New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1893-03-19

are III tie pilliOsOpiC vi ny ''iS ~ "'N--'
they say. BLAKE places fairies as the guardian
powers or rather the visionary appearances or
manifestations OF the gentle and refined emotions
OF vcgctative or instructive life. This vision, like
all the rest. was symbolic Symbolic Of what
Granting that the fairies play part in Bake's
system into what hntelligible terms IL this par
tcular vision 70 be translated? Precisely the
same difficulty that meets us here meets us before
the prophetic Looks, and, for that matter, before
many Of the lyrics.
Blake did an immense amount Of writing IN his
lifetime lie said 10 Crabb Robinson once: II
have written more than Voltaire or Rousseau SiN
or seven epic poems as long as Homer and twenty
tragedies as long az Macbeth II would be I'M
possible for any thinker with definite scheme IN
his head and the power Of producing so much
with its implication Of fuency-to leave no Tor
mula no plan of bis ideal. The proof that Blake
was a dreamer rather than a thinker lies IN the
failure of his prophetic books to yield such plan
"A pIan. we hasten to add, which leads some
where offers some logical reason for being, has
the unity of an ORGANISM. 1t is not necessary 70
suspect that the key Nay have been lost among
the hundred or so volumes left by Blake ana
eventually destroyed by the Mr.. Frederick Tat
ham TO whom they were conl;ded by the poet
widow Mcssrs Ellis and Yeats claim to have
wrested the secret meaning of Blakcs fantastic
allegories from just those writings which nave
survived And the secret is the subdivision OF
mans nature and the forces of the universe into
innumcrablc elements deriving from divine uni
w. and the rrprcSen .aion of those elements in the
symbolism of poetic scheme. That scheme ac-
cordinc to the editors is an absolutely sound piece
of IMAGINATIVE construction. They say paradox
caly. that the two stumbling stones in the path
A. l,o,. flnc coli nj
and its wonderful Conference The trees have
been invisible because Of the forest. Yet i; Is
manifest that Blake had none of the chararterls-
tics of the poet from wh0m..a myth of solitity'
of wonderful Conference, might be- expected. Though
commentators may be hard put to it to make the
"Faradsio' or the "Convito' wholly clear. 1t Is
nevertheless the note Of Dante's genius that it
subducs the stun it works in, and that the march
of his verse il governed by firmly-grasprd philo-
sophical ideas With him as with Milton or Goethe
the architectural faculty is highly developed and
pcrpctuav active. In Blake il is dormant H.
indeed, it exists at all. Something ike an az
acknowledgements of this comes from Messrs. Ellis
and Yeats in the following passage which occurs
in the memoir:
"Bakc's visions, coming TO him AZ uncertain
intervals suggested a vast symbolic myth 10
him telling by fits and starts a narrative who's"
apparent incohcrcnce wells unity Of significance.
1t would have been practically impossible,
and is at any rate, practically incredible. that
tbs shonld have been the result Of deliberate CON
trivancr We nave many scraps OF Bakc's writ
jnos AMI rlany of his books overlap each other IN
their exposition of the great story but of building
I'D by ingenuity, Of celebrating from plot. or
expanding from a sketch. there is no sign. Inc
reconciliation of infinite disorder with unity. AMI
especially in a poetic mythus. is not easy TO per-
coive. The incohcrencc Of Blakes narrative Is
more than apparent even in tie dim, religious
light of the patient Interpretation Offered in these
volumes The light does not dssipatc thr OBJ
securities of the prophetic books and the latter are
no nearer to equalling the sanity Of a natural
growth like the Kabbalah than to rivalu4 tlr
balance, however hypothetical it NAV be. Of Swed-
cnborr's daring explanation Of the universe.
Blake's great deficiency, his inability to pro
serve form from all the insidous attacks of his
rapt imagination, is detected moro frequently in
his elaborated labyrintlian works than. in tho
shorter flights Of his musc 1h;it some of these
fights are into the pure acthcr Of song II lncon-
tostablc There are verses OF his like "'londo'i,
with its marvellous movement and It's thrilling
accent of sympathy: like the so familiar "'Tigrr,
tiger, burning bright" like tho whimsical stanzas
on CUPID, and like the exquisite songs loV"
the iocund dance" and MemoIy, hithcr come,
into which there has passed a strain of feeling
musical as il is tender. Falling short of the bell
like fullness of tone and supremely wellmodul,'cd
melody Of the early English poets. there is yet the
lyric charm which he sometimes shares with them
in his beautiful Loves Secret
Never seek TO tell thy love.
Love that never told can be:
For the gentle wind doth move
Silently, invsibly.
told ny love. told my love.
told her all my heart.
Trembling, cold, in CHASTITY fears.
All she did depart!
Soon after she was gone from me,
traveller came by,
Silently, invisibly:
lie took her with a sigh
And there is q haunting cadence heiphtening the
fine poetic figure Of this fragment from the ad-
dress ITO Winter"
O winter, bar thine adamantinc doors:
The north is thine: there hast thou built thy dark
Dccr-foundcd Eabitation.
There you have Blake, the natural poet. speak
ing with a voice unmuilied by confusing echoes
caught from the disc0rd Of phantasInaf spheres.
Ii is no intellectual lassitude which guides the
reader to poctry like this in Blake, and causes
him to pass with indifference the awful pcnumbra
Of the prophetic books any more than it is n shall
low mind which, in choosing between Sordello"
and tie songs in "Pippa," turns unhc.ita;ingly
to the latter 1t Us the inevitable 9ravitation
Of taste to poetry pure and simple as distinguished
from poetry that justics its existence, if at all,
by the session OF qualities not Inherently poetic.
Extra poctlca virtues are poworesS III ih"ns Ives
to arrest the decay Of work disiieurcl by poetic
vices or suspended in the cOorlcSS limbo Of vcrs,
neither vicious nor good. 10 the book of :" Nala"
the editors OF Bake refer us as to his literary
masterpiece" 1t contains Gao lines, from which
the first thirteen Hay be selected giving a fair
measure of the character Of the rest
The song Of the aged mother which shook the
heavens with WRATH