Plate 46

Plate 46 [32] 

pale stood Albion at his eastern gate,

PLATE 46 [32]
Leaning against the pillars, & his discase rose from his skirts
Upon the Precipice he stood! ready to fall into Non-Entity.

Los was all astonishment & terror: he trembled sitting on the Stone Of London: 

but the interiors of Albions fibres & nerves were hidden
From Los; astonishd be beheld only the petrified surfaces:
And saw his Furnaces in ruins, for Los is the Demon of the
Furnaces;
He saw also the Four Points of Albion reversd inwards
He siezd his Hammer & Tongs, his iron Poker & his Bellows,
Upon the valleys of Middlesex, Shouting loud for aid Divine.

In stern defiance came from Albions bosom Hand, Hyle, Koban,
Gwantok, Peachy, Brertun, Slaid, Huttn, Skofeld, Kock, Kotope

Bowen: Albions Sons: they bore him a golden couch into the porch
And on the Couch reposd his limbs, trembling from the bloody
field.

Rearing their Druid Patriarchal rocky Temples around his limbs.

(All things begin & end, in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore.)
(Erdman 195-6)

Notes:
The Plate opens with Albion standing at the Eastern Gate, diseased and teetering on a precipice
(much like the United States in 2012).

Los sat on the Stone of London and trembled.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Stone)
As wikipedia points out many legends center on the Stone of London.

As far as I know, this is Blake's only occurrence of the Stone of London, but we have this passage in Europe:
"aged ignorance preach canting
on a vast , perciev'd by those senses that are clos'd from thought:
Bleak, dark, abrupt, it stands & overshadows London city"

Albion's rock is central and very common in Blake's myth.

Los saw his Furnaces in ruins, for Los is the Demon of the Furances
He saw also the Four Points of Albion reversd inwards
He siezd his Hammer & Tongs, his iron Poker & his Bellow
Shouting loud for aid Divine.
(Did you ever pray, shouting loud for help;?)

stern defiance came from Albions bosom Hand, Hyle, Koban, etc
A veritable theives gallery in his bosom. All these characters were expressions of Albion's fallenness.

Most of these posts seem to end on a redemptive note, but not this one.
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   The text is brief, suggesting a juicy picture, which we indeed have:
The classical picture of naked Jerusalem with her children on her left and a veiled Vala on her right.
I wonder what's the meaning of that small one on her right???