# Blake, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Lamb, etc., being selections from the Remains of Henry Crabb Robinson/Appendix: Blake autograph

APPENDIX
BLAKE AUTOGRAPH
BEING EXTRACTS FROM WORDSWORTH'S PREFACE TO THE EXCURSION AND FROM THE RECLUSE COPIED WITH THE ANNOTATIONS HERE GIVEN
It is not the Author's intention formally to announce a System. It was more animating to him to proceed on a different course & if he shall succeed in conveying to the Mind clear thoughts, lively images & strong feelings, the Reader will have no difficulty in extracting the system for himself. And in the meantime the following passage, taken from the conclusion of the first book of the Recluse may be acceptable as a Prospectus of the design of the scope of the whole Poem. [Wordsworth.]
* On Man, on Nature, and on Human Life,
* Musing in solitude, I oft perceive
* Fair trains of imagery before me rise.
* Accompanied by feelings of delight.
* Pure, or with no unpleasing sadness mixed;
* And I am conscious of affecting thoughts
* And dear remembrances, whose presence soothes
* Or elevates the Mind, intent to weigh
* The good and evil of our mortal state.
* —To these emotions, whencesoe'er they come,
* Whether from breath of outward circumstance.
* Or from the Soul—an impulse to herself—
* I would give utterance in numerous verse.
* Of Truth, of Grandeur, Beauty, Love, and Hope,
* And melancholy Fear subdued by Faith; ​Of blessed consolations in distress;
* Of moral strength and intellectual Power;
* Of joy in widest commonality spread;
* Of the individual Mind that keeps her own
* Inviolate retirement, subject there
* To Conscience only, and the law supreme
* Of that Intelligence which governs all—
* I sing: "fit audience let me find though few!"
* So prayed, more gaining than he asked, the Bard—
* In holiest mood. Urania, I shall need
* Thy guidance, or a greater Muse, if such
* Descend to earth or dwell in highest heaven!
* For I must tread on shadowy ground, must sink
* Deep—and, aloft descending, breathe in worlds
* To which the heaven of heavens is but a veil.
* All strength—all terror, single or in bands.
* That ever was put forth in personal form—
* Jehovah—with, his thunder, and the choir
* Of shouting Angels, and the empyreal thrones—
* I pass them unalarmed. Not Chaos, not
* The darkest pit of lowest Erebus,
* Nor aught of blinder vacancy, scooped out
* By help of dreams—can breed such fear and awe
* As fall upon us often when we look
* Into our Minds, into the Mind of Man—
* My haunt, and the main region of my song
* —Beauty—a living Presence of the earth,
* Surpassing the most fair ideal Forms
* Which craft of delicate Spirits hath composed
* From earth's materials—waits upon my steps;
* Pitches her tents before me as I move,
* An hourly neighbour. Paradise, and groves
* Elysian, Fortunate Fields—like those of old
* Sought in the Atlantic Main—why should they be ​A history only of departed things,
* Or a mere fiction of what never was?
* For the discerning intellect of Man,
* When wedded to this goodly universe
* In love and holy passion, shall find these
* A simple produce of the common day.
* —I, long before the blissful hour arrives.
* Would chant, in lonely peace, the spousal verse
* Of this great consummation—and, by words
* Which speak of nothing more than what we are,
* Would I arouse the sensual from their sleep
* Of Death, and win the vacant and the vain
* To noble raptures; while my voice proclaims
* How exquisitely the individual Mind
* (And the progressive powers perhaps no less
* Of the whole species) to the external World
* Is fitted—and how exquisitely, too—
* Theme this but little heard of among men—
* The external World is fitted to the Mind;
* And the creation (by no lower name
* Can it be called) which they with blended might
* Accomplish—this is our high argument.
* —Such grateful haunts foregoing, if I oft
* Must turn elsewhere—to travel near the tribes
* And fellowships of men, and see ill sights
* Of madding passions mutually inflamed;
* Must hear Humanity infields and groves
* Pipe solitary anguish; or must hang ​Brooding above the fierce confederate storm
* Of sorrow, barricaded evermore
* Within the walls of cities—may these sounds
* Have their authentic comment; that even these
* Hearing, I be not downcast or forlorn!—
* Descend, prophetic Spirit! that inspir'st
* The human Soul of universal earth.
* Dreaming on things to come: and dost possess
* A metropolitan temple in the hearts
* Of mighty Poets; upon me bestow
* A gift of genuine insight; that my Song
* With star-like virtue in its place may shine,
* Shedding benignant influence, and secure
* Itself from all malevolent effect
* Of those mutations that extend their sway
* Throughout the nether sphere!—And if with this
* I mix more lowly matter; with the thing
* Contemplated, describe the Mind and Man
* Contemplating; and who, and what he was—
* The transitory Being that beheld
* This Vision—when and where, and how he lived;
* Be not this labour useless. If such theme
* May sort with highest objects, then—dread Power!
* Whose gracious favour is the primal source
* Of all illumination—may my life
* Express the image of a better time.
* More wise desires, and simpler manners;—nurse
* My Heart in genuine freedom:—all pure thoughts
* Be with me;—so shall thy unfailing love
* Guide, and support, and cheer me to the end!
* [WORDSWORTH].
Solomon when he married Pharaoh's daughter & became a convert to the Heathen Mythology talked exactly in this way of Jehovah as a very inferior object of man's contemplation. He also passed him by unalarmed & ​was permitted. Jehovah dropped a tear and followed him by his Spirit into the Abstract Void. It is called the Divine Mercy. Satan dwells in it, but Mercy does not dwell in him. He knows not to forgive. [Signed] W. Blake.
* ↑ [Cf. ante, pp. 5, 11, and 15. The Blake autograph is preserved at the end of the last volume of H. Crabb Robinson's Correspondence (1864—67) in Dr. Williams's Library.]
* ↑ [Cf. ante, p. 5.]
* ↑ You shall not bring me down to believe such fitting & fitted. I know better & please your Lordship. [Blake.]
* ↑ Does not this Fit and is it not Fitting most Exquisitely too but to what—not to Mind but to the Vile Body only & to its Laws of Good & Evil & its Enmities against Mind. [Blake.] [Blake is responsible for the italics in the text.]