and the pilgrimage through a lower sphere is also found in the oldest Assyrian poetry. The book, like Jerusalem, is dated 1804, but, like its companion, must have been composed at Felpham. Nothing save actual and present contact with country scenes could have inspired such a passage as this, the crown of all Blake's unrhymed poetry:—
Thou hearest the nightingale begin the song of spring:
The lark sitting upon his earthly bed, just as the sun
Appears, listens silent: then springing from the wavy corn-field loud
He leads the choir of day: trill, trill, trill, trill:
Mounting upon the wings of light into the great expanse;
Re-echoing against the lovely blue and shining heavenly shell:
His little throat labours with inspiration, every feather
On throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence divine:
All nature listens silent to him, and the awful sun
Stands still upon the mountain looking on this little bird
With eyes of soft humility, and wonder, love, and awe.
Such a passage shows how greatly Blake might have gained as a poet had he been more intimate with external nature. Very splendid lines might be quoted from "Milton," such as "A cloudy heaven mingled with stormy seas in loudest ruin," but they are glowing light upon a black core of obscurity. Mr. Housman's judgment applies to it as to all the works of its class. "They are the sign chiefly of a beautiful nature wasted for lack of equipment in formulating disputatively what grew out of his better work with all the thoughtlessness and glory of a flower."[1]
Several lyrical poems printed in Blake's works may be assigned to this date. Some, such as "The Crystal Cabinet" and "The Mental Traveller," are extremely mystical; others, such as "Mary," are of simply human interest; others, such as "Auguries of Innocence," seem little remote from nonsense. "The Everlasting Gospel" expresses his profoundest ideas with startling crudity. None are wholly unmelodious,
