- The prophetic books of William Blake, Milton — Milton, preface
- Exported from Wikisource on 12/19/19
- P. 1
- MILTON
- A Poem in 2 Books
- To Justify the Ways of God to Men.
- The Author & Printer W. Blake.
- 1804.
- P. 2
- PREFACE
- THE Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato &
- Cicero, which all Men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against
- the Sublime of the Bible: but when the New Age is at leisure to Pronounce,
- all will be set right & those Grand Works of the more ancient & con-
- 5sciously & professedly Inspired Men will hold their proper rank & the
- Daughters of Memory shall become the Daughters of Inspiration. Shak-
- speare & Milton were both curb'd by the general malady & infection from
- the silly Greek & Latin slaves of the Sword.
- Rouze up O Young Men of the New Age! Set your foreheads against
- 10 the ignorant Hirelings! For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court, &
- the University: who would if they could for ever depress Mental & prolong
- Corporeal War. Painters! on you I call. Sculptors! Architects! Suffer not the
- fashionable Fools to depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give
- for contemptible works or the expensive advertizing boasts that they make
- 15 of such works; believe Christ & his Apostles that there is a Class of Men
- whose whole delight is in Destroying. We do not want either Greek or
- Roman Models if we are but just & true to our own Imaginations, those
- Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live for ever, in Jesus Our Lord.
- And did those feet in ancient time
- 20Walk upon England's mountains green,
- And was the holy Lamb of God
- On England's pleasant pastures seen?
- And did the Countenance Divine
- Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
- 25And 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!
- 30Bring 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 & pleasant Land.
- 35Would to God that all the Lord's people were Prophets.
- Numbers, xi. ch. 29 v.
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