America 10

                     PLATE 9

Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my Thirteen Angels!
Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
America is darkned; and my punishing Demons terrified
Crouch howling before their caverns deep like skins dry'd in the
     wind.
They cannot smite the wheat, nor quench the fatness of the 
     earth.   
They cannot smite with sorrows, nor, subdue the plow and spade.
They cannot wall the city, nor moat round the castle of princes.
They cannot bring the stubbed oak to overgrow the hills.
For terrible men stand on the shores, &,in their robes I see
Children take shelter from the lightnings, there stands 
     Washington    
And Paine and Warren with their foreheads reard toward the east
But clouds obscure my aged sight. A vision from afar!
Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels:
Ah vision from afar! Ah rebel form that rent the ancient
Heavens; Eternal Viper self-renew'd, rolling in clouds
I see thee in thick clouds and darkness on America's shore.
Writhing in pangs of abhorred birth; red flames the crest
     rebellious
And eves of death; the harlot womb oft opened in vain
Heaves in enormous circles, now the times are return'd upon thee,
Devourer of thy parent, now thy unutterable torment renews.      
Sound! sound! my loud war trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels!
Ah terrible birth! a young one bursting! where is the weeping
     mouth?
And where the mothers milk? instead those ever-hissing jaws
And parched lips drop with fresh gore; now roll thou in the 
     clouds

Thy mother lays her length outstretch'd upon the shore beneath.  
Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels!
Loud howls the eternal Wolf: the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
(Erdman 54-5)

---

                                           About the Text
This plate is like a song with three verses:

Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my Thirteen Angels! holds it all together.

War trumpet occurs also in Night 7 of 4Z: 
Loud sounds the war song round red Orc in his [?triumphant] fury 
And round the nameless shadowy Female in her howling terror 
When all the Elemental Gods joind in the wondrous Song 
Sound the War trumpet terrific Souls clad in attractive steel 
Sound the shrill fife serpents of war. I hear the northern drumAwake,(Erdman 363)

So Night 7 of 4Z  and America Plate 9 are celebrations of the American Revolution.

The Thirteen Angels of course represent the eternal dimension of the 13 colonies.

Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail
This line occurs in verse 1 and 3.
 
The lion and the wolf go together, as noted in MHH:
"Empire is no more! and now the lion & wolf shall cease."


From Damon 242:
In the Little Girl Lost and The Little Girl Found the lion is the Angel of Death; he carries Lyca to the Palace (Heaven).

So for Blake death does not mean mouldering in the ground, but promotion to Heaven. 

As for the wolf: here it means the same.

---

                                         About the Image
In the left border and the bottom we see the Wheat. The punishing demons are intimidated, which means perhaps that the King knows he cannot win.

At the bottom the 'wheat' has formed a crysalis in which resides a prone diminutive figure.

There's much talk about birth, as 'Ah terrible birth'. 

Flowers are found to left and right of the new born figure; the color shows up best at Copy M.

(This picture owes a lot to The Gospel of John: 12.24)

ROOTS OF WAR

             

Glasgow University Library
Europe
Plate 6, Copy B

War was not a theoretical issue for Blake; it was the condition with which Europe, Britain, London and each individual was preoccupied from the years 1775 when America's War for Independence began until 1815 when Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. Blake's attitude to conflict is a major topic of David Erdman's book Blake: Prophet Against Empire. Erdman traces in Blake's poetry events on the world stage which were affecting the daily lives of the British people. In Jerusalem Erdman considers that Blake was asking what were the roots of the war which stretched on for years. Willingness to sacrifice individuals to the demands of Empire is revisited many times as a possible answer underlying Albion's failure to become the embodiment of the brotherhood of man.       

Erdman writes on page 469:
"The Blakean reversal here is typical: oppressors talking of casting pearls before the swinish multitude; Blake 'saw' that the people were the pearls and that they had been 'hardened' by the contempt of those who treated them like swine and who cast forth 'all the tenderness of the soul...  as filth & mire.' Here was the core of his answer.
He could not help 'looking on Albions City with many tears,' for the continental war was reaching a climax and the danger was imminent that Albion [Britain] would impose a conqueror's peace on Luvah [France] and perpetuate the cycle of 'deadly war (the fever of the human soul).'"

Jerusalem, Plate 45 [31], (E 194)
"But Los
Searchd in vain: closd from the minutia he walkd, difficult.
He came down from Highgate thro Hackney & Holloway towards London
Till he came to old Stratford & thence to Stepney & the Isle     
Of Leuthas Dogs, thence thro the narrows of the Rivers side
And saw every minute particular, the jewels of Albion, running down
The kennels of the streets & lanes as if they were abhorrd.
Every Universal Form, was become barren mountains of Moral
Virtue: and every Minute Particular hardend into grains of sand:
And all the tendernesses of the soul cast forth as filth & mire,
Among the winding places of deep contemplation intricate
To where the Tower of London frownd dreadful over Jerusalem:
A building of Luvah builded in Jerusalems eastern gate to be
His secluded Court: thence to Bethlehem where was builded   
Dens of despair in the house of bread: enquiring in vain
Of stones and rocks he took his way, for human form was none:
And thus he spoke, looking on Albions City with many tears"

Jerusalem, Plate 33 [37], (E 179)
"So Los spoke: But when he saw blue death in Albions feet, 
Again he join'd the Divine Body, following merciful;
While Albion fled more indignant! revengeful covering
Plate 34 [38]
His face and bosom with petrific hardness, and his hands
And feet, lest any should enter his bosom & embrace
His hidden heart; his Emanation wept & trembled within him:
Uttering not his jealousy, but hiding it as with
Iron and steel, dark and opake, with clouds & tempests brooding: 
His strong limbs shudderd upon his mountains high and dark.

Turning from Universal Love petrific as he went,
His cold against the warmth of Eden rag'd with loud
Thunders of deadly war (the fever of the human soul)"

Jerusalem, Plate 45 [31], (E 194)
"And he who takes vengeance alone is the criminal of Providence;
If I should dare to lay my finger on a grain of sand
In way of vengeance; I punish the already punishd: O whom
Should I pity if I pity not the sinner who is gone astray!       
O Albion, if thou takest vengeance; if thou revengest thy wrongs
Thou art for ever lost! What can I do to hinder the Sons
Of Albion from taking vengeance? or how shall I them perswade.

So spoke Los, travelling thro darkness & horrid solitude:"

America 9

Yale Center for British Art

America 

Plate 8

America, Plate 8, (E 54)

"The terror answerd: I am Orc, wreath'd round the accursed tree:
The times are ended; shadows pass the morning gins to break;
The fiery joy, that Urizen perverted to ten commands,
What night he led the starry hosts thro' the wide wilderness:
That stony law I stamp to dust: and scatter religion abroad
 To the four winds as a torn book, & none shall gather the leaves;
But they shall rot on desart sands, & consume in bottomless deeps;
To make the desarts blossom, & the deeps shrink to their fountains,
And to renew the fiery joy, and burst the stony roof.
That pale religious letchery, seeking Virginity,
 May find it in a harlot, and in coarse-clad honesty
The undefil'd tho' ravish'd in her cradle night and morn:
For every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life;
Because the soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
Fires inwrap the earthly globe, yet man is not consumd;
 Amidst the lustful fires he walks: his feet become like brass,
His knees and thighs like silver, & his breast and head like gold."
                                         
                About the Text                      

From Erdman's Illuminated Blake (page 146):
The giant figure above is Urizen, "the divine form of George III"; 
he's confronted by "Orc, wreath'd round the accursed tree"; 
the accursed tree is the Tree of Mystery, the Tree of the Knowledge 
of Good and Evil.  We read in the Tree of Mystery: 

"No more remaind of Orc but the Serpent round the tree of Mystery.
The form of Orc was gone he reard his serpent hulk among
the Stars of Urizen in Power rending the form of life
Into a formless indefinite & strewing her on the Abyss"
(Night 7 of 4Z; Erdman 365)

(Albion's evil of oppression is overcome by Orc - evil of War; 
that's the way we live.)

                                               About the Image

The form of George III is "cluching tight-- to his possessions? to his life?
Works: "the figure is very probably Urizen":
From this we may gather that when Blake thought about the King, he
pictured him as Urizen with his stony laws: that stony law I stamp to death"

At the bottom of the plate is the ocean.

SAMSON II

Continuation of Samson I.

The Biblical Samson resembles the hero character commonly portrayed in the literature of ancient cultures. His birth was foretold by an angel; he exhibited  supernatural powers of strength including overcoming a lion barehanded; he defied his father; he was betrayal by a female; and he endured punishments including blinding by his enemies. His final achievement was destroying his enemies by demolishing their temple through undermining the pillars that supported it. His feats put him in the category with Hercules and innumerable heroes.   
 
Judges 16
[20] And she said, "The Philistines are upon you, Samson!" And he awoke from his sleep, and said, "I will go out as at other times, and shake myself free." And he did not know that the LORD had left him.
[21] And the Philistines seized him and gouged out his eyes, and brought him down to Gaza, and bound him with bronze fetters; and he ground at the mill in the prison.
[22] But the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved.
[23] Now the lords of the Philistines gathered to offer a great sacrifice to Dagon their god, and to rejoice; for they said, "Our god has given Samson our enemy into our hand."
[25] And when their hearts were merry, they said, "Call Samson, that he may make sport for us." So they called Samson out of the prison, and he made sport before them. They made him stand between the pillars;
[26] and Samson said to the lad who held him by the hand, "Let me feel the pillars on which the house rests, that I may lean against them."
[27] Now the house was full of men and women; all the lords of the Philistines were there, and on the roof there were about three thousand men and women, who looked on while Samson made sport.
[28] Then Samson called to the LORD and said, "O Lord GOD, remember me, I pray thee, and strengthen me, I pray thee, only this once, O God, that I may be avenged upon the Philistines for one of my two eyes."
[29] And Samson grasped the two middle pillars upon which the house rested, and he leaned his weight upon them, his right hand on the one and his left hand on the other.
[30] And Samson said, "Let me die with the Philistines." Then he bowed with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords and upon all the people that were in it. So the dead whom he slew at his death were more than those whom he had slain during his life.
[31] Then his brothers and all his family came down and took him and brought him up and buried him between Zorah and Esh'ta-ol in the tomb of Mano'ah his father. He had judged Israel twenty years. 


Blake did not return to a direct account of Samson in his poetry but Blake's hero, John Milton, wrote Samson Agonistes as perhaps his last poem. Blake mentions Samson in Milton in conjunction with Swedenborg whom Blake saw as a failed hero. Blake felt that Swedenborg like Samson had lost his strength when he allowed worldly considerations to replace commitment to the truth he had been given.

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 117)
"They perverted Swedenborgs Visions in Beulah & in Ulro;
To destroy Jerusalem as a Harlot & her Sons as Reprobates;
To raise up Mystery the Virgin Harlot Mother of War,
Babylon the Great, the Abomination of Desolation!
O Swedenborg! strongest of men, the Samson shorn by the Churches!

Shewing the Transgresors in Hell, the proud Warriors in Heaven:
Heaven as a Punisher & Hell as One under Punishment:
With Laws from Plato & his Greeks to renew the Trojan Gods,
In Albion; & to deny the value of the Saviours blood.
But then I rais'd up Whitefield, Palamabron raisd up Westley,"    

An association of Albion with the Biblical Samson and with Milton's Samson Agonistes is apparent in the inscription which Blake included on the reengraved plate of the jubilant Albion which is known as Glad Day or Albion Rose.

Inscription, (E 671)
"Albion rose from where he labourd at the Mill with Slaves
Giving himself for the Nations he danc'd the dance of Eternal Death"

The phrase 'at the mill with slaves' is quoted from Milton as he represented Samson's condition before he regained his strength and rose from his captivity to the Philistines. The idea that Samson goes to his physical death along with his captors, as he returns to spiritual life by self-sacrifice, is implied by Blake in his caption for the portrayal of Albion.    

Samson Agonistes
by John Milton

"Design'd for great exploits; if I must dye
Betray'd, Captiv'd, and both my Eyes put out,
Made of my Enemies the scorn and gaze;
To grind in Brazen Fetters under task               [ 35 ]
With this Heav'n-gifted strength? O glorious strength
Put to the labour of a Beast, debas't
Lower then bondslave! Promise was that I
Should Israel from Philistian yoke deliver;
Ask for this great Deliverer now, and find him   [ 40 ]
Eyeless in Gaza at the Mill with slaves,
Himself in bonds under Philistian yoke;"

Blake recalls experiencing himself the despair of feeling enslaved to forced labor in this letter:

Letter to  Hayley, 1804, (E 756)
"I speak with
perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which has passed
upon me.  Nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him; I have
had twenty; thank God I was not altogether a beast as he was; but
I was a slave bound in a mill among beasts and devils; these
beasts and these devils are now, together with myself, become
children of light and liberty, and my feet and my wife's feet are
free from fetters."

The release from slavery in the mill provides one of the metaphors for the rebirth near the end of the Four Zoas.

Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 134, (E 402)
"Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field
Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air
Let the inchaind soul shut up in darkness & in sighing           
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years
Rise & look out his chains are loose his dungeon doors are open"

Wikimedia
Sketch for Illustrations of the Book of Job
Page 3

As illustrated by Blake the disaster which befell the sons of Job is reminiscent of the destruction of the temple by Samson.

America 8

                                      PLATE 7
"In thunders ends the voice. Then Albions Angel wrathful burnt 
Beside the Stone of Night; and like the Eternal Lions howl
In famine & war, reply'd. Art thou not Orc, who serpent-form'd 
Stands at the gate of Enitharmon to devour her children; 
Blasphemous Demon, Antichrist, hater of Dignities;
Lover of wild rebellion, and transgresser of Gods Law;
Why dost thou come to Angels eyes in this terrific form?
(Erdman 53-4)

---

About the Text

In Blake's myth 'Albions Angel' is a title for the King of England,  
and perhaps the Stone of Night is synonymous with the Rock of Eternity, 
as also the Rock of Ages.
Look at Plate 23 of The Book of Milton:
"Awake thou sleeper on the Rock of Eternity Albion awake
The trumpet of Judgment hath twice sounded: all Nations are awake
But thou art still heavy and dull: Awake Albion awake! 
Lo Orc arises on the Atlantic. Lo his blood and fire
Glow on Americas shore: Albion turns upon his Couch....

Milton 15.36-40; Erdman 109:
First Milton saw Albion upon the Rock of Ages,
Deadly pale outstretchd and snowy cold, storm coverd;
A Giant form of perfect beauty outstretchd on the rock
In solemn death: the Sea of Time & Space thunderd aloud
Against the rock, which was inwrapped with the weeds of death"

Stone of Night  appeared in the earlier plate; I wonder if Blake used 

this figure in later works where Albion slept on the Rock.

Rock of Ages:
(Look also at The Rock.)

About the Image

From Erdman Illuminated Blake page 145:

A weeping tree overlays most of the figures:

Three birds of paradise sit in the branches and another bird flies upward.

Notice the drooping catkins,

A ram is sleeping with two naked children on or beside it.

Behind the ram is a large grape leaf.
From Works: "This gentle, pastoral scene contrasts sharply with the apocalyptic 
tone of the text on the plate."

SAMSON I

British Museum
Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts
Samson Bringing Down the Temple

The book of Blake's early poems which was published by his friends with the title Poetical Sketches contains an interpretation of the story of Samson from the Biblical book named Judges. The young Blake was seeing the mythopoeic dimension of the Biblical account as an example of the energy which entered the world to initiate change. Blake would develop his character Orc as an example of the forces which destroy the old order under the influence of the sinister female.

Blake's final illustration to Blair's Night Thoughts vividly portrays the destruction on Dagon's temple by the fury of Samson's wrath. 

This is the quote from Young which Blake was illustrating with his image:
"Awake, then; thy Philander calls: awake!
Thou, who shalt wake, when the creation sleeps;
When, like a taper, all these suns expire;
When Time, like him of Gaza in his wrath,
Plucking the pillars that support the world,
In Nature’s ample ruins lies entomb’d;
And Midnight, universal Midnight! reigns."

Poetical Sketches, ( E 443) 

                                 SAMSON.
"Samson, the strongest of the children of men, I sing; how he was
foiled by woman's arts, by a false wife brought to the gates of
death!  O Truth, that shinest with propitious beams, turning our
earthly night to heavenly day, from presence of the Almighty
Father! thou visitest our darkling world with blessed feet,
bringing good news of Sin and Death destroyed!  O white-robed
Angel, guide my timorous hand to write as on a lofty rock with
iron pens the words of truth, that all who pass may read.--Now
Night, noon-tide of damned spirits, over the silent earth spreads
her pavilion, while in dark council sat Philista's lords; and
where strength failed, black thoughts in ambush lay.  Their
helmed youth and aged warriors in dust together ly, and
Desolation spreads his wings over the land of Palestine; from
side to side the land groans, her prowess lost, and seeks to hide
lier bruised head under the mists of night, breeding dark plots,
For Dalila's fair arts have long been tried in vain; in vain she
wept in many a treacherous tear.  "Go on, fair traitress; do thy
guileful work; ere once again the changing moon her circuit hath
performed, thou shalt overcome, and conquer him by force
unconquerable, and wrest his secret from him.  Call thine
alluring arts and honest-seeming brow, the holy kiss of love, and
the transparent tear; put on fair linen, that with the lily vies,
purple and silver; neglect thy hair, to seem more lovely in thy
loose attire; put on thy country's pride, deceit; and eyes of
love decked in mild sorrow, and sell thy Lord for gold."--For
now, upon her sumptuous couch reclined, in gorgeous pride, she
still intreats, and still she grasps his vigorous knees with her
fair arms.--"Thou lov'st me not! thou'rt war, thou art not love!
O foolish Dalila! O weak woman! it is death cloathed in flesh
thou lovest, and thou hast been incircled in his arms!--Alas, my
Lord, what am I calling thee?  Thou art my God!  To thee I pour
my tears for sacrifice morning and evening: My days are covered
with sorrow!  Shut up; darkened: By night I am deceived! Who says
that thou wast born Of mortal kind?  Destruction was thy father,
a lioness suckled thee, thy young hands tore human limbs, and
gorged human flesh! Come hither, Death; art thou not Samson's
servant?  'Tis Dalila that calls; thy master's wife; no, stay,
and let thy master do the deed: one blow of that strong arm would
ease my pain; then should I lay at quiet, and have rest.  Pity
forsook thee at thy birth!  O Dagon furious, and all ye gods of
Palestine, withdraw your hand! I am but a weak woman.  Alas, I am
wedded to your enemy!  I will go mad, and tear my crisped hair;
I'll run about, and pierce the ears o'th' gods!  O Samson, hold
me not; thou lovest me not!  Look not upon me with those deathful
eyes!  Thou wouldst my death, and death approaches fast."--Thus,
in false tears, she bath'd his feet, and thus she day by day
oppressed his soul: he seemed a mountain, his brow among the
clouds; she seemed a silver stream, his feet embracing.  Dark
thoughts rolled to and fro in his mind, like thunder
clouds, troubling the sky; his visage was troubled; his soul was
distressed.--"Though I should tell her all my heart, what can I
fear?  Though I should tell this secret of my birth, the utmost
may be warded off as well when told as now." She saw him moved,
and thus resumes her wiles.--"Samson, I'm thine; do with me what
thou wilt; my friends are enemies; my life is death; I am a
traitor to my nation, and despised; my joy is given into the
hands of him who hates me, using deceit to the wife of his bosom.
Thrice hast thou mocked me, and grieved my soul.  Didst thou not
tell me with green withs to bind thy nervous arms, and after
that, when I had found thy falshood, with new ropes to bind thee
fast?  I knew thou didst but mock me.  Alas, when in thy sleep I
bound thee with them to try thy truth, I cried, The Philistines
be upon thee, Samson!  Then did suspicion wake thee; how didst
thou rend the feeble ties!  Thou fearest nought, what shouldst
thou fear?  Thy power is more than mortal, none can hurt thee;
thy bones are brass, thy sinews are iron!  Ten thousand spears
are like the summer grass; an army of mighty men are as flocks in
the vallies; what canst thou fear?  I drink my tears like water;
I live upon sorrow!  O worse than wolves and tygers, what canst
thou give when such a trifle is denied me?  But O at last thou
mockest me to shame my over-fond inquiry!  Thou toldest me to
weave thee to the beam by thy strong hair; I did even that to try
thy truth: but when I cried, The Philistines be upon thee, then
didst thou leave me to bewail that Samson loved me not."--He sat,
and inward griev'd, he saw and lov'd the beauteous suppliant, nor
could conceal aught that might appease ber; then, leaning on her
bosom, thus he spoke: "Hear, O Dalila! doubt no more of Samson's
love; for that fair breast was made the ivory palace of my inmost
heart, where it shall lie at rest; for sorrow is the lot of all
of woman born: for care was I brought forth, and labour is my
lot: not matchless might, nor wisdom, nor every gift enjoyed, can
from the heart of man hide sorrow.--Twice was my birth foretold
from heaven, and twice a sacred vow enjoined me that I should
drink no wine, nor eat of any unclean thing, for holy unto
Israel's God I am, a Nazarite even from my mother's womb.  Twice
was it told, that it might not be broken, Grant me a son, kind
Heaven, Manoa cried; but Heaven refused!  Childless he mourned,
but thought his God knew best.  In solitude, though not obscure,
in Israel he lived, till venerable age came on: his flocks
increased, and plenty crowned his board: beloved, revered of man!
But God hath other joys in store.  Is burdened Israel his grief?
The son of his old age shall set it free! The venerable sweetner
of his life receives the promise first from Heaven.  She saw the
maidens play, and blessed their innocent mirth; she blessed each
new-joined pair; but from her the long-wished deliverer shall
spring.  Pensive, alone she sat within the house, when busy day
was fading, and calm evening, time for contemplation, rose from
the forsaken east, and drew the curtains of heaven; pensive she
sat, and thought on Israel's grief, 
and Silent prayed to Israel's God; when lo, an angel from the
fields of light entered the house!  His form was manhood in the
prime, and from his spacious brow shot terrors through the
evening shade!  But mild he hailed her--Hail, highly favoured!
said he; for lo, thou shalt conceive, and bear a son, and
Israel's strength shall be upon his shoulders, and he shall be
called Israel's Deliverer! Now therefore drink no wine, and eat
not any unclean thing, for he shall be a Nazarite to God.--Then,
as a neighbour when his evening tale is told, departs, his
blessing leaving; so seemed he to depart: she wondered with
exceeding joy, nor knew he was an angel.  Manoa left his fields
to sit in the house, and take his evening's rest from labour--the
sweetest time that God has allotted mortal man.  He sat, and
heard with joy, and praised God who Israel still doth keep.  The
time rolled on, and Israel groaned oppressed.  The sword was
bright, while the plow-share rusted, till hope grew feeble, and
was ready to give place to doubting: then prayed Manoa--O Lord,
thy flock is scattered on the hills!  The wolf teareth them,
Oppression stretches his rod over our land, our country is plowed
with swords, and reaped in blood! The echoes of slaughter reach
from hill to hill! Instead of peaceful pipe, the shepherd bears a
sword; the ox goad is turned into a spear!  O when shall our
Deliverer come? The Philistine riots on our flocks, our vintage
is gathered by hands of enemies! Stretch forth thy hand, and
save.--Thus prayed Manoa.  The aged woman walked into the field,
and lo, again the angel came!  Clad as a traveller fresh risen on
his journey, she ran and called her husband, who came and talked
with him.--O man of God, said he, thou comest from far! Let us
detain thee while I make ready a kid, that thou mayest sit and
eat, and tell us of thy name and warfare; that when thy sayings t
come to pass, we may honour thee.  The Angel answered, My name is
wonderful; enquire not after it, seeing it is a secret: but, if
thou wilt, offer an offering unto the Lord."

                              THE END."

America 7

                                                                            
The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations; The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up; The bones of death, the cov'ring clay, the sinews shrunk & dry'd. Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing! awakening! Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst; Let the slave grinding at the mill, run out into the field: Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air; Let the inchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing, Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years; Rise and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open. And let his wife and children return from the opressors scourge; They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream. Singing. The Sun has left his blackness, & has found a fresher morning And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night; 
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease.                                     

The first lines of the text reflect the passage in Ezekiel and the Resurrection, of which

Ezekiel's passage is a precursor. 

"The Sun has left his blackness, & has found a fresher morning"

This line is found near the end of Night 9 of 4Z at Erdman 406.

The text is fascinating , also famous among Blake's poems:

"Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave

grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier
in the field
When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier
dead"
(Erdman 325; Night 2 of 4Z.)

"Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air
Let the inchaind soul shut up in darkness & in sighing
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years
Rise & look out his chains are loose his dungeon doors are open
And let his wife & children return from the opressors scourge
They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream
Are these the Slaves that groand along the streets of Mystery
Where are your chains where are your tears why do you look around
If you are thirsty there is the river go bathe your parched limbs
The good of all the Land is before you for Mystery is no more"
(Erdman 402-3; FZ Night 9) 

The whole thing: America, the 4Z's and many other poems has as its
theme deliverance; it's central to Blake's myth: Fall, Creation, Generation
Regeneration, Salvation, Eternity. The American Revolution was a symbol
of all that, as also the French Revolution, although in the case of France
it was a false deliverance:

"He crushed the Tyrant in the head
And became a tyrant in his stead."
(Erdman 490; The Grey Monk)

But in America Blake focused on the positive side, the deliverance of the
people from their oppressors.

About the Image

A better image appears in Blake Archives.

A similar image appears in MHH 21.

The young man is an emblem of the "burst grave, redemption from slave labor.

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in the bright air" (Erdman 144 of The

Illuminated Blake) "the skull represents his dead self.

At the bottom is a blooming thistle ("a symbol of oppression") while under it is

a red salamander.  See Gen 3-17-18) The thistle is also a symbol of fallenness.

FOURFOLD TIME

My previous post included these words from Theodore Roszak: "Ideas are integrating patterns that derive not from information but from experience". Throughout Blake's writings and images we find these integrating patterns, not concentrated in one location, but scattered so that they can be revisited and recognized as patterns which give order at the macro scale.
Kathleen Raine adds to the concept of the relationship of the parts to the whole in this passage from her biography Blake.

Page 158
"Blake's 'visions' do not belong to time, but to the timeless; they are related as parts to the whole, but as parts of the surface of the sphere, all equidistant from the center, rather than in the time sequence to which in this world we are normally confined. Like dreams, they come to him in single symbolic episodes, or images; there is some attempt at chronology, but the material does not lend itself to this order, any more than would a series of dreams, all relating to an unfolding situation, but not forming a consecutive narrative. Blake added to Jerusalem over many years, inserting passages which may be fine in themselves but which further destroyed the continuity."  

We can think of 'time' in the system of fourfold of which Blake was so fond.

 Dimensionless: Time is the isolated fleeting moment, the point without extension. This is the only time we possess, the now which is ours to use and lose.

Milton, Plate 28 [30], (E 127)
"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.

1 Dimension: Moments strung together give us the thread of time which records the passing of time. Thought identifies the personal span of time into before and after. The individual follows his thread without deviation.

Jerusalem, Plate 20, (E 165)
"Vala replied weeping & trembling, hiding in her veil.

When winter rends the hungry family and the snow falls:
Upon the ways of men hiding the paths of man and beast,
Then mourns the wanderer: then he repents his wanderings & eyes
The distant forest; then the slave groans in the dungeon of
     stone.    
The captive in the mill of the stranger, sold for scanty hire.
They view their former life: they number moments over and over;
Stringing them on their remembrance as on a thread of sorrow.
Thou art my sister and my daughter! thy shame is mine also!
Ask me not of my griefs! thou knowest all my griefs.         

Jerusalem answer'd with soft tears over the valleys."

 
2 Dimensions: The thread of each individual's time line is not isolated. Other time lines have their simultaneous moments and movements. A fabric is woven which becomes a plane of moments in lives, forming a surface with contributions from multiple lives.

Jerusalem, Plate 83, (E 242)
"So Los spoke. to the Daughters of Beulah while his Emanation
Like a faint rainbow waved before him in the awful gloom
Of London City on the Thames from Surrey Hills to Highgate:
Swift turn the silver spindles, & the golden weights play soft
And lulling harmonies beneath the Looms, from Caithness in the north  
To Lizard-point & Dover in the south: his Emanation
Joy'd in the many weaving threads in bright Cathedrons Dome

Weaving the Web of Life for Jerusalem. The Web of Life
Down flowing into Entuthons Vales glistens with soft affections."

3 Dimensions: A matrix develops when to the two dimensions of the plane are added the past and future. To everywhere and everyone is added everytime. In Blake's matrix nothing is lost, everything is permanent.

Milton, Plate 22 [24], (E 117)
'I am that Shadowy Prophet who Six Thousand Years ago    
Fell from my station in the Eternal bosom. Six Thousand Years
Are finishd. I return! both Time & Space obey my will.
I in Six Thousand Years walk up and down: for not one Moment
Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent
But all remain: every fabric of Six Thousand Years               
Remains permanent: tho' on the Earth where Satan
Fell, and was cut off all things vanish & are seen no more
They vanish not from me & mine, we guard them first & last
The generations of men run on in the tide of Time
But leave their destind lineaments permanent for ever & ever.    

So spoke Los as we went along to his supreme abode."

 
End of Time: Time ends when it is swallowed up in Eternity. Enitharmon's loom no longer weaves the web of material life. Consciousness on longer resides in the minds of men, but the minds of men reside in the great consciousness from Eternity to Eternity.

Jerusalem, Plate 92, (E 252)
"So Los spoke. Enitharmon answerd in great terror in Lambeths Vale

The Poets Song draws to its period & Enitharmon is no more.
For if he be that Albion I can never weave him in my Looms
But when he touches the first fibrous thread, like filmy dew   
My Looms will be no more & I annihilate vanish for ever
Then thou wilt Create another Female according to thy Will.

Los answerd swift as the shuttle of gold. Sexes must vanish & cease
To be, when Albion arises from his dread repose O lovely Enitharmon:" 
Tate

River of Life 

America 6

Plate 6 of America
Rosenwald LC

Text

PLATE 5
Albions Angel stood beside the Stone of night, and saw
The terror like a comet, or more like the planet red
That once inclos'd the terrible wandering comets in its sphere.
Then Mars thou wast our center, & the planets three flew round
Thy crimson disk; so e'er the Sun was rent from thy red sphere;  
The Spectre glowd his horrid length staining the temple long
With beams of blood; & thus a voice came forth, and shook the
     temple

About the Text

Stone of night may appear ambiguous, but with a later 
Book, namely Europe a Prophecy, he developed the term:
Erdman 63-4 Plates 10 and 11:
"Now arriv'd the ancient Guardian at the southern porch,
That planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, & in a vale
Obscure, inclos'd the Stone of Night; oblique it stood, o'erhung
With purple flowers and berries red; image of that sweet south,
Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck,
Now overgrown with hair and coverd with a stony roof,
Downward 'tis sunk beneath th' attractive north, that round the
feet
A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave:
PLATE 11

Albions Angel rose upon the Stone of Night.                  
He saw Urizen on the Atlantic;
And his brazen Book,
That Kings & Priests had copied on Earth
Expanded from North to South."

About the Image

This is a small text with a humongous picture:
The top illustrates the bound Prince in the hands of three naked
youths, the one of the left with a scale weighing the Prince and
finding him wanting. The one of the right carrying the Sword,
reminiscent of the king and Queen of France, guilotined about
this time.

The two figures below the text are said to represent the Prince
of Albion: in the center a Serpent forms a ring with coiled
tails downward. The Prince is headed downward through the rings.

WEB OF LIFE II

Courtesy of Wikimedia
Illustrations to the Book of Genesis
2nd Title Page

The mechanistic view of the world which was common in Blake's day was revisited when computers were proposed as the metaphor for the operation of the human brain. However the metaphor of the brain as a computer was found to be deficient. "Brains seem to operate on the basis of massive connectivity, storing information distributively and manifesting a self-organizing capacity that is nowhere to be found in computers."  (Page 71)

Fritjof Capra in, The Web of Life demonstrates the limitations of using the computer as a model for the human brain. We find similarities to Blake's objections to allowing Urizen to assume control of the human psyche supplanting the emotions, the imagination, and the intelligence of the body. 

Page 68
"Recent developments in cognitive science have made it clear that human intelligence is utterly different from machine intelligence. The human nervous system does not process any information (in the sense of discrete elements existing ready-made in the outside world,to be picked up by the cognitive system), but it interacts with the environment by continually modulating its structure. Moreover, neuroscientists have discovered strong evidence that human intelligence, human memory, and human decisions are never completely rational but are always colored by emotions as we know from experience. Our thinking is always accompanied by bodily sensations and processes. Even if we often tend to suppress them,we always think also with our bodies; and since computers do not have such a body, truly human problems will always be foreign to their intelligence.
These considerations imply that certain tasks should never be left to computers...These tasks include all those that require genuine human qualities such as wisdom, compassion, respect, understanding and love. Decisions and communications that require those qualities will dehumanize our lives if they are made by computers."

Page 70
"As Theodore Roszak shows in detail in The Cult of Information, information does not create ideas: ideas create information. Ideas are integrating patterns that derive not from information but from experience."

Page 296
"To regain our full humanity, we must regain our experience of connectedness with the entire web of life. This reconnecting, religio in Latin, is the very essence of the spiritual grounding of deep ecology."  


The battles among Urizen, Los, Luvah and Tharmas will continue to appear in various forms among philosophical approaches to epistemology until all are brought together and see ourselves reflected in every face.

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 257)
"And every Man stood Fourfold, each Four Faces had. One to the West
One toward the East One to the South One to the North. the Horses Fourfold
And the dim Chaos brightend beneath, above, around! Eyed as the Peacock
According to the Human Nerves of Sensation, the Four Rivers of the Water of Life

South stood the Nerves of the Eye. East in Rivers of bliss the Nerves of the
Expansive Nostrils West, flowd the Parent Sense the Tongue. North stood
The labyrinthine Ear. Circumscribing & Circumcising the excrementitious
Husk & Covering into Vacuum evaporating revealing the lineaments of Man
Driving outward the Body of Death in an Eternal Death & Resurrection   
Awaking it to Life among the Flowers of Beulah rejoicing in Unity
In the Four Senses in the Outline the Circumference & Form, for ever
In Forgiveness of Sins which is Self Annihilation. it is the Covenant of Jehovah

The Four Living Creatures Chariots of Humanity Divine Incomprehensible
In beautiful Paradises expand These are the Four Rivers of Paradise   
And the Four Faces of Humanity fronting the Four Cardinal Points
Of Heaven going forward forward irresistible from Eternity to Eternity

And they conversed together in Visionary forms dramatic which bright
Redounded from their Tongues in thunderous majesty, in Visions
In new Expanses, creating exemplars of Memory and of Intellect  
Creating Space, Creating Time according to the wonders Divine
Of Human Imagination, throughout all the Three Regions immense
Of Childhood, Manhood & Old Age[;] & the all tremendous unfathomable Non Ens
Of Death was seen in regenerations terrific or complacent varying
According to the subject of discourse & every Word & Every Character
Was Human according to the Expansion or Contraction, the Translucence or
Opakeness of Nervous fibres such was the variation of Time & Space
Which vary according as the Organs of Perception vary & they walked
To & fro in Eternity as One Man reflecting each in each & clearly seen
And seeing: according to fitness & order. And I heard Jehovah speak 
Terrific from his Holy Place & saw the Words of the Mutual Covenant Divine
On Chariots of gold & jewels with Living Creatures starry & flaming
With every Colour, Lion, Tyger, Horse, Elephant, Eagle Dove, Fly, Worm,
And the all wondrous Serpent clothed in gems & rich array Humanize
In the Forgiveness of Sins according to the Covenant of Jehovah. They Cry

Where is the Covenant of Priam, the Moral Virtues of the Heathen
Where is the Tree of Good & Evil that rooted beneath the cruel heel
Of Albions Spectre the Patriarch Druid! where are all his Human Sacrifices
For Sin in War & in the Druid Temples of the Accuser of Sin: beneath
The Oak Groves of Albion that coverd the whole Earth beneath his Spectre
Where are the Kingdoms of the World & all their glory that grew on Desolation
The Fruit of Albions Poverty Tree when the Triple Headed Gog-Magog Giant
Of Albion Taxed the Nations into Desolation & then gave the Spectrous Oath

Such is the Cry from all the Earth from the Living Creatures of the Earth
And from the great City of Golgonooza in the Shadowy Generation 
And from the Thirty-two Nations of the Earth among the Living Creatures

PLATE 99
All Human Forms identified even Tree Metal Earth & Stone. all
Human Forms identified, living going forth & returning wearied
Into the Planetary lives of Years Months Days & Hours reposing
And then Awaking into his Bosom in the Life of Immortality.

And I heard the Name of their Emanations they are named Jerusalem"

America 4

                         AMERICA a PROPHECY                  
                                 LAMBETH
                Printed by William Blake in the year 1793.

                                PRELUDIUM

The shadowy daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc.
When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode;
His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron;
Crown'd with a helmet & dark hair the nameless female stood;
A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
When pestilence is shot from heaven; no other arms she need:
Invulnerable tho' naked, save where clouds roll round her loins,
Their awful folds in the dark air; silent she stood as night;
For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise;
But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace.

Dark virgin; said the hairy youth, thy father stern abhorr'd;
Rivets my tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars;
Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion,
Stalking upon the mountains, & sometimes a whale I lash
The raging fathomless abyss, anon a serpent folding              

Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs,
On the Canadian wilds I fold, feeble my spirit folds.
For chaind beneath I rend these caverns; when thou bringest food
I howl my joy! and my red eyes seek to behold thy face
In vain! these clouds roll to & fro, & hide thee from my sight.  
(Erdman 51)

---

On the Text In this Plate it's hard to see how the text relates to the image. 

 The 'shadowy daughter of Urthona is feeding Orc. We might suppose that she is
the agent in the continuously increasing oppression of the Americans, as well as the common people of Great Britain. 

War and Pestilence and Slavery express her character. 

 "that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace" Doesn't that mean that Revolution chose War? 

In America a Prophecy, the figure of the Shadowy Female is described as one of Urthona's  daughters and Orc, as a serpent, is wrapped around Urthona's pillars.

Plate 3 of Milton, speaking of the shadowy female has this to say:
"They Builded Great Golgonooza Times on Times Ages on Ages
First Orc was Born then the Shadowy Female: then All Los's Family
At last Enitharmon brought forth Satan Refusing Form, in vain
The Miller of Eternity made subservient to the Great Harvest
That he may go to his own Place Prince of the Starry Wheels"

"On the Canadian wilds I fold, feeble my spirit folds." Blake thinks that Canada did not have the stomach to choose war; they remained in the Empire.

---

The Image Across the left border we see a willow tree rising from its roots at the lower left. Beneath the roots sits a figure closed up in himself; he's the unconscious man. Found in consciousness at the top, the youth whom Blake called Orc, is chained to a rock in spite of efforts to free him by his parents, Los and Enitharmon. You may remember in the Book of Urizen Orc was chained down by his jealous father.

Erdman's Illuminated Blake 139: 

compares this to the engraving of the execution of "breaking on the rack" for John Gabriel Stedman (in the National Gallery):

See also Essays.


In the tree with vines growing around it Erdman saw "human bodies or torsos twining and rising but becoming less animal than vegetable" to emerge at last to Orc.





Comments
In fact many fathers become jealous of the time and attention their wife shows to their son. Fortunately Blake did not have that temptation.

Erdman continually saw things in these pictures of which I am completely oblivious. 

---

America 5

PLATE 4........ Solemn heave the Atlantic waves between the gloomy nations,
Swelling, belching from its deeps red clouds & raging Fires! Albion is sick. 
America faints! enrag'd the Zenith grew.
As human blood shooting its veins all round the orbed heaven
Red rose the clouds from the Atlantic in vast wheels of blood 
And in the red clouds rose a Wonder o'er the Atlantic sea; 
Intense! naked! a Human fire fierce glowing, as the wedge 
Of iron heated in the furnace; his terrible limbs were fire 
With myriads of cloudy terrors banners dark & towers
Surrounded; heat but not light went thro' the murky atmosphere 


The King of England looking westward trembles at the vision 

The image

What a weird creature at the top of the plate, reptile-like but with a 
head and hands like a humanoid.  It refers to an earlier plate where
Blake spoke of the king as having 'dragon form'.  It appears to be a
winged flying figure.

"descending into the left margin, is an old man. His gown forms a long, 
snake-like tail behind him, rather like the wyvern's tail. He has a long 
beard and long hair. His right arm is at his side, but we can see that, 
with his right hand, he grasps a large book or tablet...
This figure may be Albion's Angel or Urizen (twice referred to in the text) 
with his book of laws. "(Works); in his left hand a scepter showing royal 
authority pointing downward (downward for punishment? for war? for his 
consciousness? and/or something else). He is proceeded and followed 
by jagged lightning, a symbol of wrath.

The lower half of the plate is made of clouds with a prominent black
spot, the impending war and blood.
The King of England looking westward trembles at the vision 

This line is almost surrounded by blackness.

At the very bottom right we see a distraught man on his knees and

to his right a woman (with children? or an angel?) Together they may 
represent the defenseless colonies.

Erdman Illuminated) page 142 speaks of a huge oak behind the two

people (what an imagination!!!)

Here's a wyvern:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wyvern