CHICHESTER 3

Wikipedia Commons
Jerusalem
Plate 1, Unique print in Fitzwilliam Museum

Jerusalem, Plate 1, (E 144)
[Frontispiece]  
[Above the archway:]

"There is a Void, outside of Existence, which if enterd into
Englobes itself & becomes a Womb, such was Albions Couch
A pleasant Shadow of Repose calld Albions lovely Land

His Sublime & Pathos become Two Rocks fixd in the Earth
His Reason his Spectrous Power, covers them above                
Jerusalem his Emanation is a Stone laying beneath
O [Albion behold Pitying] behold the Vision of Albiont

[On right side of archway:]

Half Friendship is the bitterest Enmity said Los
As he enterd the Door of Death for Albions sake Inspired
The long sufferings of God are not for ever there is a Judgment 

[On left side, in reversed writing:]

Every Thing has its Vermin O Spectre of the Sleeping Dead!"

Blake named his opponents in his trial as Sons of Albion. They included the accusers, the prosecuting witnesses, the prosecutors and judges in the case. Of the twelve named Sons of Albion the first three may be familiar enemies :

Hand
Hyle
Coban
The other nine each played a part in Blake's prosecution:
Skofeld
Kox
Bowen
Gwantok,
Peachy,
Brertun,
Slaid,
Huttn
Kotope

The twelve Sons of Albion parallel the twelve sons of Israel whose descendants formed the twelve tribes of the Hebrews. These are the divisions of Albion whom we see at work in the natural world. When Blake came under attack by the mechanism of the legal system, he became more aware that there were within himself the same fragmenting forces which attempted to attack him, to find him guilty, to punish and destroy him. Although these forces might be projected outward and cause him trouble in the natural world, if they remained within his psyche (his Heaven) they could destroy his inner peace. In Jerusalem he kept returning to the names of those who opposed him, not to place blame on them and exonerate himself, but to work on his own inner life which made him susceptible to acting out the harmful behaviors which his opponents represented.

To learn to deal with these Sons of Albion, and these 'Sons of Blake' can be seen as a theme of Jerusalem.

 Jerusalem Plate 4, (E 146)
"But the perturbed Man away turns down the valleys dark;
[Saying. We are not One: we are Many, thou most simulative]
Phantom of the over heated brain! shadow of immortality!
Seeking to keep my soul a victim to thy Love! which binds        
Man the enemy of man into deceitful friendships:
Jerusalem is not! her daughters are indefinite:
By demonstration, man alone can live, and not by faith.
My mountains are my own, and I will keep them to myself!
The Malvern and the Cheviot, the Wolds Plinlimmon & Snowdon  
Are mine. here will I build my Laws of Moral Virtue!
Humanity shall be no more: but war & princedom & victory!

So spoke Albion in jealous fears, hiding his Emanation
Upon the Thames and Medway, rivers of Beulah: dissembling
His jealousy before the throne divine, darkening, cold!          
Plate 5
The banks of the Thames are clouded! the ancient porches of Albion are
Darken'd! they are drawn thro' unbounded space, scatter'd upon
The Void in incoherent despair! Cambridge & Oxford & London,
Are driven among the starry Wheels, rent away and dissipated,
In Chasms & Abysses of sorrow, enlarg'd without dimension, terrible.    
Albions mountains run with blood, the cries of war & of tumult
Resound into the unbounded night, every Human perfection
Of mountain & river & city, are small & wither'd & darken'd
Cam is a little stream! Ely is almost swallowd up!
Lincoln & Norwich stand trembling on the brink of Udan-Adan!     
Wales and Scotland shrink themselves to the west and to the north!
Mourning for fear of the warriors in the Vale of Entuthon-Benython
Jerusalem is scatterd abroad like a cloud of smoke thro' non-entity:
Moab & Ammon & Amalek & Canaan & Egypt & Aram
Recieve her little-ones for sacrifices and the delights of cruelty   

Trembling I sit day and night, my friends are astonish'd at me.
Yet they forgive my wanderings, I rest not from my great task!
To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes
Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought: into Eternity
Ever expanding in the Bosom of God. the Human Imagination        
O Saviour pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love:
Annihilate the Selfhood in me, be thou all my life!
Guide thou my hand which trembles exceedingly upon the rock of ages,
While I write of the building of Golgonooza, & of the terrors of Entuthon:
Of Hand & Hyle & Coban, of Kwantok, Peachey, Brereton, Slayd & Hutton:
Of the terrible sons & daughters of Albion. and their Generations.

Scofield! Kox, Kotope and Bowen, revolve most mightily upon
The Furnace of Los: before the eastern gate bending their fury.
They war, to destroy the Furnaces, to desolate Golgonooza:
And to devour the Sleeping  Humanity  of  Albion  in  rage  & hunger."   

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