Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/240

198 'But the Tear of Love — & forgiveness sweet, 49 And submission to death beneath his feet — The tear shall melt the sword of steel, And every wound it has made shall heal. ' For the tear is an intellectual thing, 53 And a sigh is the sword of an Angel King, And the bitter groan of the Martyr's woe Is an arrow from the Almightie's bow.'

-52 But. . . heal] Omitted in both the Jerusalem and the Pickering MS. versions. 55 of the Martyr's] for another's MS. Book 1st rdg. del. ; of a martyr's EY.

xliii

Morning

To find the Western path, i Right thro' the Gates of Wrath I urge my way ; Sweet Mercy leads me on 4 With soft repentant moan : I see the break of day. The war of swords & spears, Melted by dewy tears, 8 Exhales on high; The Sun is freed from fears, And with soft grateful tears Ascends the sky. 12

MS. Book, p. 12. Title added later. Printed by DGR and all later editors with the title ' Daybreak.' -6 Sweet. . . day] All edd. read :—
 * ' Sweet morning leads me on ;
 * With soft repentant moan
 * I see the break of day.'

The correction of ' morning ' to ' Mercy ' conveys a meaning to the poem entirely lacking in the received text. The marks of an erasure in D, G. Rossetti's transcript of ' all that is of any value ' in the MS. Book show that he had at first written some other word— probably the right one— before 'morning.' The word 'Morning' in the title may have misled him into supposing that the same word was repeated in 1. 4 of the song, ' Morning ' and 'Mercy' being somewhat alike in Blake's handwriting.