An Epitaph (Come knock your heads against this stone)

by William Blake

Blake manuscript - Notebook 1808 - 41-43 Epitaphs

Edited text:^[1]

An Epitaph

COME^[2] knock your heads against this stone,
For sorrow that poor John Thompson’s gone.

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The original text:^[3]

 
An Epitaph

Come knock your heads against this stone
For sorrow that poor John Thompsons gone

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Notes

1. The Poetical Works of William Blake, including the unpublished French Revolution together with the Minor Prophetic Books and Selections from The Four Zoas, Milton & Jerusalem; edited with an introduction and textual notes by John Sampson, Hon. D.Litt. Oxon., 1862–1931. London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1908.
2. Cp. the slightly different form of these three epitaphs in the lines beginning ‘And his legs carried it like a long fork’, no. XXVIII.
3. "The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake", ed. by David V. Erdman, Anchor Books, 1988, p. 503.