- Title:
- "Los shudder'd at beholding Albion..." (Plate 40)
- 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:
Inscribed in orange ink, upper right: "40"
Lettered inside image: "Los shudder'd at beholding Albion, for his disease | Arose upon him pale and ghastly: and he call'd around | The friends of Albion: trembling at the sight of Eternal Death | The four appear'd with their Emanations in fiery | Chariots: black their fires roll, beholding Albion's House of Eternity. | Damp couch the flames beneath, and silent, sick, stand shuddering | Before the Porch of sixteen pillars: weeping every one | Descended and fell down upon their knees round Albion's knees, | Swearing the Oath of God! with awful voice of thunders round | Upon the hills & valleys, and the cloudy Oath roll'd far and wide. | Albion is sick! said every Valley, every mournful Hill | And every River: our brother Albion is sick to death. | He hath leagued himself with robbers: he hath studied the arts | Of unbelief: Envy hovers over him: his Friends are his abhorrence: | Those who give their lives for him are despised: | Those who devour his soul, are taken into his bosom: | To destroy his Emanation is their intention. | Arise! awake, O Friends of the Giant Albion! | They have perswaded him of horrible falshoods: | They have sown errors over all his fruitful fields! | The Twenty-four heard! they came trembling on wat'ry chariots, | Borne by the Living Creatures of the third procession | Of Human Majesty: the Living Creatures wept aloud as they | Went along Albion's roads, till they arriv'd at Albion's House. | O! how the torments of Eternal Death waited on Man: | And the loud-rending bars of the Creation ready to burst: | That the wide world might fly from its hinges, & the immortal mansion | Of Man for ever be possess'd by monsters of the deeps: | And Man himself become a Fiend, wrap'd in an endless curse, | Consuming and consum'd for-ever in flames of Moral Justice. | For had the Body of Albion fall'n down, and from its dreadful ruins | Let loose the enormous Spectre on the darkness of the deep, | At enmity with the Merciful & fill'd with devouring fire, | A nether-world must have recieved the foul enormous spirit, | Under pretence of Moral Virtue, fill'd with Revenge and Law. | There to eternity chain'd down, and issuing in red flames | And curses, with his mighty arms brandish'd against the heavens: | Breathing cruelty blood & vengeance, gnashing his teeth with pain, | Torn with black storms, & ceaseless torrents of his own consuming fire: | Within his breast his mighty Sons chain'd down & fill'd with cursings: | And his dark Eon, that once fair crystal form divinely clear, | Within his ribs producing serpents whose souls are flames of fire. | But, glory to the Merciful One, for he is of tender mercies! | And the Divine Family wept over him as One Man. | And these the Twenty-four in whom the Divine Family | Appear'd; and they were One in Him. A Human Vision! | Human Divine, Jesus the Saviour, blessed for ever and ever. | Selsey, true friend! who afterwards submitted to be devour'd | By the waves of Despair, whose Emanation rose above | The flood, and was nam'd Chichester, lovely mild & gentle! Lo! | Her lambs bleat to the sea- fowls' cry, lamenting still for Albion. | Submitting to be call'd the son of Los the terrible vision, | Winchester stood devoting himself for Albion: his tents | Outspread with abundant riches, and his Emanations | Submitting to be call'd Enitharmon's daughters, and be born | In vegetable mould : created by the Hammer and Loom | In Bowlahoola & Allamanda where the Dead wail night & day. | (I call them by their English names; English, the rough basement. | Los built the stubborn structure of the Language, acting against | Albion's melancholy, who must else have been a Dumb despair.) | Gloucester and Exeter and Salisbury and Bristol; and benevolent Bath,"
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.1(40)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- fruit | leaf | literary theme | men | nude | nudes | religious and mythological subject | text | text | vegetation | vines | vines | women
- Access:
- Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
- Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3471
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
William Blake (Tate Britain, 2000-11-02 - 2001-02-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]
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