Facsimile editions of texts in manuscript form are:
Tiriel. Facsimile and Transcript of the Manuscript, Reproduction of the Drawings, and a Commentary on the Poem, ed. G. E. Bentley, Jr, Oxford University Press, 1967.
The Notebook of William Blake (facsimile and transcription), ed. Geoffrey Keynes, Nonesuch, 1935.
The Notebook of William Blake: A Photographic and Typographic Facsimile, ed. David V. Erdman, Oxford University Press, 1973.
Vala; or, The Four Zoas. A Facsimile of the Manuscript, a Transcript and a Study of its Growth and Significance, ed. G. E. Bentley, Jr, Oxford University Press, 1963.
The Four Zoas: A Photographic Facsimile of the Manuscript with Commentary on the Illuminations, ed. Cettina Tramontane Magno and David V. Erdman, Bucknell University Press, 1987.
BIOGRAPHY
Peter Ackroyd, Blake, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1995.
G. E. Bentley, Jr, Blake Records, Oxford University Press, 1969. Supplement, 1988.
—— Stranger from Paradise: A Biography of William Blake, Yale University Press, 2001.
Alexander Gilchrist, Life of William Blake, ‘Pictor Ignotus’, 2 vols., 1863; Everyman, 1945.
James King, William Blake: His Life, Weidenfield and Nicolson, 1991.
Mona Wilson, The Life of William Blake, 1927, ed. Geoffrey Keynes, Oxford University Press, 1971.
CRITICAL STUDIES
G. E. Bentley, Jr, William Blake: The Critical Heritage, Routledge, 1975
Harold Bloom, Blake’s Apocalypse: A Study in Poetic Argument, Doubleday, 1963.
Helen P. Bruder, William Blake and the Daughters of Albion, Macmillan, 1997.
Tristanne J. Connolly, William Blake and the Body, Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.
S. Foster Damon, William Blake, His Philosophy and Symbols, London, 1924.
Leopold Damrosch, Symbol and Truth in Blake’s Myth, Princeton University Press, 1980.
Jackie DiSalvo, War of the Titans: Blake’s Critique of Milton and the Politics of Religion, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1984.
Morris Eaves, William Blake’s Theory of Art, Princeton University Press, 1982.
—— The Counter-Arts Conspiracy: Art and Industry in the Age of Blake, Cornell University Press, 1992.
T. S. Eliot, ‘Blake’, in The Sacred Wood: Essays on Poetry and Criticism, London, 1920; reprinted as ‘William Blake’ in Selected Essays, Faber, 1932.
David V. Erdman, Blake: Prophet Against Empire, A Poet’s Interpretation of the History of His Own Times, Princton University Press, 1954.
Michael Ferber, The Social Vision of William Blake, Princeton University Press, 1985.
—— The Poetry of William Blake, Penguin, 1991.
Harold Fisch, The Biblical Presence in Shakespeare, Milton and Blake: A Comparative Study, Clarendon Press, 1999.
Northrop Frye, Fearful Symmetry: A Study of William Blake, Princeton University Press, 1947.
David Fuller, Blake’s Heroic Argument, Methuen, 1988.
Robert F. Gleckner, The Piper and the Bard: A Study of William Blake, Wayne State University Press, 1959. (Blake’s early work through Visions of the Daughters of Albion.)
Heather Glen, Vision and Disenchantment: Blake’s Songs and Wordsworth’s Lyrical Ballads, Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Nelson Hilton (ed.), Essential Articles for the Study of William Blake, 1970–1984, Archon Books, 1986.
E. D. Hirsch, Jr, Innocence and Experience: An Introduction to Blake, Yale University Press, 1964.
Christopher Z. Hobson, Blake and Homosexuality, Palgrave Macmillan, 2000.
James Joyce, ‘William Blake’, in The Critical Writings of James Joyce, ed. E. Mason and R. Ellman, Faber, 1959.
Zachary Leader, Reading Blake’s Songs, Routledge Kegan Paul, 1981.
Margaret Ruth Lowery, Windows of the Morning: A Critical Study of William Blake’s ‘Poetical Sketches’, Oxford University Press, 1940.
Kathleen Lundeen, Knight of the Living Dead: William Blake and the Problem of Ontology, Association of University Presses, 2000.
Josephine Miles, ‘The Language of William Blake’, in Eras and Modes in English Poetry, University of California Press, 1957.
Dan Miller, Mark Bracher and Donal Ault (eds.), Blake and the Argument of Method, Duke University Press, 1987.
W. J. T. Mitchell, Blake’s Composite Art: A Study of the Illuminated Poetry, Princeton University Press, 1978.
A. L. Morton, The Everlasting Gospel: A Study in the Sources of William Blake, Lawrence & Wishart, 1958.
Alicia Ostriker, Vision and Verse in William Blake, University of Wisconsin Press, 1965.
Morton Paley, Energy and the Imagination: A Study of the Development of Blake’s Thought, Oxford University Press, 1970.
Morton Paley (ed.), Twentieth Century Interpretations of Songs of Innocence and Experience, Prentice-Hall, 1969.
Kathleen Raine, Blake and Tradition, 2 vols., Princeton University Press, 1968.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, William Blake: A Critical Essay, 1868.
Leslie Tannenbaum, Biblical Tradition in Blake’s Early Prophecies: The Great Code of Art, Princeton University Press, 1982.
Joseph Viscomi, Blake and the Idea of the Book, Princeton University Press, 1993.
W. B. Yeats, ‘William Blake and the Imagination’, in Ideas of Good and Evil, 1903. Reprinted in Essays and Introductions, Macmillan, 1961.
REFERENCE WORKS
G. E. Bentley, Jr, and Martin Nurmi, A Blake Bibliography, University of Minnesota Press, 1964.
S. Foster Damon, A Blake Dictionary: The Ideas and Symbols of William Blake, Brown University Press, 1965; new edn with Forward and annotated bibliography by Morris Eaves, 1988.
David V. Erdman, et al., A Concordance to the Writings of William Blake, 2 vols., Cornell University Press, 1967.
Mary Lynn Johnson, ‘William Blake’ in The English Romantic Poets: A Review of Research and Criticism, ed. Frank Jordan, Modern Language Association, 1985.
Geoffrey Keynes, William Blake’s Illuminated Books: A Census, New York, 1953.
Contents
Preface
Table of Dates
Further Reading
The Poems
Poetical Sketches
Miscellaneous Poems
King Edward the Third
Dramatic Fragments
Poems Written in a Copy of Poetical Sketches
Songs from ‘An Island in the Moon’
There is No Natural Religion [a,b]
All Religions are One
The Book of Thel
Tiriel
Songs of Innocence and of Experience
Songs of Innocence
Songs of Experience
Notebook Poems and Fragments, c. 1789–93
The French Revolution
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
A Song of Liberty
Visions of the Daughters of Albion
America
Europe
The Song of Los
Africa
Asia
The Book of Urizen
The Book of Ahania
The Book of Los
Vala, or The Four Zoas
Notes Written on the Pages of The Four Zoas
Additional Fragments
Three Poems, ?c. 1800
Poems from Letters
Notebook Poems, c. 1800–1806
Poems from the Pickering Manuscript
Milton
Dedication to Blake’s Illustrations to Blair’s Grave
Notebook Epigrams and Satiric Verses, c. 1808–12
Miscellaneous Verses and Epigrams
Verse from the Marginalia to Reynolds’s Discourses
Verse from the Advertisement to Blake’s Exhibition of Paintings, 1809
Epigrams from A Descriptive Catalogue
Epigrams from ‘Public Address’
Jerusalem
The Everlasting Gospel
For the Sexes: The Gates of Paradise
<
br /> The Ghost of Abel
Notes
Dictionary of Proper Names
Note to the Indexes
Index of Titles
Index of First Lines
The Poems
POETICAL SKETCHES
Miscellaneous Poems
TO SPRING
O thou, with dewy locks, who lookest down
Thro’ the clear windows of the morning; turn
Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,
Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!
The hills tell each other, and the list’ning
Vallies hear; all our longing eyes are turned
Up to thy bright pavillions: issue forth,
And let thy holy feet visit our clime.
Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds
10 Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste
Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls
Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.
O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour
Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put
Thy golden crown upon her languish’d head,
Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee!
TO SUMMER
O thou, who passest thro’ our vallies in
Thy strength, curb thy fierce steeds, allay the heat
That flames from their large nostrils! thou, O Summer,
Oft pitched’st here thy golden tent, and oft
Beneath our oaks hast slept, while we beheld
With joy, thy ruddy limbs and flourishing hair.
Beneath our thickest shades we oft have heard
Thy voice, when noon upon his fervid car
Rode o’er the deep of heaven; beside our springs
10 Sit down, and in our mossy vallies, on
Some bank beside a river clear, throw thy
Silk draperies off, and rush into the stream:
Our vallies love the Summer in his pride.
Our bards are fam’d who strike the silver wire:
Our youth are bolder than the southern swains:
Our maidens fairer in the sprightly dance:
We lack not songs, nor instruments of joy,
Nor echoes sweet, nor waters clear as heaven,
Nor laurel wreaths against the sultry heat.
TO AUTUMN
O Autumn, laden with fruit, and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof, there thou may’st rest,
And tune thy jolly voice to my fresh pipe;
And all the daughters of the year shall dance!
Sing now the lusty song of fruits and flowers.
‘The narrow bud opens her beauties to
‘The sun, and love runs in her thrilling veins;
‘Blossoms hang round the brows of morning, and
10 ‘Flourish down the bright cheek of modest eve,
‘Till clust’ring Summer breaks forth into singing,
‘And feather’d clouds strew flowers round her head.
‘The spirits of the air live on the smells
‘Of frait; and joy, with pinions light, roves round
‘The gardens, or sits singing in the trees.’
Thus sang the jolly Autumn as he sat,
Then rose, girded himself, and o’er the bleak
Hills fled from our sight; but left his golden load.
TO WINTER
O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors:
The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark
Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs,
Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.
He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep
Rides heavy; his storms are unchain’d; sheathed
In ribbed steel, I dare not lift mine eyes;
For he hath rear’d his sceptre o’er the world.
Lo! now the direful monster, whose skin clings
10 To his strong bones, strides o’er the groaning rocks:
He withers all in silence, and his hand
Unclothes the earth, and freezes up frail life.
He takes his seat upon the cliffs, the mariner
Cries in vain. Poor little wretch! that deal’st
With storms; till heaven smiles, and the monster
Is driv’n yelling to his caves beneath mount Hecla.
TO THE EVENING STAR
Thou fair-hair’d angel of the evening,
Now, while the sun rests on the mountains, light
Thy bright torch of love; thy radiant crown
Put on, and smile upon our evening bed!
Smile on our loves; and, while thou drawest the
Blue curtains of the sky, scatter thy silver dew
On every flower that shuts its sweet eyes
In timely sleep. Let thy west wind sleep on
The lake; speak si[l]ence with thy glimmering eyes,
10 And wash the dusk with silver. Soon, full soon,
Dost thou withdraw; then the wolf rages wide,
And the lion glares thro’ the dun forest:
The fleeces of our flocks are cover’d with
Thy sacred dew: protect them with thine influence.
TO MORNING
O holy virgin! clad in purest white,
Unlock heav’n’s golden gates, and issue forth;
Awake the dawn that sleeps in heaven; let light
Rise from the chambers of the east, and bring
The honied dew that cometh on waking day.
O radiant morning, salute the sun,
Rouz’d like a huntsman to the chace; and, with
Thy buskin’d feet, appear upon our hills.
FAIR ELENOR
The bell struck one, and shook the silent tower;
The graves give up their dead: fair Elenor
Walk’d by the castle gate, and looked in.
A hollow groan ran thro’ the dreary vaults.
She shriek’d aloud, and sunk upon the steps
On the cold stone her pale cheek. Sickly smells
Of death, issue as from a sepulchre,
And all is silent but the sighing vaults.
Chill death withdraws his hand, and she revives;
10 Amaz’d, she finds herself upon her feet,
And, like a ghost, thro’ narrow passages
Walking, feeling the cold walls with her hands.
Fancy returns, and now she thinks of bones,
And grinning skulls, and corruptible death,
Wrap’d in his shroud; and now, fancies she hears
Deep sighs, and sees pale sickly ghosts gliding.
At length, no fancy, but reality
Distracts her. A rushing sound, and the feet
Of one that fled, approaches – Ellen stood,
20 Like a dumb statue, froze to stone with fear.
The wretch approaches, crying, ‘The deed is done;
‘Take this, and send it by whom thou wilt send;
‘It is my life – send it to Elenor: –
‘He’s dead, and howling after me for blood!
‘Take this,’ he cry’d; and thrust into her arms
A wet napkin, wrap’d about; then rush’d
Past, howling: she receiv’d into her arms
Pale death, and follow’d on the wings of fear.
They pass’d swift thro’ the outer gate; the wretch,
30 Howling, leap’d o’er the wall into the moat,
Stifling in mud. Fair Ellen pass’d the bridge,
And heard a gloomy voice cry, ‘Is it done?’
As the deer wounded Ellen flew over
The pathless plain; as the arrows that fly
By night; destruction flies, and strikes in darkness,
She fled from fear, till at her house arriv’d.
Her maids await her; on her bed she falls,
That bed of joy, where erst her lord hath press’d:
‘Ah, woman’
s fear!’ she cry’d; ‘Ah, cursed duke!
40 ‘Ah, my dear lord! ah, wretched Elenor!
‘My lord was like a flower upon the brows
‘Of lusty May! Ah, life as frail as flower!
‘O ghastly death! withdraw thy cruel hand,
‘Seek’st thou that flow’r to deck thy horrid temples?
‘My lord was like a star, in highest heav’n
‘Drawn down to earth by spells and wickedness:
‘My lord was like the opening eyes of day,
‘When western winds creep softly o’er the flowers:
‘But he is darken’d; like the summer’s noon,
50 ‘Clouded; fall’n like the stately tree, cut down;
‘The breath of heaven dwelt among his leaves.
‘O Elenor, weak woman, fill’d with woe!’
Thus having spoke, she raised up her head,
And saw the bloody napkin by her side,
Which in her arms she brought; and now, tenfold
More terrified, saw it unfold itself.
Her eyes were fix’d; the bloody cloth unfolds,
Disclosing to her sight the murder’d head
Of her dear lord, all ghastly pale, clotted
60 With gory blood; it groan’d, and thus it spake:
‘O Elenor, behold thy husband’s head,
‘Who, sleeping on the stones of yonder tower
‘Was ’reft of life by the accursed duke!
‘A hired villain turn’d my sleep to death!
‘O Elenor, beware the cursed duke,
‘O give not him thy hand, now I am dead;
‘He seeks thy love; who, coward, in the night,
‘Hired a villain to bereave my life.’
She sat with dead cold limbs, stiffen’d to stone;
70 She took the gory head up in her arms;
She kiss’d the pale lips; she had no tears to shed;
She hugg’d it to her breast, and groan’d her last.
SONG
How sweet I roam’d from field to field,
And tasted all the summer’s pride,
’Till I the prince of love beheld,
Who in the sunny beams did glide!
He shew’d me lilies for my hair,
And blushing roses for my brow;
He led me through his gardens fair,
Where all his golden pleasures grow.
With sweet May dews my wings were wet,
10 And Phoebus fir’d my vocal rage;
He caught me in his silken net,
And shut me in his golden cage.
The Complete Poems Page 2
