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WILLIAM BLAKE it is because all men are poets that they all hang a veil over sex. The ploughman does not plough by night, because he does not feel specially romantic about ploughing. He does love by night, because he does feel specially romantic about sex. In this matter Blake was not only unpoetical, but far less poetical than the mass of ordinary men. Decorum is not an over-civilised convention. Decorum is not tame, decorum is wild, as wild as the wind at night.

Modesty is too fierce and elemental a thing for the modern pedants to understand; I had almost said too savage a thing. It has in it the joy of escape and the ancient shyness of freedom. In this matter Blake and Whitman are merely among the modern pedants. In not admiring sexual reticence these two great poets simply did not understand one of the greatest poems of humanity.

I have given as an instance his disregard of the idea of mystery and modesty as involved in dress; it was an unpoetical thought that 177