soul
And weeping in the evening dew,
That might control The starry pole
And fallen, fallen light renew!
"O Earth, O Earth, return!
Arise from out the dewy grass!
Night is worn
And the Morn
Rises from the slumbrous mass.
"Turn away no more;
Why wilt thou turn away?
The starry floor
The watery shore
Is given thee till break of day."
If I were asked to name a writer whose work conveys to one's mind, free of any admixture of rhetoric or of any alloy of cleverness, the very impact and shock of pure inspired genius, I would unhesitatingly name William Blake. One is strangely conscious in reading him of the presence of some great unuttered power—some vast demiurgic secret—struggling like a buried Titan just below the surface of his mind, and never quite finding vocal expression.
Dim shapes—vast inchoate shadows—like dreams of forgotten worlds and shadows of worlds as yet unborn, seem to pass backwards and forwards over the brooding waters of his spirit. There is no poet perhaps who gives such an impression of primordial creative force—force hewing at the roots of the world and weeping and laughing from sheer pleasure at the touch of that dream stuff whereof life is made. Above his head, as he laughs and weeps and sings, the branches of the trees of the forest of night stir and rustle under the immense spaces, and, floating above them, the planets and the stars flicker down upon him with friendly mysterious joy.
No poet gives one the impression of greater strength than William Blake; and this is emphasised by the very simplicity and childishness of his style. Only out of the strength of a lion could come such honeyed gentleness. And if he is one of the strongest among poets he is also one of the happiest.
Genuine happiness—happiness that is at the same time intellectual and spontaneous—is far rarer in poetry than one might suppose. Such happiness has nothing necessarily to do with an optimistic philosophy or even with faith in God. It has nothing at all to do with physical well-being or the mere animal sensations of eating and drinking and philandering. It is a thing of more mysterious import and of deeper issues than these. It may come lightly and go lightly, but the rhythm of eternity is in the beating of its wings, and deep calls to deep in the throbbing of its pulses.
As Blake himself puts it—
"He who bends to himself a joy
Does the winged life destroy;
But he who kisses the joy as it flies
Lives in Eternity's sun-rise."