Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/70

56 ::Glistering with festering venoms bright,
 * Saying, — " Crucify this cause of distress,
 * Who don't keep the secret of holiness!
 * The mental powers by disease we bind,
 * But he heals the deaf, the dumb, the blind,
 * Whom God hath alHicted for secret ends.
 * He comforts and heals and calls them friends,
 * But when Jesus was crucified
 * Then was perfected his galling pride.
 * In three days he devoured his prey,
 * And still devours this body of clay.
 * For dust and clay is the serpent's meat
 * That never was meant for man to eat."

in this Christ is seen telling His mother to show her sin. This is not confusion but symbolism. He stands for the masculine, she for the feminine ; he for mind, imagination, truth, forgiveness, and light ; she for earth, the five senses, deluded mind, morality, repentance, secrecy, deceit, and all that is dark. She is the West and North, He is East and South.

So ends the only other completed portion of this poem.

A few words follow the note " 94 lines."

If they were intended to close the poem, then they should be followed by its concluding couplet, marked elsewhere as to follow the portion beginning, — " Was Jesus chaste ? " &c.


 * " I am sure this Jesus will not do
 * Either for Englishman or Jew."

But in looking at the end of the segment, Blake seems to have forgotten this trivial climax which was not under his eye at the moment. On what is left blank of the page where the portion is which ended first with — " still devours this body of clay/ 5 — which received the couplet " For dust and clay," &c, as an afterthought, Blake is seized with consciousness of his own mission and duty in the matter, and starts afresh.


 * " Seeing this false Christ, in fury and passion,
 * I made my voice heard all over the Nation.
 * What are those ? " &c.

And so the MS. of the Everlasting Gospel terminates for us