Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/481

 so often, and with such child-like, simple faith, sung and designed. With the very same intense, high feeling he had depicted the Death of the Righteous Man, he enacted it—serenely, joyously. For life and design and song were with him all pitched in one key, different expressions of one reality. No dissonances there! It happened on a Sunday the 12th of August, 1827, nearly three months before completion of his seventieth year. 'On the day of his death,' writes Smith, who had his account from the widow, 'he composed and uttered songs to his Maker, so sweetly to the ear of his Catherine that, when she stood to hear him, he, looking upon her most affectionately, said, "My beloved! they are not mine. No! they are not mine!" He told her they would not be parted; he should always be about her to take care of her.'

A little before his death, Mrs. Blake asked where he would be buried, and whether a dissenting minister or a clergyman of the Church of England should read the service. To which he answered, that 'as far as his own feelings were concerned, she might bury him where she pleased.' But that as 'father, mother, aunt, and brother were buried in Bunhill Row, perhaps it would be better to lie there. As to service, he should wish for that of the Church of England.'

In that plain, back room, so dear to the memory of his friends, and to them beautiful from association with him—with his serene, cheerful converse, his high personal influence, so spiritual and rare—he lay chaunting Songs to Melodies, both the inspiration of the moment, but no longer, as of old, to be noted down. To the pious Songs followed, about six in the summer evening, a calm and painless withdrawal of breath; the exact moment almost unperceived by his wife who sat by his side. A humble female neighbour, her only other companion, said afterwards: 'I have been at the death, not of a man, but of a blessed angel.'

A letter, written a few days later, to a mutual friend by a now distinguished painter, one of the most fervent in that