Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/193

Rh The errors of a wise man make your rule. rose thou art sick. Nought loves another as itself. Tyger, Tyger, burning bright. walk'd abroad on a snowy day. Love seeketh not itself to please. I was angry with my friend. Mock on, mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau. What do I care for the men of Thames. I rose up at the dawn of day. Dear mother, dear mother, the church is cold. I asked a thief to steal me a peach. To Chloe's heart young Cupid slily stole. The caverns of the grave I've seen. The countless gold of a merry heart. He 's a blockhead who wants a proof of what he can't perceive. [Hiatus of five leaves.] Five epigrams numbered 20-4. Prose descriptions of Blake's pictures, Canterbury Pilgrims and Vision of the Last Judgment. In making his transcript, Rossetti appears to have contemplated publication of part of the contents of the MS. Book, edited by his brother, or by his friend, Wilham Allingham, the poet. In a letter to the latter dated November 1, 1860, he writes : 'A man (one Gilchrist, who lives next door to Carlyle, and is as near him in other respects as he can manage) wrote to me the other day, saying he was writing a life of Blake, and wanted to see my manuscript by that genius. Was there not some talk of your doing something in the way of publishing its contents? I know William thought of doing so, but fancy it might wait long for his efforts, and I have no time, but really think its contents ought to be edited, especially if a new Life gives a "shove to the concern" (as Spurgeon expressed himself in thanking a liberal subscriber to his Tabernacle). I have not yet engaged myself any way to said Gilchrist on the subject, though I have told him he can see it here if he will give me a day's notice.' Rossetti, as we know, did lend the MS. to Gilchrist in the following year, and on the death of the latter helped to complete his unfinished work by editing the selection from Blake's poetical and prose works given in the second volume of the Life. Under the heading 'Poems hitherto unpublished,' Rossetti, without distinguishing between the two separate sources, prints for the first time a number of poems from the Blake autograph in his own possession, together with others