I see the Four-fold Man, The Humanity in deadly sleep ¹

WILLIAM BLAKE (1757-1827)

Jerusalem, from Schorer, 1959

1     I see the Four-fold Man, The Humanity in deadly sleep
2     And its fallen Emanation, the Spectre and its cruel Shadow.
3     I see the Past, Present and Future existing all at once
4     Before me. O Divine Spirit, sustain me on thy wings,
5     That I may awake Albion from his long and cold repose;
6     For Bacon and Newton, sheath'd in dismal steel, their terrors hang
7     Like iron scourges over Albion: reasonings like vast serpents
8     Infold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations.

9     I turn my eyes to the schools and universities of Europe
10   And there behold the Loom of Locke, whose Woof rages dire,
11   Wash'd by the Water-wheels of Newton: black the cloth
12   In heavy wreaths folds over every nation: cruel works
13   Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic
14   Moving by compulsion each other, not as those in Eden, which,
15   Wheel within wheel, in freedom revolve in harmony and peace.

Notes

(1) W Blake, Jerusalem , from [Representative Poetry On-line] Univ. of Toronto 1997. "Jerusalem was first engraved by Blake in or shortly after 1818, although it bears the date 1804 on its title-page. It is in four parts and comprises one hundred plates. Six copies survive, one in colour. This extract is from Plate 15 in the first part." (Glosses by Northrop Frye.)

line

1.
Four-fold Man: man in his complete or unfallen state, when he is identical with God, and with all of his four main faculties ("Zoas") properly functioning. [The fourth of course is ones own integration of this three-fold vision. -SEM]
2.
Emanation: Nature as a field of human creation symbolized as female. #Spectre: the withdrawn subjective mind.
Shadow: the objective counterpart of the Spectre.
5.
Albion: humanity seen as a single Man, identified with England. The theme of Jerusalem is the separation and eventual reuniting of Albion with his "Emanation," Jerusalem, the City of God.
6.
Bacon and Newton. Blake regarded the philosophical outlooks of Bacon, Newton, and Locke (line 10) as part of the religion of Urizen (see above).
15.
Wheel within wheel: Ezekiel 1: 16. [and cf. his 'four living creatures' that have 'the likeness of a man.' -- Schorer, p 266]
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