- Title:
- "Bath, healing City!..." (Plate 45)
- Part Of:
Collective Title: Jerusalem: The Emanation of The Giant Albion, Copy E
- Date:
- 1804 to 1820
- Materials & Techniques:
- Relief and white-line 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 (22.6 x 16.2 cm)
- Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image: "Bath, healing City! whose wisdom, in midst of Poetic | Fervor, mild spoke thro' the Western Porch, in soft gentle tears. | O Albion, mildest Son of Eden! clos'd is thy Western Gate. | Brothers of Eternity: this Man whose great example | We all admir'd & lov'd, whose all benevolent countenance, seen | In Eden, in lovely Jerusalem, drew even from envy | The tear: and the confession of honesty, open & undisguis'd, | From mistrust and suspition. The Man is himself become | A piteous example of oblivion. To teach the Sons | Of Eden, that however great and glorious, however loving | And merciful the Individuality; however high | Our palaces and cities, and however fruitful are our fields | In Selfhood, we are nothing: but fade away in morning's breath. | Our mildness is nothing: the greatest mildness we can use | Is incapable and nothing: none but the Lamb of God can heal | This dread disease: none but Jesus: O Lord, descend and save. | Albion's Western Gate is clos'd: his death is coming apace: | Jesus alone can save him: for alas, we none can know | How soon his lot may be our own. When Africa in sleep | Rose in the night of Beulah, and bound down the Sun & Moon, | His friends cut his strong chains, & overwhelm'd his dark | Machines in fury & destruction, and the Man reviving repented. | He wept before his wrathful brethren, thankful & considerate | For their well timed wrath. But Albion's sleep is not | Like Africa's: and his machines are woven with his life. | Nothing but mercy can save him! nothing but mercy, interposing | Lest he should slay Jerusalem in his fearful jealousy. | O God, descend! gather our brethren, deliver Jerusalem! | But that we may omit no office of the friendly spirit, | Oxford, take thou these leaves of the Tree of Life: with eloquence, | That thy immortal tongue inspires, present them to Albion: | Perhaps he may recieve them, offer 'd from thy loved hands. | So spoke, unheard by Albion, the merciful Son of Heaven | To those whose Western Gates were open, as they stood weeping | Around Albion: but Albion heard him not: obdurate, hard, | He frown'd on all his Friends, counting them enemies in his sorrow. | And the Seventeen conjoining with Bath, the Seventh, | In whom the other Ten shone manifest, a Divine Vision! | Assimilated and embrac'd Eternal Death for Albion's sake. | And these the names of the Eighteen combining with those Ten."
- Credit Line:
- Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
- Copyright Status:
- Public Domain
- Accession Number:
- B1992.8.1(45)
- Classification:
- Prints
- Collection:
- Prints and Drawings
- Subject Terms:
- branches | clouds | fish | literary theme | men | nudes | religious and mythological subject | serpent | snake | text | vegetation | women
- Access:
- Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
- Link:
- https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3476
- Export:
- XML
- IIIF Manifest:
- JSON
William Blake (Tate Britain, 2000-11-02 - 2001-02-04) [YCBA Objects in the Exhibition]
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