Today's Topics:
Building and Re-Building...
Quote
Quote
mailing list
Quote
Quote
Blake List membership
Re: Blake List membership
Re: Blake List membership
May I "Drop a Line"?
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Date: Wed, 7 May 1997 09:16:57 -0400
From: albright@world.std.com (R.H. Albright)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Building and Re-Building...
Message-Id:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Jerusalem again...
Or--
Why Los and Urizen need each, inter-mingle as "Zoas", at least in the nuts
and bolts world of real living, as Blake and his disciples may have us
think.
"The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal
vigilance; which condition if he break, servitude is at once the consequence
of his crime, and the punishment of his guilt. (John Philpot Curran, Speech
on the Right of Election of Lord Mayor of Dublin, 10 July 1790)
This quote, provided to me by an e-mail friend, I believe is available on
Microsoft's Encarta Encyclopedia.
I note a few important things:
1) It is a speech about the realm of politics and... Urizen's realm of
laws? It is also about the need, in keeping "vigilance", to hopefully
*ever-broaden* (through vigilance) the rule of law to make it more
INclusive, so that it protects aspects of liberty-- free speech, for
example-- even as some try to chip away at it. Last year's successful Blue
Ribbon campaign led by the ACLU to overturn censorship on the Internet is a
case in this. Of course, the battle of censorship in that realm or others
in the USA is over now, or will EVER be over. Nor will it be in other
realms of "liberty".
2) If we are to understand "Jerusalem" as freedom, as the need for an
ever-expanding tent of inclusion, forgiveness, and tolerance, it indeed
needs to be forever re-built on a multiplicity of levels in this realm of
law to create a bigger tent than just the people for whom Curran originally
spoke.
3) The speech itself therefore needs to be re-imagined in the wake not only
of Blake, who lived during the time it was spoken, but of Henry David
Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and others, to
see how struggle toward a better state than the state we're in is... never
through.
4) Finally, for me, it shows the need to break down the artificial
boundaries between the Zoas, at least in real life,. It is the inspiration
of people like Blake as well as Curran and Capra in the realm of
physics/"pop" biology that continue to drive us toward, hopefully, not one
of mere solipsism, but of a better future than today.
-Randall Albright
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 11:28:41 -0700
From: "Charlie K."
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199705081825.LAA10040@gost1.indirect.com>
A Song of Liberty
1. The Eternal Female groand! it was
heard over all the Earth:
2. Albions coast is sick silent; the A-
-merican meadows faint!
3 Shadows of Prophecy shiver along by
the lakes and the rivers and mutter across
the ocean, France rend down thy dungeon;
4. Golden Spain burst the barriers of old
Rome;
5. Cast thy keys O Rome into the deep
down falling, even to eternity down falling,
6. And weep
7. In her trembling hands she took the
new born terror howling;
8. On those infinite mountains of light
now barr'd out by the atlantic sea, the new
born fire stood before the starry king!
9. Flag'd with grey brow'd snows and thun-
-derous visages the jealous wings wav'd
over the deep.
10. The speary hand burned aloft, unbuck-
-led was the shield, forth went the hand
of jealousy among the flaming hair. and
hurl'd the new born wonder thro' the starry
night.
11. The fire, the fire, is falling!
12. Look up! look up! O citizen of London
enlarge thy countenance; O Jew, leave coun
ting gold! return to thy oil and wine; O
African! black African! (go. winged thought
widen his forehead.)
13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair, shot
like the sinking sun into the western sea.
14. Wak'd from his eternal sleep, the hoary
element roaring fled away;
15. Down rushd beating his wings in vain
the jealous king; his grey brow'd councel-
- lors, thunderous warriors, curl'd veterans,
among helms, and shields, and chariots
horses, elephants: banners, castles. slings
and rocks,
16. Falling, rushing, ruining! buried in
the ruins, on Urthona's dens.
17. All night beneath the ruins, then
their sullen flames faded emerge round
the gloomy king,
18. With thunder and fire: leading his
starry hosts thro' the waste wilderness
he promulgates his ten commands,
glancing his beamy eyelids over the
deep in dark dismay,
19. Where the son of fire in his eastern
cloud, while the morning plumes her gol-
-den breast.
20. Spurning the clouds written with
curses. stamps the stony law to dust,
loosing the eternal horses from the dens
of night, crying Empire is no more!
and now the lion & wolf shall
cease.
Chorus
Let the Priests of the Raven of dawn,
no longer in deadly black, with hoarse note
curse the sons of joy. Nor his accepted
brethren whom. tyrant, he calls free: lay the
bound or build the roof. Nor pale religious
letchery call that virginity. that wishes
but acts not!
For every thing that lives is Holy
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 11:44:19 -0700
From: "Charlie K."
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199705081841.LAA11263@gost1.indirect.com>
Religious dreams and holy vespers, light thy smoky fires:
Once were thy fires lighted by the eyes of honest morn
And does my Theotormon seek this hypocrite modesty!
This knowing, artful, secret. fearful, cautious, trembling hypocrite.
[from Visions of The Daughters of Albion, plate 6 (9)]
------------------------------
Date: Thu, 8 May 1997 23:36:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: KEITHROBIN@aol.com
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: mailing list
Message-Id: <970508233455_-498017332@emout02.mail.aol.com>
please take me off this mailing list
thankyou
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 21:11:15 -0700
From: "Charlie K."
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199705100408.VAA18906@gost1.indirect.com>
Albion rose from where he labourd at the Mill with Slaves
Giving himself for the Nations he danc'd the dance of Eternal Death.
------------------------------
Date: Fri, 9 May 1997 22:44:50 -0700
From: "Charlie K."
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Quote
Message-Id: <199705100541.WAA22462@gost1.indirect.com>
[The previous quote is the inscription Blake added to his
engraving 'Albion Rose' in its second state, probably around
1804. It may possibly be connected to this quote from a
letter Blake wrote to William Hayley on October 23rd, 1804]
. . . . For now! O Glory! and O Delight! I have entirely reduced
that spectrous Fiend to his station, whose annoyance has been the
ruin of my labours for the last passed twenty years of my life. He
is the enemy of conjugal love and is the Jupiter of the Greeks, an
iron-hearted tyrant, the ruiner of ancient Greece. I speak with
perfect confidence and certainty of the fact which has passed upon
me. Nebuchadnezzar had seven times passed over him; I have had
twenty; thank God I was not altogether a beast as he was; but I was
a slave bound in a mill among beasts and devils; these beasts and
these devils are now, together with myself, become children of light
and liberty, and my feet and my wife's feet are free from fetters.
O lovely Felpham, parent of Immortal Friendship, to thee I am
eternally indebted for my three years' rest from perturbation and
the strength I now enjoy. Suddenly, on the day after visiting the
Truchsessian Gallery of pictures, I was again enlightened with the
light I enjoyed in my youth, and which has for exactly twenty years
been closed from me as by a door and by window-shutters.
Consequently I can, with confidence, promise you ocular
demonstration of my altered state on the plates I am now engraving
after Romney, whose spiritual aid has not a little conduced to my
restoration to the light of Art.
[Notice how he gets right to the point and uses 'altered
state' in that last sentence. Blake places the blame for the
"ruin" of his "labours" not on his Hayley/Felpham experience,
for which at least here he is "eternally indebted," but on a
more general "spectrous Fiend." More about this as the
letter continues.]
O the distress I have undergone, and my poor wife with me.
Incessantly labouring and incessantly spoiling what I had done well.
Every one of my friends was astonished at my faults, and could not
assign a reason; they knew my industry and abstinence from every
pleasure for the sake of study, and yet - and yet - and yet there
wanted the proofs of industry in my works. I thank God with entire
confidence that it shall be so no longer - he is become my servant
who domineered over me, he is even as a brother who was my enemy.
Dear Sir, excuse my enthusiasm or rather madness, for I am really
drunk with intellectual vision whenever I take a pencil or graver
into my hand, even as I used to be in my youth, and as I have not
been for twenty dark, but very profitable years. I thank God that I
courageously pursued my course through darkness.
[So go take a look at the 'Albion Rose' plate. I say you
are looking at Blake himself glowing from true
visionary/religious experience, of which he had at least two.
The "invention" of the plate (i.e. the original pencil
sketch) is dated 1780, with the first state of the plate
appearing probably around 1794-1796. Blake's next major
religious experience led him to get the plate back out and
alter it into its second state, perhaps soon after his
experience of Oct. 1804. -ck]
[BTW, the plates Blake enthusiastically mentions in his letter are
now untraced. The letter was written about a year after he and
Catharine moved back to London from Felpham.]
------------------------------
Date: 10 May 97 15:09:05 EDT
From: Philip Benz <100575.2061@CompuServe.COM>
To: "internet:blake@albion.com"
Subject: Blake List membership
Message-Id: <970510190905_100575.2061_GHW58-3@CompuServe.COM>
I haven't received any posts from the Blake list in weeks -- do
memberships time out if I don't send posts for a while? Do I need to
rejoin? Has the Blake list moved on to another listserver?
Sorry to bother the list with such mundane matters.
BTW, Blake didn't come up in the written segment of the French
agregation exams, but I did manage to shoehorn in a bit while writing
about the sublime in Radcliffe's _Mysteries of Udolpho_.
De Lucca's _Words of Eternity_ is turning out to be a fascinating
read. Thanx so much to the listmembers who recommended it to me.
Cheers, --- Phil
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 07:43:33 -0500 (CDT)
From: reillys@ix.netcom.com (susan p. reilly)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: Re: Blake List membership
Message-Id: <199705111243.HAA27863@dfw-ix10.ix.netcom.com>
Hi, Phil,
The list is still kicking, though there is not much happening on it at
present. I got your post, obviously---and obviously again, it looks
like you passed your exams. If so, congratulations!
How and what about the sublime did you work in to your discussion of
Radcliffe?
Nudge me on the list if you get this.
Susan
You wrote:
>
>
> I haven't received any posts from the Blake list in weeks -- do
>memberships time out if I don't send posts for a while? Do I need to
>rejoin? Has the Blake list moved on to another listserver?
>
> Sorry to bother the list with such mundane matters.
> BTW, Blake didn't come up in the written segment of the French
>agregation exams, but I did manage to shoehorn in a bit while writing
>about the sublime in Radcliffe's _Mysteries of Udolpho_.
> De Lucca's _Words of Eternity_ is turning out to be a fascinating
>read. Thanx so much to the listmembers who recommended it to me.
>
>Cheers, --- Phil
>
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Sun, 11 May 1997 11:19:51 -0500 (CDT)
From: William Neal Franklin
To: "internet:blake@albion.com"
Subject: Re: Blake List membership
Message-Id:
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
Graduation was yesterday, and though I was heartily congratulated by all
and given the weekend off, I find myself here reading the Blake list
before I've even shaken off the party. I suspect, Phillip, that many of
our colleagues have been under the press of papers and grades (to say
nothing of their own projects). I also suspect that SylvanBear drove more
than a few of us underground. As interesting as I find the subject of
Blake and Druidism, I didn't want to join his discussion. I've been
thinking that perhaps in another week or so I might post a bit on my
take--or perhaps not. I've spent twelve years looking into the druidic.
I've written my book. I saw its title in the program yesterday and
already it looks so distant. Maybe I'll get over it and get back into the
project in a few weeks, but just now I'm going to go do the laundry and
clean up the study and box up my notes. Maybe take a nap....
Later, fellow Blakeans
Bill Franklin
who is no Druid, but who now wears a hood with the robe
On 10 May 1997, Philip Benz wrote:
>
> I haven't received any posts from the Blake list in weeks -- do
> memberships time out if I don't send posts for a while? Do I need to
> rejoin? Has the Blake list moved on to another listserver?
>
> Sorry to bother the list with such mundane matters.
> BTW, Blake didn't come up in the written segment of the French
> agregation exams, but I did manage to shoehorn in a bit while writing
> about the sublime in Radcliffe's _Mysteries of Udolpho_.
> De Lucca's _Words of Eternity_ is turning out to be a fascinating
> read. Thanx so much to the listmembers who recommended it to me.
>
> Cheers, --- Phil
>
>
------------------------------
Date: Mon, 12 May 1997 09:43:38 -0500 (CDT)
From: reillys@ix.netcom.com (susan p. reilly)
To: blake@albion.com
Subject: May I "Drop a Line"?
Message-Id: <199705121443.JAA27668@dfw-ix11.ix.netcom.com>
You wrote:
>
I've been
>thinking that perhaps in another week or so I might post a bit on my
>take--or perhaps not.
>
>>
>
[Dear Bill,]
That Bait Looks Mighty Tasty; or, if That's a Lure, There's One
Hungry Fish Out Here....
[Part the second]
While Professor Franklin was warming his toes by the fire in his
cozy retreat at Semester's End, he could not have guessed that Sylvan
Bear, that devious and dangerous, dastardly desparado, who just moments
before had managed to free his head from a buzzing hive of honeybees,
was staggering out of the woods and straight for the town of Albion.
Down at the telegraph office, Porcupine Pete, aging and beloved,
grizzled old mountain-man-turned-kindly-clerk, was settling back in his
chair after hanging out his shingle, when he heard a roar.
"What the ding-dang devil is all the fussin'..."
Sylvan Bear crashed through the door. He was slathered in mud from ear
to ear, his head swollen to twice its size from the effects of bee
venom.
"Outta my way, Oldtimer, or I'll cut yer cussed weazand, soon's I
git my paw outter this jar of salve. I'm fixin' for to take off all
the fish in the lake up here at Albion, and aint you nor nobody else
agonna stop me.
"Now you jest step on over nice and easy-like, then set down and
send this wire off to Druidville."
Sandy Sue, daughter of Porcupine Pete, [and by ther way, one heckuva
gal--why, she is the modestest, bashfulest, beautifulest dern
buck-skinned belle she--er, I mean I, ever did set eyes upon] heard the
uproar from the back room, where, behind the curtain, she was fixing
breakfast for her dear Papa.
She ran out the back door and straight down to the Sioux village to
find her friend, Chief Stern Face.
"Oh, Stern Face, you has got to help us. Send your swiftest rider to
Semester's End with this message."
[to be continued]
******************************
Hoping to induce you to send your post,
Susan Reilly
>>
>>
>
>
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End of blake-d Digest V1997 Issue #55
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