Page:William Blake in his relation to Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1911).djvu/28

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— 28 —

The parents, the reasonable powers in man, go out to seek her:

"All the night in woe
Lyca's parents go
Over valleys deep,
Where the deserts weep".

They find, however, that the beasts of prey, the symbols of free, natural life, have taken Lyca under their protection.

"Sleeping Lyca lay,
While the beasts of prey,
Come from caverns deep,
View'd the maid asleep."

At last they too acknowledge the natural powers, which at first they feared because of the fierce desires they inspire. Gloryfied the lion stands before them:

"On his head a crown;
On his shoulders down
Flow'd his golden hair.
Gone was all their care."

Only now, after having returned to nature, they can live happily:

"To this day they dwell
In a lonely dell;
Nor fear the wolfish howl,
Nor the lion's growl".

These two poems "The Little Girl Lost" and "The Little Girl Found", can stand as typical examples for Blake's Songs of Experience. In the same strain are written: "A Little Boy Lost", "A little Girl Lost," "The Fly," "The Chimney Sweeper," etc. All of these poems illuminate one of Blake's philosophical doctrines. The language too is always the same: the words, for the greater part of Teutonic origin, are very simple and often monosyllabic. In the metre also the same tendencies can be observed: generally short-lined stanzas rhyming in couplets are used. Besides end-rhyme interlinear rhyme occurs, where the lines are prolonged, e.g.: