"Repose on me till the morning of the Grave..." (Plate 62)
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)
Inscription(s)/Marks/Lettering:
Lettered inside image: "Repose on me till the morning of the Grave. I am thy life. | Jerusalem replied. I am an outcast: Albion is dead: | I am left to the trampling foot & the spurning heel: | A Harlot I am call'd. I am sold from street to street: | I am defaced with blows & with the dirt of the Prison : | And wilt thou become my Husband, O my Lord & Saviour? | Shall Vala bring thee forth? shall the Chaste be ashamed also? | I see the Maternal Line, I behold the Seed of the Woman: | Cainah & Ada & Zillah & Naamah, Wife of Noah. | Shuah's daughter & Tamar & Rahab the Canaanites; | Ruth the Moabite & Bathsheba of the daughters of Heth, | Naamah the Ammonite, Zibeah the Philistine, & Mary. | These are the Daughters of Vala, Mother of the Body of death: | But I thy Magdalen behold thy Spiritual Risen Body. | Shall Albion arise? I know he shall arise at the Last Day! | I know that in my flesh I shall see God: but Emanations | Are weak, they know not whence they are, nor whither tend. | Jesus replied, I am the Resurrection & the Life. | I Die & pass the limits of possibility, as it appears | To individual perception. Luvah must be Created, | And Vala; for I cannot leave them in the gnawing Grave, | But will prepare a way for my banished-ones to return. | Come now with me into the villages, walk thro' all the cities : | Tho' thou art taken to prison & judgment, starved in the streets, | I will command the cloud to give thee food & the hard rock | To flow with milk & wine, tho' thou seest me not a season, | Even a long season, & a hard journey & a howling wilderness: | Tho' Vala's cloud hide thee & Luvah's fires follow thee: | Only believe & trust in me. Lo, I am always with thee! | So spoke the Lamb of God while Luvah's Cloud reddening above | Burst forth in streams of blood upon the heavens, & dark night | Involv'd Jerusalem, & the Wheels of Albion's Sons turn'd hoarse | Over the Mountains, & the fires blaz'd on Druid Altars, | And the Sun set in Tyburn's Brook where Victims howl & cry. | But Los beheld the Divine Vision among the flames of the Furnaces : | Therefore he lived & breathed in hope, but his tears fell incessant | Because his Children were clos'd from him apart: & Enitharmon | Dividing in fierce pain : also the Vision of God was clos'd in clouds | Of Albion's Spectres, that Los in despair oft sat, & often pondered, | On Death Eternal, in fierce shudders upon the mountains of Albion | Walking, & in the vales in howlings fierce: then to his Anvils | Turning, anew began his labours, tho' in terrible pains."
Credit Line:
Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Copyright Status:
Public Domain
Accession Number:
B1992.8.1(62)
Classification:
Prints
Collection:
Prints and Drawings
Subject Terms:
text | feathers | men | flames | nudes | literary theme | religious and mythological subject | peacock (bird) | fire
Currently On View:
Not on view
Exhibition History:
The Critique of Reason : Romantic Art, 1760–1860 (Yale University Art Gallery, 2015-03-06 - 2015-07-26)The Romantic Print in the Age of Revolutions: Hero, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History (Yale Center for British Art, 2003-01-23 - 2003-06-01)William Blake (Tate Britain, 2000-11-02 - 2001-02-04)The Human Form Divine - William Blake from the Paul Mellon Collection (Yale Center for British Art, 1997-04-02 - 1997-07-06)