So said I, and still say the same;
    Still, to my death, will say—­
  Three gods, within this little frame,
    Are warring night and day;
  Heaven could not hold them all, and yet
    They all are held in me;
  And must be mine till I forget
    My present entity! 
  Oh, for the time, when in my breast
    Their struggles will be o’er! 
  Oh, for the day, when I shall rest,
    And never suffer more!

  I saw a spirit, standing, man,
    Where thou dost stand—­an hour ago,
  And round his feet three rivers ran,
    Of equal depth, and equal flow—­
  A golden stream—­and one like blood,
    And one like sapphire seemed to be;
  But where they joined their triple flood
    It tumbled in an inky sea. 
  The spirit sent his dazzling gaze
    Down through that ocean’s gloomy night;
  Then, kindling all, with sudden blaze,—­
    The glad deep sparkled wide and bright—­
  White as the sun, far, far more fair
    Than its divided sources were!

  And even for that spirit, seer,
    I’ve watched and sought my lifetime long;
  Sought him in heaven, hell, earth and air,
    An endless search and always wrong. 
  Had I but seen his glorious eye
    Once light the clouds that ’wilder me,
  I ne’er had raised this coward cry
    To cease to think, and cease to be;
  I ne’er had called oblivion blest,
    Nor, stretching eager hands to death,
  Implored to change for senseless rest
    This sentient soul, this living breath—­
  Oh, let me die—­that power and will
    Their cruel strife may close,
  And conquered good and conquering ill
    Be lost in one repose!

That vision of the transcendent spirit, with the mingled triple flood of life about his feet, is one that Blake might have seen and sung and painted.

The fourth poem, “The Prisoner”, is a fragment, and an obscure fragment, which may belong to a very different cycle.  But whatever its place, it has the same visionary quality.  The vision is of the woman captive, “confined in triple walls”, the “guest darkly lodged”, the “chainless soul”, that defies its conqueror, its gaoler, and the spectator of its agony.  It has, this prisoner, its own unspeakable consolation, the “Messenger”: 

  He comes with western winds, with evening’s wandering airs,
  With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars. 
  Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire,
  And visions rise and change that kill me with desire.

* * * * *

  But, first, a hush of peace—­a soundless calm descends;
  The struggle of distress, and fierce impatience ends;
  Mute music soothes my breast—­unuttered harmony,
  That I could never dream, till earth was lost to me.

  Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;
  My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels: 
  Its wings are almost free—­its home, its harbour found,
  Measuring the gulf, it stoops and dares the final bound.