designs
is, we are told, quite different from their effect set naked upon a
blank page. It was as if he had transferred scenery and characters from
that spirit-realm where his own mind wandered at will; and from wondrous
lips wondrous words came fitly, and with surpassing power. Confirmation
of this we find in the few plates of "Songs of Innocence" which have
been recovered. Shorn of the radiant rainbow hues, the golden sheen,
with which the artist, angel-taught, glorified his pictures, they still
body for us the beauty of his "Happy Valley." Children revel there in
unchecked play. Springing vines, in wild exuberance of life, twine
around the verse, thrusting their slender coils in among the lines.
Weeping willows dip their branches into translucent pools. Heavy-laden
trees droop their ripe, rich clusters overhead. Under the shade of
broad-spreading oaks little children climb on the tiger's yielding back
and stroke the lion's tawny mane in a true Millennium.

The first series, "Songs of Innocence," was succeeded by "Songs of
Experience," subsequently bound in one volume. Then came the book of
"Thel," an allegory, wherein Thel, beautiful daughter of the Seraphim,
laments the shortness of her life down by the River of Adona, and is
answered by the Lily of the Valley, the Little Cloud, the Lowly Worm,
and the Clod of Clay; the burden of whose song is--

"But how this is, sweet maid, I know not, and I cannot know,
I ponder, and I cannot ponder: yet I live and love!"

The designs give the beautiful daughter listening to the Lily and the
Cloud. The Clod is an infant wrapped in a lily-leaf. The effect of the
whole poem and design together is as of an "angel's reverie."

The "Marriage of Heaven and Hell" is considered one of the most curious
and original of his works. After an opening "Argument" comes a series of
"Proverbs of Hell," which, however, answer very well for earth: as, "A
fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees"; "He whose face gives
no light shall never become a star"; "The apple-tree never asks the
beech how he shall grow, nor the lion the horse how he shall take his
prey." The remainder of the book consists of "Memorable Fancies," half
dream, half allegory, sublime and grotesque inextricably commingling,
but all ornamented with designs most daring and imaginative in
conception, and steeped in the richest color. We subjoin a description
of one or two, as a curiosity. "A strip of azure sky surmounts,