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Creator:
Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827
Title:
"I have heard Jerusalems groans..." (Plate 82)
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 3/4 x 6 3/8 inches (22.2 x 16.2 cm)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:

Inscribed in orange ink, upper right: "82"

Lettered inside image: "I have heard Jerusalem's groans; from Vala's cries & lamentations | I gather our eternal fate, Outcasts from life and love: | Unless we find a way to bind these awful Forms to our | Embrace we shall perish annihilate, discover'd our Delusions. | Look! I have wrought without delusion: Look! I have wept: | And given soft milk mingled together with the spirits of flocks | Of lambs and doves, mingled together in cups and dishes | Of painted clay; the mighty Hyle is become a weeping infant: | Soon shall the Spectres of the Dead follow my weaving threads. | The Twelve Daughters of Albion attentive listen in secret shades | On Cambridge and Oxford beaming soft, uniting with Rahab's cloud, | While Gwendolen spoke to Cambel, turning soft the spinning reel: | Or throwing the wing'd shuttle: or drawing the cords with softest songs. | The golden cords of the Looms animate beneath their touches soft, | Along the Island white, among the Druid Temples, while Gwendolen | Spoke to the Daughters of Albion standing on Skiddaw's top. | So saying she took a Falshood & hid it in her left hand: | To entice her Sisters away to Babylon on Euphrates. | And thus she closed her left hand and utter'd her Falshood: | Forgetting that Falshood is prophetic, she hid her hand behind her, | Upon her back behind her loins & thus utter'd her Deceit. | I heard Enitharmon say to Los : Let the Daughters of Albion | Be scatter'd abroad and let the name of Albion be forgotten : | Divide them into three; name them Amalek, Canaan & Moab. | Let Albion remain a desolation without an inhabitant: | And let the Looms of Enitharmon & the Furnaces of Los | Create Jerusalem, & Babylon & Egypt & Moab & Amalek, | And Helle & Hesperia & Hindostan & China & Japan: | But hide America, for a Curse, an Altar of Victims & a Holy Place. | See Sisters, Canaan is pleasant, Egypt is as the Garden of Eden : | Babylon is our chief desire, Moab our bath in summer: | Let us lead the stems of this Tree, let us plant it before Jerusalem, | To judge the Friend of Sinners to death without the Veil: | To cut her off from America, to close up her secret Ark: | And the fury of Man exhaust in War, Woman permanent remain. | See how the fires of our loins point eastward to Babylon! | Look, Hyle is become an infant Love! look! behold! see him lie | Upon my bosom, look! here is the lovely wayward form | That gave me sweet delight by his torments beneath my Veil! | By the fruit of Albion's Tree I have fed him with sweet milk, | By contentions of the mighty for Sacrifice of Captives: | Humanity, the Great Delusion, is chang'd to War & Sacrifice: | I have nail'd his hands on Beth Rabbim & his hands on Heshbon's Wall: | O that I could live in his sight: O that I could bind him to my arm. | So saying, She drew aside her Veil from Mam-Tor to Dovedale, | Discovering her own perfect beauty to the Daughters of Albion | And Hyle a winding Worm beneath | and not a weeping Infant. | Trembling & pitying she scream'd & fled upon the wind: | Hyle was a winding Worm and herself perfect in beauty: | The desarts tremble at his wrath, they shrink themselves in fear. | Cambel trembled with jealousy: she trembled! she envied! | The envy ran thro' Cathedron's Looms into the Heart | Of mild Jerusalem, to destroy the Lamb of God. Jerusalem | Languish'd upon Mount Olivet, East of mild Zion's Hill. | Los saw the envious blight above his Seventh Furnace, | On London's Tower on the Thames: he drew Cambel in wrath | Into his thundering Bellows, heaving it for a loud blast : | And with the blast of his Furnace upon fishy Billingsgate, | Beneath Albion's fatal Tree, before the Gate of Los, | Shew'd her the fibres of her beloved to ameliorate | The envy : loud she labour'd in the Furnace of fire, | To form the mighty form of Hand according to her will. | In the Furnaces of Los & in the Wine-press treading day & night, | Naked among the human clusters: bringing wine of anguish | To feed the afflicted in the Furnaces: she minded not | The raging flames, tho' she return'd instead of beauty | Deformity: she gave her beauty to another: bearing abroad | Her struggling torment in her iron arms: and like a chain, | Binding his wrists & ankles with the iron arms of love. | Gwendolen saw the Infant in her sister's arms: she howl'd | Over the forests with bitter tears, and over the winding Worm, | Repentant: and she also in the eddying wind of Los's Bellows | Began her dolorous task of love in the Wine-press of Luvah, | To form the Worm into a form of love by tears & pain. | The Sisters saw: trembling ran thro' their Looms, soften[in]g mild | Towards London: then they saw the Furnaes open'd, & in tears | Began to give their souls away in the Furnaes of affliction. | Los saw & was comforted at his Furnaces, uttering thus his voice. | I know I am Urthona, keeper of the Gates of Heaven, | So And that I can at will expatiate in the Gardens of bliss ; | But pangs of love draw me down to my loins, which are | Become a fountain of veiny pipes: O Albion: my brother!"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.1(82)
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
clouds | literary theme | religious and mythological subject | sky | smoke | snake | text
Access:
Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3517
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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]


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