Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/194

 JERUSALEM.

The following: account of the book of Jerusalem is intended to serve as a companion and an assistant to readers who are studying the poem, not as a description that pretends to be readable by itself or apart from the text. The frontispiece and title-page being numbered 1 and 2, the book begins at page 3, which is a preface to the first chapter. It is itself an explanation and needs no commentary.

Chapter I.

P. 4, 1. 2. — Of the imputation of sin and righteousness to individuals and not to states, and of the passage through the belief in personal individualism in mind, morals, and sensa- tions, to the belief in the imaginative freedom with its blending of all in all, and its perfect forgiveness that imputes to individuals no sin — such is the theme. The first of these states belongs to the man whose soul, absorbed in the tem- porary world, is merged in what is temporary, and is thus in a state of eternal death. The second belongs to him who, averting his mind from experience and its deceptions and turning to imagination, is in a state of eternal life.

P. 4, 11. 3 to 5. — This theme calls me, — says Blake, — night after night, through mood after mood of unimaginative experience, and every time that the mind's true light, — morn, — returns it awakes me as divine warmth begins, — sunrise, — and I see the human imagination, — the Saviour, spreading his beams of love and creating the persons, — (words) of this mild eation, — (song).

P. 4, 11. 6 to 20. — He cries, — Awake, — that is, — perceive the