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 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; 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: 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. 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 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 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: 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: 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: 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 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 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: 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 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 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 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. Till Albion is shut out from every Nation under Heaven.