EPIC POETRY

National Trust Collection

Characters from Spenser's Faerie Queene

Frye presents these three English poems Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and Milton's Paradise Lost as the epics which would have been the exemplars for Blake. The goal which was before each serious poet, Frye believed, would have been to write a fourth English epic, building on the achievements of these predecessors. 

Below are quotes from Northrop Frey's Fearful Symmetry which have been helpful to me in attempting to understand Blake's Milton. Topics for study before one plunges into Milton may include Epic Poetry, John Milton's biography, William Blake's biography, Blake's The Four Zoas, Milton's Paradise Lost, and, of course, the Old and New testaments of the Bible. 

Fearful Symmetry - Page 9

"Blake's own definition of poetry:

'Allegory addressd to the Intellectual powers while it is altogether hidden from the Corporeal Understanding is My Definition of the Most Sublime Poetry. it is also somewhat in the same manner defin'd by Plato.'

...The corporeal understanding, then, canot do more than elucidate the genuine obscurities, the things requiring special knowledge to understand,
...The 'intellectual powers' go to work rather differently; they start with the hypothesis that the poem in front of them is an imaginative whole and work out the implications of that hypothesis 'Every Poem must necessarily be a perfect Unity,' said Blake: the identity of form and content is the axiom of all sound criticism."

Fearful Symmetry - Page 316

"The function of the epic, in its origin, seems to be primarily to teach the nation, or whatever we call the social unit which the poet is addressing, irs own traditions. These traditions are chiefly concerned with the national religion and the national history...The religion is not theological nor the history documentary: both are mythopoeic. "  

Fearful Symmetry - Page 319

"Milton thinks of himself continually as an inspired prophet sent by God to present his vision to the English people."

Fearful Symmetry - Page 340

"The primary social function of the epic is to teach the 'nation' its own traditions, and in Blakean terms this means recreating dead facts into living truths, the vanished spectres of tradition into imagination's eternal and infinite present. 

... the prophets did not turn their backs on their national history: they recreated it, and brought out of it the eternally present archetypes of the fall and redemption of man."

Fearful Symmetry - Page 346

"Blake is, therefore, trying to do for Milton what the prophets and Jesus did for Moses: isolate what is poetic and imaginative and annihilate what is legal and historical. This is also what he is trying to do for himself, and there will always be a curse on any critic who tries to see the Christianity and radicalism of Blake as a dichotomy instead of a unity." 

Fearful Symmetry - Page 352

"He (Milton) felt...that the family was the main breach in the visionary's defenses through which the powers of compromise came pouring with their threats and wheedling. The visionary's right to cut himslf loose from his family when his genius was in mortal danger was an essential part of Milton's conception of liberty and was perhaps the real reason for writing the divorce tracts...
When Satan is in charge of this world,
'A mans worst enemies are those
Of his own house & family'
Jerusalem, Plate 27, (E 173)

Fearful Symmetry - Page 355

"The Epilogue of the great poem is exquisitely managed. With the four Zoas sounding the trumpets of the Last Judgement in his ears, Blake falls into a swoon, and revives in his garden with his wife bending anxiously over him, and before him a singing lark and a wild thyme, the early-rising bird and the early-flowering plant of returning spring...

..Milton is the prelude to a longer poem on the theme it announces, the building of a continuing city in the England of the Satanic Mills."

Fearful Symmetry - Page 359 - Final quote from Frye

"[By] the time he wrote Jerusalem Blake was so accustomed to thinking in terms of his symbols that the latter had become a kind of ideographic alphabet...The justification for Blake's kind of dehydrated epic is a simple matter of literary honesty. Poems must take their own forms, and these precipitates of meaning are the form which poetry takes in Blake's crystallizing mind. An epic of such form cannot be expanded: it can only be padded, and padding is immoral...Blake's epics are brief enough to be examined plastically, reread so that their structural unity emerges along with their linear meaning, and as part of it. The beauty of Jerusalem is the beauty of intense concentration." 

Milton, Plate 2, (E 98)

"If you account it Wisdom when you are angry to be silent, and
Not to shew it: I do not account that Wisdom but Folly.
Every Mans Wisdom is peculiar to his own Individuality
O Satan my youngest born, art thou not Prince of the Starry Hosts
And of the Wheels of Heaven, to turn the Mills day & night?  
Art thou not Newtons Pantocrator weaving the Woof of Locke
To Mortals thy Mills seem every thing & the Harrow of Shaddai
A scheme of Human conduct invisible & incomprehensible
Get to thy Labours at the Mills & leave me to my wrath,

Satan was going to reply, but Los roll'd his loud thunders.   

Anger me not! thou canst not drive the Harrow in pitys paths.
Thy Work is Eternal Death, with Mills & Ovens & Cauldrons.
Trouble me no more. thou canst not have Eternal Life

So Los spoke! Satan trembling obeyd weeping along the way.
Mark well my words, they are of your eternal Salvation"      

SIXFOLD EMANATION

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 44

Early in Blake's book Milton, the poet Milton explains that the reason for his unhappiness in heaven was the torment of his Sixfold Emanation scattered in the deep.    

Milton, Plate 2, (E 96)

"Say first! what mov'd Milton, who walkd about in Eternity
One hundred years, pondring the intricate mazes of Providence
Unhappy tho in heav'n, he obey'd, he murmur'd not. he was silent
Viewing his Sixfold Emanation scatter'd thro' the deep
In torment! To go into the deep her to redeem & himself perish?"

When Milton descended to Ulro to find that part of himself which is represented 
by Ololon, his journey was noticed by the Divine Family who remain Everywhere 
Forever. Jesus and Ololon united initiating Ololon's lament for Milton who had been 
driven into Ulro.

Milton, Plate 21 (E 115)

"So spake the Family Divine as One Man even Jesus
Uniting in One with Ololon & the appearance of One Man
Jesus the Saviour appeard coming in the Clouds of Ololon!        

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 116)
"Tho driven away with the Seven Starry Ones into the Ulro
Yet the Divine Vision remains Every-where For-ever. Amen.
And Ololon lamented for Milton with a great lamentation.

While Los heard indistinct in fear, what time I bound my sandals
On; to walk forward thro' Eternity, Los descended to me:         
And Los behind me stood; a terrible flaming Sun: just close" 

The Sixfold Female who is an aspect of Ololon perceived that Milton has entered 
Ulro to redeem his Female Shade. She responded by acknowledging that she must 
be continually redeemed by death and misery of those she loves and by annihilation.
Milton's annihilation of his selfhood resulted in her redemption.

Milton, Plate 33 [36], (E 132)

"And the Divine Voice was heard in the Songs of Beulah Saying     

When I first Married you, I gave you all my whole Soul
I thought that you would love my loves & joy in my delights
Seeking for pleasures in my pleasures O Daughter of Babylon
Then thou wast lovely, mild & gentle. now thou art terrible      
In jealousy & unlovely in my sight, because thou hast cruelly
Cut off my loves in fury till I have no love left for thee
Thy love depends on him thou lovest & on his dear loves
Depend thy pleasures which thou hast cut off by jealousy
Therefore I shew my jealousy  & set  before you Death.     
Behold Milton descended to Redeem the Female Shade

From Death Eternal; such your lot, to be continually Redeem'd
By death & misery of those you love & by Annihilation
When the Sixfold Female percieves that Milton annihilates
Himself: that seeing all his loves by her cut off: he leaves     
Her also: intirely abstracting himself from Female loves
She shall relent in fear of death: She shall begin to give
Her maidens to her husband: delighting in his delight"
Ololon acknowledged that She and Milton are contraries. 
Milton, Plate 41 [48], (E 142) 

"These are the Sexual Garments, the Abomination of Desolation
Hiding the Human lineaments as with an Ark & Curtains

Which Jesus rent: & now shall wholly purge away with Fire
Till Generation is swallowd up in Regeneration.

Then trembled the Virgin Ololon & replyd in clouds of despair

Is this our Feminine Portion the Six-fold Miltonic Female      
Terribly this Portion trembles before thee O awful Man
Altho' our Human Power can sustain the severe contentions
Of Friendship, our Sexual cannot: but flies into the Ulro.
Hence arose all our terrors in Eternity! & now remembrance
Returns upon us! are we Contraries O Milton, Thou & I            
O Immortal! how were we led to War the Wars of Death
Is this the Void Outside of Existence, which if enterd into
Plate 42 [49]              
Becomes a Womb? & is this the Death Couch of Albion
Thou goest to Eternal Death & all must go with thee

So saying, the Virgin divided Six-fold & with a shriek
Dolorous that ran thro all Creation a Double Six-fold Wonder!
Away from Ololon she divided & fled into the depths              
Of Miltons Shadow as a Dove upon the stormy Sea.

Then as a Moony Ark Ololon descended to Felphams Vale
In clouds of blood, in streams of gore, with dreadful thunderings
Into the Fires of Intellect that rejoic'd in Felphams Vale
Around the Starry Eight: with one accord the Starry Eight became 
One Man Jesus the Saviour. wonderful! round his limbs
The Clouds of Ololon folded as a Garment dipped in blood
Written within & without in woven letters: & the Writing
Is the Divine Revelation in the Litteral expression:
A Garment of War, I heard it namd the Woof of Six Thousand Years 

In the book Jerusalem Los explained the critical difference between contraieties and 
negations.
Jerusalem, Plate 17, (E 162)

[Los spoke]
"Negations are not Contraries: Contraries mutually Exist:
But Negations Exist Not: Exceptions & Objections & Unbeliefs
Exist not: nor shall they ever be Organized for ever & ever:     
If thou separate from me, thou art a Negation: a meer
Reasoning & Derogation from Me, an Objecting & cruel Spite
And Malice & Envy: but my Emanation, Alas! will become
My Contrary: O thou Negation, I will continually compell
Thee to be invisible to any but whom I please, & when            
And where & how I please, and never! never! shalt thou be Organized
But as a distorted & reversed Reflexion in the Darkness
And in the Non Entity: nor shall that which is above
Ever descend into thee: but thou shalt be a Non Entity for ever"

Jerusalem, Plate 48, (E 196)

"Eternity groan'd. & was troubled, at the image of Eternal Death!

Beneath the bottoms of the Graves, which is Earths central joint,
There is a place where Contrarieties are equally true:
(To protect from the Giant blows in the sports of intellect,     
Thunder in the midst of kindness, & love that kills its beloved:
Because Death is for a period, and they renew tenfold.)
From this sweet Place Maternal Love awoke Jerusalem 
With pangs she forsook Beulah's pleasant lovely shadowy Universe
Where no dispute can come; created for those who Sleep."  
In his book William Blake,  Martin K Nurmi writes:
"A final confrontation between Milton and Satan occurs, in which Milton, now free 
from  any Satanic influence, can vigorously reject Satan even though Satan insists 
he is God  as in effect he has been. Ololon, meeting Milton now, recognizes that 
she, as his  feminine counterpart, is his creative contrary, and her satanic aspect, 
represented as  self-seeking femaleness called 'virginity', departs." (Page 156) 
 

MILTON/OLOLON/LOS

First posted Sept 2019

New York Public Library
Milton
Plate 43

Essays for S. Foster Damon edited by Alvin H. Rosenfeld includes a chapter by Harold Fisch titled Blake's Miltonic Moment. On page 44 Fisch associates the spiritual event in Blake's life in which he grasped the fullness of the living presence of the Imagination within him was mediated to him through Milton. We  read:

"Los...is the spirit of prophecy which spoke through Elijah and Ezekiel; and if with him the biblical dimension is introduced in its fullness in Blake's poetry, it should be added that it is Milton who presides over this transformation. Milton is the inspired biblical poet of an age of faith who had wedded poetry to the inspiration of the Bible. And so Los becomes the spirit of biblical poetry; with his arrival of Eden and Jerusalem become major symbols. The new phase of Blake's poetry beginning with the later additions of The Four Zoas and reaching its fullness in Milton and Jerusalem is thus in a most particular degree biblical, and the agent of the transformation is Milton. We can watch the actual dynamics of the process, Los, busy creating the world and governing it through time to its predestined conclusion, looks around for a means of redeeming the enchained Orc (that is the stifled spirit of revolution). In Plate 20 of Milton that means is discovered:

Milton, Plate 20, (E 115)
'He recollected an old Prophecy in Eden recorded,
And often sung to the loud harp at the immortal feasts
That Milton of the Land of Albion should up ascend
Forwards from Ulro from the Vale of Felpham; and set free
Orc from his Chain of Jealousy'

Here the epiphany is precisely located and its nature defined. Milton is the prophet of England-Albion, but his arrival is prophesied in Eden, that is it is biblically motivated and directed. The transforming moment occurs, we are told, in the Vale of Felpham, that is between 1800 and 1803, and its outcome will be the freeing of Orc from his Chain, that is to say, the giving of new direction to the perverted spirit of Revolution now disclosed to be the ugliness of the Napoleonic era in France and the parallel manifestation in the England of Pitt and George III.

The fundamental value of Milton's spiritual achievement to Blake then was that he enabled him to relate the temporal, political reality to the biblical."    

That reconciliation of his use of imagination in interpreting biblical history with using imagination to understand of the revolutionary events of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries became for Blake the key to entering a new stage of spiritual development. He associated his breakthrough with having assimilated the progress Milton had made in freeing himself from the constraints imposed by his religious and political affiliations. Blake represented his transformation as having occurred through Milton entering his foot. The implication is that Blake's imagination was enlarged not through some grand revelation but through a humble response resulting from living with Milton's physical experiences and mental achievements.

Plate 43 represents the culmination of Blake's incorporating what Milton gave him. Blake is pictured not with his mentor Milton but with Los 'in that fierce glowing fire.'

Letters, To Thomas Butts, Enclosed Poem, (E 721)
"Then Los appeard in all his power
In the Sun he appeard descending before
My face in fierce flames in my double sight
Twas outward a Sun: inward Los in his might" 

Blake's Imagination was not longer clouded by doubt or fear; the prophetic voice which spoke through Ezekiel spoke through him as well.  

Ezekiel 8
[1] And it came to pass in the sixth year, in the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month, as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah sat before me, that the hand of the Lord GOD fell there upon me.
[2] Then I beheld, and lo a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the appearance of his loins even downward, fire; and from his loins even upward, as the appearance of brightness, as the colour of amber.
[3] And he put forth the form of an hand, and took me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted me up between the earth and the heaven, and brought me in the visions of God to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that looketh toward the north; where was the seat of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to jealousy.
[4] And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel was there, according to the vision that I saw in the plain.

Milton, Plate 21, [23] (E 115)
"And down descended into Udan-Adan; it was night:
And Satan sat sleeping upon his Couch in Udan-Adan:
His Spectre slept, his Shadow woke; when one sleeps th'other wakes

But Milton entering my Foot; I saw in the nether
Regions of the Imagination; also all men on Earth,              
And all in Heaven, saw in the nether regions of the Imagination
In Ulro beneath Beulah, the vast breach of Miltons descent.
But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
Reveal the secrets of Eternity: for more extensive              
Than any other earthly things, are Mans earthly lineaments.

And all this Vegetable World appeard on my left Foot,
As a bright sandal formd immortal of precious stones & gold:
I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro' Eternity.
...
Seven mornings Los heard them, as the poor bird within the shell

Hears its impatient parent bird; and Enitharmon heard them:
But saw them not, for the blue Mundane Shell inclosd them in.   

And they lamented that they had in wrath & fury & fire
Driven Milton into the Ulro; for now they knew too late
That it was Milton the Awakener: they had not heard the Bard,
Whose song calld Milton to the attempt; and Los heard these laments.
He heard them call in prayer all the Divine Family;             
And he beheld the Cloud of Milton stretching over Europe.

But all the Family Divine collected as Four Suns
In the Four Points of heaven East, West & North & South
Enlarging and enlarging till their Disks approachd each other;
And when they touch'd closed together Southward in One Sun      
Over Ololon: and as One Man, who weeps over his brother,
In a dark tomb, so all the Family Divine. wept over Ololon.

Saying, Milton goes to Eternal Death! so saying, they groan'd in spirit
And were troubled! and again the Divine Family groaned in spirit!"

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 116)
"Tho driven away with the Seven Starry Ones into the Ulro
Yet the Divine Vision remains Every-where For-ever. Amen.
And Ololon lamented for Milton with a great lamentation.

While Los heard indistinct in fear, what time I bound my sandals
On; to walk forward thro' Eternity, Los descended to me:        
And Los behind me stood; a terrible flaming Sun: just close
Behind my back; I turned round in terror, and behold.
Los stood in that fierce glowing fire; & he also  stoop'd down
And bound my sandals on in Udan-Adan; trembling I stood
Exceedingly with fear & terror, standing in the Vale            
Of Lambeth: but he kissed me and wishd me health.
And I became One  Man  with  him  arising in my strength:
Twas too late now to recede. Los had enterd into my soul:

His terrors now posses'd me whole! I arose in fury & strength." 

OLOLON

First posted July 2010 

In Plate 31 of Milton, a contrast is seen between the way things appear in the fallen world and in the unfallen world. The first paragraph quoted below concerns Satan and Rahab, Generation, Kingdoms of the Earth, War and Strife. All of the Living Creatures of the Four Elements are wailing in bitter lament. They weep because "they see the Lord coming in the Clouds of Ololon with Power & Great Glory!"

Beulah is said to weep also, but the lamentation of Beulah is seen as a vision the greatest beauty, joy and hope. The eyes of vision see the loveliest things of the natural world as expressing the culmination which will result from Ololon's sacrificial descent following Milton in his return to the world of matter.

The world of suffering, war, and strife should welcome the prospect of the Lord's arrival, for it will initiate the world of love, and peace and brotherhood. But it is not so. First an open mind, a receptive heart, a gentle hand, and an intuitive soul must grow in man. The vision cannot appear until we have prepared ourselves for it.

Milton, Plate 31 [34], (E 130)
"And all the Living Creatures of the Four Elements, wail'd
With bitter wailing: these in the aggregate are named Satan
And Rahab: they know not of Regeneration, but only of Generation
The Fairies, Nymphs, Gnomes & Genii of the Four Elements
Unforgiving & unalterable: these cannot be Regenerated
But must be Created, for they know only of Generation
These are the Gods of the Kingdoms of the Earth: in contrarious
And cruel opposition: Element against Element, opposed in War
Not Mental, as the Wars of Eternity, but a Corporeal Strife
In Los's Halls continual labouring in the Furnaces of Golgonooza
Orc howls on the Atlantic: Enitharmon trembles: All Beulah weeps

Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring;
The Lark sitting upon his earthy bed: just as the morn
Appears; listens silent; then springing from the waving
Corn-field! loud
He leads the Choir of Day! trill, trill, trill, trill,
Mounting upon the wings of light into the Great Expanse:
Reecchoing against the lovely blue & shining heavenly Shell:
His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather
On throat & breast & wings vibrates with the effluence Divine
All Nature listens silent to him & the awful Sun
Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird

With eyes of soft humility, & wonder love & awe.
Then loud from their green covert all the Birds begin their Song
The Thrush, the Linnet & the Goldfinch, Robin & the Wren
Awake the Sun from his sweet reverie upon the Mountain:
The Nightingale again assays his song, & thro the day,
And thro the night warbles luxuriant; every Bird of Song
Attending his loud harmony with admiration & love.
This is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon!

Thou percievest the Flowers put forth their precious Odours!
And none can tell how from so small a center comes such sweets
Forgetting that within that Center Eternity expands
Its ever during doors, that Og & Anak fiercely guard[.]
First eer the morning breaks joy opens in the flowery bosoms
Joy even to tears, which the Sun rising dries; first the Wild Thyme
And Meadow-sweet downy & soft waving among the reeds.
Light springing on the air lead the sweet Dance: they wake
The Honeysuckle sleeping on the Oak: the flaunting beauty
Revels along upon the wind; the White-thorn lovely May
Opens her many lovely eyes: listening the Rose still sleeps
None dare to wake her. soon she bursts her crimson curtaind bed
And comes forth in the majesty of beauty; every Flower:
The Pink, the Jessamine, the Wall-flower, the Carnation
The Jonquil, the mild Lilly opes her heavens! every Tree,
And Flower & Herb soon fill the air with an innumerable Dance
Yet all in order sweet & lovely, Men are sick with Love!
Such is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon"

Advice from the apostle Paul:
Philippians
4:6-7 - Don't worry over anything whatever; tell God every detail of your needs in earnest and thankful prayer, and the peace of God which transcends human understanding, will keep constant guard over your hearts and minds as they rest in Christ Jesus.
4:8-9 - Here is a last piece of advice. If you believe in goodness and if you value the approval of God, fix your minds on the things which are holy and right and pure and beautiful and good. Model your conduct on what you have learned from me, on what I have told you and shown you, and you will find the God of peace will be with you.

J. B. Phillips translation of the New Testament

MILTON & SELFHOOD

Library of Congress

Milton

Copy D, Plate 45

The process of annihilating the Selfhood runs throughout Blake's Milton. The Selfhood may be thought of as wrong-thinking or misconception. Each individual is seceptable to misconstruing his experience, of failing to understand others, of rejecting God, of failing to recognize minute particulars.  Blake knew he had to be aware of his own Selfhood in order to know what could be annihilated in Milton: he turned inward to deal with his own Selfhood. 

In the early part of Jerusalem Blake explicitly called upon the Saviour to annihiate his Selfhood in order that his hand may be guided to open the eyes of man to Eternity.

Jerusalem, Plate 5, (E 147) 
"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."
Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 108) 
"I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate 
And I be siez'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood
...
What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation?
With the daughters of memory, & not with the daughters of ispiration
I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One! 
He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death."

Milton, Plate 32 [35], (E 135)

"Distinguish therefore States from Individuals in those States.
States Change: but Individual Identities never change nor cease:
You cannot go to Eternal Death in that which can never Die.
Satan & Adam are States Created into Twenty-seven Churches       
And thou O Milton art a State about to be Created
Called Eternal Annihilation that none but the Living shall
Dare to enter: & they shall enter triumphant over Death
And Hell & the Grave! States that are not, but ah! Seem to be.
Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore       
What is Eternal & what Changeable? & what Annihilable!

The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself
Affection or Love becomes a State, when divided from Imagination
The Memory is a State always, & the Reason is a State
Created to be Annihilated & a new Ratio Created                  
Whatever can be Created can be Annihilated Forms cannot"
Milton, Plate 32 [35], (E 131)                     

"And Milton oft sat up on the Couch of Death & oft conversed
In vision & dream beatific with the Seven Angels of the Presence
...
And thou O Milton art a State about to be Created
Called Eternal Annihilation that none but the Living shall
Dare to enter: & they shall enter triumphant over Death
And Hell & the Grave! States that are not, but ah! Seem to be.

Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore       
What is Eternal & what Changeable? & what Annihilable!

The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself"
Milton, Plate 33 [36], (E 132)

"Behold Milton descended to Redeem the Female Shade
From Death Eternal; such your lot, to be continually Redeem'd
By death & misery of those you love & by Annihilation
When the Sixfold Female percieves that Milton annihilates
Himself: that seeing all his loves by her cut off: he leaves     
Her also: intirely abstracting himself from Female loves
She shall relent in fear of death: She shall begin to give
Her maidens to her husband: delighting in his delight
And then & then alone begins the happy Female joy
As it is done in Beulah, & thou O Virgin Babylon Mother of Whoredoms
Shalt bring Jerusalem in thine arms in the night watches; and
No longer turning her a wandering Harlot in the streets
Shalt give her into the arms of God your Lord & Husband.

Such are the Songs of Beulah in the Lamentations of Ololon"

Milton, Plate 38 [43], (E 139)

"In the Eastern porch of Satans Universe Milton stood & said

Satan! my Spectre! I know my power thee to annihilate
And be a greater in thy place, & be thy Tabernacle               
A covering for thee to do thy will, till one greater comes
And smites me as I smote thee & becomes my covering.
Such are the Laws of thy false Heavns! but Laws of Eternity
Are not such: know thou: I come to Self Annihilation
Such are the Laws of Eternity that each shall mutually     
Annihilate himself for others good, as I for thee[.]
Thy purpose & the purpose of thy Priests & of thy Churches
Is to impress on men the fear of death; to teach
Trembling & fear, terror, constriction; abject selfishness
Mine is to teach Men to despise death & to go on            
In fearless majesty annihilating Self, laughing to scorn
Thy Laws & terrors, shaking down thy Synagogues as webs
I come to discover before Heavn & Hell the Self righteousness
In all its Hypocritic turpitude, opening to every eye
These wonders of Satans holiness shewing to the Earth     
The Idol Virtues of the Natural Heart, & Satans Seat
Explore in all its Selfish Natural Virtue & put off
In Self annihilation all that is not of God alone:
To put off Self & all I have ever & ever Amen

Satan heard! Coming in a cloud, with trumpets & flaming fire     

Saying I am God the judge of all, the living & the dead
Fall therefore down & worship me. submit thy supreme
Dictate, to my eternal Will & to my dictate bow

I hold the Balances of Right & Just & mine the Sword
Seven Angels bear my Name & in those Seven I appear             
But I alone am God & I alone in Heavn & Earth
Of all that live dare utter this, others tremble & bow"

Milton, Plate 40 [46], (E 141)

"Before Ololon Milton stood & percievd the Eternal Form
Of that mild Vision; wondrous were their acts by me unknown
Except remotely; and I heard Ololon say to Milton

I see thee strive upon the Brooks of Arnon. there a dread
And awful Man I see, oercoverd with the mantle of years.   
I behold Los & Urizen. I behold Orc & Tharmas;
The Four Zoa's of Albion & thy Spirit with them striving
In Self annihilation giving thy life to thy enemies
Are those who contemn Religion & seek to annihilate it
Become in their Feminine portions the causes & promoters       
Of these Religions, how is this thing? this Newtonian Phantasm
This Voltaire & Rousseau: this Hume & Gibbon & Bolingbroke
This Natural Religion! this impossible absurdity
Is Ololon the cause of this? O where shall I hide my face
These tears fall for the little-ones: the Children of Jerusalem  
Lest they be annihilated in thy annihilation.

Milton, Plate 40 [46], (E 142)

"But turning toward Ololon in terrible majesty Milton
Replied. Obey thou the Words of the Inspired Man
All that can be annihilated must be annihilated 

That the Children of Jerusalem may be saved from slavery
There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary
The Negation must be destroyd to redeem the Contraries
The Negation is the Spectre; the Reasoning Power in Man
This is a false Body: an Incrustation over my Immortal           
Spirit; a Selfhood, which must be put off & annihilated alway
To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination.

Milton, Plate 41 [48], (E 142)
"To bathe in the Waters of Life; to wash off the Not Human
I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration
To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour
To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration
To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albions covering          
To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination
To cast aside from Poetry, all that is not Inspiration"                          

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 15

To Annihilate the Selfhood of Deceit & False

Forgiveness

MILTON & URIZEN

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 29

One of the difficulties is reading Blake's Milton is processing multiple events simultaneously. Blake recognized that he couldn't communicate all that he had to say by writing in a linear fashion. Each character experienced situations differently and reacted according to his individual nature. Instead of following his characters chronologically he wrote as if events experienced by one character affected others as well.

As Milton traveled he encountered Urizen who attemped to alters his brain with the icy water of rigid rules of conventional thought. Milton responded by exposing Urizen to living in a human body. The result of these efforts seems to be have been creating a consciousness of the disorded functioning of the fourfold psyche.  Milton continued his journey toward the world of Los and Enithanmon who sought to build Golgonooza, the world of Art and Industry. Urizen continued to atttack Milton's efforts.

When Milton reaches his destination Blake perceived Milton's entry into the material world coming directly to the tarsus of his own left foot. Blake accepted the falling star as the arrival of Milton and with the assistence of Los bound to his foot all the vegetable world to "walk forward thro' Eternity." Blake - the  Human Poet, Milton - the Immotal Soul, and Los - the Creative Imagination were joined together to resolve all conflicts and divisions.

 

Milton, Plate 18 [20],  (E 112)

"Urizen emerged from his Rocky Form & from his Snows

Plate 19 [21]

And he also darkend his brows: freezing dark rocks between
The footsteps. and infixing deep the feet in marble beds:
That Milton labourd with his journey, & his feet bled sore
Upon the clay now chang'd to marble; also Urizen rose,
And met him on the shores of Arnon; & by the streams of the brooks    

Silent they met, and silent strove among the streams, of Arnon
Even to Mahanaim, when with cold hand Urizen stoop'd down
And took up water from the river Jordan: pouring on
To Miltons brain the icy fluid from his broad cold palm.
But Milton took of the red clay of Succoth, moulding it with care
Between his palms: and filling up the furrows of many years
Beginning at the feet of Urizen, and on the bones
Creating new flesh on the Demon cold, and building him,
As with new clay a Human form in the Valley of Beth Peor.

Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic    
One to the North, named Urthona: One to the South, named Urizen:
One to the East, named Luvah: One to the West, named Tharmas
They are the Four Zoa's that stood around the Throne Divine!
But when Luvah assum'd the World of Urizen to the South:
And Albion was slain upon his  mountains, & in his tent;     
All fell towards the Center in dire ruin, sinking down.
And in the South remains a burning fire; in the East a void.

In the West, a world of raging waters; in the North a solid,
Unfathomable! without end. But in the midst of these,
Is built eternally the Universe of Los and Enitharmon:       
Towards which Milton went, but Urizen oppos'd his path.

The Man and Demon strove many periods." 

Milton, Plate 20 [22], (E 113)

"And let us bind thee in the bands of War & be thou King          
Of Canaan and reign in Hazor where the Twelve Tribes meet.

So spoke they as in one voice! Silent Milton stood before
The darkend Urizen; as the sculptor silent stands before
His forming image; he walks round it patient labouring.
Thus Milton stood forming bright Urizen, while his Mortal part   
Sat frozen in the rock of Horeb: and his Redeemed portion,
Thus form'd the Clay of Urizen; but within that portion
His real Human walkd above in power and majesty
Tho darkend; and the Seven Angels of the Presence attended him.

O how can I with my gross tongue that cleaveth to the dust,      
Tell of the Four-fold Man, in starry numbers fitly orderd
Or how can I with my cold hand of clay! But thou O Lord
Do with me as thou wilt! for I am nothing, and vanity.
If thou chuse to elect a worm, it shall remove the mountains.
For that portion namd the Elect: the Spectrous body of Milton:   
Redounding from my left foot into Los's Mundane space,
Brooded over his Body in Horeb against the Resurrection
Preparing it for the Great Consummation; red the Cherub on Sinai
Glow'd; but in terrors folded round his clouds of blood.

Now Albions sleeping Humanity began to turn upon his Couch;      
Feeling the electric flame of Miltons awful precipitate descent."

Milton, Plate 15 [17], (E 110)

"Milton bent down
To the bosom of death, what was underneath soon seemd above.
A cloudy heaven mingled with stormy seas in loudest ruin;
But as a wintry globe descends precipitant thro' Beulah bursting,
With thunders loud and terrible: so Miltons shadow fell        
Precipitant loud thundring into the Sea of Time & Space.

Then first I saw him in the Zenith as a falling star,
Descending perpendicular, swift as the swallow or swift;
And on my left foot falling on the tarsus, enterd there;
But from my left foot a black cloud redounding spread over Europe.          

Then Milton knew that the Three Heavens of Beulah were beheld
By him on earth in his bright pilgrimage of sixty years"  

Fearful Symmetry, by Northrop Frye, Page 337:

"Milton's journey to the fallen world, or part of it, repeats the journey of Moses through the wilderness to the boundaries of the Promised Land, and like Moses, he fails to cross the Jordan and enter Cannan though all the forces of evil coax him to do so. Moses, Palamabron, Milton and Blake (and as far as possible Hayley) all belong to the "Redeemed" class which has to be separared from the Satanic element within it. As such, Milton is what we may loosely be called a Puritan: he is a mixture of Christian vision with the sterility of moral virtue and rationalism...Only Los sees the signifiance of the return. Los sees that Milton must be on his way to reinforce, not the Deists, but the visionaries who have inherited the other half of Puritanism, its belief in the civilizing Word of God; that Deism is a consolidation of error,  and that Milton's return is consequently a sign "the time is at hand," as the New testament says. So Los allows Milton to pass into the world, Milton enters Blake's "left foot," Blake stoops down and binds the material world as a sandal on that foot, and unites with Los, the spiritual form of time. This union completes the recreation of Milton's vision." 

Mark 1

[13] And he was there in the wilderness forty days, tempted of Satan; and was with the wild beasts; and the angels ministered unto him.
[14] Now after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God,
[15] And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.

MILTON & SHADOW

New York Public Library

Milton 

Plate 16

In Blake's Milton the decisive moment when Milton felt compelled to leave Heaven and go to Eternal Death initiated his journey to "Albions land: Which is this earth of vegetation on which now I (Blake) write."

Blake assumed the role of recording the transformation of Milton's "immortal self'" as he experienced events in the world of time and space. His journey was both outward though the natural world and inward through his own psyche. 

Milton's psyche was divided as he determined to redeem his "Sixfold Emanation scatter'd thro' the deep In torment!" He becomes a quaternary consisting of his Humanity, his Shadow, his Emanation and his Spectre. Each aspect of his eternal self had work to do in the journey to wholeness.

Blake first dealt with the Shadow which is delusion without substance. It is not error itself but the image of error - without form it cannot be destroyed. Urizen must receive a body before he can be confronted by Milton. Blake and Milton both knew that the reasoning mind tended to dominate the psyche, therefore Blake first tackeled Urizen in order to begin the changes needed in Milton.

 

Milton's religion was tainted by Puritanism, a strict religion based on rules and punishment. Paradise Lost emphasized the failures of Satan, Eve and Adam to abide by God's dictates. They suffered alienation and penalties for their disobedience.

Blake's Milton postulates that through hearing the Bard's Song in heaven, Milton became aware that his poetic works, his instructional pamplets, his participation in revolution, and his relation with women were based on errors which required correction. His consciousnes of himself was distorted by his inability to discern truth.

Blake attempted to examine Milton's life and work with the aim of separating truth from error in Milton's life and work, for the purpose of building on Milton's experience to enhance his own prophetic calling. 

---

From The Iluminated Blake, by David v Erdman, (Page 236):

"Los shoots his limbs forth 'like the limbs of trees" - and we see that he is almost headless. .. Urizen, nothing but head, peers from the ground and beholds "the immortal Man."

...

Historically the separation of England's head and body is what happened in the "fury premature" of 1649; it was justified by the republican Milton, but the ensuing Civil War did not achieve a resurrected England. In the Bard's Song King Charles "calls upon Milton for atonement."'

Milton, Plate 14,[15], (E 108) 

"Then on the verge of Beulah he beheld his own Shadow;
A mournful form double; hermaphroditic: male & female
In one wonderful body. and he enterd into it
In direful pain for the dread shadow, twenty-seven-fold

Reachd to the depths of direst Hell, & thence to Albions land:  
Which is this earth of vegetation on which now I write,

The Seven Angels of the Presence wept over Miltons Shadow!"

Milton, Plate 15 [17], (E 109)
"As when a man dreams, he reflects not that his body sleeps,
Else he would wake; so seem'd he entering his Shadow: but
With him the Spirits of the Seven Angels of the Presence
Entering; they gave him still perceptions of his Sleeping Body;
Which now arose and walk'd with them in Eden, as an Eighth   
Image Divine tho' darken'd; and tho walking as one walks
In sleep; and the Seven comforted and supported him."

Milton, Plate 17,[19], (E 110)

"In those three females whom his Wives, & those three whom his Daughters
Had represented and containd, that they might be resum'd
By giving up of Selfhood: & they distant view'd his journey
In their eternal spheres, now Human, tho' their Bodies remain clos'd
In the dark Ulro till the Judgment: also Milton knew: they and   
Himself was Human, tho' now wandering thro Death's Vale
In conflict with those Female forms, which in blood & jealousy
Surrounded him, dividing & uniting without end or number.

He saw the Cruelties of Ulro, and he wrote them down
In iron tablets: and his Wives & Daughters names were these      
Rahab and Tirzah, & Milcah & Malah & Noah & Hoglah,
They sat rangd round him as the rocks of Horeb round the land
Of Canaan: and they wrote in thunder smoke and fire
His dictate; and his body was the Rock Sinai; that body,
Which was on earth born to corruption: & the six Females         
Are Hor & Peor & Bashan & Abarim & Lebanon & Hermon

Seven rocky masses terrible in the Desarts of Midian. 

But Miltons Human Shadow continu'd journeying above

The rocky masses of The Mundane Shell; in the Lands
Of Edom & Aram & Moab & Midian & Amalek.                         

The Mundane Shell, is a vast Concave Earth: an immense
Hardend shadow of all things upon our Vegetated Earth
Enlarg'd into dimension & deform'd into indefinite space,
In Twenty-seven Heavens and all their Hells; with Chaos
And Ancient Night; & Purgatory. It is a cavernous Earth          

Of labyrinthine intricacy, twenty-seven folds of opakeness
And finishes where the lark mounts; here Milton journeyed
In that Region calld Midian among the Rocks of Horeb
For travellers from Eternity. pass outward to Satans seat,
But travellers to Eternity. pass inward to Golgonooza.           

Los the Vehicular terror beheld him, & divine Enitharmon
Call'd all her daughters, Saying. Surely to unloose my bond
Is this Man come! Satan shall be unloosd upon Albion
Los heard in terror Enitharmons words: in fibrous strength
His limbs shot forth like roots of trees against the forward path
Of Miltons journey. Urizen beheld the immortal Man,"

MILTON'S TRACK

Posted Oct 2010

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 36

On Plate 36 of Milton, Blake presents a diagram of Milton's descent into the world from Eternity. So we are able to see the globes of the four universes as they are positioned and overlap, the location of the earth and of Los' mundane egg. We see Adam at the center of the earth and Satan within the sphere of Urizen. We see the fiery chaos within the egg and flames outside of the Four Universes. Milton's track leads him past Satan to Adam.

In The Illuminated Blake (Page 252), Erdman describes the picture:
"Milton's track enters the universes at the intersection of the
eastern globe of Luvah and the southern globe of Urizen and carries
him into the Egg, close to the center of Satan's realm of fire and into
the earth circle - the drawing of this circle is obscured by paint in D
- that fits the smaller end of the egg, with its center marked "Adam." Note that the earth, often overlooked in discussions of this diagram, is wholly within the realm of Urthona (Los), wholly outside of the realm of Urizen, and only fractionally within those of Tharmas and Luvah. (But though Urthona is earth-owner, his realm is not confined to earth. In [copy] D where the spheres are differentiated, his contains most of the blue sky.)"

Here are some of the word pictures from Blake describing the world and Milton's descent into it:

Milton, Plate 19 [21], (E 112)
"All fell towards the Center in dire ruin, sinking down.
And in the South remains a burning fire; in the East a void.
In the West, a world of raging waters; in the North a solid,
Unfathomable! without end. But in the midst of these,
Is built eternally the Universe of Los and Enitharmon:
Towards which Milton went, but Urizen oppos'd his path."

Milton, Plate 34 [38], (E134)
"Around this Polypus Los continual builds the Mundane Shell
Four Universes round the Universe of Los remain Chaotic
Four intersecting Globes, & the Egg form'd World of Los
In midst; stretching from Zenith to Nadir, in midst of Chaos.
One of these Ruind Universes is to the North named Urthona
One to the South this was the glorious World of Urizen
One to the East, of Luvah: One to the West; of Tharmas.
But when Luvah assumed the World of Urizen in the South
All fell towards the Center sinking downward in dire Ruin

Here in these Chaoses the Sons of Ololon took their abode
In Chasms of the Mundane Shell which open on all sides round
Southward & by the East within the Breach of Miltons descent
To watch the time, pitying & gentle to awaken Urizen
They stood in a dark land of death of fiery corroding waters
Where lie in evil death the Four Immortals pale and cold
And the Eternal Man even Albion upon the Rock of Ages[.]
Seeing Miltons Shadow, some Daughters of Beulah trembling
Returnd, but Ololon remaind before the Gates of the Dead"

Milton, Plate 21 [23], (E 116)
"But saw them not, for the blue Mundane Shell inclosd them in.
And they lamented that they had in wrath & fury & fire
Driven Milton into the Ulro; for now they knew too late
That it was Milton the Awakener: they had not heard the Bard,
Whose song calld Milton to the attempt; and Los heard these
laments.
He heard them call in prayer all the Divine Family;
And he beheld the Cloud of Milton stretching over Europe.

But all the Family Divine collected as Four Suns
In the Four Points of heaven East, West & North & South
Enlarging and enlarging till their Disks approachd each other;
And when they touch'd closed together Southward in One Sun
Over Ololon: and as One Man, who weeps over his brother,
In a dark tomb, so all the Family Divine. wept over Ololon.

Saying, Milton goes to Eternal Death! so saying, they groan'd in spirit
And were troubled! and again the Divine Family groaned in spirit!

And Ololon said, Let us descend also, and let us give
Ourselves to death in Ulro among the Transgressors."

Milton, Plate 21 [23], (E 115)
"also all men on Earth,
And all in Heaven, saw in the nether regions of the Imagination
In Ulro beneath Beulah, the vast breach of Miltons descent."

If you are curious about the text on the plate with the diagram, you will find it here:

Milton, Plate 33 [36], (E 132)
"And the Divine Voice was heard in the Songs of Beulah Saying     

When I first Married you, I gave you all my whole Soul
I thought that you would love my loves & joy in my delights
Seeking for pleasures in my pleasures O Daughter of Babylon
Then thou wast lovely, mild & gentle. now thou art terrible      
In jealousy & unlovely in my sight, because thou hast cruelly
Cut off my loves in fury till I have no love left for thee
Thy love depends on him thou lovest & on his dear loves
Depend thy pleasures which thou hast cut off by jealousy
Therefore I shew my jealousy  & set  before you Death.     
Behold Milton descended to Redeem the Female Shade

From Death Eternal; such your lot, to be continually Redeem'd
By death & misery of those you love & by Annihilation
When the Sixfold Female percieves that Milton annihilates
Himself: that seeing all his loves by her cut off: he leaves     
Her also: intirely abstracting himself from Female loves
She shall relent in fear of death: She shall begin to give
Her maidens to her husband: delighting in his delight

And then & then alone begins the happy Female joy
As it is done in Beulah, & thou O Virgin Babylon Mother of Whoredoms
Shalt bring Jerusalem in thine arms in the night watches; and
No longer turning her a wandering Harlot in the streets
Shalt give her into the arms of God your Lord & Husband.

Such are the Songs of Beulah in the Lamentations of Ololon"

Eternal Death

Previously posted April 2021

Next to the Bible the poet John Milton was Blake's most formative spiritual influence. 'Paradise Lost' was the great religious epic in the English language, and Blake's calling as an epic poet is closely related to his affinity with Milton. As early as 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell' he commented on Milton's vision. Quotations from 'Paradise Lost' and allusions to it fill the pages of The Four Zoas. The evolving myth of Urizen, Orc, and Los may be understood at one level as a meditation upon Milton's leading characters--the Almighty, Satan, and Messiah.

       In the first six nights of the Four Zoas Blake had exhausted his vision and didn't know at first how to proceed. Then he was surprised by joy and enabled to construct a Christian conclusion to the myth. But he didn't bother to engrave the Four Zoas because his interests had changed. In the next long poem, Milton, he worked through and meditated upon the Moment of Grace and savored the new spiritual world which he had inherited. Milton is a record of Blake's Christian honeymoon.

       In the first part of Milton', called the 'Bard's Song', Blake deals with the dramatic years at Felpham. Here we find Blake's definitive and full bodied portrait of Satan. Blake had come full circle from his ironic identification with the Devil in MHH. Now he identified Hayley with Satan, which seems rather uncharitable. We need to bear in mind that there were two Hayleys in Blake's mind. The first Hayley was a corporeal friend who had lured him to Felpham and tried to 'do him in' spiritually: "Corporeal friends are spiritual enemies". This Hayley served as tempter in what we may call Blake's last temptation. The other Hayley was a fellow sufferer with Blake, an artist whom Blake continued to encourage and nurture, as the letters attest.

       In the remainder of Milton Blake's hero, John Milton, after a hundred years in Eternity, reenacts the kenosis (self emptying) of Christ and descends to redeem his successor - Blake - and mankind. This of course is a climactic moment in the poem. An unheard of thing! One leaves Heaven to return to 'this vale of tears'. Well, not quite unprecedented; Milton simply followed the path of Jesus. In that way Blake gave Milton (the man) the highest approval possible.

The Bard's Song led to a loud murmuring in the Heavens of Albion, and "the loud voic'd Bard terrify'd took refuge in Miltons bosom; then Milton "took off the robe of the promise, & ungirded himself from the oath of God."

                                                    New York Public Library

                                                               Milton 

                                                             Plate 13

Milton, Plate 14, (E 108)

"And Milton said, I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still
Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam; in pomp
Of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come; to deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility: O when Lord Jesus wilt thou come?
Tarry no longer; for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave.
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks!
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate."
And I be siez'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood
The Lamb of God is seen thro' mists & shadows, hov'ring
Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim
A disk of blood, distant; & heav'ns & earth's roll dark between
What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation?
With the daughters of memory, & not with the daughters of inspiration
I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One!
He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death."

Blake's myth was to a large degree patterned after Paradise Lost. His difference with Milton resembled one of those "severe contentions of Friendship." Milton had spoken; Blake replied in MHH; now he replies again! That's the shape of the poem as far as Blake himself was concerned.

Thereafter Milton allied himself with Los, giving, with Blake a triumvirate against which none could stand. Milton is an essay describing the triumph of Jesus over all the forces of the world.

Between the end of Songs of Innocence and the Moment of Grace, Blake had seen and described nature as corrupt, as groaning in travail. Now in Milton he sees creation redeemed just as Paul had said that it would be:

Romans 8
[21] Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.
[22] For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.
[23] And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

The poem is full of a beauty and joy which had been largely absent from Blake's pen since 'Songs of Innocence'. It contains some of his finest nature poetry. 

 Milton, Plate 31 [34], (E 139) 
  "Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring.
  The Lark sitting upon his earthy bed, just as the morn
  Appears, listens silent; then springing from the waving Cornfield, loud
  He leads the Choir of Day: trill, trill, trill, trill,
  Mounting upon the wings of light into the Great Expanse,
  Reecchoing against the lovely blue & shining heavenly Shell,
  His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather
  On throat & breast & wings vibrates with the effluence Divine.
  All Nature listens silent to him, & the awful Sun
  Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird
  With eyes of soft humility & wonder, love & awe.
  Then loud from their green covert all the Birds begin their Song:
  The Thrush, the Linnet & the Goldfinch, Robin & the Wren
  Awake the Sun from his sweet reverie upon the Mountain.
  The Nightingale again assays his song, & thro' the day
  And thro' the night warbles luxuriant, every Bird of Song
  Attending his loud harmony with admiration & love." 

  Blake's Milton is difficult to immediately grasp, but yields immense returns to anyone determined enough to come to an understanding of it.

From Chapter 1 of Larry's book Ram Horn'd With Gold.

Blake's Milton

 First posted June 2017

In 2011 Larry taught a short enrichment course in Blake at the Senior Learning Institute of the College of Central Florida. He concluded the course with this precis of Blake's Milton.

Wikimedia Commons
British Museum
Milton
Copy A, Plate 1

 

The Mature Works

Milton, Blake's first overtly Christian work, is his testimony of faith. It's also his way of rehabilitating his childhood hero, John Milton. Finally it's a difficult poem; it contains unfathomable depths. This review can do no more than introduce the reader to the poem and call attention to some of the new elements in the mature development of Blake's myth.

Milton is a very autobiographical work. Blake used many of the characters that his readers might be familiar with from earlier works, but in this very personal poem they often assume other (although related) identities. Particularly we understand that Blake was Los, and Hayley was Satan (he had suborned Blake from his true work to hack work: from Eternity to Ulro.)

John Milton, the author of Paradise Lost, had been a major force in Blake's life; he had been many things to Blake since his childhood. In Blake's day Milton enjoyed enormous spiritual stature among the English people. Even today the general understanding of Heaven, Hell, God and Satan (among people interested in those concepts) tends to be more often Miltonic than Biblical. All subsequent English poets lived and wrote in Milton's shadow, and the greatest ones aspired to achieve an epic comparable to Paradise Lost. In the first half of his life Blake was very much under the shadow of Milton who was respected as the great epic poet of the English people.

Although Blake had much in common with the puritan poet, he disagreed with Milton about a number of things. For example, as a young man he despised the God of Paradise Lost and admired Milton's Devil. Blake made that clear in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and tried to put Milton in his place by saying that he was of the Devil's party without knowing it. Ten years later the experience of grace empowered Blake to deal with Milton in a better way. He called him back to earth to straighten out his theology, and he identified with him and his spiritual power in a radical way. He recreated Milton as Milton had recreated the Bible.

As Blake's poem begins, Milton has been in Heaven for a hundred years, obedient although not very happy there. The 'Bard's Song' (which takes up the first third of the poem) recreates the war in Heaven of Paradise Lost. The other Eternals find the Bard's song appalling, but Milton embraces the Bard and his song. In a thrilling imaginative triumph he announces his intention of leaving Heaven to complete the work on earth that he had left undone. Although Blake doesn't say this, any Christian should recognize that Milton thus follows in the footsteps of Christ as described in the famous Kenosis passage in Philippians 2: 

Philippians 2
[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

Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 108)
"He took off the robe of the promise and ungirded himself from the oath of God.
And Milton said: "I go to Eternal Death The Nations still
Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam [king of Troy], in pomp of Warlike Selfhood."

Milton: plate 14 reads
"----contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come to deliver the sleeping body From corruptibility?
O when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come?
Tarry no longer, for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave:
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks:
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death, Lest the Last Judgment come and find me unannihilate
And I be seized and given into the hands of my own Selfhood"

Anyone familiar with the gospel story will see biblical allusions and references here.

In Blake's cottage he sees Milton's shadow, a horrible vision:

Milton Plate 37:
"Miltons Shadow heard & condensing all his Fibres
Into a strength impregnable of majesty & beauty infinite
I saw he was the Covering Cherub & within him Satan
And Rahab, ... in the Selfhood deadly
And he appeard the Wicker Man of Scandinavia in whom
Jerusalems children consume in flames among the Stars
Descending down into my Garden, a Human Wonder of God
Reaching from heaven to earth a Cloud & Human Form
I beheld Milton with astonishment & in him beheld
The Monstrous Churches of Beulah, the Gods of Ulro dark
Twelve monstrous dishumanizd terrors Synagogues of Satan.
...
All these are seen in Miltons Shadow who is the Covering Cherub
The Spectre of Albion"

An attempt to translate this visionary poetry into "common sense" might suggest that in Milton's shadow Blake suddenly became immediately aware of all the fallen nature of the world (and his own mind) that had consumed most of his poetry to that point. Now he became aware of all these things, but in the light of a person now full of light.

Back on earth Milton encounters many of the characters whom we met in The Four Zoas. Tirzah and Rahab tempt him; his contest with Urizen has special interest as a record of the resolution of Blake's life long struggle with the things that Urizen represented to him:

"Silent they met and silent strove among the streams of Arnon 
Even to Mahanaim, when with cold hand Urizen stoop'd down
And took up water from the river Jordan, pouring on
To Milton's brain the icy fluid from his broad cold palm.
But Milton took of the red clay of Succoth, moulding it with care
Between his palms and filling up the furrows of many years,
Beginning at the feet of Urizen, and on the bones
Creating new flesh on the Demon cold and building him
As with new clay, a Human form in the Valley of Beth Peor." 

[Milton, Plate 19 [21], (E 112)]

A Bible dictionary, or even better, Damon's Blake Dictionary, will help to clarify the associations with biblical locations. Here we see the old Urizen still trying to freeze the poet's brain, but instead he finds himself being humanized by an emissary from Heaven. Blake is vividly depicting the battle between the forces of positivism and spirit.

Milton meets other obstacles and temptations on his journey, a journey that begins to bear increasing resemblance to that of Bunyan's Pilgrim or even of Jesus himself. He unites with Los and with Blake. He finally meets Satan, confronts him and overcomes him as Jesus had done. These dramatic events give Blake ample opportunity to describe in detail the eternal and satanic dimensions of life, the conflict between the two and the inevitable victory of the eternal. For the first and perhaps the only time Blake is writing a traditional morality story.

This material is autobiographical and written in the honeymoon phase of his new spiritual life. Blake's full meanings yield only to intensive study, but from the beginning there are thrilling lines to delight and inspire the reader. In his esoteric language Blake describes for us what has happened to him, and nothing could be more engrossing for the reader interested in the life of the spirit and in Blake. The relationship of this story to the myth described above should be obvious. But Milton is more real than the previous material because Blake has lived it and writes (and sketches) with spiritual senses enlarged and tuned by his recent experience of grace.

 
A digression occurs in the second half of Book One of Milton, a detailed description of the "World of Los"; it contains much of Blake's most delightful poetry. The reader will remember that in 4Z Los had passed through several stages of development. Beginning as the primitive prophetic boy, he became first disciple and later adversary of Urizen. He bound Urizen into fallen forms of life, then 'became what he beheld'. But in Night VII of the Four Zoas we recall that he embraced his Spectre, actually the Urizen within, and thereupon Los became the hero of the epic.

Letters, To Flaxman, (E 707) 
"Now my lot in the Heavens is this; Milton lovd me in childhood & shewd me his face Ezra came with Isaiah the Prophet, but Shakespeare in riper years gave me his hand Paracelsus & Behmen appeard to me. terrors appeard in the Heavens above And in Hell beneath & a mighty & awful change threatend the Earth The American War began All its dark horrors passed before my face" 

 Milton, Plate 28, [30], (E 126) 
"But others of the Sons of Los build Moments & Minutes & Hours

And Days & Months & Years & Ages & Periods; wondrous buildings   
And every Moment has a Couch of gold for soft repose,
(A Moment equals a pulsation of the artery),
And between every two Moments stands a Daughter of Beulah
To feed the Sleepers on their Couches with maternal care.
And every Minute has an azure Tent with silken Veils.         
And every Hour has a bright golden Gate carved with skill.
And every Day & Night, has Walls of brass & Gates of adamant,
Shining like precious stones & ornamented with appropriate signs:
And every Month, a silver paved Terrace builded high:
And every Year, invulnerable Barriers with high Towers.    
And every Age is Moated deep with Bridges of silver & gold.
And every Seven Ages is Incircled with a Flaming Fire.
Now Seven Ages is amounting to Two Hundred Years
Each has its Guard. each Moment Minute Hour Day Month & Year.
All are the work of Fairy hands of the Four Elements             
The Guard are Angels of Providence on duty evermore
Every Time less than a pulsation of the artery
Is equal in its period & value to Six Thousand Years.

PLATE 29 [31]
For in this Period the Poets Work is Done: and all the Great
Events of Time start forth & are concievd in such a Period
Within a Moment: a Pulsation of the Artery."