Page:Life of William Blake 2, Gilchrist.djvu/242

184

'On the skirt of a figure, rapid and "vehemently sweeping," engraved underneath (recalling that vision of Dion, made memorable by one of Wordsworth's noble poems) are inscribed these words:—"The voice of Abel's Blood." The fierce and strenuous flight of this figure is as the motion of one whose feet are swift to shed blood, and the dim face is full of hunger and sorrowful lust after revenge. The decorations are slight, but not ineffective; wrought merely in black and white. This small prose lyric has a value beyond the value of its occasional beauty and force of form; it is a brief, comprehensible expression of Blake's faith seen from its two leading sides; belief in vision and belief in mercy.'

(From A Critical Essay on William Blake, by Algernon Charles Swinburne, pp. 295-296, where The Ghost of Abel was first printed.)