- Title:
- "His Children exil'd from his breast..." (Plate 19)
- 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 3/8 inches (22.5 x 16.2 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image: "His Children exil'd from his breast, pass to and fro before him, | His birds are silent on his hills, flocks die beneath his branches, | His tents are fall'n: his trumpets, and the sweet sound of his harp, | Are silent on his clouded hills, that belch forth storms & fire. | His milk of Cows & honey of Bees, & fruit of golden harvest, | Is gather'd in the scorching heat, & in the driving rain: | Where once he sat he weary walks in misery and pain, | His Giant beauty and perfection fallen into dust: | Till from within his wither'd breast grown narrow with his woes, | The corn is turn'd to thistles & the apples into poison: | The birds of song to murderous crows, his joys to bitter groans: | The voices of children in his tents to cries of helpless infants: | And self-exiled from the face of light & shine of morning. | In the dark world, a narrow house! he wanders up and down, | Seeking for rest and finding none! and hidden far within, | His Eon weeping in the cold and desolated Earth. | All his Affections now appear withoutside: all his Sons, | Hand, Hyle & Coban, Guantok, Peachey, Brereton, Slayd & Hutton, | Scofeld, Kox, Kotope & Bowen; his Twelve Sons: Satanic Mill: | Who are the Spectres of the Twenty-four, each Double-form'd, | Revolve upon his mountains groaning in pain: beneath | The dark, incessant sky seeking for rest and finding none: | Raging against their Human natures, rav'ning to gormandize | The Human majesty and beauty of the Twenty-four, | Condensing them into solid rocks with cruelty and abhorrence. | Suspition & revenge, & the seven diseases of the Soul | Settled around Albion and around Luvah in his secret cloud. | Willing the Friends endur'd, for Albion's sake, and for | Jerusalem his Emanation shut within his bosom, | Which harden'd against them more and more: as he builded onwards | On the Gulph of Death in self-righteousness, that roll'd | Before his awful feet, in pride of virtue for victory: | And Los was roof'd in from Eternity in Albion's Cliffs | Which stand upon the ends of Beulah, and withoutside, all | Appear'd a rocky form against the Divine Humanity. | Albion's Circumference was clos'd: his Center began dark'ning | Into the Night of Beulah, and the Moon of Beulah rose | Clouded with storms: Los his strong Guard walk'd round beneath the Moon, | And Albion fled inward among the currents of his rivers. | He found Jerusalem upon the River of his City soft repos'd | In the arms of Vala, assimilating in one with Vala, | The Lilly of Havilah: and they sang soft thro' Lambeth's vales, | In a sweet moony night & silence that they had created, | With a blue sky spread over with wings and a mild moon, | Dividing & uniting into many female forms: Jerusalem | Trembling; then in one comingling in eternal tears, | Sighing to melt his Giant beauty, on the moony river."
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.1(19)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- dead | literary theme | men | mourning | nudes | religious and mythological subject | sun | text | women
- Access:
- Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
- Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3447
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
William Blake (Tate Britain, 2000-11-02 - 2001-02-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]
The Human Form Divine - William Blake from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale Center for British Art, 1997-04-02 - 1997-07-06) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition] [Exhibition Description]