Page:The sanity of William Blake.djvu/33

 Rh reason, or the demon hate would claim the just man for his own. Witness The Poison Tree. These proverbs are epitomes of truth and wisdom. Thus "The cut worm forgives the plow" at first looks obscure; yet it sums up in a simple figure the wisdom of Job. How he had rejoiced in his inspirations, how he had torn himself in his hard labours, only the poet can understand who realizes at once the service and despotism of language; and Blake put this law of life into the words "Joys impregnate, sorrows bring forth." His faith in the imagination, its towering supremacy over mere intellect, may be hard at first to understand. "One thought fills immensity," and "Everything possible to be believed is an image of truth," and "Truth can never be told so as to be understood and not be believed"; these give insight into the deeps, and compel us, if nothing else could, to follow and learn. Nor can we fail to admit, before he has done with us, that his seraphic intellect has laid upon our mouth the living coal, and taken away the iniquity of denial.

But I must not yet leave my evidences of Blake's childlike nature, because in it lay his marvellous power of appeal. His faith in