CHOICE

Yale Center for British Art

Jerusalem

Plate 84

We tend to think of crises as rare events which occur, are solved and can be forgotten. But as we look back over our lifetimes from the perspective of world events, we see a series of recurring crises with solutions which prove to be temporary. In Blake's lifetime he was affected by numerous crises going on in his personal life, his city and country, and around the world.

Each crisis presents a choice. Blake's poetry was his response. He knew that if we are not conscious of the nature of our circumstances, the solution would escape us. 

Northrop Frye understood what Blake was saying better than I. In Fearful Symmetry on Page 391 he wrote:

"The redeemable Luvah of Jerusalem approaching the crisis of vision is of course not Blake himself, who got past it long ago, but England. The Los, Luvah, and Satan of the great struggle, then, are in this case Jesus, Albion, and Satan. The England Blake is addressing is Albion in a fallen or sleeping state in the World of Generation which is Luvah's world: that is, Albion at present is Luvah. The function of Jerusalem is to recreate the vision of the Jesus of action, the divine man whose impact miraculously increased the bodily and mental powers of those who saw what he was, in order to bring the impact directly to bear on the English public. This occurs at a time when both English civilization and one of its artists have reached the point we described as imaginative puberty. England has to choose weather to turn its green and pleasant land into Jerusalem or a howling waste of Satanic mills, and Blake is practically the only Englishman who can express the fact that the choice is now before England and is still a choice. Jerusalem is Blake's contribution to the struggle between the prophet and the profiteer for the soul of England, Armageddon: it is the burning-glass focusing the the rays of a fiery city on London in the hope of kindling an answering flame." 

Jerusalem, Plate 83, (E 243)
"Our Father Albions land: O it was a lovely land! & the Daughters of Beulah
Walked up and down in its green mountains: but Hand is fled
Away: & mighty Hyle: & after them Jerusalem is gone: Awake
Plate 84
Highgates heights & Hampsteads, to Poplar Hackney & Bow:
To Islington & Paddington & the Brook of Albions River
We builded Jerusalem as a City & a Temple; from Lambeth
We began our Foundations; lovely Lambeth! O lovely Hills
Of Camberwell, we shall behold you no more in glory & pride    
For Jerusalem lies in ruins & the Furnaces of Los are builded there
You are now shrunk up to a narrow Rock in the midst of the Sea
But here we build Babylon on Euphrates, compelld to build
And to inhabit, our Little-ones to clothe in armour of the gold
Of Jerusalems Cherubims & to forge them swords of her Altars   
I see London blind & age-bent begging thro the Streets
Of Babylon, led by a child. his tears run down his beard
The voice of Wandering Reuben ecchoes from street to street
In all the Cities of the Nations Paris Madrid Amsterdam
The Corner of Broad Street weeps; Poland Street languishes     
To Great Queen Street & Lincolns Inn, all is distress & woe."

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 87, (E 369)

"But I have thee my [Counterpart Vegetating] miraculous
These Spectres have no [Counter(parts)] therefore they ravin
Without the food of life Let us Create them Coun[terparts]
For without a Created body the Spectre is Eternal Death

Los trembling answerd Now I feel the weight of stern repentance
Tremble not so my Enitharmon at the awful gates    
Of thy poor broken Heart I see thee like a shadow withering
As on the outside of Existence but look! behold! take comfort!
Turn inwardly thine Eyes & there behold the Lamb of God
Clothed in Luvahs robes of blood descending to redeem
O Spectre of Urthona take comfort O Enitharmon   
Couldst thou but cease from terror & trembling & affright
When I appear before thee in forgiveness of ancient injuries  
Why shouldst thou remember & be afraid. I surely have died in pain
Often enough to convince thy jealousy & fear & terror
Come hither be patient let us converse together because  
I also tremble at myself & at all my former life"