BLAKE & PLATO

BLAKE & PLATO

First posted 2011

Commentary on Blake's six illustrations to Milton's Il Penseroso is found in Bette Charlene Werner's book Blake's vision of the poetry of Milton: illustrations to six poems. Blake 'invented', (he signed images WBlake inv), the third illustration The Spirit of Plato as a means of presenting a number of Plato's ideas as Milton contemplated them.

Il Penseroso

"Or let my lamp, at midnight hour,
Be seen in some high lonely tower,
Where I may oft outwatch the Bear,
With thrice great Hermes, or unsphere
The spirit of Plato, to unfold
What worlds or what vast regions hold
The immortal mind that hath forsook
Her mansion in this fleshly nook;
And of those demons that are found
In fire, air, flood, or underground," (lines 85-95)

In the picture we see how Plato divided the soul between the three worlds of Venus, Jupiter, Mars - senses, reason and energy. The Great Bear is the constellation around which the constellations revolve; it never sets - symbolizing an ever circling round.

Blake added a few lines of descriptive material to each of his illustrations to Il Penseroso. Blake's description: "The Spirit of Plato unfolds his Worlds to Milton in Contemplation. The three destinies sit on the Circles of Plato's Heavens weaving their Thread of Mortal Life; these Heavens are Venus Jupiter and Mars. Hermes flies before as attending on the Heaven of Jupiter, the Great Bear is seen in the Sky beneath Hermes & The Spirits of Fire, Air, Water & Earth Surround Milton's Chair."

In this the third illustration to Il Penseroso illustrating lines 85-95 of Milton's poem, Blake goes to pains to include the import of the lines of the poem but adds details to indicate the ideas of Plato to which he objected.

Damon enumerates the points at which Plato's thought differed from Blake's:
"Thus it is that although Plato banished poets from his Republic, made God a geometrician, preached morality, was a fatalist when he accepted the Three Fates, debased love to homosexuality, admitted war to his ideal state, and considered Art an imitation of Nature (hence second rate), Blake was indebted to him." Blake knew that there was much to be admired in Plato's thought although he said that "What Jesus came to remove was the Heathen or Platonic Philosophy, which blinds the eye to Imagination, The real Man." (E 664 ). Blake portrays the Greek learned and wise among the saved in the Last Judgment.

The prominence in the illustration of Hermes perhaps in his role of as the guide for souls in the underworld, may be Blake's assertion that both Plato and Milton are still in need of guidance in matters of the soul. None of the Platonic images contemplated by Milton seems to show the positive outcome for Man's plight for which Blake is working.

Blake's ambivalence to Plato and Greek thought can be seen in these 2 short passages:

Songs and Ballads,(E 479)
"Twas the Greeks love of war
Turnd Love into a Boy
And Woman into a Statue of Stone
And away fled every joy"

Letter to Trusler, (E 702)
"The wisest of the Ancients considerd what is not
too Explicit as the fittest for Instruction because it rouzes the
faculties to act. I name Moses Solomon Esop Homer Plato"

 

BLAKE' ARCHETYPES

Wikipedia Commons

America 

Plate 10 

 

When we attempt to understand how our own psyches are structured we realize that our reasoning power developed upon a pre-existing capability of which the reason has no knowledge. The 'form' on which the subsequent development built is called by Jung 'archetypes'. For the psyche to reach its maximum state the individual has the task of recognizing what is hidden from his conscious mind in the archetypes.

 

Jung postulates that the form of the archetypes are inborn. The brain of each individual is organized in such a way that awareness of similar archetypes is common to us all. As the mind becomes aware of the patterns which are innate they become filled with content from the experience of the individual.  

  

Four Archetypes, CG Jung 

Page 1

"There is an a priori factor in all human activities, namely the inborn, preconscious and unconscious individual structure of the psyche."

Page 12

... "There are present in every psyche forms which are unconscious but nevertheless active-living dispositions, ideas in the Platonic sense, that perform and and continually influence our thoughts and feelings and actions...archetypes are not determined as regards their content, but only as regards their form and then only to a very limited degree."

Page 18 

"Our task is not, therefore, to deny the archetype, but to dissolve the projections, in order to restore their contents to the individual who has involuntarily lost them by projecting them outside himself."  

Like Jung, Blake knew that the reasoning power was incomplete. There are abilities which are outside of the purview of reasoning, sensation, and consciousness.  Blake states that man "percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover".   

 

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION, [a], (E 2)

  "The Argument   Man has no notion of moral fitness but from
Education.  Naturally he is only a natural organ subject to
Sense.
  I  Man cannot naturally Percieve, but through his natural or 
bodily organs
  II  Man by his reasoning power. can only compare & judge of 
what he has already perciev'd.
  III  From a perception of only 3 senses or 3 elements none 
could deduce a fourth or fifth
  IV  None could have other than natural or organic thoughts if
he had none but organic perceptions
  V  Mans desires are limited by his perceptions. none can desire
what he has not perciev'd
  VI  The desires & perceptions of man untaught by any thing but
organs of sense, must be limited to objects of sense."

THERE is NO NATURAL RELIGION, [b], (E 2)
  "I  Mans perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception. he
percieves more than sense (tho' ever so acute) can discover.
  II  Reason or the ratio of all we have already known. is not
the same that it shall be when we know more.
  [III lacking]
  IV  The bounded is loathed by its possessor.  The same dull
round even of a univer[s]e would soon become a mill with
complicated wheels.
  V  If the many become the same as the few, when possess'd,
More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul, less than All cannot
satisfy Man.
  VI  If any could desire what he is incapable of possessing, 
despair must be his eternal lot.

VII The desire of Man being Infinite the possession is Infinite
& himself Infinite
     Conclusion,   If it were not for the Poetic or Prophetic
character. the Philosophic & Experimental would soon be at the
ratio of all things & stand still, unable to do other than repeat
the same dull round over again
     Application.   He who sees the Infinite in all things sees
God.  He who sees the Ratio only sees himself only.

Therefore God becomes as we are, that we may be as he is" 

Blake's awareness of the structure of the mind was his recognition of the permanence of mental realities which were not limited by temporal/spacial considerations.

Although Blake used the word 'archetype' only once, he used the word permanent numerous times with reference to the mental world which we inhabit:

America, Plate 10, (E 55)
"Thus wept the Angel voice & as he wept the terrible blasts
Of trumpets, blew a loud alarm across the Atlantic deep.
No trumpets answer; no reply of clarions or of fifes,
Silent the Colonies remain and refuse the loud alarm.

On those vast shady hills between America & Albions shore;       
Now barr'd out by the Atlantic sea: call'd Atlantean hills:
Because from their bright summits you may pass to the Golden world
An ancient palace, archetype of mighty Emperies,
Rears its immortal pinnacles, built in the forest of God
By Ariston the king of beauty for his stolen bride,              

Here on their magic seats the thirteen Angels sat perturb'd
For clouds from the Atlantic hover o'er the solemn roof."

Milton, Plate 22[24], (E 117)

"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." 

Jerusalem, Plate 13, (E 157) 

"A Concave Earth wondrous, Chasmal, Abyssal, Incoherent!
Forming the Mundane Shell: above; beneath: on all sides surrounding 
Golgonooza: Los walks round the walls night and day.             

He views the City of Golgonooza, & its smaller Cities:
The Looms & Mills & Prisons & Work-houses of Og & Anak:
The Amalekite: the Canaanite: the Moabite: the Egyptian:
And all that has existed in the space of six thousand years:
Permanent, & not lost  not lost nor vanishd, & every little act,  
Word, work, & wish, that has existed, all remaining still" 

Four Zoas, Night Night VII, Page 98, (E 370)

"And first he drew a line upon the walls of shining heaven    
And Enitharmon tincturd it with beams of blushing love
It remaind permanent a lovely form inspird divinely human
Dividing into just proportions Los unwearied labourd
The immortal lines upon the heavens till with sighs of love
Sweet Enitharmon mild Entrancd breathd forth upon the wind   
The spectrous dead Weeping the Spectres viewd the immortal works
Of Los Assimilating to those forms Embodied & Lovely
In youth & beauty in the arms of Enitharmon mild reposing"

Four Zoas, Night VIII, Page 113, (E384) 

"The furrowd field replies to the grave I hear her reply to me
Behold the time approaches fast that thou shalt be as a thing
Forgotten when one speaks of thee he will not be believd 
When the man gently fades away in his immortality
When the mortal disappears in improved knowledge cast away
The former things so shall the Mortal gently fade away
And so become invisible to those who still remain
Listen I will tell thee what is done in the caverns of the grave  

Vision of Last Judgment, Page 70, (E 555)

 "The Nature of Visionary Fancy or Imagination is very little
Known & the Eternal nature & permanence of its ever Existent
Images is considerd as less permanent than the things of
Vegetative & Generative Nature yet the Oak dies as well as the
Lettuce but Its Eternal Image & Individuality never dies." 

Vision of Last Judgment, Page 71, (E 555)

"There Exist
in that Eternal World the Permanent Realities of Every Thing
which we see are reflected in this Vegetable Glass of Nature" 

10 QUOTES TENTH

Wikipedia Commons
Illustrations to Pilgrim's Progress
Christian With the Shield of Faith

*

 He who Loves feels love descend into him & if he has wisdom
may percieve it is from the Poetic Genius which is the Lord

 * 

Man can have no idea of any thing greater than Man as a cup
cannot contain more than its capaciousness  But God is a man not
because he is so percievd by man but because he is the creator of
man 

*

Even I already feel a World within 

Opening its gates & in it all the real substances 

Of which these in the outward World are shadows which pass away

*

Thy pity is from the foundation of the World & thy Redemption
Begun Already in Eternity   Come then O Lamb of God  
Come Lord Jesus come quickly

*

These represent those who tho willing were too weak to Reject Error without the Assistance & Countenance of those Already in the Truth  for a Man Can only Reject Error by the Advice of a Friend or by the Immediate Inspiration of God 

*

 The Elect is one Class: You
Shall bind them separate: they cannot Believe in Eternal Life
Except by Miracle & a New Birth. The other two Classes;
The Reprobate who never cease to Believe, and the Redeemd,       
Who live in doubts & fears perpetually tormented by the Elect

*

no man can do a Vicious action & think it to be Virtuous. no man can take darkness for light. he may pretend to do so & may pretend to be a modest Enquirer. but is a Knave 

*

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he open'd the coffins & set them all free.
Then down a green plain leaping laughing they run      
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun. 

*

Execution
is only the result of Invention

*

Nature Teaches nothing of Spiritual Life but only of Natural
Life 

* 

MY SPECTRE

First posted March 2019

British Museum
Illustrations to Young's Night Thoughts

One of the facets of self-knowledge is the realization that we have within ourselves a bundle of inconsistencies. We act out these contrary states without consciousness of their source. There is value in tracing our feelings, rationalizations or outward behaviors to the facets of ourselves which are being expressed. In so doing we inform ourselves of the dynamics of the divisions within ourselves which prevent us from measuring up to the image of ourselves we hope to attain. In The King and the Corpse, Heinrich Zimmer refers to Blake's poem My Spectre in elucidating the powers which are actively preventing (or assisting) the transformation which man is seeking.

From The King and the Corpse, Page 221:
"As William Blake has put it: 'My Spectre around me night & day.' Wherever we look we discover our own inescapable selves. Wherever we step, a portion of our unknown self steps before us significantly, mysteriously fashioned and projected. Our destiny, our environment, our enemies, our companions - we have built them all. They stalk out of the depth, essential and self-produced. That is why to an enlightened person everything encountered is a manifestation of the initiating priest, a spiritual guide able to bestow the key. The shapes of the initiating powers change, but always in accordance with out own need and guilt; they reflect the degree of our own nescience or maturity. And they prefigure the transformation required of us, the tasks we have yet to solve,"      

Songs and Ballads, My Spectre, (E 475)

"My Spectre around me night & day
Like a Wild beast guards my way
My Emanation far within               
Weeps incessantly for my Sin                                  

A Fathomless & boundless deep     
There we wander there we weep
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind

He scents thy footsteps in the snow
Wheresoever thou dost go               
Thro the wintry hail & rain
When wilt thou return again

Dost thou not in Pride & scorn        
Fill with tempests all my morn 
And with jealousies & fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears

Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereaved of their life
Their marble tombs I built with tears  
And with cold & shuddering fears   

Seven more loves weep night & day
Round the tombs where my loves lay     
And seven more loves attend each night
Around my couch with torches bright

And seven more Loves in my bed
Crown with wine my mournful head       
Pitying & forgiving all
Thy transgressions great & small

When wilt thou return & view
My loves & them to life renew     
When wilt thou return & live
When wilt thou pity as I forgive       

Never Never I return                   
Still for Victory I burn
Living thee alone Ill have                
And when dead Ill be thy Grave

Thro the Heavn & Earth & Hell
Thou shalt never never quell
I will fly & thou pursue
Night & Morn the flight renew       

Till I turn from Female Love            
And root up the Infernal Grove          
I shall never worthy be                 
To Step into Eternity

And to end thy cruel mocks             
Annihilate thee on the rocks
And another form create
To be subservient to my Fate

Let us agree to give up Love
And root up the infernal grove                                 
Then shall we return & see
The worlds of happy Eternity

& Throughout all Eternity                     
I forgive you you forgive me
As our dear Redeemer said                                   
This the Wine & this the Bread"

Blake used many symbols to reveal the process of ridding oneself from impediments to spiritual growth. In the phrase; 'Till I turn from Female Love And root up the Infernal Grove,' he is giving instruction on how to solve the problem of being entrapped by the Spectre in a mind that repeats the 'same dull round.'  That is if we turn from our devotion to the the outward enticements, and if we remove form our minds our false ideas and the ways of thinking that keep us bewildered, we will find ourselves capable of reaching a level of consciousness beyond our present ability. 

Milton, Plate 14 [15], (E 108)

"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." 

Jerusalem, Plate 7, (E 150)
"Such are the Generations of the Giant Albion,
To separate a Law of Sin, to punish thee in thy members.         

Los answer'd. Altho' I know not this! I know far worse than this:
I know that Albion hath divided me, and that thou O my Spectre,
Hast just cause to be irritated: but look stedfastly upon me:
Comfort thyself in my strength the time will arrive,
When all Albions injuries shall cease, and when we shall         
Embrace him tenfold bright, rising from his tomb in immortality.
They have divided themselves by Wrath. they must be united by
Pity: let us therefore take example & warning O my Spectre,
O that I could abstain from wrath! O that the Lamb
Of God would look upon me and pity me in my fury.                
In anguish of regeneration! in terrors of self annihilation:
Pity must join together those whom wrath has torn in sunder,"

Jerusalem, Plate 73, (E 173)
 "And O thou Lamb of God, whom I    
Slew in my dark self-righteous pride:
  Art thou return'd to Albions Land!
And is Jerusalem thy Bride?

  Come to my arms & never more
Depart; but dwell for ever here:         
  Create my Spirit to thy Love:
Subdue my Spectre to thy Fear,

  Spectre of Albion! warlike Fiend!
In clouds of blood & ruin roll'd:
  I here reclaim thee as my own         
My Selfhood! Satan! armd in gold."

Jerusalem, Plate 41, (E 184)
[illustration, with inscription, reversed: 
"Each Man is in his Spectre's power
Until the arrival of that hour,  
When his Humanity awake
And cast his Spectre into the Lake" 

---

More posts on My Spectre:

Sea of Time and Space

https://ramhornd.blogspot.com/2010/09/my-spectre-n.html

Inner war

https://ramhornd.blogspot.com/2011/06/inner-war.html

 

NELSON HILTON

Title - Blake An Illustrated Quarterly - 1999

Article - www.english.uga.edu/wblake

by Nelson Hilton

"The 'Blake Digital Text Project' (http://www.english.uga.edu/wblake) originated in 1994 with the desire to create an electronic, online, interactive, enhanced version of the long out-of-print 1967 Concordance to the Writings of William Blake, edited by David V. Erdman."

[ An online Concordance to Blake is available now at:

http://victorian-studies.net/concordance/blake/         ]

When Nelson Hilton was Professor of English at the University of Georgia he worked at making Erdman's The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake accessible in digitized form. He indexed Blake's works and linked each item with the file containing the contents. Unlike Erdman's book he included line numbers for easy referencing. Page numbers from the book were on each line.

When Hilton left the University of Georgia, the Blake digitizing project migrated to the University of Arizona with which Hilton became associated. 

Each section of Erdman's book is easily located in this listing of the contents. It is convenient to click on any listing and read the selection that interests you. 

Contents, The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake

https://blake.lib.asu.edu/html/home.html

In Hilton's CONTENTS here is text from America:

America, Plate 3, (E 51)

Am1.1; E51    "The shadowy daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc.
Am1.2; E51    When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode;
Am1.3; E51    His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron;
Am1.4; E51    Crown'd with a helmet & dark hair the nameless female stood;
Am1.5; E51    A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
Am1.6; E51    When pestilence is shot from heaven; no other arms she need:
Am1.7; E51    Invulnerable tho' naked, save where clouds roll round her loins,
Am1.8; E51    Their awful folds in the dark air; silent she stood as night;
Am1.9; E51    For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise;
Am1.10; E51  But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce    embrace.    

Am1.11; E51  Dark virgin; said the hairy youth, thy father stern abhorr'd;
Am1.12; E51  Rivets my tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars;
Am1.13; E51  Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion,
Am1.14; E51  Stalking upon the mountains, & sometimes a whale I lash
Am1.15; E51  The raging fathomless abyss, anon a serpent folding

Am1.16; E51  Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs,
Am1.17; E51  On the Canadian wilds I fold, feeble my spirit folds.
Am1.18; E51  For chaind beneath I rend these caverns; when thou bringest food
Am1.19; E51  I howl my joy! and my red eyes seek to behold thy face
Am1.20; E51  In vain! these clouds roll to & fro, & hide thee from my sight."

Wikipedia Commons

America

Plate 3

 

Los (Time) and Enitharmon (Space) children of Enion and Urthona (Nature and Spirit) become themselves the parents of Orc (the spirit of change or revolution.)  

So Blake announces that he will write about things happening in the natural word but clothed in symbols which will hide and reveal reality as befits his myth of  creation, fall, redemption and apocalypse.

We find the daughter of Urthona - a manifestation of Urthona in the Natural World - providing the food of dissension to Orc who is approaching maturity. She is armed with a supply of ideas and the means to direct them but it take the awakening of the revolutionary spirit to give them voice. Incidents that demand change repeatedly occur but a clear view of a way forward is not in sight.

Four Zoas, Night VII, Page 79, (E 355)

"Urizen answerd Read my books explore my Constellations 
Enquire of my Sons & they shall teach thee how to War
Enquire of my Daughters who accursd in the dark depths
Knead bread of Sorrow by my stern command for I am God
Of all this dreadful ruin   Rise O daughters at my Stern command

Rending the Rocks Eleth & Uveth rose & Ona rose       
Terrific with their iron vessels driving them across
In the dim air they took the book of iron & placd above
On clouds of death & sang their songs Kneading the bread of Orc
Orc listend to the song compelld hungring on the cold wind
That swaggd heavy with the accursed dough. the hoar frost ragd   
Thro Onas sieve   the torrent rain pourd from the iron pail
Of Eleth & the icy hands of Uveth kneaded the bread
The heavens bow with terror underneath their iron hands
Singing at their dire work the words of Urizens book of iron
While the enormous scrolls rolld dreadful in the heavens above   
And still the burden of their song in tears was poured forth
The bread is Kneaded let us rest O cruel father of children
But Urizen remitted not their labours upon his rock" 

William Blake and His Reader

New York Public Library

Milton

Plate 36

First posted by Larry in Nov 2009

Inspired primarily by Blake's Sublime Allegory (Roger
Easson, p. 313) :

In 1800, when he was 33, Blake went to Felpham (on the
sea) under the sponsorship of a wealthy man who pretended
an interest in his welfare (Blake was well nigh starving
about that time).

In his Preface to Jerusalem he spoke of returning from the
sea. He was disillusioned because he had hoped for a
spiritual friend, but found a corporeal one.

"Corporeal Friends are Spiritual Enemies" (in Milton,
4.26; E98 and again in Jerusalem, 44.10; E193)

Blake was disillusioned with the public; they had failed
to show him any interest or respect.

Easson tells us that in Jerusalem the disillusioned poet
attempted to promote a dialogue with his readers (that's
us). With a typical prophetic attitude he expected a
response-- . Prophets don't say things to please their
listeners but to arouse them, provoke them, above all
awaken them. Like Ezekiel Blake had "the desire of
raising other men to a perception of the Infinite"
(MHH13; Erdman 39).

In Jerusalem Blake is deliberately illusive (every Plate
might be thought of as a detective story or a crossword
puzzle). He means us to read it-- and consider! Like his
Vision of Christ in The Everlasting Gospel "he spoke in
parables to the blind".

Blake had been well received by a (very!) few from whom
their "love and friendship" was the highest reward. In
the preface he asks for our love and friendship; it can
only be reached through "the severe contentions of [true!]
friendship."

Blake took the freedom to contend with us, and whether or
to what degree we can respond creatively depends upon us.

Has anyone ever fully understood Blake? Ah! that's the
challenge. 

 

WAR

Wikipedia Commons

America 

Plate 6, Copy a

War is Blake's method of separating Truth from Error. The condition of War in Eternity is the clash of ideas or as David Erdman writes in Prophet Against Empire on Page 356, the separation of 'wheat from chaff.'

Blake distinguishes between the Wars of Man which in Eternity are experienced as visionary, and the violent conflicts with which we are familiar. Ololon looking down into our world sees that War has become the vehicle of decay & death. Ideas are meant to be expressions of the Divine Vision and not cause for bitterness and terror.

Milton, Plate 34 [38], (E 134) 

"And Ololon looked down into the Heavens of Ulro in fear
They said. How are the Wars of Man which in Great Eternity       
Appear around, in the External Spheres of Visionary Life
Here renderd Deadly within the Life & Interior Vision
How are the Beasts & Birds & Fishes, & Plants & Minerals
Here fixd into a frozen bulk subject to decay & death?
Those Visions of Human Life & Shadows of Wisdom & Knowledge      
Plate 35 [39]
Are here frozen to unexpansive deadly destroying terrors[.]
And War & Hunting: the Two Fountains of the River of Life
Are become Fountains of bitter Death & of corroding Hell
Till Brotherhood is changd into a Curse & a Flattery
By Differences between Ideas, that Ideas themselves, (which are  
The Divine Members) may be slain in offerings for sin"

Blake writes of the transition from corporeal war to mental war as The Four Zoas is brought to a close "as an extended song of harvest." Erdman furnishes the details. "Enion and Tharmas are at last united, appearing in Eden as innocent boy and girl in Eternal Childhood, he the rivers and seas, she the moon that woos them. ...The clouds of war dissipate and sink into the Seas of Tharmas. "... 

"Urizen combines the drying and cutting operations, and the winnowing is done by Tharmas as Tongue making the honest man's ultimate separation of wheat from chaff, exulting over the downfall of the great Whore and and all her "Kings & Councellors & Giant Warriors":

Four Zoas, Night IX, Page 134, (E 402)
"O Mystery Fierce Tharmas cries Behold thy end is come            
Art thou she that made the nations drunk with the cup of Religion
Go down ye Kings & Councellors & Giant Warriors
Go down into the depths go down & hide yourselves beneath
Go down with horse & Chariots & Trumpets of hoarse war

Lo how the Pomp of Mystery goes down into the Caves              
Her great men howl & throw the dust & rend their hoary hair
Her delicate women & children shriek upon the bitter wind
Spoild of their beauty their hair rent & their skin shriveld up
Lo darkness covers the long pomp of banners on the wind
And black horses & armed men & miserable bound captives          
Where shall the graves recieve them all & where shall be their place
And who shall mourn for Mystery who never loosd her Captives
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
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 bonds & task masters are these the prisoners
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
Then All the Slaves from every Earth in the wide Universe        
Sing a New Song drowning confusion in its happy notes
While the flail of Urizen sounded loud & the winnowing wind of Tharmas
So loud so clear in the wide heavens & the song that they sung was this 
Composed by an African Black from the little Earth of Sotha"

After referring to the above passage near the end of the Four Zoas, Erdman continues: 

"This is the end so long foretold, and now Tharmas recites the beginning foretold in America, repeating Blake' paraphrase of the second and third demands of the Declaration of Independence, Life having been attained. The slaves and prisoners attaining Liberty are urged to pursue their Happiness as earth-owners, free of religion's tithes: The good of all the Land is before you for Mystery is no more"

Declaration of Independence

"all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

America, Plate 6, (E 53)

"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." 

Matthew 3

[11] I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that
 cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to 
bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire:
[12] Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and 
gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with 
unquenchable fire.
[13] Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him.