Oh, what is life and what is Man? Oh, what is death?
Wherefore
Are you, my children, natives in the grave to where I go?
Or are you born to feed the hungry ravenings of destruction,
To be the sport of accident, to waste in wrath and love a weary
Life, in brooding cares and anxious labours that prove but chaff?
Oh Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I have forsaken thy courts;
Thy pillars of ivory and gold, thy curtains of silk and fine
Linen, thy pavements of precious stones, thy walls of pearl
And gold, thy gates of thanksgiving, thy windows of praise,
Thy clouds of blessing, thy cherubims of tender mercy,
Stretching their wings sublime o'er the little ones of Albion.
Oh human imagination, O divine body I have crucified!
I have turned my back upon thee into the wastes of moral law.
Oh Babylon, Oh, Babylon
There Babylon is builded on the waste, founded on human desolation
O Babylon, thy watchman stands over thee in the Night: O Babylon
Thy severe judge all the day long proves thee, O Babylon,
With provings of destruction, with giving thee they heart's desire.
The walls of Babylon are souls of men, her gates the groans of nations, her towers are the miseries of once happy families.
Her streets are paved with destruction, her houses built with death,
Her palaces with Hell and the grave, her synagogues with torments
Or everhardening despair, squared and polished with cruel skill.
Yet thou wast lovely as the summer cloud upon my hills,
When Jerusalem was thy heart's desire in times of youth and love.
Thy sons came to Jerusalem with gifts; she sent them away
With blessing on their hands and on their feet, blessings of gold
And pearl and diamond. Thy daughters sang in her courts;
Mount Zion lifted his head in every nation under heaven,
And the Mount of Olives was beheld over the whole earth.
The footsteps of the Lamb of God were there. But now no more,
No more shall I behold him; he is closed in Luvah's sepulchre.
Dost thou forgive me, thou who wast dead and art alive?
Look not so merciful upon me, O thou slain Lamb of God,
I die! I die in thy arms, though hope is banished from me.
William Blake
from Jerusalem