Page:William Blake, a critical essay (Swinburne).djvu/304

 270 slavery to the flesh: a myth of animal life not without beauty, and to Blake one of great attraction.)

At least this last magnificent passage should in common charity and sense have been cited in the biography, if only to explain the often-quoted words Los and Enitharmon. Neither blindness to such splendour of symbol, nor deafness to such music of thought, can excuse the omission of what is so wholly necessary for the comprehension of extracts already given, and given (as far as one can see) with no available purpose whatever.

The remainder of the first book of the Milton is a vision of Nature and prophecy of the gathering of the harvest of Time and treading of the winepress of War; in which harvest and vintage work all living things have their share for good or evil.

All kind of insects; of roots and seeds and creeping things—"all the armies of disease visible or invisible"—are there;