Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/39

 Rh ::Then old Nobodaddy aloft
 * (erased) . . . . and coughed,
 * And said, I love hanging and drawing and quartering
 * Every bit as well as war and slaughtering."

The broken line may still be read as containing an indiscreet word or two unfit for poetry as for publication, and the printer may well respect Blake's erasure. Old Nobodaddy has had the pen drawn through him also, but he is here restored because he explains the idea of the King of France by the fact that one name was substituted for the other when the poem was sketched, both having the same meaning, that of the God of Battles and of executions whose attributes of the sword and the gallows were enough to identify him with Satan in Blake's theology. He is "Urizen drawn down into generation by Orc and the shadowy female" in the extra page of "Milton" written many years later.

The poem, as it first formed itself in the author's mind, went on thus — with old Nobodaddy's speech :


 * " Damn praying and singing
 * Unless they will bring in
 * The blood of ten thousand by fighting or surgery,"

and this was hastily crossed out and the verse recommenced.

Or surgery, added to the physicians, shows that Blake is not yet far removed from the ideas belonging to the period of the Island in the Moon. His classification of the professions came later. ("Milton," p. 24, 1. 60.)

The poem continues:


 * " The Queen of France just touched this globe
 * And the Pestilence darted from her robe,
 * But the bloodthirsty people across the water
 * Will not submit to gibbet and halter."

The last two lines crossed out, and the following substituted :


 * " But our good Queen quite grows to the ground,
 * There is just such a tree in Java found."

The last line crossed out, and the following substituted :


 * " And a great many suckers grow all around."