Jerusalem Plate 56

Plate 56

PLATE 56

Then Los heaved his thund'ring Bellows on the Valley of Middlesex

And thus he chaunted his Song: (the chant is on Plate 55)

the Daughters of Albion reply.

What may Man be? who can tell! But what may Woman be?

To have power over Man from Cradle to corruptible Grave.

He who is an Infant, and whose Cradle is a Manger                

Knoweth the Infant sorrow: whence it came, and where it goeth:

And who weave it a Cradle of the grass that withereth away.

This World is all a Cradle for the erred wandering Phantom:

Rock'd by Year, Month, Day & Hour; and every two Moments

Between, dwells a Daughter of Beulah, to feed the Human Vegetable

Entune: Daughters of Albion. your hymning Chorus mildly!

Cord of affection thrilling extatic on the iron Reel:

To the golden Loom of Love! to the moth-labourd Woof

A Garment and Cradle weaving for the infantine Terror:

For fear; at entering the gate into our World of cruel           

Lamentation: it flee back & hide in Non-Entitys dark wild

Where dwells the Spectre of Albion: destroyer of Definite Form.

The Sun shall be a Scythed Chariot of Britain: the Moon; a Ship

In the British Ocean! Created by Los's Hammer; measured out

Into Days & Nights & Years & Months. to travel with my feet      

Over these desolate rocks of Albion:

O daughters of despair!

Rock the Cradle, and in mild melodies tell me where found

What you have enwoven with so much tears & care? so much

Tender artifice: to laugh: to weep: to learn: to know;

Remember! recollect what dark befel in wintry days               

O it was lost for ever! and we found it not: it came

Plate 56

And wept at our wintry Door: Look! look! behold! Gwendolen

Is become a Clod of Clay! Merlin is a Worm of the Valley!

Then Los uttered with Hammer & Anvil: Chaunt! revoice!

I mind not your laugh: and your frown I not fear! and            

You must my dictate obey from your gold-beam'd Looms; trill

Gentle to Albions Watchman, on Albions mountains; reeccho

And rock the Cradle while! Ah me! Of that Eternal Man

And of the cradled Infancy in his bowels of compassion:

Who fell beneath his instruments of husbandry & became           

Subservient to the clods of the furrow! the cattle and even     

The emmet and earth-Worm are his superiors & his lords.

        

Then the response came warbling from trilling Looms in Albion

We Women tremble at the light therefore: hiding fearful

The Divine Vision with Curtain & Veil & fleshly Tabernacle

     

Los utter'd: swift as the rattling thunder upon the mountains[:]

Look back into the Church Paul! Look! Three Women around

The Cross! O Albion why didst thou a Female Will Create?

(Erdman 206)

Notes on Plate 56:

This plate continues Blake’s story with a colloquy between Los and the Daughters of Albion. Los chants his Song in lines 1-11 and asks for a choral reply.  They are anxious to weave a garment around the new born before they flee from this ‘vale of tears’.

At the end of the Plate we read:

"Look back into the Church Paul! Look! Three Women around

The Cross! O Albion why didst thou a Female Will Create?

Paul represented to Blake the primitive Church, shaped largely by the Apostle Paul.

Recall the gospel text where three women gathered around the cross, and Paul suggests that their prominence led to female domination of Religion.  Isn't it still so?

Of course for Blake female denotes not the spiritual but the material.