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BOGNOR 97
of condescension towards 'our good Blake,' the somewhat illiterate, but amiable enthusiast, who, though ' slightly touched,' was capable now and then of happy flights of fancy which are to be sought for as oases in the Sahara of his writings. To some of those who have essayed to follow with more or less success Blake's almost untrodden path, the converse is rather the case—
'And every sand becomes a Gem Reflected in the beams Divine, Blown back they blind the mocking eye But still in Israel's paths they shine.'"
The context of this in Blake (Rossetti Manuscripts) is—
"Mock on, Mock on, Voltaire, Rousseau; Mock on, Mock on ; 'tis all in vain! You throw the sand against the wind And the wind blows it back again."
There is about Blake's poetry a kind of artless simplicity which is attractive, but his power of expression is limited, his technical skill in versification is very small. There is a delightful rhythm about Holy Thursday, there is a certain vivid reality too; the end seems strangely inconsequent—
'"Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean, Came children walking two and two, in red and blue
and green : Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white
as snow, Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames
waters flow.
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