light purse of the
queerly assorted, thrifty pair.

In 1789 appeared another little volume of verses, 'Songs of Innocence.'
This also was ushered into existence as a dual book of pictures and of
poetry. In 1794 came the 'Songs of Experience,' completing that brief
lyrical trio on which rests Blake's poetical reputation and his claim on
coming generations of sympathetic readers. To these early and exquisite
fruits of Blake's feeling succeeded a little book 'For Children,' the
mystic volume 'The Gates of Paradise,' 'The Visions of the Daughters of
Albion,' 'America, a Prophecy,' Part First of his 'Book of Urizen,' and
a collection of designs without text, treated in the methods usual with
him, besides other labors with pencil and pen.

But the wonderful and disordered imagination of the artist and poet now
embodied itself in a strange group of writings for which no parallel
exists. To realize them, one must imagine the most transcendent notions
of Swedenborg mingled with the rant of a superior kind of Mucklewrath.
Such poems as 'The Book of Thel,' in spite of beautiful allegoric
passages; 'The Gates of Paradise'; 'Tiriel,' an extended
narrative-fantasy in irregular unrhymed verses; even the striking
'Marriage of Heaven and Hell,'--may be reckoned as mere prologues to
such productions as 'Jerusalem,' 'The Emanation of the Giant Albion.'
'Milton,' and the "prophecies" embodied in the completed 'Urizen,' the
'Europe,' 'Ahania,' and 'The Book of Los.' Such oracular works Blake put
forth as dictated to him by departed spirits of supreme influence and
intellectuality, or by angelic intelligences, quite apart from his own
volition; indeed, only with his "grateful obedience." Such claims are
not out of place in the instance of one who "saw God"; who often
"conversed familiarly with Jesus Christ"; who "was" Socrates; who argued
conclusions for hours at a time with Moses, with Milton, with Dante,
with the Biblical prophets, with Voltaire; who could "see Satan" almost
at will--all in vivid conceptions that sprang up in his mind with such
force as to set seemingly substantial and even speaking beings before
him. In his assumption of the seer, Blake was not a charlatan: he
believed fully in his supernatural privileges. To him his modest London
lodging held great company, manifest in the spirit.

Blake's greater "prophetic" writings ended, he busied himself with
painting and illustration. He was incessant in industry; indeed, his
or