# Jerusalem. The Emanation of the Giant Albion/Plate 17

Written and etched 1804-1820. Source: Blake: The Complete Poetry & Prose (David. V. Erdman) In the internet: www.blakearchive.org
[ PLATE 17 ]
* His Spectre divides & Los in fury compells it to divide:
* To labour in the fire, in the water, in the earth, in the air,
* To follow the Daughters of Albion as the hound follows the scent
* Of the wild inhabitant of the forest, to drive them from his own:
* 5 To make a way for the Children of Los to come from the Furnaces
* But Los himself against Albions Sons his fury bends, for he
* Dare not approach the Daughters openly lest he be consumed
* In the fires of their beauty & perfection & be Vegetated beneath
* Their Looms, in a Generation of death & resurrection to forgetfulness
* 10 They wooe Los continually to subdue his strength: he continually
* Shews them his Spectre: sending him abroad over the four points of heaven
* In the fierce desires of beauty & in the tortures of repulse! He is
* The Spectre of the Living pursuing the Emanations of the Dead.
* Shuddring they flee: they hide in the Druid Temples in cold chastity:
* 15 Subdued by the Spectre of the Living & terrified by undisguisd desire.
* For Los said: Tho my Spectre is divided: as I am a Living Man
* I must compell him to obey me wholly: that Enitharmon may not
* Be lost: & lest he should devour Enitharmon: Ah me!
* Piteous image of my soft desires & loves: O Enitharmon!
* 20 I will compell my Spectre to obey: I will restore to thee thy Children.
* No one bruises or starves himself to make himself fit for labour!
* Tormented with sweet desire for these beauties of Albion
* They would never love my power if they did not seek to destroy
* Enitharmon: Vala would never have sought & loved Albion
* 25 If she had not sought to destroy Jerusalem; such is that false
* And Generating Love: a pretence of love to destroy love:
* Cruel hipocrisy unlike the lovely delusions of Beulah:
* And cruel forms, unlike the merciful forms of Beulahs Night
* They know not why they love nor wherefore they sicken & die
* 30 Calling that Holy Love: which is Envy Revenge & Cruelty
* Which separated the stars from the mountains: the mountains from Man
* And left Man, a little grovelling Root, outside of Himself.
* Negations are not Contraries: Contraries mutually Exist:
* But Negations Exist Not: Exceptions & Objections & Unbeliefs
* 35 Exist not: nor shall they ever be Organized for ever & ever:
* If thou separate from me, thou art a Negation: a meer
* Reasoning & Derogation from Me, an Objecting & cruel Spite
* And Malice & Envy: but my Emanation, Alas! will become
* My Contrary: O thou Negation, I will continually compell
* 40 Thee to be invisible to any but whom I please, & when
* And where & how I please, and never! never! shalt thou be Organized
* But as a distorted & reversed Reflexion in the Darkness
* And in the Non Entity: nor shall that which is above
* Ever descend into thee: but thou shalt be a Non Entity for ever
* 45 And if any enter into thee, thou shalt be an Unquenchable Fire
* And he shall be a never dying Worm, mutually tormented by
* Those that thou tormentest, a Hell & Despair for ever & ever.
* So Los in secret with himself communed & Enitharmon heard
* In her darkness & was comforted: yet still she divided away
* 50 In gnawing pain from Los's bosom in the deadly Night;
* First as a red Globe of blood trembling beneath his bosom[.]
* Suspended over her he hung: he infolded her in his garments
* Of wool: he hid her from the Spectre, in shame & confusion of
* Face; in terrors & pains of Hell & Eternal Death, the
* 55 Trembling Globe shot forth Self-living & Los howld over it:
* Feeding it with his groans & tears day & night without ceasing:
* And the Spectrous Darkness from his back divided in temptations,
* And in grinding agonies in threats! stiflings! & direful strugglings.
* Go thou to Skofield: ask him if he is Bath or if he is Canterbury
* 60 Tell him to be no more dubious: demand explicit words
* Tell him: I will dash him into shivers, where & at what time
* I please: tell Hand & Skofield they are my ministers of evil
* To those I hate: for I can hate also as well as they!