An Immitation of Spenser

CHANGE LINE SPACING HERE

Beginning at Erdman Page 408 Miscellaneous were printed in 1783 when
Blake was ca 26; some were written when he was as young as 
13. Obviously during Blake's early years he became a great admirer 
of the 16th century British Poet Edmund Spenser,  best known for  
The Faerie Queene, an epic poem and fantastical allegory celebrating 
the Tudor dynasty and Elizabeth I.
 
The young Blake's poem was of course derivative, a hint of the ways
that the mature Blake dealt with all his sources, very freely.
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                 AN
      IMITATION OF SPEN[S]ER.                                   

Golden Apollo, that thro' heaven wide
  Scatter'st the rays of light, and truth's beams!
In lucent words my darkling verses dight,
  And wash my earthy mind in thy clear streams,
  That wisdom may descend in fairy dreams:         
All while the jocund hours in thy train
Scatter their fancies at thy poet's feet;
  And when thou yields to night thy wide domain,                
Let rays of truth enlight his sleeping brain.

For brutish Pan in vain might thee assay          
  With tinkling sounds to dash thy nervous verse,
Sound without sense; yet in his rude affray,
  (For ignorance is Folly's leesing nurse,                      
  And love of Folly needs none other curse;)                    
Midas the praise hath gain'd of lengthen'd eares,                
  For which himself might deem him neer the worse

  To sit in council with his modern peers,
And judge of tinkling rhimes, and elegances terse.

And thou, Mercurius, that with winged brow
  Dost mount aloft into the yielding sky,      
And thro' Heav'n's halls thy airy flight dost throw,
Entering with holy feet to where on high
Jove weighs the counsel of futurity;
  Then, laden with eternal fate, dost go
Down, like a falling star, from autumn sky,        
And o'er the surface of the silent deep dost fly.

  If thou arrivest at the sandy shore,
Where nought but envious hissing adders dwell,
  Thy golden rod, thrown on the dusty floor,
Can charm to harmony with potent spell;       
Such is sweet Eloquence, that does dispel
  Envy and Hate, that thirst for human gore:
And cause in sweet society to dwell
Vile savage minds that lurk in lonely cell.

  O Mercury, assist my lab'ring sense,           
That round the circle of the world wou'd fly!
  As the wing'd eagle scorns the tow'ry fence
Of Alpine bills round his high aery,
And searches thro' the corners of the sky,
  Sports in the clouds to hear the thunder's sound,   
And see the winged lightnings as they fly,                      
  Then, bosom'd in an amber cloud, around
Plumes his wide wings, and seeks Sol's palace high.

  And thou, O warrior maid, invincible,                         
Arm'd with the terrors of Almighty Jove!           
  Pallas, Minerva, maiden terrible,
Lov'st thou to walk the peaceful solemn grove,
  In solemn gloom of branches interwove?
Or bear'st thy Egis o'er the burning field,
  Where, like the sea, the waves of battle move?   
Or have thy soft piteous eyes beheld 

The weary wanderer thro' the desert rove? Or 

does th' afflicted man thy heav'nly bosom move?
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Notes:
Golden Apollo: in Greek mythology Apollo was said to 
have golden hair. 
"That wisdom may descend in fairy dreams": well this is
certainly where Blake lived; he calls it here "fairy dreams",
but later 'heavenly visions'.  Blake lived for the Visions;
they came freely until ca 1782, departed until 1802.
   Thus we have the three periods of Blake's creative life: the
inspiration of youth, the disillusionment of middle age, and
the rebirth in ca 43. 

"brutish Pan" is an apt metaphor for what was to come for
Blake: tinkling sound without sense. 
 
With the paragraph on Mercurius Blake gave a florid (Elizabethan?)
account of the coming and departure of the Sun, making a day. 

Then he touches on the 'wing'd eagle'.
 Finally Pallas, a name for Athena; if you're acquainted with 
Blake's famous tempera, The Sea of Time and Space, you may
remember that some interpreters identified the lady on the shore, 
beckoning to the wayfarer to take the southern path above as
Athena.