How shall the summer arise in joy,
Or the summer fruits appear?

Or how shall we gather what griefs destroy,
Or bless the mellowing year,
When the blasts of winter appear?

ha

TO TIRZAH.

HATE'ER is born of mortal birth
Must be consumèd with the earth,
To rise from generation free:

W

Then what have I to do with thee?

The sexes sprang from shame and pride,
Blown in the morn, in evening died;
But mercy changed death into sleep;
The sexes rose to work and weep.

Thou, mother of my mortal part,
With cruelty didst mould my heart,
And with false self-deceiving tears
Didst bind my nostrils, eyes, and ears,

Didst close my tongue in senseless clay,
And me to mortal life betray.

The death of Jesus set me free:
Then what have I to do with thee?

END OF THE SONGS OF EXPERIENCE.

THE TIGER.1

(SECOND VERSION.)

IGER, Tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Framed thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burned that fire within thine eyes?
On what wings dared he aspire?
What the hand dared seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
When thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand formed thy dread feet?

What the hammer, what the chain,

Knit thy strength and forged thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dared thy deadly terrors clasp?

At p. 106 I have given this noble poem as it appears in Blake's engraved Songs of Experience. The present version is the one which figures in Mr. Gilchrist's book, and shows certain variations on MS. authority. These may be regarded as improvements; and I think it better to include this version as well.

When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?

66

LAFAYETTE.1

ET the brothels of Paris be opened,
With many an alluring dance,

To awake the physicians through the
city,"

Said the beautiful Queen of France.

The King awoke on his couch of gold, As soon as he heard these tidings told : "Arise and come, both fife and drum,

And the famine shall eat both crust and crumb."

Then he swore a great and solemn oath,

"To kill the people I am loth :"

And said "I love hanging and drawing and quartering

Every bit as well as war and slaughtering."

This poem (or fragment of a poem) is extracted from Mr. D. G. Rossetti's MS. book. It was not published in Mr. Gilchrist's work, being deemed too odd and imperfect. There is, however, a certain element of poetical force in the poem, and it is at any rate extremely curious as indicating Blake's conceptions of contemporary history and politics. The MS. of it is much complicated by false starts and variations.

Fayette beside King Lewis stood;
He saw him sign his hand;
And soon he saw the famine rage
About the fruitful land.

Fayette beheld the Queen to smile,
And wink her lovely eye;
And soon he saw the pestilence
From street to street to fly.

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 the gibbet and halter.

Fayette beheld the King and Queen
In curses and iron bound:

But mute Fayette wept tear for tear,
And guarded them around.

Fayette, Fayette, thou'rt bought and sold,
And sold is thy happy morrow;
Thou givest the tears of pity away

In exchange for the tears of sorrow.

Will the mother exchange her newborn babe
For the dog at the wintry door?
Yet thou dost exchange thy pitying tears
For the links of a dungeon-floor!

THE GATES OF PARADISE.

(ENGRAVED 1793).

INTRODUCTION.

UTUAL forgiveness of each vice,
Such are the Gates of Paradise,
Against the Accuser's chief desire,
Who walked among the stones of fire.

Jehovah's fingers wrote the Law:
He wept; then rose in zeal and awe,
And, in the midst of Sinai's heat,
Hid it beneath his Mercy-Seat.

O Christians! Christians! tell me why

You rear it on your altars high!

THE KEYS OF THE GATES.1

HE caterpillar on the leaf

Reminds thee of thy mother's grief.
My Eternal Man set in repose,

The Female from his darkness rose;

And she found me beneath a tree,

1 These lines summarize the general drift of the successive designs to which they are appended.