Page:The Poems of William Blake (Shepherd, 1887).djvu/14

xii purity and simplicity, and by grown-up men and women for the deeper meanings which always underlie the most simple of them:—

There is something sublime in the spirit of childlike innocence and Christian rebuke of worldliness and hardheartedness that pervades these productions. He sums up all the commandments under the precept, "Little children, love one another. For love is the fulfilling of the law. He that loveth not, knoweth not God; for God is love."

Some of his poems would doubtless have been improved by additional polish; there are many harsh and rugged lines, many with an imperfect number of feet. His ear seems to have been uncertain; and sometimes, as in "The Little Vagabond," he forgets to rhyme, or makes the same word do duty in lieu of a rhyme. He also now and then uses a singular verb for a plural, and vice versâ. But a reader who should be greatly offended by these occasional inaccuracies would be quite incapable of appreciating his higher beauties: the matter makes us forget the manner.

Despite what has been said above, he sometimes attains a perfection of lyrical expression in