Complete Works of William Blake. Illustrated

Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, The Four Zoas, Jerusalem, Milton and others

William Blake

• Publisher: Strelbytskyy Multimedia Publishing
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780880004992
• Topic: Literatura
• Subtopic: Colecciones literarias

While his contemporaries considered Blake a madman, we now appreciate him as an important figure in the development of romantic and mystical poetry.Blake's poetry is unique from every angle: It possesses a philosophical depth that impacts the reader at a spiritual level.Blake created his own mythological world, which he outlined in his prophetic books. His complex world is inhabited by deities and heroes to whom he gave unusual names: Urizen, Luva, Tarmas, Urton, Los, Enitarmon, Aania, etc. The inspiration for Blake's mythology has many origins, including the Bible, Greek and Roman mythology, Scandinavian Eddas, and treatises by occultists and religious mystics.Contents: POETICAL SKETCHESAN ISLAND IN THE MOONALL RELIGIONS ARE ONETHERE IS NO NATURAL RELIGIONTIRIELSONGS OF INNOCENCETHE BOOK OF THELTHE MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELLTHE FRENCH REVOLUTIONVISIONS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF ALBIONAMERICA A PROPHECYEUROPE A PROPHECYTHE FIRST BOOK OF URIZENSONGS OF EXPERIENCETHE BOOK OF LOSTHE SONG OF LOSTHE BOOK OF AHANIATHE FOUR ZOASMILTON A POEMJERUSALEM: THE EMANATION OF THE GIANT ALBIONSONGS AND BALLADS FROM BLAKE'S NOTEBOOK (1793)SATIRIC VERSES AND EPIGRAMS FROM BLAKE'S NOTEBOOKUNCOLLECTED WORKS

JERUSALEM: THE EMANATION OF THE GIANT ALBION

JERUSALEM

PLATE I

[Frontispiece]

There is a Void, outside of Existence, which if enterd into

Englobes itself & becomes a Womb, such was Albions Couch

A pleasant Shadow of Repose calld Albions lovely Land

His Sublime & Pathos become Two Rocks fixd in the Earth

His Reason, his Spectrous Power, covers them above.

Jerusalem his Emanation is a Stone laying beneath.

O Albion behold Pitying behold the Vision of Albion

Half Friendship is the bitterest Enmity said Los

As he enterd the Door of Death for Albions sake Inspired

10 The long sufferings of God are not for ever there is a Judgment

Every Thing has its Vermin O Spectre of the Sleeping Dead!

PLATE 3

JERUSALEM: TO THE PUBLIC

SHEEP GOATS

After my three years slumber on the banks of the Ocean, I again display my Giant forms to the Public: My former Giants & Fairies having reciev’d the highest reward possible: the [love] and [friendship] of those with whom to be connected, is to be [blessed:] I cannot doubt that this more consolidated & extended Work, will be as kindly recieved The Enthusiasm of the following Poem, the Author hopes [no Reader will think presumptuousness or arrogance when he is reminded that the Ancients entrusted their love to their Writing, to the full as Enthusiastically as I have who Acknowledge mine for my Saviour and Lord, for they were wholly absorb’d in their Gods.] I also hope the Reader will be with me, wholly One in Jesus our Lord, who is the God [of Fire] and Lord [of Love] to whom the Ancients look’d and saw his day afar off, with trembling & amazement. The Spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of Sin: he who waits to be righteous before he enters into the Saviours kingdom, the Divine Body; will never enter there. I am perhaps the most sinful of men! I pretend not to holiness! yet I pretend to love, to see, to converse with daily, as man with man, & the more to have an interest in the Friend of Sinners. Therefore [Dear] Reader, [forgive] what you do not approve, & [love] me for this energetic exertion of my talent.

Reader! [lover] of books! [lover] of heaven,

And of that God from whom [all books are given,]

Who in mysterious Sinais awful cave

To Man the wond’rous art of writing gave,

30 Again he speaks in thunder and in fire!

Thunder of Thought, & flames of fierce desire:

Even from the depths of Hell his voice I hear,

Within the unfathomd caverns of my Ear.

Therefore I print; nor vain my types shall be:

Heaven, Earth & Hell, henceforth shall live in harmony

Of the Measure, in which

the following Poem is written

We who dwell on Earth can do nothing of ourselves, every thing is conducted by Spirits, no less than Digestion or Sleep

40 When this Verse was first dictated to me I consider’d a Monotonous Cadence like that used by Milton & Shakespeare & all writers of English Blank Verse, derived from the modern bondage of Rhyming; to be a necessary and indispensable part of Verse. But I soon found that in the mouth of a true Orator such monotony was not only awkward, but as much a bondage as rhyme itself. I therefore have produced a variety in every line, both of cadences & number of syllables. Every word and every

letter is studied and put into its fit place: the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific parts – the mild & gentle, for the mild & gentle parts, and the prosaic, for inferior parts: all are necessary to each other. Poetry Fetter’d, Fetters the Human Race! Nations are Destroy’d, or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry Painting and Music, are Destroy’d or Flourish! The Primeval State of Man, was Wisdom, Art, and Science.

PLATE 4

JERUSALEM: CHAPTER I.

Of the Sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through

Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.

This theme calls me in sleep night after night, & ev’ry morn

Awakes me at sun-rise, then I see the Saviour over me

Spreading his beams of love, & dictating the words of this mild song.

Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!

I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:

Fibres of love from man to man thro Albions pleasant land.

In all the dark Atlantic vale down from the hills of Surrey

10 A black water accumulates, return Albion! return!

Thy brethren call thee, and thy fathers, and thy sons,

Thy nurses and thy mothers, thy sisters and thy daughters

Weep at thy souls disease, and the Divine Vision is darkend:

Thy Emanation that was wont to play before thy face,

Beaming forth with her daughters into the Divine bosom [Where!!]

Where hast thou hidden thy Emanation lovely Jerusalem

From the vision and fruition of the Holy-one?

I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;

Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:

20 Lo! we are One; forgiving all Evil; Not seeking recompense!

Ye are my members O ye sleepers of Beulah, land of shades!

But the perturbed Man away turns down the valleys dark;

[Saying. We are not One: we are Many, thou most simulative]

Phantom of the over heated brain! shadow of immortality!

Seeking to keep my soul a victim to thy Love! which binds

Man the enemy of man into deceitful friendships:

Jerusalem is not! her daughters are indefinite:

By demonstration, man alone can live, and not by faith.

My mountains are my own, and I will keep them to myself:

30 The Malvern and the Cheviot, the Wolds Plinlimmon & Snowdon

Are mine, here will I build my Laws of Moral Virtue:

Humanity shall be no more: but war & princedom & victory!

So spoke Albion in jealous fears, hiding his Emanation

Upon the Thames and Medway, rivers of Beulah: dissembling

His jealousy before the throne divine, darkening, cold!

PLATE 5

The banks of the Thames are clouded: the ancient porches of Albion are

Darken’d! they are drawn thro’ unbounded space, scatter’d upon

The Void in incoherent despair! Cambridge & Oxford & London,

Are driven among the starry Wheels, rent away and dissipated,

In Chasms & Abysses of sorrow, enlarg’d without dimension, terrible

Albions mountains run with blood, the cries of war & of tumult

Resound into the unbounded night, every Human perfection

Of mountain & river & city, are small & wither’d & darken’d

Cam is a little stream! Ely is almost swallowd up!

10 Lincoln & Norwich stand trembling on the brink of Udan-Adan!

Wales and Scotland shrink themselves to the west and to the north!

Mourning for fear of the warriors in the Vale of Entuthon-Benython

Jerusalem is scatterd abroad like a cloud of smoke thro’ non-entity:

Moab & Ammon & Amalek & Canaan & Egypt & Aram

Recieve her little-ones for sacrifices and the delights of cruelty

Trembling I sit day and night, my friends are astonish’d at me.

Yet they forgive my wanderings, I rest not from my great task!

To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes

Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity

20 Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination

O Saviour pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love:

Annihilate the Selfhood in me, be thou all my life!

Guide thou my hand which trembles exceedingly upon the rock of ages,

While I write of the building of Golgonooza, & of the terrors of Entuthon:

Of Hand & Hyle & Coban, of Kwantok, Peachey, Brereton, Slayd & Hutton:

Of the terrible sons & daughters of Albion, and their Generations.

Scofield! Kox, Kotope and Bowen, revolve most mightily upon

The Furnace of Los: before the eastern gate bending their fury.

They war, to destroy the Furnaces, to desolate Golgonooza:

30 And to devour the Sleeping Humanity of Albion in rage & hunger.

They revolve into the Furnaces Southward & are driven forth Northward

Divided into Male and Female forms time after time.

From these Twelve all the Families of England spread abroad.

The Male is a Furnace of beryll; the Female is a golden Loom;

I behold them and their rushing fires overwhelm my Soul,

In Londons darkness; and my tears fall day and night,

Upon the Emanations of Albions Sons! the Daughters of Albion

Names anciently rememberd, but now contemn’d as fictions:

Although in every bosom they controll our Vegetative powers.

40 These are united into Tirzah and her Sisters, on Mount Gilead,

Cambel & Gwendolen & Conwenna & Cordella & Ignoge.

And these united into Rahab in the Covering Cherub on Euphrates

Gwiniverra & Gwinefred, & Gonorill & Sabrina beautiful,

Estrild, Mehetabel & Ragan, lovely Daughters of Albion,

They are the beautiful Emanations of the Twelve Sons of Albion

The Starry Wheels revolv’d heavily over the Furnaces;

Drawing Jerusalem in anguish of maternal love,

Eastward a pillar of a cloud with Vala upon the mountains

Howling in pain, redounding from the arms of Beulahs Daughters,

50 Out from the Furnaces of Los above the head of Los.

A pillar of smoke writhing afar into Non-Entity, redounding

Till the cloud reaches afar outstretch’d among the Starry Wheels

Which revolve heavily in the mighty Void above the Furnaces

O what avail the loves & tears of Beulahs lovely Daughters

They hold the Immortal Form in gentle bands & tender tears

But all within is open’d into the deeps of Entuthon Benython

A dark and unknown night, indefinite, unmeasurable, without end.

Abstract Philosophy warring in enmity against Imagination

(Which is the Divine Body of the Lord Jesus. blessed for ever).

60 And there Jerusalem wanders with Vala upon the mountains,

Attracted by the revolutions of those Wheels the Cloud of smoke

Immense, and Jerusalem & Vala weeping in the Cloud

Wander away into the Chaotic Void, lamenting with her Shadow

Among the Daughters of Albion, among the Starry Wheels;

Lamenting for her children, for the sons & daughters of Albion

Los heard her lamentations in the deeps afar! his tears fall

Incessant before the Furnaces, and his Emanation divided in pain,

Eastward towards the Starry Wheels. But Westward, a black Horror,

PLATE 6

His spectre driv’n by the Starry Wheels of Albions sons, black and

Opake divided from his back; he labours and he mourns!

For as his Emanation divided, his Spectre also divided

In terror of those starry wheels: and the Spectre stood over Los

Howling in pain: a blackning Shadow, blackning dark & opake

Cursing the terrible Los: bitterly cursing him for his friendship

To Albion, suggesting murderous thoughts against Albion.

Los rag’d and stamp’d the earth in his might & terrible wrath!

He stood and stampd the earth! then he threw down his hammer in rage &

10 In fury: then he sat down and wept, terrified! Then arose

And chaunted his song, labouring with the tongs and hammer:

But still the Spectre divided, and still his pain increas’d!

In pain the Spectre divided: in pain of hunger and thirst:

To devour Los’s Human Perfection, but when he saw that Los

PLATE 7

Was living: panting like a frighted wolf, and howling

He stood over the Immortal, in the solitude and darkness:

Upon the darkning Thames, across the whole Island westward,

A horrible Shadow of Death, among the Furnaces: beneath

The pillar of folding smoke; and he sought by other means,

To lure Los: by tears, by arguments of science & by terrors:

Terrors in every Nerve, by spasms & extended pains:

While Los answer’d unterrified to the opake blackening Fiend

And thus the Spectre spoke: Wilt thou still go on to destruction?

10 Till thy life is all taken away by this deceitful Friendship?

He drinks thee up like water! like wine he pours thee

Into his tuns: thy Daughters are trodden in his vintage

He makes thy Sons the trampling of his bulls, they are plow’d

And harrowd for his profit, lo! thy stolen Emanation

Is his garden of pleasure! all the Spectres of...