Letter to Charles Augustus Tulk, 12 February 1818
Lines:40
[Songs of Innocence:]Shepherd I.Spring I (last stanza, H).Holy Thursday Ĥ.Laughing Song H.Nurse's Song I.The Divine Image Θ.The Lamb (Blake)| H.The little Black Boy Θ: yea Θ+Θ*!Infant Joy H. (N.b. for the 3 last lines I should wish — When wilt thou smile, or — O smile, O smile! I'll sing the while — For a Babe two days old does not, cannot smile, and innocence and the very truth of Nature must go together. Infancy is too holy a thing to be ornamented.) —Echoing Green I (the figures H, and of the second leaf Ĥ).The Cradle Song I.The School Boy Ĥ.Night ΘOn another's Sorrow I.A Dream ? —The little Boy lost I (the drawing H).The little boy found I.The Blossom o.The Chimney Sweeper o.The Voice of the Ancient Bard o. [Songs of Experience:]Introduction H.Earth's Answer H.Infant Sorrow I.The Clod and the Pebble I.The Garden of Love H.The Fly I.The Tyger H.A little boy lost H.Holy Thursday I.P. 13, o.Nurse's Song oThe little girl lost and found (the ornaments most exquisite! the poem I).Chimney Sweeper in the Snow o.To Tirzah — and The Poison Tree I and yet o.A little Girl lost o (I would have had it omitted — not for the want of innocence in the poem, but from the too probable want of it in many readers).London I.The Sick Rose IThe little Vagabond — Tho' I cannot approve altogether of this last poem, and have been inclined to think that the error which is most likely to beset the scholars of Em.[manuel] Sw[edenborg] is that of utterly demerging the tremendous incompatibilities with an evil will that arise out of the essential Holiness of the abysmal Aseity in the Love of the eternal Person — and thus giving temptation to weak minds to sink this Love itself into good nature, & yet still I disapprove the mood of mind in this wild poem so much less than I do the servile blind worm, wrap-rascal Scurf-coat of FEAR of the modern Saints (whose whole Being is a Lie, to themselves as well as to their Brethren), that I should laugh with good conscience in watching a Saint of the new stamp, one of the Fixt Stars of our eleemosynary Advertisements, groaning in wind-pipe! and with the whites of his Eyes upraised at the audacity of this Poem! — Anything rather than this degradation†† with which how can we utter 'Our Father'? of Humanity, and therein of the Incarnate Divinity!