Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/58

44 press two lines about the nose in the dedication of the poem he professes to publish in full for the first time. It should run: —


 * "The Vision of Christ that thou dost see,
 * Is my vision's greatest enemy.
 * Thine has a long, hook nose like thine,
 * Mine has a snub nose like mine.
 * Thine is the Friend of all Mankind,
 * Mine speaks in Parables to the blind.
 * Thine loves the same world that mine hates,
 * Thy heaven-doors are my hell-gates.
 * Socrates taught what Melitus
 * Loathed as a nation's bitterest curse.
 * And Caiaphas was, in his own mind,
 * A benefactor to mankind.
 * Doth read the Bible day and night,
 * But thou readest black where I read white."

Blake's nose — short, stumpy, fist-like, compressed, but strong, was not of the hollow-bridged turned-up character, but he always called it " snub/' He used to like to think he personally resembled Socrates. In the same MS. book there is a scrap by itself evidently of this date: —

"I always thought that Jesus Christ was a snubby, or I should not have worshipped Him if I thought He had been one of those long spindled-nosed rascals."

As a matter of fact, his designs show that he adopted the conventional profile when representing Christ for other than emphatically personal symbolic purposes. This phrase belongs to a period only, not to the whole of his artistic life. Another fragment of the same date, as is seen by its hand- writing and its place — it being wedged in after what was intended as a completed paragraph in the " Last Judgment " — sheds more light on the mood of the moment.

"Thinking as I do that the Creator of this world is a very cruel Being, and being a worshipper of Christ, I cannot help saying to the Son, — Oh, how unlike the Father! First God Almighty comes with a thump on the head, and then Jesus Christ comes with a balm to heal it."

Of the theological views scattered through the larger poems, some few must be summarized and contrasted for this particular