Unskilful he to note the card

Of prudent lore,

Till billows rage, and gales blow hard,

And whelm him o'er!

Such fate to suffering worth is giv'n,
Who long with wants and woes has striv'n,
By human pride or cunning driv'n

To mis'ry's brink,

Till wrench'd of ev'ry stay but Heav'n,
He, ruin'd, sink!

Ev'n thou who mourn'st the Daisy's fate,
That fate is thine-no distant date;
Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives elate

Full on thy bloom,

Till crush'd beneath the furrow's weight

Shall be thy doom!

OF A' THE AIRTS

Or a' the airts the wind can blaw,

I dearly like the west,

For there the bonnie lassie lives,

The lassie I lo'e best:

There wild woods grow and rivers row1,

And monie a hill between ;

But day and night my fancy's flight

Is ever wi' my Jean.

I see her in the dewy flowers,

I see her sweet and fair:

I hear her in the tunefu' birds,

I hear her charm the air:

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There's not a bonnie flower that springs
By fountain, shaw', or green;
There's not a bonnie bird that sings,

But minds me o' my Jean.

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827) was at first intended for an artist, and was apprenticed to an engraver. From his earliest childhood he saw visions, and brought home stories of angels and prophets whom he had seen on his walks. He exhibited in the Royal Academy, and for some years maintained himself by illustrating books. Among the most famous of his illustrations are those to Hayley's Life of Cowper, the Book of Job, Dante, and Chaucer. He devised a method of engraving his own poems on copper and printing them in colour, and only one of them was printed in the ordinary way during his life, all the rest being elaborately engraved backwards by hand. His chief poems are Poetical Sketches, 1783; Songs of Innocence, 1789; Book of Thel, 1789; Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 1790; Songs of Experience, 1794; and a number of Prophetic Books, which, though very obscure, are often extraordinarily beautiful. All these were engraved in colour, and have exquisite illustrations interwoven with the text.

NIGHT

THE sun descending in the west,
The evening star does shine;
The birds are silent in their nest,

And I must seek for mine.

The moon, like a flower,

In heaven's high bower,

With silent delight

Sits and smiles on the night.

Farewell, green fields and happy groves,
Where flocks have took delight.
Where lambs have nibbled, silent moves
The feet of angels bright;

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10

Unseen they pour blessing,
And joy without ceasing,
On each bud and blossom,
And each sleeping bosom.

They look in every thoughtless nest,
Where birds are cover'd warm;
They visit caves of every beast,
To keep them all from harm.
If they see any weeping
That should have been sleeping,
They pour sleep on their head,
And sit down by their bed.

When wolves and tigers howl for prey,
They pitying stand and weep;

Seeking to drive their thirst away,

And keep them from the sheep.

But if they rush dreadful,
The angels, most heedful,
Receive each mild spirit,
New worlds to inherit.

And there the lion's ruddy eyes
Shall flow with tears of gold,
And pitying the tender cries.

And walking round the fold,

Saying Wrath, by his meekness.

And, by his health, sickness

Is driven away

From our immortal day.

And now beside thee, bleating lamb,

I can lie down and sleep;

Or think on Him who bore thy name,

Graze after thee and weep.

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For, wash'd in life's river,
My bright mane for ever
Shall shine like the gold

As I guard o'er the fold.'

THE LAMB

LITTLE Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o'er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I'll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I'll tell thee:
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

Little Lamb, God bless thee!

CHAPTER X

WORDSWORTH AND COLERIDGE

THE three men whom we have called the forerunners were conspicuous for their freedom from conventionality of idea; they did not always escape conventionality of poetic diction. Cowper, at one moment delightfully spontaneous, becomes at another a little stiff and formal in phrase; Burns's Scottish poems are perfect, his English poems are sometimes like a countryman in city garb, chafing at the restraints of broadcloth; even Blake can begin a lyric, How sweet I roamed from field to field,

on a note as natural as a robin's, and tell us a few lines later that

Phoebus fired my Vocal rage,

which is almost like the professorial style of Wharton. The old tradition had not yet been entirely sloughed off; it is still faintly apparent in Wordsworth's youthful verses; then in 1797 came the immortal friendship with Coleridge, which, next year, bore fruit in the Lyrical Ballads.

'The

The

principal object which I proposed to myself in these poems,' so runs the preface, was to choose incidents and situations from common life, and to relate or describe them throughout, as far as was possible, in a selection of language really used by men.' theory of poetic diction was to be abandoned, and poetry was to express the essential truth of man and nature in the simplest utterance of human speech.

Of all our poets Wordsworth was the best fitted to carry out this conception. To him the entire uni