Life and Works of William Blake (MS fragment) Dante Gabriel Rossetti [untitled fragments of two poems by William Blake] William Blake 1880 corrected copy manuscript DGR Delaware Art Museum Commentary
Introduction

This is DGR's fair copy, made in 1880, of quatrain 2 of the poem he printed under the title “Love and Deceit” in the second volume of the revised 1880 edition of Alexander Gichrist's <hi rend="i">Life of William Blake</hi> (II. 128, “Ideas of Good and Evil”). DGR copied out the full text in another manuscript.

At the top of the page DGR has drafted a copy of four lines from another poem he lifted from the Blake manuscript notebook that he bought in 1847. These are four lines from the Blake epigram known as “In a Myrtle Shade”. DGR had actually first printed this epigram in his 1863 selection (see II. 111), and he evidently was thinking of adding to that text two lines that he found among the cancelled draft scraps that Blake left in the notebook (they appear on page 106 of Blake's notebook). In the end DGR did not include the lines.

Textual History: Composition

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception History

Iconographic

Printing History

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

2 1 Numbers to the right of each couplet in the stanza. to come between DGR's note in left margin of the second epigram to indicate the placement of the stanza. Like to dung upon the ground Underneath my myrtle bound O how weak & weary I Underneath my myrtle lie. ------------- First two changes in line 2 are made in pencil; the rest are in ink. 2 Deceit to secrecy refin'd inclin'd Moves lawful prudent courteous & confin'd refin'd, To everything but interest blind, And forges fetters for the mind.