Last night at the meeting we read a few lines from William Blake selected poetry and one was "Jerusalem." A long time I ago I remember Mervyn giving angles with regard to self remembering and the soul and its journey especially on these verses below.
It is beautiful and very powerful. Blake lived in a time when in the North of England the people worked in terrible conditions in manufacturing mills (dark satanic mills). No labor laws to speak of, starving, in poverty, very little time off work. If one approached that area in those days one might have thought the instinctive was taking most of the energy of the people to just survive. Still many people live in such extreme situations all over the world and in most countries. Yet the desire to build "Jerusalem" within, regardless of circumstances goes on everywhere.
And did the Countenance Divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my spear: O Clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In England's green and pleasant land.
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