Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/158

1 1 6 Songs of Experience
The Little Girl Lost
In futurity i
I prophetic see
That the earth from sleep
(Grave the sentence deep)
Shall arise and seek 5
For her maker meek ;
And the desart wild
Become a garden mild.
In the southern clime, 9
Where the summer's prime
Never fades away,
Lovely Lyca lay.
Seven summers old 13
Lovely Lyca told ;
She had wander'd long
Hearing wild birds' song,
'Sweet sleep, come to me 17
Underneath this tree.
Do father, mother, weep?
Where can Lyca sleep?
' Lost in desart wild ar
Is your little child.
How can Lyca sleep
If her mother weep ?
' If her heart does ake 25
Then let Lyca wake ;
If my mother sleep,
Lyca shall not weep.
This song, and its sequel 'The Little Girl Found,' are engraved upon
three plates, the first of which contains the first ten stanzas of the present
poem, and the second the conclusion of the same with the first three stanzas
and half of the fourth of the next song. The first and last plates are among
the number reprinted from the originals by Gilchrist. No manuscript
versions of these songs are known to exist.
 I . . . see] I prophesy WBY. 17-32 Wilk. and Shep. omit quotation
niarhs.