Page:Works of William Blake; poetic, symbolic, and critical (1893) Volume 2.djvu/76

62 comes from the mind, the south, while in his loins the all-pervading moist maternity of nature awakes and hungers also.

When a new imagination begins, a new heaven begins, and this, in a degree, happens at the birth of each man. When Blake was thirty-three the Eternal Hell revived, — that is, the eternal energies of nature, ththe [sic] globe of blood, as elsewhere symbolized — or the Eternal Female, whose red dress is seen in the margin of the Argument. This Female is not yet separate. She becomes so at revival, and hence a marriage is possible.

Blake had been long under the influence of Swedenborg's writings when he was thirty-three. He now suddenly sees that these writings have been folded round the enthusiastic energy of his own personal mind like grave clothes round a dead body. But this body — a portion of the eternal hell, or eternal energy — casts off the cerements and sees the author of them as though he were the angel left watching after Christ had risen, a helpless holy presence in the place where a divine deed had been done.

"Now is the dominion of Edom." Edom was where Adam, who was Schofield, was "new created," which thing the spectre of Los saw, indignant, but Los was not moved. ("Jerusalem," p. 7, 1. 26.)

When the five senses under the symbols Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Edom, and Aram are spoken of, Edom is the fourth ("Jerusalem," p. 49, 1. 43). They are mentioned under the four points in the order — Eye, Ear, Nostrils, Tongue; an unusual sequence, equal to South, North, East, West — instead of South, East, West, North, as is usual. Each form indicates a cross, — that of the Two Contraries. But the symbolic position of Moab is not indicated as that of the loins, so certainly as would be expected. In "Jerusalem," p. 92, 1. 23, Edom is mentioned again, taking along with Egypt the position usually assigned to Canaan in the triad Amalek — Canaan — Moab. In the end, Blake entirely puts off the dominion of Edom, "Lord,