Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/71

 Rh with a loose end. What was the rest ? We are entirely in the dark. One suggestion presents itself at once.

In "Jerusalem," p. 27, the poem, "To the Jews," the seventh stanza begins —


 * "What are those golden builders doing?"

Can it have been intended to follow here ? There is no particular reason to think that it should do so. But no other line that coniniences with the same words is known to us. Should one be found in an MS., not now at hand, it will require consideration on its merits.

One of the few dates given in the whole MS. book is in the following note on the edge of a page, seemingly written just after the essay on the Vision of the Last Judgment, and therefore not far from the time of " Everlasting Gospel."


 * "23rd May, 1810. Found the word golden."

This means probably that opening some book at hazard to see on what word his finger would fall, Blake discovered that the word "golden " was so thrust upon his intention. A similar incident is recorded under date several years previously — August, 1807. " Jerusalem " — begun, as to its engraving, in 1804 — was still in process of transference to metal. But the most that can be offered in the absence of Blake's complete MS. is that material for a surmise exists, not for a certainty, and the "golden builders "and the "golden string," in "Jerusalem," may or may not have been Blake's intended sequel to the "Everlasting Gospel."

After " What are those ?" &c, a few more lines are found, a scrap never woven into any place, probably superseded by portions of the long passage already given.

Another couplet is to be found for which no place can be assigned. It is interesting as an additional proof that when seen in this light Satan, the serpent, is crucified.


 * "Nail his neck to the cross : nail it with a nail.
 * Nail his neck to the cross : ye all have power over his tail."