Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/14

viii In the present edition Blake's final version is uniformly adopted as the text, while all earlier or cancelled readings are supplied in footnotes. The spelling and capitalization of the original are adhered to throughout. That Blake himself attached some importance to the use of capitals for the sake of emphasis or artistic effect, is apparent from the careful manner in which he has added them as corrections in the revised versions of several of his MS. poems, or in the engraved form of songs found also in rough draft. In my retention of Blake's orthography I have been influenced not only by the desire to preserve as far as possible the colour of the original in such pleasant archaisms as 'desart,' 'tyger,' and 'lilly,' but also by the fact that in some instances his own spelling is a valuable aid to the just reading of lines or stanzas. In all existing editions the melody of many of the songs has been marred by ignoring the fact that Blake's use of '′d' or 'ed,' in the participle or preterite, was never arbitrary, but based on system. Both in his manuscript and engraved books he followed the contemporary practice of using the latter only when he intended the final syllable to be separately pronounced. I have thought it better to prevent any misconception on this point by retaining the 'd in the former case, and, in the latter, by supplying an accent which is not in the original.

In the matter of punctuation the poet has left his editors almost entirely to their own resources. Blake's autograph MSS. are, as a rule, without points of any kind, while those in the engraved books are inserted in such a haphazard manner that, if reproduced, they would only serve to confuse the reader. I have accordingly supplied my own punctuation; though Blake's pointing, where it occurs, has been taken into consideration, and occasionally, as in the third stanza of 'The Tyger,' is an indication of the way in which a particular passage was intended to be read. Blake omitted apostrophes and inverted commas in his engraved as well as in his manuscript writings, and