- Title:
- "Why wilt thou give to her a Body..." (Plate 12)
- Part Of:
Collective Title: Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion, Copy E
- Date:
- 1804 to 1820
- Materials & Techniques:
- Relief etching printed in orange ink, with watercolor and pen and black ink on moderately thick, smooth, cream wove paper
- Dimensions:
- Sheet: 13 1/2 x 10 3/8 inches (34.3 x 26.4 cm), Plate: 8 7/8 x 6 1/2 inches (22.5 x 16.5 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in orange ink, upper right: "12"
Lettered upper right: "12"; inside image: "Why wilt thou give to her a Body whose life is but a Shade? | Her joy and love, a shade: a shade of sweet repose: | But animated and vegetated, she is a devouring worm: | What shall we do for thee, O lovely mild Jerusalem? | And Los said, I behold the finger of God in terrors! | Albion is dead! his Emanation is divided from him! | But I am living! yet I feel my Emanation also dividing. | Such thing was never known! O pity me, thou all-piteous-one! | What shall I do! or how exist, divided from Enitharmon? | Yet why despair? I saw the finger of God go forth | Upon my Furnaces, from within the Wheels of Albion's Sons ; | Fixing their Systems, permanent: by mathematic power | Giving a body to Falshood that it may be cast off for ever. | With Demonstrative Science piercing Apollyon with his own bow : | God is within, & without: he is even in the depths of Hell! | Such were the lamentations of the Labourers in the Furnaces! | And they appear'd within & without incircling on both sides | The Starry Wheels of Albion's Sons, with Spaces for Jerusalem, | And for Vala the shadow of Jerusalem, the ever mourning Shade : | On both sides, within & without beaming gloriously: | Terrified at the sublime Wonder, Los stood before his Furnaces, | And they stood around, terrified with admiration at Erin's Spaces, | For the Spaces reach'd from the starry heighth, to the starry depth: | And they builded Golgonooza: terrible eternal labour! | What are those golden builders doing? where was the burying-place | Of soft Ethinthus? near Tyburn's fatal Tree? is that | Mild Zion's hills, most ancient promontory, near mournful | Ever weeping Paddington? is that Calvary and Golgotha? | Becoming a building of pity and compassion? Lo! | The stones are pity, and the bricks, well wrought affections: | Enamel'd with love & kindness, & the tiles engraven gold, | Labour of merciful hands: the beams & rafters are forgiveness: | The mortar & cement of the work, tears of honesty: the nails | And the screws & iron braces, are well wrought blandishments, | And well contrived words, firm fixing, never forgotten, | Always comforting the remembrance: the floors, humility: | The cielings, devotion: the hearths, thanksgiving. | Prepare the furniture, O Lambeth, in thy pitying looms; | The curtains, woven tears & sighs, wrought into lovely forms | For comfort: there the secret furniture of Jerusalem's chamber | Is wrought: Lambeth! the Bride, the Lamb's Wife, loveth thee: | Thou art one with her & knowest not of self in thy supreme joy. | Go on, builders in hope : tho' Jerusalem wanders far away, | Without the gate of Los: among the dark Satanic wheels. | Fourfold the Sons of Los in their divisions: and fourfold, | The great City of Golgonooza : fourfold toward the north, | And toward the south fourfold, & fourfold toward the east & west, | Each within other toward the four points: that toward | Eden, and that toward the World of Generation, | And that toward Beulah, and that toward Ulro: | Ulro is the space of the terrible starry wheels of Albion's sons: | But that toward Eden is walled up, till time of renovation: | Yet it is perfect in its building, ornaments & perfection. | And the Four Points are thus beheld in Great Eternity: | West, the Circumference: South, the Zenith: North, | The Nadir: East, the Center, unapproachable for ever. | These are the four Faces towards the Four Worlds of Humanity | In every Man. Ezekiel saw them by Chebar's flood. | And the Eyes are the South, and the Nostrils are the East, | And the Tongue is the West, and the Ear is the North. | And the North Gate of Golgonooza toward Generation, | Has four sculptur'd Bulls, terrible, before the Gate of iron, | And iron, the Bulls: and that which looks toward Ulro, | Clay bak'd & enamel'd, eternal glowing as four furnaces: | Turning upon the Wheels of Albion's sons with enormous power. | And that toward Beulah four, gold, silver, brass, & iron;..."
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.1(12)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- clouds | compass | globe | gown | literary theme | men | planet | religious and mythological subject | sky | sphere | text | women
- Access:
- Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
- Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3440
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
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