Page:The letters of William Blake (1906).djvu/133

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LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE.
73

of your garment. We indeed presume on your kindness in neglecting to have called on you since my husband's first return from Felpham. We have been incessantly busy in our great removal; but can never think of going without first paying our proper duty to you and Mr. Flaxman. We intend to call on Sunday afternoon in Hampstead, to take farewell; all things being now nearly completed for our setting forth on Tuesday morning. It is only sixty miles, and Lambeth one hundred; for the terrible desert of London was between. My husband has been obliged to finish several things necessary to be finished before our migration. The swallows call us, fleeting past our window at this moment. Oh! how we delight in talking of the pleasure we shall have in preparing you a summer bower at Felpham. And we not only talk, but behold! the angels of our journey have inspired a song to you:

TO MY DEAR FRIEND, MRS. ANNA FLAXMAN.

This song to the flower of Flaxman's joy;
To the blossom of hope, for a sweet decoy;
Do all that you can and all that you may,
To entice him to Felpham and far away.
Away to sweet Felpham, for Heaven is there;
The Ladder of Angels descends through the air;[1]

  1. The lovely water-colour of Jacob's Dream, here reproduced, is surely inspired by the vision told in this song. It is at anyrate of about the same date.