Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/17

Rh pass unnoticed. And even in such comparatively simple lines as the verses to Butts beginning 'With happiness stretch'd across the hills,' the allusion to the 'rock' and 'cave' in l.40 may only be understood through the associations of the same figures in The Four Zoas and Jerusalem. While interpretation is here restricted to passages in the lyrical poems which seem to require explanation, the editor may claim that the parallelisms from the Prophetic Books have been selected after many readings of the visionary writings, and with some knowledge of the chief literature written around them.

6. I have similarly illustrated Blake's epigrams on art and artists by quotations from prose writings where his opinions or prejudices are expressed with his customary energy and conviction.

7. I give also occasional indications of the date or place at which particular poems were written, as well as cross references to lines or passages repeated in different pieces. As these repetitions have been adduced as evidence of Blake's poverty of thought and language in Mr. Henry Gay Hewlett's ingenious article in the Contemporary Review, it may be proper to point out that the writings from which identical expressions are borrowed were not published by their author, nor was it probably contemplated by him that they would ever see the light. In only a single instance, that of the 'Mad Song' (Poetical Sketches) and 'Infant Sorrow' (Songs of Experience), has a line been transferred from one printed work to another, and as I have elsewhere explained, Blake never seems to have regarded the privately printed Poetical Sketches as one of his actual publications.

There is some reason to suppose that most of the existing groupings of Blake's poems would have fallen under the poet's lash for those whose 'chiefest arts' are to 'blend and not define the parts.' If 'to make out the parts,' as he assures