William Blake, the painter of many strange and fantastic but often powerful—­sometimes very beautiful pictures—­wrote poems of an equally remarkable kind.  Some of them are as lovely as they are careless, while many present a curious contrast in the apparent incoherence of the simplest language.  He was born in 1757, towards the close of the reign of George II.  Possibly if he had been sent to an age more capable of understanding him, his genius would not have been tempted to utter itself with such a wildness as appears to indicate hopeless indifference to being understood.  We cannot tell sometimes whether to attribute the bewilderment the poems cause in us to a mysticism run wild, or to regard it as the reflex of madness in the writer.  Here is a lyrical gem, however, although not cut with mathematical precision.

  DAYBREAK.

  To find the western path,
  Right through the gates of wrath
      I urge my way;
  Sweet morning leads me on: 
  With soft repentant moan,
      I see the break of day

  The war of swords and spears,
  Melted by dewy tears,
      Exhales on high;
  The sun is freed from fears,
  And with soft grateful tears,
      Ascends the sky.

The following is full of truth most quaintly expressed, with a homeliness of phrase quite delicious.  It is one of the Songs of Innocence, published, as we learn from Gilchrist’s Life of Blake, in the year 1789.  They were engraved on copper with illustrations by Blake, and printed and bound by his wife.  When we consider them in respect of the time when they were produced, we find them marvellous for their originality and simplicity.

  ON ANOTHER’S SORROW.

  Can I see another’s woe,
  And not be in sorrow too? 
  Can I see another’s grief,
  And not seek for kind relief?

  Can I see a falling tear,
  And not feel my sorrow’s share? 
  Can a father see his child
  Weep, nor be with sorrow filled?

  Can a mother sit and hear
  An infant groan, an infant fear? 
  No, no; never can it be! 
  Never, never can it be!

  And can he, who smiles on all,
  Hear the wren, with sorrows small—­
  Hear the small bird’s grief and care,
  Hear the woes that infants bear,

  And not sit beside the nest,
  Pouring pity in their breast? 
  And not sit the cradle near,
  Weeping tear on infant’s tear?

  And not sit both night and day,
  Wiping all our tears away? 
  Oh, no! never can it be! 
  Never, never can it be!

  He doth give his joy to all;
  He becomes an infant small;
  He becomes a man of woe;
  He doth feel the sorrow too.

  Think not thou canst sigh a sigh,
  And thy Maker is not by;
  Think not thou canst weep a tear,
  And thy Maker is not near.

  Oh! he gives to us his joy,
  That our grief he may destroy: 
  Till our grief is fled and gone,
  He doth sit by us and moan.