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 THE POEMS OF WILLIAM BLAKE 26l two or three generations may be crowned with foliage and blossoms and fruit as the Tree of Life for one epoch. The essence of this poetry is mysticism, and the essence of this mysticism is simplicity. The two meanings in which this last word is commonly used — the one reverential, the other kindly contemptuous — are severally appropriate to the most wise and the least wise manifestations of this spirit of mysticism. It sees, and is continually rapturous with seeing, everywhere correspondence, kindred, identity, not only in the things and creatures of earth, but in all things and creatures and beings of hell and earth and heaven, up to the one father (or interiorly to the one soul) of all. It thus ignores or pays little heed to the countless complexities and distinctions of our modern civilisation and science, a knowledge of which is generally esteemed the most useful information and most valuable learning. For it "there is no great and no small ; " in the large type of planets and nations, in the minute letters of dewdrops and worms, the same eternal laws are written ; and merely as a matter of convenience to the reader is this or that print preferable to the other. And the whole universe being the volume of the Scrip- tures of the living word of God, this above all is to be heeded, that man should not dwell contented on the lovely language and illustrations, but should live beyond these in the sphere of the realities which they signify. It is passionately and profoundly religious, contemplating and treating every subject religiously, in all its excursions and discursions issuing from the soul to return to the soul, alone, from the alone, to