Collected Poems (Electronic book text)

William Blake is a poet without parallel. He remains a source of wisdom and inspiration to countless individuals throughout the world. Whether familiar with Blake's work or not, the reader is here presented with a gripping and enlightening encounter with the words and visions of this master of the imagination. The selection was commissioned in 1905 by the firm of George Routledge from W.B. Yeats, who had previously been one of the pioneer editors of Blake's prophetic books. Yeats, one of the few poets whose work could be compared with that of Blake, prepared a unique selection of his poetic and prose writings. In doing so, he pruned the texts of Victorian amendments and restored the original lines of Blake, to bring about 'a working text' for the modern age. There is no better way to encounter the work of one poetic genius than as it is presented by another, and Yeats understood Blake in a way few others did. His edition of Blake's poems draws us into the inspirational world of a man he considered one of 'the great artificers of God'...'the truth uttered is the truth God spake to the red clay at the beginning of the world'.