Page 47 - GALIET THE HOLY WORD: Blake IV++

Is it not curious that precisely when the Piper attempts to write down the ineffable and the sublime, “he stains the water clear,” and the child disappears just as in another realm, ancient of days, Eurydice, too, once disappeared?
“... so he (the child) vanished from my sight. And I plucked a hollow reed,
And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs...” (Verses 15-19)29
If Blake’s child disappears to seduce Lady Sofia to enter the ineffable space of the Poet’s hearing, Eurydice vanishes forever. Forever she becomes a blank distance. Forever she disappears in Orpheus’ whitening doubt, his faithless seeking and looking back: the sea of broken tears and lamenting sorrow, the weeping rivers 3⁄4 O wilted blue lupine, O wilted. There, there shall be no moon side melody, no Orphic lyre that will rescue Eurydice twice from Hades’ jealousy. Frightful is her silence; frightful is her white absence: the lyrics of snow. Icy is faith’s absence; ice bleaching is Orpheus’ hearing; terrifying, his desolation: his penalty without night’s elegy. There is no
29 Blake, William. The Poetry and Prose of W. Blake. “Songs of Innocence.” Introduction. New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970.
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