Life and Phantasy by William Allingham: With frontispiece by Sir John E. Millais: A design by Arthur H. Hughes and a song for voice and piano forte |
 |
 | Life and Phantasy |  |
76
PLACES AND MEN.
William Blake went down to his seaside
cottage in September, 1800, and soon after wrote to Flaxman:—
“Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual
than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her
windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants
are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly
seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses.”
William Blake went down to his seaside cottage in September, 1800, and soon after wrote to Flaxman:— “Felpham is a sweet place for study, because it is more spiritual than London. Heaven opens here on all sides her golden gates; her windows are not obstructed by vapours; voices of celestial inhabitants are more distinctly heard, and their forms more distinctly seen; and my cottage is also a shadow of their houses.”
In Sussex here, by shingle and by sand,
Flat fields and farmsteads in their wind-blown trees,
The shallow tide-wave courses to the land,
And all along the down a fringe one sees
Of ducal woods. That “dim discover'd spire”
Is Chichester, where Collins felt a fire
Touch his sad lips; thatch'd Felpham roofs are these,
Where happy Blake found Heav'n more close at hand.
Flat fields and farmsteads in their wind-blown trees,
The shallow tide-wave courses to the land,
And all along the down a fringe one sees
Of ducal woods. That “dim discover'd spire”
Is Chichester, where Collins felt a fire
Touch his sad lips; thatch'd Felpham roofs are these,
Where happy Blake found Heav'n more close at hand.
Goodwood and Arundel possess their lords,
Successive in the towers and groves, which stay;
These two poor men, by some right of their own,
Possess'd the earth and sea, the sun and moon,
The inner sweet of life; and put in words
A personal force that doth not pass away.
Successive in the towers and groves, which stay;
These two poor men, by some right of their own,
Possess'd the earth and sea, the sun and moon,
The inner sweet of life; and put in words
A personal force that doth not pass away.
Littlehampton.
| Life and Phantasy | |