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WITH BLAKE'S "SONGS OF INNOCENCE."
[To Florence———, at Mrs. Gilchrist's Cottage, Brookbank, near Haslemere, whence the Preface to Blake's Life is dated.]
Accept, dear child, these songs of one whose Muse
For happy children piped her sweetest lays,
Nor deem'd their suffrages her lightest praise
Who hold Heaven's kingdom as their proper dues.
And wilt thou with the lyric gift refuse
His thanks, whose drooping spirits thou couldst raise
By airy gestures, graceful as a fay's
Dancing at eve in shady avenues?
With rapt delight I see you ponder long
The gentle words of one so pure of blame,
Who loved the right, who scorn'd and loathed the wrong:
O future heiress of his double fame,
Whose smile, whose look, nay, even whose very name
Recalls the sunny land of art and song.
R. H. S.
1869.
