{"id":55725,"date":"2017-06-26T05:47:09","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T05:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=55725"},"modified":"2017-06-26T05:55:03","modified_gmt":"2017-06-26T05:55:03","slug":"sunday-surprise-a-british-query","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/?p=55725","title":{"rendered":"Sunday surprise &#8211; a British Query"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[ By <strong>Charles Cameron<\/strong> &#8212; William Blake asks, David Jones responds ]<br \/>\n.<\/p>\n<p><strong>William Blake<\/strong> asks:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And did those feet in ancient time<br \/>\nWalk upon Englands mountains green:<br \/>\nAnd was the holy Lamb of God,<br \/>\nOn Englands pleasant pastures seen!<\/p>\n<p>And did the Countenance Divine,<br \/>\nShine forth upon our clouded hills?<br \/>\nAnd was Jerusalem builded here,<br \/>\nAmong these dark Satanic Mills?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I won&#8217;t <a href=\"https:\/\/www.poetryfoundation.org\/poems-and-poets\/poems\/detail\/54684\">quote the rest of the poem<\/a>, because it&#8217;s those last two lines that interest me:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>And was Jerusalem builded here,<br \/>\nAmong these dark Satanic Mills?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>**<\/p>\n<p>Is there a glimpse of Jerusalem to be had, among the mills and chimneys of industry? <strong>David Jones<\/strong>, I think, takes the question very seriously, not looking for an answer to some Glastonbury Festival site, but to the contemporary manifestation of those mills &#8212; the skyscrapers of the city &#8212; not turning his gaze away from them but peering into them, questioning the very assumption that paradise cannot be found among them.<\/p>\n<p>And here, I think, Jones answers &#8212; his quest unsatisfied:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I said, Ah! what shall I write?<br \/>\nI enquired up and down.<br \/>\n(He\u2019s tricked me before<br \/>\nwith his manifold lurking-places.)<br \/>\nI looked for His symbol at the door.<br \/>\nI have looked for a long while<br \/>\nat the textures and contours.<br \/>\nI have run a hand over the trivial intersections.<br \/>\nI have journeyed among the dead forms<br \/>\ncausation projects from pillar to pylon.<br \/>\nI have tired the eyes of the mind<br \/>\nregarding the colours and lights.<br \/>\nI have felt for His wounds<br \/>\nin nozzles and containers.<br \/>\nI have wondered for the automatic devices.<br \/>\nI have tested the inane patterns<br \/>\nwithout prejudice.<br \/>\nI have been on my guard<br \/>\nnot to condemn the unfamiliar.<br \/>\nFor it is easy to miss Him<br \/>\nat the turn of a civilisation.<\/p>\n<p>I have watched the wheels go round in case I<br \/>\nmight see the living creatures like the appearance<br \/>\nof lamps, in case I might see the Living God projected<br \/>\nfrom the Machine. I have said to the perfected steel,<br \/>\nbe my sister and for the glassy towers I thought I felt<br \/>\nsome beginnings of His creature, but <em>A, a, a Domine Deus<\/em>,<br \/>\nmy hands found the glazed work unrefined and the terrible<br \/>\ncrystal a stage-paste \u2026<em>Eia, Domine Deus<\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>It is, I think, a very great poem. <em>Eia, Domine Deus.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[ By Charles Cameron &#8212; William Blake asks, David Jones responds ] . William Blake asks: And did those feet in ancient time Walk upon Englands mountains green: And was the holy Lamb of God, On Englands pleasant pastures seen! And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1212,53,526,741,779,522,946,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blake","category-britain","category-charles-cameron","category-poetry","category-question","category-questions","category-sunday-surprise","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=55725"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55725\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55778,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55725\/revisions\/55778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=55725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=55725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zenpundit.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=55725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}