BLAKE & DRUID

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Illustrations to Poems of Thomas Gray

The Bard

Blake used the term Druid to mean more than conveyed by the common understanding. He did object to reported Druid practices of ritual human sacrifice, and forced submission to priestly rites and rituals. The association of religion with accusation, judgement and punishment was abhorrent to him. These objectionable characteristics made Druidism an appropriate symbol for the basic deficiencies of Natural Religion which eliminated spirit from the relationship of God and man. Blake wrote that the Druid priests turned the allegoric and mental significance which related 'heaven to earth' into corporeal command.

"Druidical age, which began to turn allegoric and mental signification into corporeal command," (E 542)
 
Discussions of William Blake edited by John E Grant includes an article by Peter F Fisher titled Blake and the Druids. This extract clarifies some of what Blake tried to convey by using the symbol Druid.

Page 39
"Blake made Druidism into a comprehensive symbol of the perversities of fallen existence which are respectably hidden in the 'Religion of Generation.' What made Druidism the cult of the world from which all 'worldly' religions come was its attempt to consolidate the original voice of the prophet into the fixed ritual and rule of the priest. The terms which had not been final, became final in the name of an organized cult, and the conditions of life and worship were rendered invariable in the interests of an organized clergy. This always produced, according to Blake, cruelty in the name of a benevolent concern for the victim's welfare, and he represented the human race in the person of Albion being sacrificed by his daughters in the temple of 'Natural Religion.' The 'Divine Vision' was lost, and the human form of man's possibilities was altered, so that his perceptions were dissipated into the' Indefinite Becoming' of natural process.  Druidism became the composite symbol of fallen man's preoccupation with a natural security at the expense of a greater human adventure.
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Page 40
Druidism was connected with the initial stage of man's fall from innocence through the birth of a rational set of moral values based on a definitive system of nature.
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Page 43
As he had said in The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, 'Eternity if in love with the productions of time.' But inspiration from eternity must remain the true basis for their productions, and the temporal order of things should not be made - in the spirit of the builders of Babel and their utopian successors - the basis and end of its own productions. 'Eden' was the point where the productions of time and the life of eternity met. Blake claimed to be 'an inhabitant of that happy country,' and his professed aim was to unite the world of generation, through Eden, to its eternal source."

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Jerusalem, Plate 27, (E 171)
 "All things Begin & End in Albions Ancient Druid Rocky Shore."

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

  Albion was the Parent of the Druids; & in his Chaotic State of
Sleep Satan & Adam & the whole World was Created by the Elohim."

Descriptive Catalogue, (E542)
"The British Antiquities are now in the Artist's hands; all
his visionary contemplations, relating to his own country and its
ancient glory, when it was as it again shall be, the source of
learning and inspiration.  Arthur was a name for the
constellation Arcturus, or Bootes, the Keeper of the North Pole.
And all the fables of Arthur and his round table; of the warlike
naked Britons; of Merlin; of Arthur's conquest of the whole
world; of his death, or sleep, and promise to return again; of
the Druid monuments, or temples; of the pavement of
Watlingstreet; of London stone; of the caverns in Cornwall,
Wales, Derbyshire, and Scotland; of the Giants of Ireland and
Britain; of the elemental beings, called [P 41] by us by the
general name of Fairies; and of these three who escaped, namely,
Beauty, Strength, and Ugliness, Mr. B. has in his hands poems of
the highest antiquity.  Adam was a Druid, and Noah; also Abraham
was called to succeed the Druidical
age, which began to turn allegoric and mental signification into 
corporeal command,  whereby human sacrifice would have 
depopulated the earth.  All these things are written in Eden.  
The artist is an inhabitant of that happy country, and if 
every thing goes on as it has begun, the world of vegetation 
and generation may expect to be opened again to Heaven, 
through Eden, as it was in the beginning." 

Jerusalem, Plate 98, (E 258)
"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"

Jerusalem, Plate 66, (E 218)
"In awful pomp & gold, in all the precious unhewn stones of Eden
They build a stupendous Building on the Plain of Salisbury; with chains
Of rocks round London Stone: of Reasonings: of unhewn Demonstrations
In labyrinthine arches. (Mighty Urizen the Architect.) thro which
The Heavens might revolve & Eternity be bound in their chain.
Labour unparallelld! a wondrous rocky World of cruel destiny
Rocks piled on rocks reaching the stars: stretching from pole to pole.
The Building is Natural Religion & its Altars Natural Morality
A building of eternal death: whose proportions are eternal despair
Here Vala stood turning the iron Spindle of destruction          
From heaven to earth: howling! invisible! but not invisible"