Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/38

24 Here the "priest" ploys the part given to the queen in the poem. The "pestilence" is that same disease of the soul, namely doubt of imagination and belief in nature, equally brought about by fleshly indulgence and fleshly restraint. The "famine" that the kings call for is a famine of spiritual food because they believe that the sword is- the supporter of states. Blake held that art supported states because it could be, and should be, used for spiritual advancement on which alone brotherhood could be based. The sword shrunk up the senses of mau, and by limiting each individual limited the state.

By looking at all " false starts and variations," which the editor of the Aldine edition says have ' ' complicated " the poem in the MS., we can find in it something more than an "extremely curious" indication of Blake's "conceptions of contemporary history and politics."

Of all history and politics he had only one conception, — that they were visions drawn out in " strong delusive light of time and space," but would yield symbolic significance if looked at through the altering eye that perceives them as though they were of the South and not of the North among mental Regions.

La Fayette is the type of those who are deceived by the tears of Urizen, and who give themselves as agents to tyranny instead of to sympathy, for the tears of Urizen are nets that bind man to his image. The smiles of Rahab have the same effect. Both "restrain " the true man from development into love and life.

The poem began thus —


 * "Let the Brothels of Paris be opened
 * With many an alluring dance,
 * To awake the Pestilence through the city; "
 * Said the beautiful Queen of France.

(Pestilence was afterwards altered to physicians.)


 * "The King awoke on his couch of gold
 * As soon as he heard these tidings told,
 * 'Arise and come, both fife and drum,
 * And the famine shall eat both crust and crumb.'