Note 1. My Spectre] Probably composed in October or November, 1800, soon after Blake’s removal to Felpham, when he resumed the use of his old sketch-book as a notebook for poetry. The symbolism, which is identical with that of the revised version of The Four Zoas, Book VII, points also to the same date. Cp. also for very close parallelisms Milton, ff. 32 and *32. This poem is another of those left in very rough draft by the author, and subjected to a great many changes and revisions, before the stanzas finally approved by him were numbered i–xiv. Later, however, around a sketch of Daphne in the middle of the page, he added four complementary stanzas: ‘O’er my sins thou sit and moan’, ‘What transgressions I commit’—numbered respectively ‘1’ and ‘2’—and an unnumbered stanza ‘Poor, pale, pitiable form’, followed by another which is now almost illegible. These stanzas, which like xiii and xiv are in pencil, were evidently intended for insertion in the poem, though Blake has not clearly indicated their precise position. The stanzas numbered ‘1’ and ‘2’ (in this ed. ‘A’, ‘B’) are undoubtedly part of the speech of the ‘Emanation’ or ‘Jealous Female’, and hence, it would seem, ought immediately to precede ix and x, which in the MS. Book stand at the head of the sheet, Blake’s 1 and 2 perhaps being intended to signify that these stanzas take precedence of everything upon the same page. Again, the unnumbered stanza beginning ‘Poor, pale, pitiable form’ (in this ed. ‘C’), is no less clearly part of the speech of the original speaker, the Man in his ‘divided’ or fallen state, and hence, with the partially obliterated stanza which follows it, ought, it may be presumed, to precede stanza xi, from which point the poem proceeds straightforwardly to its conclusion. I have accordingly incorporated stanzas A–C in the text in the position where they should be read, preserving, however, Blake’s numbering of the original stanzas, and enclosing the supplementary ones within square brackets. i Followed in the MS. Book by the two cancelled stanzas:
13 Dost] Didst MS. 1st rdg. del. 32 as I forgive] and forgive MS. 1st rdg. del. a With interchange of the first and second persons, the original draft reading throughout ‘I’ for ‘thou’, and ‘thy’ for ‘my’—in other words these lines as at first conceived were spoken to and not by the Emanation. Compare the converse change in stanza xi. c Followed in the MS. by the partially illegible but unerased stanza:
And let [? us go] to the ….. [? day]
With many pleasing wiles …..
[? The man] that does not love your [? wiles]
Will never [? win back] your smiles.
51,53 I] thou MS. 1st rdg. del. 52 root] dig MS. 1st rdg. del. 57 And] And I MS. 1st rdg. del. [back]
