LIBERTY

Library of Congress     Milton
Plate 1

Blake's Song of Liberty is often thought of in terms of support for the revolutionary spirit which could liberate man from political oppression. But this type of liberation has proven to be of a cyclical nature. Although man may temporarily acquire greater freedom by throwing off the tyranny under which he lives, he soon submits to rulers and laws which deprive him of his freedom. Blake was less interested in ending the recurring cycle of political control which kept man bound in the physical world, than he was in breaking out of the mental cycle which keeps him trapped mentally by finding repetitious patterns necessary.

Northrop Frye presents the question asked by Nietzsche 'is the limit we see there really a limit.' Is it possible to transcend the barrier which we fear to cross? There is a New Song to be sung, but we cannot sing it unless we can look at one another not as 'the other' but as 'my other self.' In a way this would represent a return because we all crossed this barrier in the opposite direction when as infants we first discerned that we were separate from the mother who was the source of milk and warmth and the comforting touch.

There have been periods in history when man's self-perception changed. These events were evolutions of consciousness which permanently opened the psyche to new abilities. They altered the mind of man and the physical world followed as a result. The job of the individual is to follow his imagination as it leads to another dimension.

In The Great Code, Page 232-3, Northrop Frye writes about the conditions which inhibit man from achieving his potential:

"As soon as we begin to wonder whether, to use Nietzsche's phrase again, the limit we see there really is a limit, we find ourselves stumbling over the traditional Christian doctrine of 'original sin.' This doctrine holds that since the fall of Adam human life has been cursed with a built in inertia that will forever prevent man from fulfilling his destiny without divine help, and that that help can be described only in terms of the external and the objective. From our present vantage point we can characterize the conception of original sin more precisely as man's fear of freedom and his resentment of the discipline and responsibility that freedom brings.

Thus in Milton ...liberty is the chief thing that the Gospel has to bring to man. But man for Milton does not and cannot 'naturally' want freedom, he gets it only because God wants him to have it. What man naturally wants is to collapse back into the master-slave duality, of which the creator-creature duality is perhaps a projection. Paradise Lost tells again the fall of Adam to explain, among other things, the failure of the Puritan Revolution as Milton saw it. 

...If Milton's view of the Bible as a manifesto of human freedom has anything to be said for it, one would expect it to be written in a language that would smash these structures beyond repair, and let some genuine air and light in. But of course anxiety is very skillful at distorting languages".

Jerusalem, Plate 26, (E 171)
" SUCH VISIONS HAVE APPEARD TO ME 
     AS I MY ORDERD RACE HAVE RUN 
      JERUSALEM IS NAMED LIBERTY 
       AMONG THE SONS OF ALBION
Plate 27
                               To the Jews.
  Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion! Can it be? Is it a
Truth that the Learned have explored? Was Britain the Primitive
Seat of the Patriarchal Religion? If it is true: my title-page is
also True, that Jerusalem was & is the Emanation of the Giant
Albion.  It is True, and cannot be controverted.  Ye are united O
ye Inhabitants of Earth in One Religion.  The Religion of Jesus:
the most Ancient, the Eternal: & the Everlasting Gospel--The
Wicked will turn it to Wickedness,
the Righteous to Righteousness.  Amen! Huzza! Selah!
  "All things Begin & End in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore."

  Your Ancestors derived their origin from Abraham, Heber, Shem,
and Noah, who were Druids: as the Druid Temples (which are the
Patriarchal Pillars & Oak Groves) over the whole Earth witness to
this day.
  You have a tradition, that Man anciently containd in his mighty
limbs all things in Heaven & Earth: this you recieved from the
Druids.
  "But now the Starry Heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of
Albion""

Jerusalem, Plate 77, (E 231)
" I know of no other
Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body
& mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination.   
  Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable
Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our
Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies
are no more.  The Apostles knew of no other Gospel.  What were
all their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine Spirit? is the Holy
Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain? What is the
Harvest of the Gospel & its Labours? What is that Talent which it
is a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which we are
to lay up for ourselves, are they any other than Mental Studies &
Performances? What are all the Gifts. of the Gospel, are they not
all Mental Gifts? Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in
Spirit & in Truth and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing
to Man? 

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 25, (E 44)
                           " A Song of Liberty

1.  The Eternal Female groand! it was heard over all the Earth:
2.  Albions coast is sick silent; the American meadows faint!
3  Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers
and mutter across the ocean! France rend down thy dungeon;   
4.  Golden Spain burst the barriers of old Rome;
5.  Cast thy keys O Rome into the deep down falling, even to
eternity down falling, 
6.  And weep!                      
7.  In her trembling hands she took the new, born terror howling;
8.  On those infinite mountains of light now barr'd out by the
atlantic sea, the new born fire stood before the starry king! 
9.  Flag'd with grey brow'd snows and thunderous visages the
jealous wings wav'd over the deep.
10. The speary hand burned aloft, unbuckled was the shield,
forth went the hand of jealousy among the flaming hair, and 
[PL 26] hurl'd the new born wonder thro' the starry night.
11. The fire, the fire, is falling!
12. Look up! look up! O citizen of London. enlarge thy
countenance; O Jew, leave counting gold! return to thy oil and
wine; O African! black African! (go. winged thought widen his
forehead.) 
13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot like the sinking sun
into the western sea.
14. Wak'd from his eternal sleep, the hoary, element roaring
fled away:
15. Down rushd beating his wings in vain the jealous king: his
grey brow'd councellors, thunderous warriors, curl'd veterans,
among helms, and shields, and chariots horses, elephants:
banners, castles, slings and rocks,
16. Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in the ruins, on Urthona's
dens.
17. All night beneath the ruins, then their sullen flames faded
emerge round the gloomy king,
18. With thunder and fire: leading his starry hosts thro' the
waste wilderness [PL 27] he promulgates his ten commands,
glancing his beamy eyelids over the deep in dark dismay,
19. Where the son of fire in his eastern cloud, while the
morning plumes her golden breast,
20. Spurning the clouds written with curses, stamps the stony
law to dust, loosing the eternal horses from the dens of night,
crying

  Empire is no more! and now the lion & wolf shall cease.

          Chorus
  Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn, no longer in deadly
black, with hoarse note curse the sons of joy.  Nor his accepted
brethren whom, tyrant, he calls free; lay the bound or build the
roof.  Nor pale religious letchery call that virginity, that
wishes but acts not!
  For every thing that lives is Holy"

Songs and Ballads, (E 473)
"Why should I care for the men of thames
Or the cheating waves of charterd streams
Or shrink at the little blasts of fear
That the hireling blows into my ear

Tho born on the cheating banks of Thames     
Tho his waters bathed my infant limbs
The Ohio shall wash his stains from me    
I was born a slave but I go to be free"   

Marriage of Heaven and Hell, Plate 6, (E 35)
"The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of
Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he
was a true  Poet and of the Devils party without knowing it"

Jerusalem,(E 145)
"When this Verse was first dictated to me I consider'd a 
Monotonous Cadence like that used by Milton & Shakspeare & all
writers of English Blank Verse, derived from the modern bondage
of Rhyming; to be a necessary and indispensible part of Verse. 
But I soon found that
in the mouth of a true Orator such monotony was not only awkward,
but as much a bondage as rhyme itself.  I therefore have produced
a variety in every line, both of cadences & number of syllables. 
Every word and every letter is studied and put into its fit
place: the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific
parts--the mild & gentle, for the mild & gentle parts, and the
prosaic, for inferior parts: all are necessary to each other. 
Poetry Fetter'd, Fetters the Human Race! Nations are Destroy'd,
or Flourish, in proportion as Their Poetry Painting and Music,
are Destroy'd or Flourish! The Primeval State of Man, was Wisdom,
Art, and Science."   

Jerusalem, Plate 10, (E 153)
"Los cries, Obey my voice & never deviate from my will
And I will be merciful to thee: be thou invisible to all         
To whom I make thee invisible, but chief to my own Children
O Spectre of Urthona: Reason not against their dear approach
Nor them obstruct with thy temptations of doubt & despair
O Shame O strong & mighty Shame I break thy brazen fetters
If thou refuse, thy present torments will seem southern breezes  
To what thou shalt endure if thou obey not my great will."           

Four Zoas, Night VI, (E 348)
PAGE 70 (SECOND PORTION) 
"Here he had time enough to repent of his rashly threatend curse  
He saw them cursd beyond his Curse his soul melted with fear
PAGE 71 (SECOND PORTION)
He could not take their fetters off for they grew from the soul
Nor could he quench the fires for they flamd out from the heart
Nor could he calm the Elements because himself was Subject
So he threw his flight in terror & pain & in repentant tears

When he had passd these southern terrors he approachd the East   
Void pathless beaten With iron sleet & eternal hail & rain
No form was there no living thing & yet his way lay thro
This dismal world. he stood a while & lookd back oer his former
Terrific voyage. Hills & Vales of torment & despair
Sighing & Wiping a fresh tear. then turning round he threw       
Himself into the dismal void. falling he fell & fell
Whirling in unresistible revolutions down & down
In the horrid bottomless vacuity falling failing falling
Into the Eastern vacuity the empty world of Luvah"

Songs and Ballads, (E 472)
[How to know Love from Deceit]

"Love to faults is always blind
Always is to joy inclind                             
Lawless wingd & unconfind                    
And breaks all chains from every mind

Deceit to secresy confind                       
Lawful cautious & refind                         
To every thing but interest blind             
And forges fetters for the mind"              

---

Isaiah 42 
[5] Thus saith God the LORD, he that created the heavens, and stretched them out; he that spread forth the earth, and that which cometh out of it; he that giveth breath unto the people upon it, and spirit to them that walk therein:
[6] I the LORD have called thee in righteousness, and will hold thine hand, and will keep thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, for a light of the Gentiles;
[7] To open the blind eyes, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
[8] I am the LORD: that is my name: and my glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven images.
[9] Behold, the former things are come to pass, and new things do I declare: before they spring forth I tell you of them.
[10] Sing unto the LORD a new song, and his praise from the end of the earth, ye that go down to the sea, and all that is therein; the isles, and the inhabitants thereof.
 
Philippians 2
 [1] If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,
[2] Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.
[3] Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.
[4] Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.
[5] Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
[6] Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
[7] But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
[8] And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
[9] Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
[10] That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
[11] And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
[12] Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
[13] For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.