And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
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:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
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:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
William Blake, who wrote the poem in 1804, never rowed with both oars in the water. The poem bombed. Why would it not? It is ridiculous. But in 1916 Hubert Parry put the poem to song. Talk about the futility of putting lipstick on a pig. Parry's music was beautiful. The lyrics were still the pig. I do not understand, I have never understood, and never will understand how those lyrics could be sung, by royalty and commoner, by head of state and man in the street as one of the national anthems of Great Britain. I would be embarrassed to sing them in my shower much less at a royal wedding. Yet they are and they were.
Manifestly Blake fought mental illness all of his life. He did not win the battle with this poem. The first two stanzas seem pathognomonic of hallucination, grandiosity. It is embarrassing, Jesus Christ walking around England. I always thought "feet" was peculiar. The English have a foot fetish. John Donne in Love's Progress, circa 1600 advised young men intent on progress to,
set out below; practise thy art ;
Some symmetry the foot hath with that part
Which thou dost seek, and is thy map for that
Green, England indeed has plenty of green, green is also the color for lovers in English poetry (Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost); pastures the same; holy~holey~hole~whorey; pleasant:
Namely a bedde hadden they meschaunce;
Ther wolde I chide and do hem no plesaunce,
(Especially in bed had they mischance,
There would I chide and give them no pleasance;)
The Wife of Bath, Chaucer.
Countenance-in Shakespeare and in his time any word beginning with "con" was apt to be sexually allusive. The English thought they hit the mother lode when they discovered the French word "conin." They took it and minted, e.g., cunt, coney, cunny, cunnig, country,
"dark Satanic Mills." darkness provides cover for sex; satanic, satan, devil, woman, cuckold. A dark satanic mill could be metaphor for brothel. And in fact.
That is the Albion Flour Mills, Bankside, London. From Wikipedia:
Opponents referred to the factory as satanic, and accused its owners of adulterating flour and using cheap imports at the expense of British producers. A contemporary illustration of the fire shows a devil squatting on the building.[10] The mills were a short distance from Blake's home.
Wait, there's more. Bankside, where Albion Flour Mills was located, was in the Elizabethan period of Shakespeare the most notorious district in London for brothels. "A shot distance from Blake's home."
The first two stanzas were the difficult ones. The last two:
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
--- Arrows of desire:
--- Spear: O clouds unfold:
Shakespeare made the letter "O," the exclamation, every use of "O" into a reference to the vagina, orgasm, sex, etc.
"Unfold": "My dick's a spear: O legs unfold"
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
He has a mental block to getting an erection but will not cease in fighting it nor shall his dick sleep in his hand.
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
Hit it!
Manifestly Blake fought mental illness all of his life. He did not win the battle with this poem. The first two stanzas seem pathognomonic of hallucination, grandiosity. It is embarrassing, Jesus Christ walking around England. I always thought "feet" was peculiar. The English have a foot fetish. John Donne in Love's Progress, circa 1600 advised young men intent on progress to,
set out below; practise thy art ;
Some symmetry the foot hath with that part
Which thou dost seek, and is thy map for that
Green, England indeed has plenty of green, green is also the color for lovers in English poetry (Shakespeare Love's Labour's Lost); pastures the same; holy~holey~hole~whorey; pleasant:
Namely a bedde hadden they meschaunce;
Ther wolde I chide and do hem no plesaunce,
(Especially in bed had they mischance,
There would I chide and give them no pleasance;)
The Wife of Bath, Chaucer.
Countenance-in Shakespeare and in his time any word beginning with "con" was apt to be sexually allusive. The English thought they hit the mother lode when they discovered the French word "conin." They took it and minted, e.g., cunt, coney, cunny, cunnig, country,
"dark Satanic Mills." darkness provides cover for sex; satanic, satan, devil, woman, cuckold. A dark satanic mill could be metaphor for brothel. And in fact.
Opponents referred to the factory as satanic, and accused its owners of adulterating flour and using cheap imports at the expense of British producers. A contemporary illustration of the fire shows a devil squatting on the building.[10] The mills were a short distance from Blake's home.
Wait, there's more. Bankside, where Albion Flour Mills was located, was in the Elizabethan period of Shakespeare the most notorious district in London for brothels. "A shot distance from Blake's home."
The first two stanzas were the difficult ones. The last two:
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
--- Arrows of desire:
--- Spear: O clouds unfold:
Shakespeare made the letter "O," the exclamation, every use of "O" into a reference to the vagina, orgasm, sex, etc.
"Unfold": "My dick's a spear: O legs unfold"
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
He has a mental block to getting an erection but will not cease in fighting it nor shall his dick sleep in his hand.
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
Hit it!
