The mighty dead: giant bodies streaming blood,
Dread visages frowning in silent death.

Then Brutus speaks, inspired; our fathers sit
Attentive on the melancholy shore.

Hear ye the voice of Brutus :-'The flowing waves

'Of Time come rolling o'er my breast,' he said,

And my heart labours with futurity.

Our sons shall rule the empire of the sea,

Their mighty wings shall stretch from east to west; Their nest is in the sea, but they shall roam

Like eagles for their prey.

Our sons shall rise from thrones in joy, each one Buckling his armour on; Morning shall be Prevented by the gleaming of their swords, 'And Evening hear their song of victory.

'Freedom shall stand upon the cliffs of Albion,

Casting her blue eyes over the green ocean;

Or, towering, stand upon the roaring waves,

'Stretching her mighty spear o'er distant lands, While with her eagle wings she covereth

Fair Albion's shore and all her families.'

SONGS OF INNOCENCE.

[ENGRAVED 1789.]

[Here again but little need be added to what has been alrealy said in the Life respecting the Songs of Innocence and Experience. The first series is incomparably the more beautiful of the two, being indeed almost flawless in essential respects; while in the second series, the five years intervening between the two had proved sufficient for obscurity and the darker mental phases of Blake's writings to set in and greatly mar its poetic value. This contrast is more especially evident in those pieces whose subjects tally in one and the other series. For instance, there can be no comparison between the first Chimney Sweeper, which touches with such perfect simplicity the true pathetic chord of its subject, and the second, tinged merely with the common-places of social discontent. However, very perfect and noble examples of Blake's metaphysical poetry occur among the Songs of Experience, such as Christian Forbearance, and The Human Abstract. One piece, the second Cradle Song, I have myself introduced from the MS. note-book often referred to, since there can be no doubt that it was written to match with the first, and it has quite sufficient beauty to give it a right to its natural place. A few alterations and additions in other poems have been made from the same source. As the purpose of these republications from Blake is hardly furthered by including anything of inferior value, I confess that it occurred to me at first to omit any pieces which seemed really chargeable with triviality and incompleteness, and therefore likely to obstruct appreciation with many readers; but I was unwilling, on mature reflection, to dismember the work as Blake wrote it, particularly as the second section would have thus come to bear no proportion in bulk to the first. Here, then, is the whole; and assuredly its beauties, surpassing in degree, and perhaps unparalleled in kind, not only greatly outweigh its defects, but are also clearly separable from them.]

THE SHEPHERD.

How sweet is the shepherd's sweet lot!
From the morn to the evening he strays;
He shall follow his sheep all the day,
And his tongue shall be filled with praise.

For he hears the lambs' innocent call,
And he hears the ewes' tender reply;
He is watchful while they are in peace,
For they know that their shepherd is nigh.