Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/144

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84
LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE.

a return of verses, such as Felpham produces by me, though not such as she produces by her eldest son.[1] However, such as they are, I cannot resist the temptation to send them to you.

To my Friend Butts I write
My first Vision of Light,
On the yellow sands sitting.
The Sun was Emitting
His Glorious beams
From Heaven's high Streams.
Over Sea, over Land,
My Eyes did Expand
Into regions of air,
Away from all Care;
Into regions of fire.
Remote from Desire;
The Light of the Morning,
Heaven's Mountains adorning:
In particles bright.
The jewels of Light
Distinct shone & clear.
Amaz'd, and in fear,
I each particle gaz'd,
Astonish'd, Amazed;
For each was a Man
Human-form'd. Swift I ran.
For they beckon'd to me
Remote by the Sea,
Saying: "Each grain of sand,[2]
Every Stone on the Land,
Each rock & each hill.
Each fountain & rill.
Each herb & each tree.
Mountain, hill, earth, and sea,

  1. Hayley.
  2. The phenomenal world, which is the Human Imagination "petrified into rock and sand" by the stony eye of Reason, clothes itself again in the mind of the visionary with the human shape and infinite existence proper to its original state.