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Creator:
Print made by William Blake, 1757–1827
Title:
"Corruptability appears upon thy limbs..." (Plate 83)
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: "83"

Lettered inside image: "Corruptability appears upon thy limbs, and never more | Can I arise and leave thy side, but labour here incessant | Till thy awaking: yet alas, I shall forget Eternity! | Against the Patriarchal pomp and cruelty labouring incessant | I shall become an Infant horror. Enion! Tharmas! friends! | Absorb me not in such dire grief: O Albion, my brother! | Jerusalem hungers in the desart; affection to her children! | The scorn'd and contemn'd youthful girl, where shall she fly? | Sussex shuts up her Villages. Hants, Devon & Wilts, | Surrounded with masses of stone in order'd forms, determine then | A form for Vala and a form for Luvah, here on the Thames, | Where the Victim nightly howls beneath the Druid's knife: | A Form of Vegetation, nail them down on the stems of Mystery. | when shall the Saxon return with the English his redeemed brother? | O when shall the Lamb of God descend among the Reprobate? | I woo to Amalek to protect my fugitives, Amalek trembles: | I call to Canaan & Moab in my night watches, they mourn: | They listen not to my cry, they rejoice among their warriors. | Woden and Thor and Friga wholly consume my Saxons, | On their enormous Altars built in the terrible north. | From Ireland's rocks to Scandinavia, Persia and Tartary, | From the Atlantic Sea to the universal Erythrean, | Found ye London! enormous City! weeps thy River? | Upon his parent bosom lay thy little ones, O Land | Forsaken. Surrey and Sussex are Enitharmon's Chamber, | Where I will build her a Couch of repose & my pillars | Shall surround her in beautiful labyrinths: Oothoon? | Where hides my child? in Oxford hidest thou with Antamon? | In graceful hidings of error, in merciful deceit, | Lest Hand the terrible destroy his Affection, thou hidest her: | In chaste appearances for sweet deceits of love & modesty, | Immingled, interwoven, glistening to the sickening sight. | Let Cambel and her Sisters sit within the Mundane Shell: | Forming the fluctuating Globe according to their will, | According as they weave the little embryon nerves & veins, | The Eye, the little Nostrils, & the delicate Tongue & Ears | Of labyrinthine intricacy: so shall they fold the World, | That whatever is seen upon the Mundane shell, the same | Be seen upon the Fluctuating Earth woven by the Sisters. | And sometimes the Earth shall roll in the Abyss & sometimes | Stand in the Center & sometimes stretch flat in the Expanse, | According to the will of the lovely Daughters of Albion, | Sometimes it shall assimilate with mighty Golgonooza, | Touching its summits: & sometimes divided roll apart. | As a beautiful Veil so these Females shall fold & unfold | According to their will the outside surface of the Earth, | An outside shadowy Surface superadded to the real Surface: | Which is unchangeable for ever & ever. Amen: so be it! | Separate Albion's Sons gently from their Emanations, | Weaving powers of delight on the current of infant Thames | Where the old Parent still retains his youth, as I, alas ! | Retain my youth eight thousand and five hundred years. | The labourer of ages in the Valleys of Despair! | The land is mark'd for desolation & unless we plant | The seeds of Cities & of Villages in the Human bosom | Albion must be a rock of blood: mark ye the points | Where Cities shall remain, & where Villages: for the rest, | It must lie in confusion till Albany's time of awaking. | Place the Tribes of Llewellyn in America for a hiding place, | Till sweet Jerusalem emanates again into Eternity. | The night falls thick: I go upon my watch: be attentive: | The Sons of Albion go forth; I follow from my Furnaces, | That they return no more: that a place be prepared on Euphrates. | Listen to your Watchmans voice: sleep not before the Furnaces: | Eternal Death stands at the door. O God, pity our labours. | So Los spoke to the Daughters of Beulah, while his Emanation | Like a faint rainbow waved before him in the awful gloom | Of London City on the Thames from Surrey Hills to Highgate: | Swift turn the silver spindles, & the golden weights play soft | And lulling harmonies beneath the Looms, from Caithness in the north | To Lizard-point & Dover in the south : his Emanation | Joy'd in the many weaving threads in bright Cathedron's Dome, | Weaving the Web of life for Jerusalem: the Web of life | Down flowing into Entuthon's Vales glistens with soft affections. | While Los arose upon his Watch, and down from Golgonooza, | Putting on his golden sandals to walk from mountain to mountain, | He takes his way, girding himself with gold & in his hand | Holding his iron mace: The Spectre remains attentive. | Alternate they watch in night; alternate labour in day, | Before the Furnaces labouring, while Los all night watches | The stars rising & setting, & the meteors & terrors of night. | With him went down the Dogs of Leutha at his feet, | They lap the water of the trembling Thames, then follow swift. | And thus he heard the voice of Albion's daughters on Euphrates. | Our Father Albion's land: O, it was a lovely land! & the Daughters of Beulah | Walked up and down in its green mountains; but Hand is fled | Away, & mighty Hyle; & after them Jerusalem is gone: Awake"

Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.1(83)
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
clouds | literary theme | nudes | religious and mythological subject | sky | smoke | text
Access:
Accessible in the Study Room [Request]
Link:
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:3518
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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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