Page:William Blake, a critical essay (Swinburne).djvu/178

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Thou art a man; God is no more;

Thine own humanity learn to adore,

For that is my spirit of life.

Awake: arise to spiritual strife;

And thy revenge abroad display

In terror at the Last Judgment Day.

(Another special point of faith. "Redemption by forgiveness of sins? yes: but the power of redeeming or forgiving must come by strife. A gospel is no mere spiritual essence of boiled milk and rose-water. There are the energies of nature to fight and beat—unforgivable enemies, embodied in Melitus or Annas, Caiaphas or Lycon. Sin is pardonable; but these things, in the body or out of it, are not pardonable. Revenge also is divine; whatever you may think or say while in the body, there is a part of nature not forgivable, an element in the world not redeemable, which in the end must be cast out and tormented." To the priests of Pharisaic morals or Satanic religion—those who crucify the great "human" nature and "scourge sin instead of forgiving it"—to these the Redeemer must be the tormentor.)

These few lines, interpolated by way of comfortable exposition, are more likely to increase the offence and perplexity: but assuredly no irreverent brutality of paradox was here in the man's mind. Even the "divine humanity" of his quasi-Pantheistic worship must give up