Page:The Poems of William Blake (Shepherd, 1887).djvu/9

 Rh together with a few similar pieces, not included before, scattered through the Prophetical Books. It will suffice to add that not a few of these pieces do not appear in Gilchrist's "Life of Blake," and being the present Publisher's copyright, cannot appear in Messrs. Bell's forthcoming edition.

Although the poetry of Blake was comparatively neglected until a quite recent period, it did not remain entirely unnoticed even during his lifetime. Flaxman, through whose kindly aid his early verses are preserved to us, considered Blake's poems as fine as his pictures. Wordsworth spoke of them with a generous admiration, which he did not often accord to the writings of his contemporaries. Charles Lamb also loved them as so subtle a critic and so kind and simple-hearted a man could not fail to do.

"A Father's Memoirs of his Child," by Benjamin Heath Malkin, (London, 1806}, contains a portrait frontispiece designed by Blake, in introducing which the author devotes twenty pages to a disquisition on Blake's genius, and quotes the following poems: "Laughing Song," "Holy Thursday," "The Divine Image," "How sweet I roam'd," "I love the jocund dance," "The Tiger."