# Jerusalem. The Emanation of the Giant Albion/Plate 24

Written and etched 1804-1820. Source: Blake: The Complete Poetry & Prose (David. V. Erdman) In the internet: www.blakearchive.org
* PLATE 24
* Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion, copy E, object 24 (Bentley 24, Erdman 24, Keynes 24)
* What have I said? What have I done? O all-powerful Human Words!
* You recoil back upon me in the blood of the Lamb slain in his Children.
* Two bleeding Contraries equally true, are his Witnesses against me
* We reared mighty Stones: we danced naked around them:
* 5 Thinking to bring Love into light of day, to Jerusalems shame:
* Displaying our Giant limbs to all the winds of heaven! Sudden
* Shame siezd us, we could not look on one-another for abhorrence: the Blue
* Of our immortal Veins & all their Hosts fled from our Limbs,
* And wanderd distant in a dismal Night clouded & dark:
* 10 The Sun fled from the Britons forehead: the Moon from his mighty loins:
* Scandinavia fled with all his mountains filld with groans,
* O what is Life & what is Man. O what is Death? Wherefore
* Are you my Children, natives in the Grave to where I go
* Or are you born to feed the hungry ravenings of Destruction
* 15 To be the sport of Accident! to waste in Wrath & Love, a weary
* Life, in brooding cares & anxious labours, that prove but chaff.
* O Jerusalem Jerusalem I have forsaken thy Courts
* Thy Pillars of ivory & gold: thy Curtains of silk & fine
* Linen: thy Pavements of precious stones: thy Walls of pearl
* 20 And gold, thy Gates of Thanksgiving thy Windows of Praise:
* Thy Clouds of Blessing; thy Cherubims of Tender-mercy
* Stretching their Wings sublime over the Little-ones of Albion
* O Human Imagination O Divine Body I have Crucified
* I have turned my back upon thee into the Wastes of Moral Law:
* 25 There Babylon is builded in the Waste, founded in Human desolation.
* O Babylon thy Watchman stands over thee in the night
* Thy severe judge all the day long proves thee O Babylon
* With provings of destruction, with giving thee thy hearts desire.
* But Albion is cast forth to the Potter his Children to the Builders
* 30 To build Babylon because they have forsaken Jerusalem
* The Walls of Babylon are Souls of Men: her Gates the Groans
* Of Nations: her Towers are the Miseries of once happy Families.
* Her Streets are paved with Destruction, her Houses built with Death
* Her Palaces with Hell & the Grave; her Synagogues with Torments
* 35 Of ever-hardening Despair squard & polishd with cruel skill
* Yet thou wast lovely as the summer cloud upon my hills
* When Jerusalem was thy hearts desire in times of youth & love.
* Thy Sons came to Jerusalem with gifts, she sent them away
* With blessings on their hands & on their feet, blessings of gold,
* 40 And pearl & diamond: thy Daughters sang in her Courts:
* They came up to Jerusalem; they walked before Albion
* In the Exchanges of London every Nation walkd
* And London walkd in every Nation mutual in love & harmony
* Albion coverd the whole Earth, England encompassd the Nations,
* 45 Mutual each within others bosom in Visions of Regeneration;
* Jerusalem coverd the Atlantic Mountains & the Erythrean,
* From bright Japan & China to Hesperia France & England.
* Mount Zion lifted his head in every Nation under heaven:
* And the Mount of Olives was beheld over the whole Earth:
* 50 The footsteps of the Lamb of God were there: but now no more
* No more shall I behold him, he is closd in Luvahs Sepulcher.
* Yet why these smitings of Luvah, the gentlest mildest Zoa?
* If God was Merciful this could not be: O Lamb of God
* Thou art a delusion and Jerusalem is my Sin! O my Children
* 55 I have educated you in the crucifying cruelties of Demonstration
* Till you have assum'd the Providence of God & slain your Father
* Dost thou appear before me who liest dead in Luvahs Sepulcher
* Dost thou forgive me! thou who wast Dead & art Alive?
* Look not so Merciful upon me O thou Slain Lamb of God
* 60 I die! I die in thy arms tho Hope is banishd from me.
* Thundring the Veil rushes from his hand Vegetating Knot by
* Knot, Day by Day, Night by Night; loud roll the indignant Atlantic
* Waves & the Erythrean, turning up the bottoms of the Deeps

## Notes

* ↑ 24:58 Dead . . . Alive] mended from dead . . . alive
* ↑ 24:60 Followed by a line deleted almost without trace; compare 47:1.