New Jerusalem in the Apocalypse, or a plan on the lines of that in Dante's Inferno. Blake has tried to imitate Ezekiel's vision of the Temple, with all its details of measurements, rooms, gates and orientations, though, on account of the symbolical meanings which he always kept in mind, he has failed to attain the same degree of clearness and precision.

And the North Gate of Golgonooza toward Generation

Has four sculptur'd Bulls, terrible, before the Gate of iron;
And iron the Bulls: and that which looks toward Ulro,
Clay bak'd and enamel'd, eternal glowing as four furnaces:
Turning upon the Wheels of Albion's Sons with enormous power.
And that toward Beulah four, gold, silver, brass and iron. 1

We can gather from this what sort of conception he had formed of the History of Art. First came those works of art which appealed only to the passions of man (the Bulls of iron): then those which were based upon error, dry like clay baked in the furnace, and as devoid of life and then those which expressed the artist's idealized fancies, with all their wealth of spiritual thought, of knowledge, imagination, and love. After this we have other descriptions of walls and enclosures, and the various parts of each, and of the Genii, the Gnomes, the Nymphs and Fairies that guard them. Around the City lies all that world which knows nothing of Art or of the Ideal—

the land of death eternal: a Land

Of pain and misery and despair and ever brooding melancholy :
In all the Twenty-seven Heavens, number'd from Adam to Luther: 2
From the blue Mundane Shell, reaching to the Vegetative Earth. 3

We are in a vast country, which Blake saw clearly defined before his eyes, but of which he alone could distinguish the features. In it, the poet's inspired vision perceived as actually existing the innumerable multitude of all things past, present and to come. There, in Los's Halls, is carved all the history of mankind, all the visions of poets and dreamers, all the inspirations of the artists, all that splendid, luminous, changing world that the imagination describes or creates.

For every thing exists, and not one sigh nor smile nor tear,
One hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away. 4

But this is not the whole of Los's work. Everything that pertains to creation comes within his province. He and Enitharmon and their 1Jerusalem, p. 12, 61. 2i.e. the religions. Jerusalem, p. 13, 30. id., p. 13, 66.

1

sons not only build the palace of man's imagination: they also produce in the Universal Man the material of which our individual bodies are to be formed. Enitharmon weaves these human bodies on the golden looms of Cathedron, and receives back the souls when the material bodies have perished. They are also the spiritual origins of all the material universe. So it seems-and this phenomenon occurs often in Blake's work—as though even Urizen can create only when they enter into him and empower him to do so; in other words, when he is "in showers of Los." Some sons of Los take the human passions and clothe them with forms of beauty: others seize the terrible spectres, and endue them with hideous animal shapes : others forge the metals, and others, again, the hours and the minutes, while yet others create each man's own universe, the

Space that a Man views around his dwelling-place,
Standing on his own roof, or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height. 2

And thus, wherever there is creation, we find some divinely-inspired work: Urizen, and even Enion also, must borrow a spark of Urthona's fire. All that we see, all that we imagine, is the work of Los, the "labour of six thousand years. Thus Nature is a Vision of the Science of the Elohim." 3 And the poet is, as his name indicates, the only real creator. This can be more easily understood if we regard the material world as a vision of the spirit, created by, and disappearing with, the spirit. It then becomes altogether a product of the imagination; and this was the way in which Blake saw it.

VI. Finally, Los is entrusted with the task of watching over Albion and his Emanations, and the account of this work fills almost the whole of Jerusalem. He prevents the sons and daughters of Albion, who are the thoughts, passions and desires of men, from falling into absolute materiality, which is eternal death. He prophesies the death of the world, the salvation of man, and the destruction of the sexes. He sets forth Blake's own doctrine of eternal life. He creates and promulgates his system, in order that he may not be himself subjugated to other systems. He has to protect the innocent, and instruct the ignorant. He exhorts Albion to reject all false religions, to banish all the spirits of war and discord, which are but

A pretence of Art, to destroy Art: a pretence of Liberty,

To destroy Liberty: a pretence of Religion to destroy Religion. 'Milton, p. 26. 2 id., p. 28, 5. Millon, p. 28, 64. Jerusalem, p. 43, 35.

He tries to lead man back into Eden through his own gateway of the ideal; and, failing, receives from the Divine Family, the mission of watching over him until Jesus shall appear.

They gave their power to Los,

Naming him the Spirit of Prophecy, calling him Elijah.

1

And he continues to save men by means of Generation, putting spirits into their bodies, so that they may not fall still lower, and be lost in non-entity. He calls up for them a vision of the world to come, the heavenly Jerusalem, as she will appear in the England of the future with her mystic angel-wings, her gates of pearl, her pillars of cloud and of fire. "I see thy form," he sings to her. "Thy forehead

Reflects Eternity beneath thy azure wings of feathery down,
Ribb'd delicate, and cloth'd with feather'd gold and azure and purple
From thy white shoulders shadowing: purity in holiness! 2

He teaches true morality: the swing of his hammer is Pity; its blows are Justice and its strength is Eternal Forgiveness. He casts out the Spectres, presides over the gradual awakening of Albion, and makes ready for his Winepress the vintage of the new human race. And in the end, when Man, now regenerate, has brought back all his elements into harmony, and restored all the Zoas to their original places, Urthona-Los is once more praised by the Eternals for having kept the Divine Vision. And a still greater reward is in store for him.

Jesus appeared standing by Albion, as the Good Shepherd

By the lost Sheep that he hath found, and Albion knew that it
Was the Lord, the Universal Humanity, and Albion saw his Form
A Man, and they conversed as Man with Man, in Ages of Eternity.
And the Divine Appearance was the likeness and similitude of Los. *

No higher praise could be bestowed upon the personification of the poet's imagination and the prophet's inspiring spirit. And if we remember that Los himself dwelt in Blake as he did in Milton, we can easily account for the pride that Blake took in his work. He often declared that the Divine Imagination was the body of Christ, the Soul of humanity. And once he scandalized a listener by saying, “I am Christ, and so are you, and so is everyone. "This meant that he saw in every man a spark of the prophetic spirit, which, if we do not 2 id. p. 86, 5. Vala. Night IX. Milton, p. 24.

1Jerusalem, p. 44, 30. Jerusalem, p. 96, 3.

extinguish it, can make each of us a Los in our own sphere, and enable us to draw humanity, as Christ draws His sheep, a little nearer to its lost Paradise and to Eternal Life.

Such are some of the ideas concealed in the myths of Los and Enitharmon. But it must not be forgotten that these two creations have, besides, a vast wealth of other meanings, just as their history contains a multitude of other episodes. In them we find summed up all that is noblest and most poetic in humanity; and all that Blake prized most highly among the unsearchable treasures of his soul.

XI: HIS OTHER CREATIONS, AND THE WORLDS

A

THEY LIVE IN

JERUSALEM

LBION, the Eternal Man, symbol, in his fallen state, of our terrestrial humanity, has an Emanation, Jerusalem, who gives her name to the most important of the Prophetic Books, though she does not otherwise play a very large part in Blake's work. Blake often speaks of her, metaphorically, as a city; but she is always represented in his pictures as a woman, and she acts as a feminine spirit. We find her frequently opposed to Vala, as spritual beauty opposed to material beauty. She personifies the tenderest side of the human soul, its spiritual love and hope and desire; and, in this aspect, she cannot easily be distinguished from Luvah. She is Mutual Forgiveness, and also the Destruction of Sin; because every Sin, once it is forgiven, ceases to exist. But in destroying Sin she destroys the Law; and therefore she " is called Liberty among the Sons of Men."

In the days of innocence, she lived always as the inseparable companion of Vala in Havilah, the land of lilies and of purity, of love and beauty united.

I slept in his golden hills: the Lamb of God met me there.

There we walked as in our secret chamber among our little ones.
They looked upon our loves with joy: they beheld our secret joys:
With holy raptures of adoration rap'd sublime in the visions of God. 1

It was a time of happiness that could not last. After Albion's fall, when his sons and daughters had built up philosophies and established laws, and reason had usurped the place of the affections, Jerusalem and Vala fled away from him. He cursed his love and his passion calling them Sin. Pleasures came to be regarded as forbidden fruit chastity was accounted the highest virtue. Love of humanity, which prompted men to pity and forgiveness of sins, was condemned as weakness. Desire became temptation, as symbolized by the Eternal Woman, Lilith, who entices human souls to their destruction.This weakness and this temptation are personified in Jerusalem. And therefore the sons of Albion can scarcely find words strong enough to condemn her. 1 1 Jerusalem, p. 79, 41.