CHAPTER X. BOOKS OF PROPHECY. 1789-90. [ET. 32-33.] In the same year that the Songs of Innocence were published, Blake profited by his new discovery to engrave another illustrated poem. It is in a very different strain, one, however, analogous to that running through nearly all his subsequent writings, or 'Books,' as he called them. The Book of Thel is a strange mystical allegory, full of tender beauty and enigmatic meaning. Thel, youngest of the Daughters of the Seraphim' (personification of humanity, I infer), is afflicted with scepticism, with forebodings of life's brevity and nothingness: She in paleness sought the secret air To fade away like morning beauty from her mortal day; : As the poem is printed entire in our Second Part, I will now simply give an Argument of it, by way of indicating its tenor, and to serve as a bridge for the reader across the eddying stream of abstractions which make up this piece of poetic mysticism. Argument. Thel laments her transient life-The Lily of the Valley answers her— Pleads her weakness, yet Heaven's favour-Thel urges her own uselessness-A little cloud descends and taketh shape-Shows how he weds the evening dew and feeds the flowers of earth-Tells of Love and Serviceableness-Thel replies in sorrow still--The Cloud invokes the lowly worm to answer her-Who appears in the form of a helpless child -A clod of clay pities her wailing cry-And shows how in her lowliness she blesses and is blessed-She summons Thel into her house-The grave's gates open-Thel, wandering, listens to the voices of the ground -Hears a sorrowing voice from her own grave-plot-Listens, and flees back. The fault of the poem is the occasional tendency to vagueness of motive, to an expression of abstract emotions, more legitimate for the sister art of music than for poetry, which must be definite, however deep and subtle. The tendency grew in Blake's after writings and overmastered him. But on this occasion the meaning which he is at the pains to define, with the beauty of much of the imagery and of the pervading sentiment, more than counterbalance any excess of the element of the Indefinite, especially when, as in the original, the poem is illumined by its own design, lucidly expository, harmonising with itself and with the verse it illustrates. The original quarto consists of seven engraved pages, including the title, in size some six inches by four and a quarter. Four are illustrated by vignettes, the other two by ornamental head or tail-piece. The designs-Thel, the virgin sceptic, listening to the lily of the valley in the humble grass; to the golden cloud 'reclining on his airy throne;' to the worm upon her dewy bed; or kneeling over the personified clod of clay, an infant wrapped in lily's leaf; or gazing at the embracing clouds-are of the utmost sweetness ; simple, expressive, grand; the colour slight, but pure and tender. The mere ornamental part of the title-page, of which the sky forms the framework, is a study for spontaneous easy grace and unobtrusive beauty. The effect of the whole, poem and design together, is as of a wise, wondrous, spiritual dream, or angel's reverie. The engraving of the letter-press differs from that of the Songs of Innocence, the text (in colour red as before) being relieved by a white ground, which makes the page more legible if less of a picture. I may mention, in corroboration of a previous assertion of Stothard's obligations as a designer to Blake, that the copy of Thel, formerly Stothard's, bears evidence of familiar use on his part, in broken edges, and the marks of a painter's oily fingers. These few and simple designs, while plainly original, show all the feeling and grace of Stothard's early manner, with a tinge of sublimity superadded which was never Stothard's. In the track of the mystical Book of Thel came in 1790 the still more mystical Marriage of Heaven and Hell, an engraved volume, illustrated in colour, to which I have already alluded as perhaps the most curious and significant, while it is certainly the most daring in conception and gorgeous in illustration of all Blake's works. As the title dimly suggests, it is an attempt to sound the depths of the mystery of Evil: to take a stand out of and beyond humanity, and view it, not in its relation to man here and now, but to the eternal purposes of God. Hence old words. are wrested to new meanings (angel, devil, &c.), for language breaks down under so bold an enterprise. And we need hardly observe that Blake does not set up as an instructor of youth, or of age either, but rather as one who loves to rouse, perplex, provoke ; to shun safe roads and stand on dizzy brinks; to dare anything and everything, in short, if peradventure he might grasp a truth beyond the common reach, or catch a glimpse 'behind the veil.' Nor could there well be a harder task than the endeavour to trace out any kind of system, any coherent or consistent philosophy, in this or in any other of Blake's writings. He laid to heart very zealously and practically his favourite doctrine, that the man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.' Hence antagonistic assertions may be found almost side by side. The Marriage of Heaven and Hell opens with an 'Argument' in irregular unrhymed verse: Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air; Once meek and in a perilous path Roses are planted where thorns grow, Sing the honey bees. Then the perilous path was planted; On every cliff and tomb; And on the bleached bones Till the villain left the paths of ease Now the sneaking serpent walks In mild humility, And the just man rages in the wilds Where lions roam. Rintrah roars and shakes his fires in the burdened air; The key-note is more clearly sounded in the following detached sentences: Without contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to human existence. From these contraries spring what the religious call Good and Evil. Good is the passive, that obeys Reason. Evil is the active, springing from Energy. Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell. The Voice of the Devil. All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following errors: 1. That man has two real existing principles, viz. a Body and a Soul. 2. That Energy, called Evil, is alone from the Body, and that Heaven, called Good, is alone from the Soul. 3. That God will torment man in Eternity for following his energies. But the following contraries to these are true :— 1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul, for that called Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age. 2. Energy is the only Life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy. 3. Energy is Eternal Delight. To this shortly succeeds a series of Proverbs or Aphorisms, fantastically called 'Proverbs of Hell,' of which, if some indeed contain the Wisdom of the Serpent, there are others wherein the wisdom is of a more terrestrial and innocent sort, while not a few possess a truly celestial meaning and beauty. These Proverbs we give almost entire. In seed-time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy. Drive your cart and your plough over the bones of the dead. The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom. Prudence is a rich ugly old maid courted by Incapacity. The cut worm forgives the plough. Dip him in the river who loves water. A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees. He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star. Eternity is in love with the productions of Time. The busy bee has no time for sorrow. The hours of Folly are measured by the clock, but of Wisdom no clock can measure. All wholesome food is caught without a net or a trap. Bring out number, weight, and measure, in a year of dearth. The most sublime act is to set another before you. If the fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise. Shame is Pride's cloak. Excess of sorrow laughs: excess of joy weeps. The roaring of lions, the howling of wolves, the raging of the stormy |