- Title:
- "What have I said? What have I done?..." (Plate 24)
- 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 (22.6 x 16.5 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Inscribed in orange ink, upper right: "24"
Lettered inside image: "What have I said? What have I done? O all-powerful Human Words! | You recoil back upon me in the blood of the Lamb slain in his Children: | Two bleeding Contraries, equally true, are his Witnesses against me. | We reared mighty Stones: we danced naked around them: | Thinking to bring Love into light of day, to Jerusalem's shame: | Displaying our Giant limbs to all the winds of heaven: sudden | Shame siez'd us, we could not look on one-another for abhorrence: the Blue | Of our immortal Veins & all their Hosts fled from our Limbs, | And wander'd distant in a dismal Night clouded & dark: | The Sun fled from the Briton's forehead: the Moon from his mighty loins: | Scandinavia fled with all his mountains fill'd with groans. | O what is Life & what is Man? O what is Death? Wherefore | Are you my Children, natives in the Grave to where I go? | Or are you born to feed the hungry ravenings of Destruction, | To be the sport of Accident! to waste in Wrath & Love, a weary | Life, in brooding cares & anxious labours, that prove but chaff. | O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I have forsaken thy Courts, | Thy Pillars of ivory & gold: thy Curtains of silk & fine | Linen: thy Pavements of precious stones: thy Walls of pearl | And gold, thy Gates of Thanksgiving, thy Windows of Praise: | Thy Clouds of Blessing, thy Cherubims of Tender-mercy | Stretching their Wings sublime over the Little-ones of Albion! | Human Imagination, O Divine Body I have Crucified, | I have turned my back upon thee into the Wastes of Moral Law: | There Babylon is builded in the Waste, founded in Human desolation. | O Babylon, thy Watchman stands over thee in the night, | Thy severe Judge all the day long proves thee, O Babylon, | With provings of destruction, with giving thee thy hearts desire. | But Albion is cast forth to the Potter, his Children to the Builders, | To build Babylon because they have forsaken Jerusalem. | The Walls of Babylon are Souls of Men: her Gates the Groans | Of Nations: her Towers are the Miseries of once happy Families. | Her Streets are paved with Destruction, her Houses built with Death, | Her Palaces with Hell & the Grave; her Synagogues with Torments | Of ever-hardening Despair, squar'd & polish'd with cruel skill. | Yet thou wast lovely as the summer cloud upon my hills | When Jerusalem was thy heart's desire in times of youth & love. | Thy Sons came to Jerusalem with gifts. She sent them away | With blessings on their hands & on their feet, blessings of gold, | And pearl & diamond: thy Daughters sang in her Courts: | They came up to Jerusalem: they walked before Albion. | In the Exchanges of London every Nation walk'd, | And London walk'd in every Nation, mutual in love & harmony. | Albion cover'd the whole Earth, England encompass'd the Nations, | Mutual each within other's bosom in Visions of Regeneration: | Jerusalem cover'd the Atlantic Mountains & the Erythrean, | From bright Japan & China to Hesperia, France & England. | Mount Zion lifted his head in every Nation under heaven: | And the Mount of Olives was beheld over the whole Earth. | The footsteps of the Lamb of God were there: but now no more, | No more shall I behold him, he is clos'd in Luvah's Sepulcher. | Yet why these smitings of Luvah, the gentlest mildest Zoa? | If God was Merciful this could not be: O Lamb of God, | Thou art a delusion and Jerusalem is my Sin! O my Children, | I have educated you in the crucifying cruelties of Demonstration | Till you have assum'd the Providence of God & slain your Father. | Dost thou appear before me who liest dead in Luvah's Sepulcher? | Dost thou forgive me? thou who wast Dead & art Alive? | Look not so merciful upon me, O thou Slain Lamb of God! | I die! I die in thy arms tho' Hope is banish'd from me. | Thund'ring the Veil rushes from his hand, Vegetating Knot by | Knot, Day by Day, Night by Night: loud roll the indignant Atlantic | Waves & the Erythrean, turning up the bottoms of the Deeps."
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.1(24)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- literary theme | men | moon | night | nudes | religious and mythological subject | rocks (landforms) | sky | text | water | waves (natural events) | women
- Access:
- Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
- Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3453
- 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]
Denise Gigante, Life, organic form and Romanticism , Yale University Press, New Haven, 2009, between p. 114 and 115, p. 139, Pl. III. 9, PR575.L54 G54 2009 (YCBA) [YCBA]