Page:William Blake (IA williamblake00ches).pdf/104

 "A skylark wounded in the wing, A cherubim does cease to sing."

Or again, in a more fanciful but genuinely weird way—

"He who torments the chafer's sprite Weaves a bower in endless night."

And then, after all this excellent and quite serious poetry, Blake can calmly write down the following two lines—

"He who the ox to wrath has moved Shall never be by woman loved."

One could hardly find a more Gilbertian absurdity in the conjunction of ideas in the whole of the "Bab Ballads" than the idea that the success of some gentleman in the society of ladies depends upon whether he has previously at some time or other slightly irritated an ox. Such sudden inaccesibility to laughter must be called a morbid symptom. It must mean a blind spot on the brain. The whole thing, of course, would prove nothing if Blake were a common ranter incapable of writing well, or a common dunce incapable of seeing a joke. Such a man might easily be