Page:Life of William Blake, Gilchrist.djvu/198

Away to sweet Felpham, for Heaven is there;
The ladder of Angels descends through the air,
On the turret its spiral does softly descend,
Through the village then winds, at my cot it does end.

You stand in the village and look up to heaven;
The precious stairs glitter in flight seventy-seven;
And my brother is there; and my friend and thine
Descend and ascend with the bread and the wine.

The bread of sweet thought and the wine of delight
Feed the village of Felpham by day and by night;
And at his own door the bless'd hermit does stand,
Dispensing unceasing to all the wide land.
W. Blake.

'Receive my and my husband's love and affection, and believe me to be yours affectionately,

'Catherine Blake.'

'H. B. Lambeth, 14 Sept. 1800.'

The labour of preparation and the excitement of eager anticipation proved almost too much for the affectionate and devoted Kate. September 16th, a few days before they started, Blake writes to Hayley, 'My dear and too careful and over-joyous woman has exhausted her strength... Eartham will be my first temple and altar; my wife is like a flame of many colours of precious jewels whenever she hears it named.'

A letter from Blake's own hand to Flaxman, penned immediately after arrival in Sussex, has been put into print by our excellent friend Smith. This very physiognomic composition, lucid enough to all who know Blake, needlessly puzzled Allan Cunningham. It does not, to my mind, separate, as he maintains, into two distinct parts of strongly contrasted spirit; nor does it betoken that irreconcilable discord of faculties he imagines. The mingling of sound sagacity with the utmost licence of imagination showed itself at every hour of Blake's life. He would, at any moment, speak as he here writes, and was not a mere sensible mortal