So Los spoke. Pale they stood around the House of Death:
In the midst of temptations & despair: among the rooted Oaks:
Among reared Rocks of Albions Sons, at length they rose
Plate 39 [44]
With one accord in love sublime, & as on Cherubs wings
They Albion surround with kindest violence to bear him back
Against his will thro Los's Gate to Eden: Four-fold; loud!
Their Wings waving over the bottomless Immense: to bear
Their awful charge back to his native home: but Albion dark,
Repugnant; rolld his Wheels backward into Non-Entity
Loud roll the Starry Wheels of Albion into the World of Death
And all the Gate of Los, clouded with clouds redounding from
Albions dread Wheels, stretching out spaces immense between
That every little particle of light & air, became Opake
Black & immense, a Rock of difficulty & a Cliff
Of black despair; that the immortal Wings labourd against
Cliff after cliff, & over Valleys of despair & death:
The narrow Sea between Albion & the Atlantic Continent:
Its waves of pearl became a boundless Ocean bottomless,
Of grey obscurity, filld with clouds & rocks & whirling waters
And Albions Sons ascending & descending in the horrid Void.
But as the Will must not be bended but in the day of Divine
Power: silent calm & motionless, in the mid-air sublime,
The Family Divine hover around the darkend Albion.
Such is the nature of the Ulro: that whatever enters:
Becomes Sexual, & is Created, and Vegetated, and Born.
From Hyde Park spread their vegetating roots beneath Albion
In dreadful pain the Spectrous Uncircumcised Vegetation.
Forming a Sexual Machine: an Aged Virgin Form,
In Erins Land toward the north, joint after joint & burning
In love & jealousy immingled & calling it Religion
And feeling the damps of death they with one accord delegated Los
Conjuring him by the Highest that he should Watch over them
Till Jesus shall appear: & they gave their power to Los
Naming him the Spirit of Prophecy, calling him Elijah
Strucken with Albions disease they become what they behold;
They assimilate with Albion in pity & compassion;
Their Emanations return not: their Spectres rage in the Deep
The Slumbers of Death came over them around the Couch of Death
Before the Gate of Los & in the depths of Non Entity
Among the Furnaces of Los: among the Oaks of Albion.
Man is adjoind to Man by his Emanative portion:
Who is Jerusalem in every individual Man: and her
Shadow is Vala, builded by the Reasoning power in Man
O search & see: turn your eyes inward: open O thou World
Of Love & Harmony in Man: expand thy ever lovely Gates.
They wept into the deeps a little space at length was heard
The voice of Bath, faint as the voice of the Dead in the House of
Death
******************************************************************
Notes:
To see what Los said to his 'friends and brothers' in the beginning you have to resort to Plate 38, but in response to what he said:
'With one accord' evokes the disciples in Acts 1:14, the Moment after the Resurrection when the disciples acted 'with one accord'; a good Bible student would recognize that immediately. This passage is a good example of how Blake used the Bible; he was a 'man of the Bible' and throughout Blake's poetry he continually resorts to various images in the Bible. The image here is of the Four Zoas acting together in the Return from the Fall.
They have 'taken Heaven by storm' so to speak, but that won't do because the four zoas don't have license to 'bend our will': only the risen Lord (in us) can do that, "but Albion dark, Repugnant;" heads right back to Ulro.
In line 28 'one accord returns' with orders for Los to be the watchman 'till Jesus shall appear'.
The plate closes with the Prayer:
"Man is adjoind to Man by his Emanative portion:
Who is Jerusalem in every individual Man: and her
Shadow is Vala, builded by the Reasoning power in Man
O search & see: turn your eyes inward: open O thou World
Of Love & Harmony in Man: expand thy ever lovely Gates."
The plate offers several bites (bits) of Blake's myth and shows the path ahead for us all, out of Ulro in the fullness of time. It's the gospel.
******************************************************************
Comments of Erdman and Paley:
On page 201 Paley refers to "the houseboat-like moon-ark....accompanied by two angels"; he speaks of "the vegetating serpent" at the bottom of the Plate.
If the representation is of Noah's ark Erdman described the 'rainbow' colored serpent as paradigms of body, green leaves, blue and violet fruit and tells us that in one copy the tongue "does not appear to dart poison but to become again a vine for the left margin".
In the midst of temptations & despair: among the rooted Oaks:
Among reared Rocks of Albions Sons, at length they rose
Plate 39 [44]
With one accord in love sublime, & as on Cherubs wings
They Albion surround with kindest violence to bear him back
Against his will thro Los's Gate to Eden: Four-fold; loud!
Their Wings waving over the bottomless Immense: to bear
Their awful charge back to his native home: but Albion dark,
Repugnant; rolld his Wheels backward into Non-Entity
Loud roll the Starry Wheels of Albion into the World of Death
And all the Gate of Los, clouded with clouds redounding from
Albions dread Wheels, stretching out spaces immense between
That every little particle of light & air, became Opake
Black & immense, a Rock of difficulty & a Cliff
Of black despair; that the immortal Wings labourd against
Cliff after cliff, & over Valleys of despair & death:
The narrow Sea between Albion & the Atlantic Continent:
Its waves of pearl became a boundless Ocean bottomless,
Of grey obscurity, filld with clouds & rocks & whirling waters
And Albions Sons ascending & descending in the horrid Void.
But as the Will must not be bended but in the day of DivinePower: silent calm & motionless, in the mid-air sublime,
The Family Divine hover around the darkend Albion.
Such is the nature of the Ulro: that whatever enters:
Becomes Sexual, & is Created, and Vegetated, and Born.
From Hyde Park spread their vegetating roots beneath Albion
In dreadful pain the Spectrous Uncircumcised Vegetation.
Forming a Sexual Machine: an Aged Virgin Form,
In Erins Land toward the north, joint after joint & burning
In love & jealousy immingled & calling it Religion
And feeling the damps of death they with one accord delegated Los
Conjuring him by the Highest that he should Watch over them
Till Jesus shall appear: & they gave their power to Los
Naming him the Spirit of Prophecy, calling him Elijah
Strucken with Albions disease they become what they behold;
They assimilate with Albion in pity & compassion;
Their Emanations return not: their Spectres rage in the Deep
The Slumbers of Death came over them around the Couch of Death
Before the Gate of Los & in the depths of Non Entity
Among the Furnaces of Los: among the Oaks of Albion.
Man is adjoind to Man by his Emanative portion:
Who is Jerusalem in every individual Man: and her
Shadow is Vala, builded by the Reasoning power in Man
O search & see: turn your eyes inward: open O thou World
Of Love & Harmony in Man: expand thy ever lovely Gates.
They wept into the deeps a little space at length was heard
The voice of Bath, faint as the voice of the Dead in the House of
Death
******************************************************************
Notes:
To see what Los said to his 'friends and brothers' in the beginning you have to resort to Plate 38, but in response to what he said:
'With one accord' evokes the disciples in Acts 1:14, the Moment after the Resurrection when the disciples acted 'with one accord'; a good Bible student would recognize that immediately. This passage is a good example of how Blake used the Bible; he was a 'man of the Bible' and throughout Blake's poetry he continually resorts to various images in the Bible. The image here is of the Four Zoas acting together in the Return from the Fall.
They have 'taken Heaven by storm' so to speak, but that won't do because the four zoas don't have license to 'bend our will': only the risen Lord (in us) can do that, "but Albion dark, Repugnant;" heads right back to Ulro.
In line 28 'one accord returns' with orders for Los to be the watchman 'till Jesus shall appear'.
The plate closes with the Prayer:
"Man is adjoind to Man by his Emanative portion:
Who is Jerusalem in every individual Man: and her
Shadow is Vala, builded by the Reasoning power in Man
O search & see: turn your eyes inward: open O thou World
Of Love & Harmony in Man: expand thy ever lovely Gates."
The plate offers several bites (bits) of Blake's myth and shows the path ahead for us all, out of Ulro in the fullness of time. It's the gospel.
******************************************************************
Comments of Erdman and Paley:
On page 201 Paley refers to "the houseboat-like moon-ark....accompanied by two angels"; he speaks of "the vegetating serpent" at the bottom of the Plate.
If the representation is of Noah's ark Erdman described the 'rainbow' colored serpent as paradigms of body, green leaves, blue and violet fruit and tells us that in one copy the tongue "does not appear to dart poison but to become again a vine for the left margin".
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