Introduction
In a fiery Preface to his epic poem ‘Milton’, William Blake scolded Georgian Britain’s materialistic Establishment for making idols of war, empire, science and money. He ended with a stirring appeal to rediscover the country’s soul, drawing on a legend that Jesus Christ once visited England.
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?
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here*
Among those 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 England’s green and pleasant land.*
Sabine Baring-Gould (1834-1924) recorded in A Book of Cornwall: “Another Cornish story is to the effect that Joseph of Arimathea came in a boat to Cornwall, and brought the Child Jesus with him, and the latter taught him how to extract the tin and purge it of its wolfram. This story possibly grew out of the fact that the Jews under the Angevin kings farmed the tin of Cornwall.” The Angevins, Henry II, Richard I and John, and Henry III, ruled Anjou in France between 1128 and 1259.
Georgian religion, science and philosophy downplayed or denied the existence of a supernatural dimension, and (in Blake’s opinion) admired the art, literature and architecture of pagan Greece and Rome to excess, all leading to gross secularism and materialism. Jerusalem is ‘liberty’ from it, a vision of eternal reality and not just of the ‘vegetable world’ around us; and as ‘the Bride of the Lamb’, she is found wherever Christ and his Gospel are found.
Of his time earning his keep as a commercial illustrator, Blake wrote ‘I was a slave, bound in a mill among beasts and devils’; he regarded as ‘the mills’ any system that crushed more visionary spirits, from Druid superstition and the Church of England to the Royal Academy and the Universities. ‘Satan’ in the epic poem Milton that immediately follows is an allegory for William Hayley, who was briefly Blake’s patron; Blake had hoped Hayley would give him complete freedom to create, but he found he was expected to produce commercial pieces.
Elijah was taken up into heaven in a chariot of fire 2 Kings 2:11, and Elisha was saved from the King of Syria by angels in fiery chariots, 2 Kings 6:17.
See Ephesians 6:12: ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’
See Revelation 21:1-4: ‘And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.’ Blake hoped to see himself and indeed England liberated from grinding secularism and materialism by what he called ‘the Sublime of the Bible’. ‘The Hebrew Bible and the Gospel of Jesus’ he stated firmly ‘are not Allegory, but Eternal Vision or Imagination of All that Exists.’
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Word Games
Spinners Find in Think and Speak
For each group of words, compose a sentence that uses all three. You can use any form of the word: for example, cat → cats, go → went, or quick → quickly, though neigh → neighbour is stretching it a bit.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
1 Build. Fight. Our.
2 God. Mountain. See.
3 Mental. Pasture. Sleep.
Variations: 1. include direct and indirect speech 2. include one or more of these words: although, because, despite, either/or, if, unless, until, when, whether, which, who 3. use negatives (not, isn’t, neither/nor, never, nobody etc.)
Homophones Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that sound the same, but differ in spelling and also in meaning. Compose your own sentences to bring out the differences between them.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
Confusables Find in Think and Speak
In each group below, you will find words that are similar to one another, but not exactly the same. Compose your own sentences to bring out the similarities and differences between them, whether in meaning, grammar or use.
This exercise uses words found in the accompanying passage.
Add Vowels Find in Think and Speak
Make words by adding vowels to each group of consonants below. You may add as many vowels as you like before, between or after the consonants, but you may not add any consonants or change the order of those you have been given. See if you can beat our target of common words.
dpts (6+1)
adapts. adepts. adopts. depots. deputies. deputise.
deputes.
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