Mundane 3

          Erdman   PLATE 20 [22]   page 114
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Now Albions sleeping Humanity began to turn upon his Couch;
Feeling the electric flame of Miltons awful precipitate descent.

'He came down' like Jesus Milton came down from Heaven
to save us all.  Albion represents 'us all'; we are asleep on 0ur 
materialistic 'couch' (or perhaps in Ulro!)

What follows in a beautiful poem:

Seest thou the little winged fly, smaller than a grain of sand?
It has a heart like thee; a brain open to heaven & hell,
Withinside wondrous & expansive; its gates are not clos'd,
I hope thine are not: hence it clothes itself in rich array;
Hence thou art cloth'd with human beauty O thou mortal man.
Seek not thy heavenly father then beyond the skies:

(Blake cautions us against the conventional faith with no
conception of 'the God within'.)
There Chaos dwells & ancient Night & Og & Anak old:
For every human heart has gates of brass & bars of adamant,
Which few dare unbar because dread Og & Anak guard the gates
Terrific! and each mortal brain is walld and moated round
Within: and Og & Anak watch here; here is the Seat
Of Satan in its Webs; for in brain and heart and loins
Gates open behind Satans Seat to the City of Golgonooza
Which is the spiritual fourfold London, in the loins of Albion

Thus Milton fell thro Albions heart, travelling outside of Humanity
Beyond the Stars in Chaos in Caverns of the Mundane Shell.

Both the City of Golgonooza and the Mundane Shell represent
Los's attempt to rescue humanity from Ulro.

But many of the Eternals rose up from eternal tables
Drunk with the Spirit, burning round the Couch of death they stood
Looking down into Beulah: wrathful, fill'd with rage!
They rend the heavens round the Watchers

The frontispiece of Blake's  Jerusalem pictures a man clothed as a watchman entering a dark doorway. He carries the watchman's light to illuminate the 'perilous path' whose entry he steps into wearing his sandals (which he strapped on in the poem Milton). The figure is Los beginning his journey through the underworld which Persephone entered before him. Blake describes it as 'the passage through Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.' (Jerusalem, Plate 4, E 146)

in a fiery circle:
And round the Shadowy Eighth: the Eight close up the Couch
.............

From The Four Zoas, Night one:
Then they Elected Seven. called the Seven
Eyes of God & the Seven lamps of the Almighty
The Seven are one within the other the Seventh is named Jesus
The Lamb of God blessed for ever
(Erdman  312 -13)
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                                      Page 115
Into a tabernacle, and flee with cries down to the Deeps:
Where Los opens his three wide gates, surrounded by raging fires!
They soon find their own place & join the Watchers of the Ulro.
Los saw them and a cold pale horror coverd o'er his limbs
Pondering he knew that Rintrah & Palamabron might depart:
Even as Reuben & as Gad; gave up himself to tears.
He sat down on his anvil-stock; and leand upon the trough.
Looking into the black water, mingling it with tears.