Thursday, August 29, 2013

America 2



Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire;
Round the terrific loins he siez'd the panting struggling womb;
It joy'd: she put aside her clouds & smiled her first-born smile;
As when a black cloud shews its lightnings to the silent deep.
Soon as she saw the terrible boy then burst the virgin cry.
I know thee, I have found thee, & I will not let thee go;
Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa;
And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions
Endur'd by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep:
I see a serpent in Canada, who courts me to his love;
In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru;
I see a Whale in the South-sea, drinking my soul away.
O what limb rending pains I feel. thy fire & my frost
Mingle in howling pains, in furrows by thy lightnings rent;
This is eternal death; and this the torment long foretold.
The stern Bard ceas'd, asham'd of his own song; enrag'd he swung His harp aloft sounding, then dash'd its shining frame against A ruin'd pillar in glittring fragments; silent he turn'd away, And wander'd down the vales of Kent in sick & drear lamentings.
swung
His harp aloft sounding, then dash'd its shining frame against
A ruin'd pillar in glittring fragments; silent he turn'd away,
And wander'd down the vales of Kent in sick & drear lamentings.


What is the plant? closer inspection suggests that the branch is a root, under the earth, but the text reveals that we have to do, not with ground and underground but with a  womb. This man is being born.
So perhaps we have a double meaning here, the womb and a tree.  We may recall that the newborn Orc was taken, not up a tree, but up a mountain  (actually the Tree of Mystery). 
Choosing the earthly facet of Orc we see two plants, a straight one (tree) and a vine, indicated by the loops going up until they point to the begnning of the text. 


"Soon as she saw the terrible boy then burst the virgin cry."  The 'terrible boy' of course is Orc; but 'the virgin cry'?, what virgin might that be? Look at The Night of Enitharmon's Joy.
Hecate
from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hecate


In America 2 'vengeance is the keynote representing Revolution.
The bard (Blake) is ashamed of his song and smashes it (metaphorically).


Regardless of the text, what is this image saying?
Starting at the bottom we see a man with legs bent and arms spread out and bent at the elbows as if to be sitting on the branch of a tree (or bush) who is he?
The text suggests that he is Orc,

Silent and strong! This is a description of Orc's birth.  It has all sorts of connotations.
'She' is presumbably Enitharmon, of whom Orc was her firstborn.  There are several accounts of the birth by Enitharmon, perhaps most definitive in Chapter VII of the Book of Urizen , already used in America 1.

That's a different side of this female:
Europe a Prophecy is said to a large extent to be " devoted to the night of Enitharmon's joy, when she establishes her Woman's World with its false religion of chastity and vengeance: a religion of eighteen hundread years, which is the error of official Christianity."[11]  In other words, it is said to represents a Feminine Will over a patriarchal Christianity.

"Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa;
And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions 
Endur'd by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep:
I see a serpent in Canada, who courts me to his love;
In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru;
I see a Whale in the South-sea, drinking my soul away":
in Africa (as a revolution against slavery)
in America
in Canada (a serpent);
in Mexico (an eagle)
in Peru (a lion) 
in the South Seas (a whale)  
This demonstrates the vividness of Blake's imagination; he sees (the possibility) of revolution everywhere.
  
In the last line he reveals how sick and sorrowful he feels about the world.

No comments:

Post a Comment