# Jerusalem. The Emanation of the Giant Albion/Plate 79

Written and etched 1804-1820. Source: Blake: The Complete Poetry & Prose (David. V. Erdman) In the internet: www.blakearchive.org
* PLATE 79
* My tents are fall'n! My Pillars are in ruins! my children dashd
* Upon Egypts iron floors, & the marble pavements of Assyria;
* I melt my soul in reasonings among the towers of Heshbon;
* Mount Zion is become a cruel rock & no more dew
* 5 Nor rain: no more the spring of the rock appears: but cold
* Hard & obdurate are the furrows of the mountain of wine & oil:
* The mountain of blessing is itself a curse & an astonishment:
* The hills of Judea are fallen with me into the deepest hell
* Away from the Nations of the Earth, & from the Cities of the Nations;
* 10 I walk to Ephraim. I seek for Shiloh: I walk like a lost sheep
* Among precipices of despair: in Goshen I seek for light
* In vain: and in Gilead for a physician and a comforter.
* Goshen hath followd Philistea: Gilead hath joind with Og!
* They are become narrow places in a little and dark land:
* 15 How distant far from Albion! his hills & his valleys no more
* Recieve the feet of Jerusalem: they have cast me quite away:
* And Albion is himself shrunk to a narrow rock in the midst of the sea!
* The plains of Sussex & Surrey, their hills of flocks & herds
* No more seek to Jerusalem nor to the sound of my Holy-ones.
* 20 The Fifty-two Counties of England are hardend against me
* As if I was not their Mother, they despise me & cast me out
* London coverd the whole Earth. England encompassd the Nations:
* And all the Nations of the Earth were seen in the Cities of Albion:
* My pillars reachd from sea to sea: London beheld me come
* 25 From my east & from my west; he blessed me and gave
* His children to my breasts, his sons & daughters to my knees
* His aged parents sought me out in every city & village:
* They discernd my countenance with joy! they shewd me to their sons
* Saying Lo Jerusalem is here! she sitteth in our secret chambers
* 30 Levi and Judah & Issachar: Ephra[i]m, Manesseh, Gad and Dan
* Are seen in our hills & valleys: they keep our flocks & herds:
* They watch them in the night: and the Lamb of God appears among us.
* The river Severn stayd his course at my command:
* Thames poured his waters into my basons and baths:
* 35 Medway mingled with Kishon: Thames recievd the heavenly Jordan
* Albion gave me to the whole Earth to walk up & down; to pour
* Joy upon every mountain; to teach songs to the shepherd & plowman
* I taught the ships of the sea to sing the songs of Zion.
* Italy saw me, in sublime astonishment: France was wholly mine:
* 40 As my garden & as my secret bath; Spain was my heavenly couch:
* 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 rapd sublime in the Visions of God:
* 45 Germany; Poland & the North wooed my footsteps they found
* My gates in all their mountains & my curtains in all their vales
* The furniture of their houses was the furniture of my chamber
* Turkey & Grecia saw my instr[u]ments of music, they arose
* They siezd the harp: the flute: the mellow horn of Jerusalems joy
* 50 They sounded thanksgivings in my courts: Egypt & Lybia heard
* The swarthy sons of Ethiopia stood round the Lamb of God
* Enquiring for Jerusalem: he led them up my steps to my altar:
* And thou America! I once beheld thee but now behold no more
* Thy golden mountains where my Cherubim & Seraphim rejoicd
* 55 Together among my little-ones. But now, my Altars run with blood!
* My fires are corrupt! my incense is a cloudy pestilence
* Of seven diseases! Once a continual cloud of salvation. rose
* From all my myriads; once the Four-fold World rejoicd among
* The pillars of Jerusalem, between my winged Cherubim:
* 60 But now I am closd out from them in the narrow passages
* Of the valleys of destruction, into a dark land of pitch & bitumen.
* From Albions Tomb afar and from the four-fold wonders of God
* Shrunk to a narrow doleful form in the dark land of Cabul;
* There is Reuben & Gad & Joseph & Judah & Levi, closd up
* 65 In narrow vales: I walk & count the bones of my beloveds
* Along the Valley of Destruction, among these Druid Temples
* Which overspread all the Earth in patriarchal pomp & cruel pride
* Tell me O Vala thy purposes; tell me wherefore thy shuttles
* Drop with the gore of the slain; why Euphrates is red with blood
* 70 Wherefore in dreadful majesty & beauty outside appears
* Thy Masculine from thy Feminine hardening against the heavens
* To devour the Human! Why dost thou weep upon the wind among
* These cruel Druid Temples: O Vala! Humanity is far above
* Sexual organization; & the Visions of the Night of Beulah
* 75 Where Sexes wander in dreams of bliss among the Emanations
* Where the Masculine & Feminine are nurs'd into Youth & Maiden
* By the tears & smiles of Beulahs Daughters till the time of Sleep is past.
* Wherefore then do you realize these nets of beauty & delusion
* In open day to draw the souls of the Dead into the light.
* 80 Till Albion is shut out from every Nation under Heaven.