What the anvil? what the arm
arm
grasp
clasp
dread grasp
Could its deadly terrors clasp?
Dare grasp?
clasp?
6. Tyger, Tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand & eye
Dare form thy fearful symmetry?
frame
[On the opposite page]
Burnt in distant deeps or skies
The cruel fire of thine eyes?
Could heart descend, or wings aspire?
What the hand dare sieze the fire?
5. 3. And did he laugh his work to see?
dare he smile
laugh
What the shoulder? what the knee?
ankle?
4. Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Dare
1. When the stars threw down their spears,
2. And water'd heaven with their tears.
A few words must be added with regard to the so-called 'second version' of 'The Tyger' in the Aldine edition, and thence reprinted by later editors under such headings as 'a later MS. version' and the like. This, Mr. W. M. Rossetti explains in a footnote, is 'the version which figures in Mr. Gilchrist's book,' adding that it 'shows certain variations on MS. authority.' What MS., as Mr. Yeats complains, is not stated, and as there is obviously no warrant for these readings in the MS. Book, he assumes that they owe their origin to changes introduced into the text by D. G. Rossetti. The version given by the latter, however, as he himself states in a note prefixed to his first transcript (R1), is based upon that printed by Cunningham in his Lives of British Painters (1830, ii, 144), where the last three stanzas run:—
'And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
When thy heart began to beat
What dread hand formed thy dread feet?
'What the hammer! what the chain!
Formed thy strength and forged thy brain?
What the anvil! What dread grasp
Dared its deadly terrors clasp?
