# Jerusalem. The Emanation of the Giant Albion/Plate 66

Written and etched 1804-1820. Source: Blake: The Complete Poetry & Prose (David. V. Erdman) In the internet: www.blakearchive.org
* PLATE 66
* In awful pomp & gold, in all the precious unhewn stones of Eden
* They build a stupendous Building on the Plain of Salisbury; with chains
* Of rocks round London Stone: of Reasonings: of unhewn Demonstrations
* In labyrinthine arches. (Mighty Urizen the Architect.) thro which
* 5 The Heavens might revolve & Eternity be bound in their chain.
* Labour unparallelld! a wondrous rocky World of cruel destiny
* Rocks piled on rocks reaching the stars: stretching from pole to pole.
* The Building is Natural Religion & its Altars Natural Morality
* A building of eternal death: whose proportions are eternal despair
* 10 Here Vala stood turning the iron Spindle of destruction
* From heaven to earth: howling! invisible! but not invisible
* Her Two Covering Cherubs afterwards named Voltaire & Rousseau:
* Two frowning Rocks: on each side of the Cove & Stone of Torture:
* Frozen Sons of the feminine Tabernacle of Bacon, Newton & Locke.
* 15 For Luvah is France: the Victim of the Spectres of Albion.
* Los beheld in terror: he pour 'd his loud storms on the Furnaces:
* The Daughters of Albion clothed in garments of needle work
* Strip them off from their shoulders and bosoms, they lay aside
* Their garments; they sit naked upon the Stone of trial.
* 20 The Knife of flint passes over the howling Victim: his blood
* Gushes & stains the fair side of the fair Daug[h]ters of Albion.
* They put aside his curls; they divide his seven locks upon
* His forehead: they bind his forehead with thorns of iron
* They put into his hand a reed, they mock: Saying: Behold
* 25 The King of Canaan whose are seven hundred chariots of iron!
* They take off his vesture whole with their Knives of flint:
* But they cut asunder his inner garments: searching with
* Their cruel fingers for his heart, & there they enter in pomp,
* In many tears; & there they erect a temple & an altar:
* 30 They pour cold water on his brain in front, to cause.
* Lids to grow over his eyes in veils of tears: and caverns
* To freeze over his nostrils, while they feed his tongue from cups
* And dishes of painted clay. Glowing with beauty & cruelty:
* They obscure the sun & the moon; no eye can look upon them.
* 35 Ah! alas! at the sight of the Victim, & at sight of those who are smitten,
* All who see. become what they behold. their eyes are coverd
* With veils of tears and their nostrils & tongues shrunk up
* Their ear bent outwards. as their Victim, so are they in the pangs
* Of unconquerable fear! amidst delights of revenge Earth-shaking!
* 40 And as their eye & ear shrunk, the heavens shrunk away
* The Divine Vision became First a burning flame, then a column
* Of fire, then an awful fiery wheel surrounding earth & heaven:
* And then a globe of blood wandering distant in all unknown night:
* Afar into the unknown night the mountains fled away:
* 45 Six months of mortality; a summer: & six months of mortality; a winter:
* The Human form began to be alterd by the Daughters of Albion
* And the perceptions to be dissipated into the Indefinite. Becoming
* A mighty Polypus nam'd Albions Tree: they tie the Veins
* And Nerves into two knots: & the Seed into a double knot:
* 50 They look forth: the Sun is shrunk: the Heavens are shrunk
* Away into the far remote: and the Trees & Mountains witherd
* Into indefinite cloudy shadows in darkness & separation.
* By Invisible hatreds adjoind, they seem remote and separate
* From each other; and yet are a Mighty Polypus in the Deep!
* 55 As the Misletoe grows on the Oak, so Albions Tree on Eternity: Lo!
* He who will not comingle in Love, must be adjoind by Hate
* They look forth from Stone-henge! from the Cove round London Stone
* They look on one another: the mountain calls out to the mountain:
* Plinlimmon shrunk away: Snowdon trembled: the mountains
* 60 Of Wales & Scotland beheld the descending War: the routed flying:
* Red run the streams of Albion: Thames is drunk with blood:
* As Gwendolen cast the shuttle of war: as Cambel returnd the beam.
* The Humber & the Severn: are drunk with the blood of the slain:
* London feels his brain cut round: Edinburghs heart is circumscribed!
* 65 York & Lincoln hide among the flocks, because of the griding Knife.
* Worcester & Hereford: Oxford & Cambridge reel & stagger,
* Overwearied with howling: Wales & Scotland alone sustain the fight!
* The inhabitants are sick to death: they labour to divide into Days
* And Nights, the uncertain Periods: and into Weeks & Months. In vain
* 70 They send the Dove & Raven: & in vain the Serpent over the mountains.
* And in vain the Eagle & Lion over the four-fold wilderness.
* They return not: but generate in rocky places desolate.
* They return not; but build a habitation separate from Man.
* The Sun forgets his course like a drunken man; he hesitates,
* 75 Upon the Cheselden hills, thinking to sleep on the Severn
* In vain: he is hurried afar into an unknown Night
* He bleeds in torrents of blood as he rolls thro heaven above
* He chokes up the paths of the sky; the Moon is leprous as snow:
* Trembling & descending down seeking to rest upon high Mona:
* 80 Scattering her leprous snows in flakes of disease over Albion.
* The Stars flee remote: the heaven is iron, the earth is sulphur,
* And all the mountains & hills shrink up like a withering gourd,
* As the Senses of Men shrink together under the Knife of flint,
* In the hands of Albions Daughters, among the Druid Temples.