The Norton Anthology of English literature. Volume 2

1. A commonplace book in which Blake drew 2. Blake regards both Voltaire and Rousseau, sketches and jotted down verses and memoranda French writers often hailed as the authors of between the late 1780s and 1810. It is known as the Revolution, as representing rationalism and the Rossetti manuscript because it later came into Deism. the possession of the poet and painter Dante 3. Newton in his Opticks hypothesized that light Gabriel Rossetti. These poems were first published consisted of minute material particles. Democritus in imperfect form in 1863, then transcribed from (460-362 b.c.E.) proposed that atoms were the the manuscript by Geoffrey Keynes in 1935. ultimate components of the universe.

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AND DID THOSE FEET / 123

For the gentle wind does move Silently, invisibly.

5 I told my love, I told my love, I told her all my heart, Trembling, cold, in ghastly fears� Ah, she doth depart.

Soon as she was gone from me

10 A traveller came by Silently, invisibly� O, was no deny.

I asked a thief

I asked a thief to steal me a peach, He turned up his eyes; I ask'd a lithe lady to lie her down, Holy & meek she cries.

5 As soon as I went An angel came. He wink'd at the thief And smild at the dame�

And without one word said

10 Had a peach from the tree And still as a maid Enjoy'd the lady.

And did those feet1

And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon England's mountains green? And was the holy Lamb of God On England's pleasant pastures seen?

5 And did the Countenance Divine Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded here, Among those dark Satanic Mills?2

1. These quatrains occur in the preface to Blake's apocalyptic desire is widely used as a hymn, prophetic poem Milton. There is an ancient belief national anthem, or school song by just those that Jesus came to England with Joseph of Ari-establishment figures whom Blake would call mathea, the merchant who is identified in the Gos-"angels." pels as making the arrangements for Christ's burial 2. There may be an allusion here to industrial following the crucifixion. Blake adapts the legend England, but the mill is also Blake's symbol for a to his own conception of a spiritual Israel, in which mechanistic and utilitarian worldview, according the significance of biblical events is as relevant to to which, as he said elsewhere, "the same dull England as to Palestine. By a particularly Blakean round, even of a universe" becomes "a mill with irony, this poem of mental war in the service of complicated wheels."

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12 4 / WILLIAM BLAKE

Bring me my Bow of burning gold,

10 Bring me my Arrows of desire,

Bring me my Spear; O clouds unfold!

Bring me my Chariot of fire!

I will not cease from Mental Fight,

Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand,

15 Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green & pleasant Land.

ca. 1804-10 ca. 1804-10

From A Vision of the Last Judgment1

For the Year 1810 Additions to Blake's Catalogue of Pictures &c

The Last Judgment [will be] when all those are Cast away who trouble Religion with Questions concerning Good & Evil or Eating of the Tree of those Knowledges or Reasonings which hinder the Vision of God turning all into a Consuming fire. When Imaginative Art & Science & all Intellectual Gifts, all the Gifts of the Holy Ghost, are lookd upon as of no use & only Contention remains to Man, then the Last Judgment begins, & its Vision is seen by the Imaginative Eye of Every one according to the situation he holds.

[PAGE 68] The Last Judgment is not Fable or Allegory but Vision. Fable or Allegory are a totally distinct & inferior kind of Poetry. Vision, or Imagination, is a Representation of what Eternally Exists, Really & Unchangeably. Fable or Allegory is Formd by the daughters of Memory. Imagination is Surrounded by the daughters of Inspiration, who in the aggregate are calld Jerusalem, [PAGE 69] Fable is Allegory, but what Critics call The Fable is Vision itself, [PAGE 68] The Hebrew Bible & the Gospel of Jesus are not Allegory, but Eternal Vision, or Imagination of All that Exists. Note here that Fable or Allegory is Seldom without some Vision. Pilgrim's Progress is full of it, the Greek Poets the same; but Allegory & Vision ought to be known as Two Distinct Things, & so calld for the Sake of Eternal Life. Plato has made Socrates say that Poets & Prophets do not know or Understand what they write or Utter; this is a most Pernicious Falshood. If they do not, pray is an inferior Kind to be calld Knowing? Plato confutes himself.2

The Last Judgment is one of these Stupendous Visions. I have represented it as I saw it. To different People it appears differently, as [PAGE 69] every thing else does; for tho on Earth things seem Permanent, they are less permanent than a Shadow, as we all know too well.