Sweet smiles in the night,
Hover over my delight.
Sweet smiles Mothers smiles,
All the livelong night beguiles.
Sweet moans, dovelike sighs,
Chase not slumber from thy eyes,
Sweet moans, sweeter smiles,
All the dovelike moans beguiles.
Sleep sleep happy child,
All creation slept and smil'd.
Sleep sleep, happy sleep.
While o'er thee thy mother weep.
Sweet babe in thy face,
Holy image I can trace.
Sweet babe once like thee.
Thy maker lay and wept for me.
Wept
WILLIAM BLAKE.
Mr. William Morris, by his personal experiment and practice of printing, approaching it from the designer's point of view, has again placed the printing of books in the position of an art. By practical demonstration in the beautiful results of his work—in the beautiful books he issued from the Kelmscott Press—he has shown us what very fine decorative effects can be got by careful consideration of the form of the letters, by the placing of the type upon the page, by the use of good handmade paper, by the use of ornaments and initial letters of rich and bold design, harmonizing with the strength and richness of the type (which makes the ordinary types look pale and thin). His work, too, is obviously influencing printers and publishers generally, so that something like a renascence in printing and in design and decoration in black and white has been going on during the last few years.
Certainly a return to the practice of drawing in line is good, not only as a test of design and draughtsmanship, and absolutely necessary to all designers, but also as essential to designs or illustrations intended to contribute to the decorative character of the printed page.
In the various instances, therefore, to which I have drawn attention, we have seen that design in its many forms and applications must be reconciled to certain limitations of material and method; but that, so far from these limitations being a hindrance to harmonious expression or to beauty of result, they themselves, by their very nature, if properly understood and frankly acknowledged, lead to those very results of beauty and harmonious expression which come of that perfect unity of design, material, and method it is the object of all decorative art to attain.