THE EVERLASTING GOSPEL.1

HE vision of Christ that thou dost see
Is my vision's greatest enemy.
Thine is the friend of all mankind;
Mine speaks in parables to the blind.

This wholly amazing and partly splendid poem is now published in full for the first time. The greater part of it, however, appears in Mr. Swinburne's book, William Blake, a Critical Essay, in detached extracts, with intermixed comment: one extract from it had also been given in Gilchrist's Life of Blake. The MS. of the poem is in the autograph volume belonging to D. G. Rossetti. It is scattered up and down over many pages; sometimes written neatly enough, and consecutively; at other times, barely legible. Here a passage is scratched out or interpolated: there a passage already met with reappears with variations. I have done my best to arrange the verses into some sort of order and method; with what success, the reader must judge. The poem would appear to be completed by Blake in the evolution of some of its passages, but certainly not of the whole.

As regards the dates of the numerous compositions extracted from the same autograph volume, it may be observed that six items distinctly dated by Blake's own hand appear in that book, the earliest appertaining to the year 1793, and the latest to 1811. Even without these positive indications, it is evident, from the spacious range in Blake's life and work covered by the contents of the volume, that it was in use for many successive years. Beyond this intimation, I have not thought it requisite to try to arrange in order of date the poems contained in the autograph volume. They include the poem Lafayette, and extend from the present point down to the verses In a Myrtle Shade; and then from Mammon to The Will and the Way. They include also the Couplets and Fragments, and the Epigrams and Satirical Pieces on Art and Artists, with very few exceptions.

Thine loves the same world that mine hates;

Thy heaven-doors are my hell-gates.

Socrates taught what Meletus

Loathed as a nation's bitterest curse;
And Caiaphas was, in his own mind,
A benefactor to mankind.

Both read the bible day and night;

But thou read'st black where I read white.

Was Jesus born of a virgin pure,
With narrow soul and looks demure?
If he intended to take on sin,

His mother should an harlot have been;
Just such a one as Magdalen,

With seven devils in her pen.

Or were Jew virgins still more curst,
And more sucking devils nursed?
Or what was it which he took on,
That he might bring salvation?
A body subject to be tempted,

From neither pain nor grief exempted,-
Or such a body as might not feel
The passions that with sinners deal?
Yes, but they say he never fell:-

Ask Caiaphas, for he can tell.

"He mocked the sabbath, and he mocked

The sabbath's God, and he unlocked

The evil spirits from their shrines,
And turned fishermen to divines,
O'erturned the tent of secret sins,
And its golden cords and pins:

L

'Tis the bloody shrine of war,
Poured around from star to star,-
Halls of justice hating vice,

Where the devil combs his lice.
He turned the devils into swine,

That he might tempt the Jews to dine;
Since when, a pig has got a look
That for a Jew may be mistook.
'Obey your parents.' What says he?
'Woman, what have I to do with thee?
No earthly parents I confess,—

I am doing my Father's business.'

He scorned earth's parents, scorned earth's God,
And mocked the one and the other rod;
His seventy disciples sent

Against religion and government.
They by the sword of justice fell,
And him their cruel murderer tell.
He left his father's trade, to roam
A wandering vagrant without home:
And thus he others' labour stole,
That he might live above control.
The publicans and harlots he
Selected for his company,

And from the adultress turned away
God's righteous law, that lost its prey."

Was Jesus chaste, or did he
Give any lessons of chastity?
The morning blushed fiery red,
Mary was found in adulterous bed.

Earth groaned beneath, and heaven above Trembled at discovery of love.

Jesus was sitting in Moses' chair;

They brought the trembling woman there.
Moses commands she be stoned to death:
What was the sound of Jesus' breath?
He laid his hand on Moses' law;
The ancient heavens, in silent awe,
Writ with curses from pole to pole,
All away began to roll.

The Earth trembling and naked lay
In secret bed of mortal clay;
On Sinai felt the hand divine
Putting back the bloody shrine;
And she heard the breath of God,
As she heard by Eden's flood.
"Good and evil are no more:
Sinai's trumpets, cease to roar;
Cease, finger of God, to write
The heavens are not clean in thy sight.

Thou art good, and thou alone,

Nor may the sinner cast one stone.
To be good only is to be

A God, or else a pharisee.

Thou angel of the presence divine,
That didst create this body of mine
Wherefore hast thou writ these laws,
And created hell's dark jaws?
My presence I will take from thee:
A cold leper thou shalt be.

Though thou wast so pure and bright
That heaven was impure in thy sight,
Though thine oath turned heaven pale,

Though thy covenant built hell's jail,
Though thou didst all to chaos roll
With the serpent for its soul,-
Still the breath divine does move,

And the breath divine is love.-
Mary, fear not.
Let me see

The seven devils that torment thee.
Hide not from my sight thy sin,
That forgiveness thou mayst win.
Hath no man condemned thee?".
"No man, Lord."-" Then what is he
Who shall accuse thee? Come ye forth,
Fallen fiends of heavenly birth,
That have forgot your ancient love,
And driven away my trembling dove!
You shall bow before her feet;
You shall lick the dust for meat;
And, though you cannot love but hate,
Shall be beggars at love's gate.-
What was thy love? Let me see't:
Was it love, or dark deceit ?"
"Love too long from me has fled:
'Twas dark deceit, to earn my bread;
'Twas covet, or 'twas custom, or
Some trifle not worth caring for;
That they may call a shame and sin
Love's temple that God dwelleth in,
And hide in secret hidden shrine
The naked human form divine,
And render that a lawless thing
On which the soul expands her wing.
But this, O Lord, this was my sin—
When first I let those devils in,