America 17

Rosenwald LC
Plate 16


The Text

---

                                      PLATE 16

Over the hills, the vales, the cities, rage the red flames fierce;
The Heavens melted from north to south; and Urizen who sat 
Above all heavens in thunders wrap'd, emerg'd his leprous head 
from out his holy shrine, his tears in deluge piteous
Falling into the deep sublime! flag'd with grey-brow'd snows
And thunderous visages, his jealous wings wav'd over the deep;
Weeping in dismal howling woe he dark descended howling
Around the smitten bands, clothed in tears & trembling shudd'ring cold.
His stored snows he poured forth, and his icy magazines
He open'd on the deep, and on the Atlantic sea white shiv'ring.
Leprous his limbs, all over white, and hoary was his visage.
Weeping in dismal howlings before the stern Americans
Hiding the Demon red with clouds & cold mists from the earth;
Till Angels & weak men twelve years should govern o'er the strong:
And then their end should come, when France reciev'd the Demons light. 
Stiff shudderings shook the heav'nly thrones! 
France Spain & Italy,In terror view'd the bands of Albion, and the ancient 
Guardians Fainting upon the elements, smitten with their own plagues 
They slow advance to shut the five gates of their law-built heaven
Filled with blasting fancies and with mildews of despair
With fierce disease and lust, unable to stem the fires of Orc;
But the five gates were consum'd, & their bolts and hinges melted
And the fierce flames burnt round the heavens, & round the abodes of men

FINIS
(Erdman 57-8)

                    About the Text

Urizen who sat Above all heavens aptly described at several places in the image. 
Blake is saying that Urizen is in charge of this mess.Urizen was Weeping in 
dismal howlings: everything is wrong here.

twelve years: he's talking history now; the 12 years might be construed as the 
years between the end of the American Revolution and the beginning of the French 
one--- or he might mean something entirely different.

"the five gates of their law-built heaven": look at Song of Los:
"Thus the terrible race of Los & Enitharmon gave Laws & Religions to the sons of 
Har binding them more
And more to Earth: closing and restraining:
Till a Philosophy of Five Senses was complete Urizen wept & gave it into the 
hands of Newton & Locke"(Erdman 68)

                           About the Image

A female bends on her knees with her head down and her hands in a pose

of prayer. Her hair is blue according to copy O and run over to the
right margin in what Erdman calls a niagara. A little man is sitting on
top of her head reading a book.

On top of her back two people are standing, one with a book perhaps and
the other pointing up to the right. Behind her feet seems to be a
figure on his hands with his face down.

Blake has put more and more small figures in juxtaposition with the
large one.  He's inviting his 'students' to think what they will
according to their level of perception.

These squigles reach their epitome at the bottom; first impressions of
it are a 'snake pit' or den of dragons, enclosing in the bottom center
'finis'.  You might suppose that he's saying that the American
Revolution is a batch of garbage.

Like the French Revolution Blake started out enthusiastically, so much
so that he wore the redcap of the revolutionists. But both revolutions
became illusory for Blake, succinctly expressed by the short slogan:
"he crushed the tyrant in his head
and became a tyrant in his stead.

America 16

Rosenwald LC
Plate 15

                              The Text

The red fires rag'd! the plagues recoil'd! then rolld they back
cross the limbs of Albions Guardian, the spotted plague smote Bristols
And the Leprosy Londons Spirit, sickening all their bands:
The millions sent up a howl of anguish and threw off their hammerd mail,
And cast their swords & spears to earth, & stood a naked multitude. 
Albions Guardian writhed in torment on the eastern sky
Pale quivring toward the brain his glimmering eyes, teeth chattering
Howling & shuddering his legs quivering; convuls'd each muscle &
sinew
Sick'ning lay Londons Guardian, and the ancient miter'd York
Their heads on snowy hills, their ensigns sick'ning in the sky  
The plagues creep on the burning winds driven by flames of Orc,
And by the fierce Americans rushing together in the night
Driven o'er the Guardians of Ireland and Scotland and Wales
They spotted with plagues forsook the frontiers & their banners
seard
With fires of hell, deform their ancient heavens with shame &
The plagues creep on the burning winds driven by flames of Orc,
And by the fierce Americans rushing together in the night
Driven o'er the Guardians of Ireland and Scotland and Wales
They spotted with plagues forsook the frontiers & their banners
seard
With fires of hell, deform their ancient heavens with shame &
woe.
Hid in his eaves the Bard of Albion felt the enormous plagues.
And a cowl of flesh grew o'er his head & scales on his back &
ribs;
And rough with black scales all his Angels fright their ancient
heavens
The doors of marriage are open, and the Priests in rustling
scales
Rush into reptile coverts, hiding from the fires of Orc,
That play around the golden roofs in wreaths of fierce desire,
Leaving the females naked and glowing with the lusts of youth
For the female spirits of the dead pining in bonds of religion;
Run from their fetters reddening, & in long drawn arches sitting:
They feel the nerves of youth renew, and desires of ancient
times,
Over their pale limbs as a vine when the tender grape appears
(Erdman 56-7)

                                  About the Text

On Albions Angels: This passage represents the disaster to 'Guardians'
England suffered as much as America from the war.
of England, Ireland and Scotland and Wales, beginning with Bristol, 
perhaps the embarkation point for the Redcoats heading to America.

This is the only use that Blake made of the term Bard of Albion; was 
he referring to himself? so demoralized?

we can only reflect on what he meant. 'Bard' is used often:
At the beginning of Songs of Experience:

Introduction.
Hear the voice of the Bard!
Who Present, Past, & Future sees
Whose ears have heard,
The Holy Word,
That walk'd among the ancient trees.
Calling the lapsed Soul
In the light of that poem we may assume that the Bard of 
Albion was the prophet of England; Blake has certainly
assumed that role, but the bard in this plate has fallen
to the point of becoming serpent-like.
                                   
                               About the Image

Those strange hieroclyphics we've met before are used to separate
sections of the text; they might be throught of as limbs of the tree
that fills the left border, which has become so commonplace.

A group of figure may be thought of as climbing the tree; more clearly
defined figures (notably female) are found in flames at the bottom.
(In my mind its reminiscent if the conventional Hell.)

There are all sorts of ideas about the significance of the symbols that
Erdman's page 153 present to us, such as the 'liberated horse' at
line 3. (It does show up better in this copy.

America 15

Although this is Plate 14 of Erdman's  electronic edition of The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake's,
newly Revised 1988 edited  by  David V. Erdman, I've called it America 15; that's because I added a preliminary statement and called it America 1.

America 15
Rosenwald LC

The Text

Plate 14

In the flames stood & view'd the armies drawn out in the sky
Washington Franklin Paine & Warren Allen Gates & Lee:
And heard the voice of Albions Angel give the thunderous command:
His plagues obedient to his voice flew forth out of their clouds
Falling upon America, as a storm to cut them off
As a blight cuts the tender corn when it begins to appear.
Dark is the heaven above, & cold & hard the earth beneath;
And as a plague wind fill'd with insects cuts off man & beast;
And as a sea o'erwhelms a land in the day of an earthquake; t
Fury! rage! madness! in a wind swept through America
And the red flames of Orc that folded roaring fierce around
The angry shores, and the fierce rushing of th'inhabitants
together:
The citizens of New-York close their books & lock their chests;
The mariners of Boston drop their anchors and unlade;
The scribe of Pensylvania casts his pen upon the earth;
The builder of Virginia throws his hammer down in fear.
Then had America been lost, o'erwhelm'd by the Atlantic,
And Earth had lost another portion of the infinite,
But all rush together in the night in wrath and raging fire
The red fires rag'd! the plagues recoil'd! then rolld they back
with fury

About the Text

In the flames: the fire appears in Plate 3, 9, 12, and perhaps
elsewhere referring of course to the violence, the war, the
Revolution.

Allen Gates & Lee: these three appear with the original three
named earlier:
Ethan Allen captured Fort_Ticonderoga and founded Vermont.

In the second Continental Congress   Richard Henry Lee moved
for Independence.

Albion's Angel, as you may recall, is a sobriquet for the king
of England. With his 'thunderous command' he threatens the
plague (of War) and all sorts of bad things (like a tax on tea).

The people respond with Fury! rage! madness; Blake named
Boston, New York, Philadelphia and Virginia where revolutionary
sentiments prevailed.  They turn their rage and red fires on
Albion's Angel.

About the Image

For the gobbledygook at the top I can only refer you to Erdman's

Illuminated Blake, page 152.

In the middle of the image we see the inevitable tree with a uprising 

limb (trunk?) and a horizontal limb overshadowing two figures; the 

roots go down on the right margin to the bottom. Behind it is the 

trunk of a second large tree.

The figure on the right is a nude female pointing on the reclining male

figure on the left. Her legs are spread and between them emerges a snake

like creature, his head pointed as if to strike the male.

This may be considered a representation of the Angel of Albion and of

America.

Above the last four lines is the same sort of gobbledygook as there was

at the top.

At the bottom is a dragon like form with fire coming out of its mouth.

That may represent the general fiery distress of everyone.

If you use your imagination you may find a lot of meaning in the Plate.

America 14

Rosenwald LC
America 14

PLATE 13
What time the thirteen Governors that England sent convene
In Bernards house; the flames coverd the land, they rouze they
     cry
Shaking their mental chains they rush in fury to the sea
To quench their anguish; at the feet of Washington down fall'n
They grovel on the sand and writhing lie, while all              

The British soldiers thro' the thirteen states sent up a howl
Of anguish: threw their swords & muskets to the earth & ran
From their encampments and dark castles seeking where to hide
From the grim flames; and from the visions of Orc; in sight
Of Albions Angel; who enrag'd his secret clouds open'd           
From north to south, and burnt outstretchd on wings of wrath
     cov'ring
The eastern sky, spreading his awful wings across the heavens;
Beneath him roll'd his num'rous hosts, all Albions Angels camp'd
Darkend the Atlantic mountains & their trumpets shook the valleys
Arm'd with diseases of the earth to cast upon the Abyss,         
Their numbers forty millions, must'ring in the eastern sky.

---

About the Text

Bernards house: Sir Francis Bernard was the colonial governor ot Massachusetts.

a howl Of anguish: during the Revolutionary War a great many of the

'redcoats' wound up as patriots (See Redcoat).

wings of wrath: the 'wings' are very visible in the image. In the next line it's called

'awful wings'. Blake used the figure of 'wings' often; look for example at MHH 15.

---

About the Image

Blake developed this plate to Jerusalem (plate 58):

Rosenwald  LC
Jerusalem Plate 58

The wings are less imposing than the one in America,

but obviously bat-like, the daughters and sons of Albion

rather than Albion's Angel.

Here the prone figure at the bottom is skeletal, which may

remind you of George MacDonald's Lilith. In America the
prone figure is fastened down by a snake; here it's simply
dead.

......

Part of this story appears in Visions of the Daughters of 
America, where Oothoon is referred to as the "soft soul of America", by which Blake meant perhaps the 'softness' of
a democracy compared to a military dictatorship.

In the middle 20th century it was said that Mussolini made
the trains run on time.  Of course he did some other things that like Hitler were much less pleasant.

America 13

Rosenwald LC
America 13
PLATE 12
So cried he, rending off his robe & throwing down his scepter.
In sight of Albions Guardian, and all the thirteen Angels
Rent off their robes to the hungry wind, & threw their golden
     scepters
Down on the land of America. indignant they descended
Headlong from out their heav'nly heights, descending swift as
     fires        
Over the land; naked & flaming are their lineaments seen
In the deep gloom, by Washington & Paine & Warren they stood
And the flame folded roaring fierce within the pitchy night
Before the Demon red, who burnt towards America,
In black smoke thunders and loud winds rejoicing in its terror   

Breaking in smoky wreaths from the wild deep, & gath'ring thick
In flames as of a furnace on the land from North to South

(Erdman 55-6)

---

About the Text

So cried he: 'he' here seems to me to mean Boston's Angel.

Taking off their robes and throwing away their golden sceptors

mean the governors, etc. are renouncing their place as agents

of the King.

Descending from their heavenly heights means the fire of 

resistence to the King's power in America.

Blake named Washington Paine and Warren; those were the ones

that he was apparently most familiar with.

The Demon red signified military hostilities.

---

About the Image

Erdman has this to say on page 150 about this plate:

The tree that overshadows the text is a birch.

Below the text is a tomb being entered by a bearded old man with a crutch under 

hisleft arm ; he is creeping forward into the tomb.  This is said to be Blakes emblem 

of Death's Door.

Widimedia Common
Gates of Paradise

Here is another similar image, in Gates of

Paradise:

"13 But when once I did descry 

The Immortal Man that cannot Die
14 Thro evening shades I haste away
To close the Labours of my Day
15 The Door of Death I open found
And the Worm Weaving in the Ground
16 Thou'rt my Mother from the Womb
Wife, Sister, Daughter to the Tomb
Weaving to Dreams the Sexual strife
And weeping over the Web of Life" (Erdman 269)

It likely appears at other places as well.

We need to remember that for Blake going through

Death's Door is not a trial but a joy.

Back to America:  the background is stormy and
colorful, suggesting a sunset.  Beyond the clouds the distance shows mountains.

The old man is coming from a green grassy area. We're in " In England's green & pleasant Land"

America 12

Rosenwald LC
America Plate 11

"PLATE 11

Fiery the Angels rose, & as they rose deep thunder roll'd
Around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc
And Bostons Angel cried aloud as they flew thro' the dark night.

He cried: Why trembles honesty and like a murderer,
Why seeks he refuge from the frowns of his immortal station!     
Must the generous tremble & leave his joy, to the idle: to the
     pestilence!
That mock him? who commanded this? what God? what Angel!
To keep the gen'rous from experience till the ungenerous
Are unrestraind performers of the energies of nature;
Till pity is become a trade, and generosity a science,           
That men get rich by, & the sandy desart is giv'n to the strong
What God is he, writes laws of peace, & clothes him in a tempest
What pitying Angel lusts for tears, and fans himself with sighs
What crawling villain preaches abstinence & wraps himself
In fat of lambs? no more I follow, no more obedience pay.        

---

About the Text

the Angels rose: by that Blake meant of course the 13 angels of
the colonies; with Bostons Angel he called the readers' attention
to the trouble that started in Boston involving the 'boston teaparty'.
Try to read it this way:
as they flew thro' the dark night Boston's angel cried...

This plate may be construed as Blake's declaration of independence
from the conventional Christianity and interpretation of the Bible
that focuses on violence and war.  Isn't it interesting that virtually
every war we've ever had has been ardently supported by the
religious community?

                  About the Image

After the first sentence we see something like a swan flying high with 

a man (representing the 13 angels) flying on its back.

At the bottom we see a serpent like dragon and on it's back a lady,
child and smaller child being assisted by his elder sibling.

When I think about the swan and the dragon, it appears that the swan
might reflect the declaration of independence and the dragon reflects
the final victory of the colonies, who of course have varied weight.

They have subdued and domesticated the dragon king.

---

America 11

Rosenwald LC
America 10

---

The Text

PLATE 10
Thus wept the Angel voice & as he wept the terrible blasts
Of trumpets, blew a loud alarm across the Atlantic deep.
No trumpets answer; no reply of clarions or of fifes,
Silent the Colonies remain and refuse the loud alarm.

On those vast shady hills between America & Albions shore;       
Now barr'd out by the Atlantic sea: call'd Atlantean hills:
Because from their bright summits you may pass to the Golden
     world
An ancient palace, archetype of mighty Emperies,
Rears its immortal pinnacles, built in the forest of God
By Ariston the king of beauty for his stolen bride,              

Here on their magic seats the thirteen Angels sat perturb'd
For clouds from the Atlantic hover o'er the solemn roof.

---

About the Text

The Angel here is presumably Albion's Angel, the eternal king.
The Trumpet is the loud call to War, but the Colonies don't respond.

The second paragraph refers to the Atlantic as the shady hills between
America and England.

Atlantis
from Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantis

Damon 27 "Ariston, king of beauty, anciently built for his stolen bride Anama
a pinnacle, type of mighty emperies. in the forest of God on the Atlantean Hills"

The thirteen angels sat here (this is an eternal drama, not a material one).

---

About the Image

Look also at this copy of the plate. A detailed description of the boy in the picture follows.

America 10

                     PLATE 9

Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my Thirteen Angels!
Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
America is darkned; and my punishing Demons terrified
Crouch howling before their caverns deep like skins dry'd in the
     wind.
They cannot smite the wheat, nor quench the fatness of the 
     earth.   
They cannot smite with sorrows, nor, subdue the plow and spade.
They cannot wall the city, nor moat round the castle of princes.
They cannot bring the stubbed oak to overgrow the hills.
For terrible men stand on the shores, &,in their robes I see
Children take shelter from the lightnings, there stands 
     Washington    
And Paine and Warren with their foreheads reard toward the east
But clouds obscure my aged sight. A vision from afar!
Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels:
Ah vision from afar! Ah rebel form that rent the ancient
Heavens; Eternal Viper self-renew'd, rolling in clouds
I see thee in thick clouds and darkness on America's shore.
Writhing in pangs of abhorred birth; red flames the crest
     rebellious
And eves of death; the harlot womb oft opened in vain
Heaves in enormous circles, now the times are return'd upon thee,
Devourer of thy parent, now thy unutterable torment renews.      
Sound! sound! my loud war trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels!
Ah terrible birth! a young one bursting! where is the weeping
     mouth?
And where the mothers milk? instead those ever-hissing jaws
And parched lips drop with fresh gore; now roll thou in the 
     clouds

Thy mother lays her length outstretch'd upon the shore beneath.  
Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels!
Loud howls the eternal Wolf: the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
(Erdman 54-5)

---

                                           About the Text
This plate is like a song with three verses:

Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my Thirteen Angels! holds it all together.

War trumpet occurs also in Night 7 of 4Z: 
Loud sounds the war song round red Orc in his [?triumphant] fury 
And round the nameless shadowy Female in her howling terror 
When all the Elemental Gods joind in the wondrous Song 
Sound the War trumpet terrific Souls clad in attractive steel 
Sound the shrill fife serpents of war. I hear the northern drum Awake,
(Erdman 363)

So Night 7 of 4Z  and America Plate 9 are celebrations of the American Revolution.

The Thirteen Angels of course represent the eternal dimension of the 13 colonies.

Loud howls the eternal Wolf! the eternal Lion lashes his tail
This line occurs in verse 1 and 3.
 
The lion and the wolf go together, as noted in MHH:
"Empire is no more! and now the lion & wolf shall cease."


From Damon 242:
In the Little Girl Lost and The Little Girl Found the lion is the Angel of Death; he carries Lyca to the Palace (Heaven).

So for Blake death does not mean mouldering in the ground, but promotion to Heaven. 

As for the wolf: here it means the same.

---

                                         About the Image
In the left border and the bottom we see the Wheat. The punishing demons are intimidated, which means perhaps that the King knows he cannot win.

At the bottom the 'wheat' has formed a crysalis in which resides a prone diminutive figure.

There's much talk about birth, as 'Ah terrible birth'. 

Flowers are found to left and right of the new born figure; the color shows up best at Copy M.

(This picture owes a lot to The Gospel of John: 12.24)

America 9

                                   PLATE 8
The terror answerd: I am Orc, wreath'd round the accursed tree:
The times are ended; shadows pass the morning gins to break;
The fiery joy, that Urizen perverted to ten commands,
What night he led the starry hosts thro' the wide wilderness:
That stony law I stamp to dust: and scatter religion abroad
 To the four winds as a torn book, & none shall gather the leaves;
But they shall rot on desart sands, & consume in bottomless deeps;
To make the desarts blossom, & the deeps shrink to their fountains,
And to renew the fiery joy, and burst the stony roof.
That pale religious letchery, seeking Virginity,
 May find it in a harlot, and in coarse-clad honesty
The undefil'd tho' ravish'd in her cradle night and morn:
For every thing that lives is holy, life delights in life;
Because the soul of sweet delight can never be defil'd.
Fires inwrap the earthly globe, yet man is not consumd;
 Amidst the lustful fires he walks: his feet become like brass,
His knees and thighs like silver, & his breast and head like gold.
                                           
                About the Test                        

From Erdman's Illuminated Blake (page 146):
 The giant figure above is Urizen, "the divine form of George III"; 
he's confronted by "Orc, wreath'd round the accursed tree"; 
the accursed tree is the Tree of Mystery, the Tree of the Knowledge 
of Good and Evil.  We read in the Tree of Mystery: 

"No more remaind of Orc but the Serpent round the tree of Mystery.
The form of Orc was gone he reard his serpent hulk among
the Stars of Urizen in Power rending the form of life
Into a formless indefinite & strewing her on the Abyss"
(Night 7 of 4Z; Erdman 365)

(Albion's evil of oppression is overcome by Orc evil of War; 
that's the way we live.)

                                               About the Image

The form of George IIi is "cluching tight-- to his possessions? to his life?
Works: "the figure is very probably Urizen":
From this we may gather that when Blake thought about the King, he
pictured him as Urizen with his stony laws: that stony law I stamp to death"
At the bottom of the plate is the ocean.

now

---

---

---

America 8

PLATE 7
"In thunders ends the voice. Then Albions Angel wrathful burnt Beside the Stone of Night; and like the Eternal Lions howlIn famine & war, reply'd. Art thou not Orc, who serpent-form'dStands at the gate of Enitharmon to devour her children;Blasphemous Demon, Antichrist, hater of Dignities;
Lover of wild rebellion, and transgresser of Gods Law;Why dost thou come to Angels eyes in this terrific form?

---

In Blake's myth 'Albions Angel' is a title for the King of England,  
and perhaps the Stone of Night is synonymous with the Rock of Eternity, 
as also the Rock of Ages.
Look at Plate 23 of The Book of Milton:
"Awake thou sleeper on the Rock of Eternity Albion awake
The trumpet of Judgment hath twice sounded: all Nations are awake
But thou art still heavy and dull: Awake Albion awake! 
Lo Orc arises on the Atlantic. Lo his blood and fire
Glow on Americas shore: Albion turns upon his Couch....
M15.36-40; E109;
First Milton saw Albion upon the Rock of Ages,
Deadly pale outstretchd and snowy cold, storm coverd;
A Giant form of perfect beauty outstretchd on the rock
In solemn death: the Sea of Time & Space thunderd aloud
Against the rock, which was inwrapped with the weeds of death"

---

(Erdman 53-4)

Stone of Night  appeared in the earlier plate; I wonder if Blake used 

this figure in later works where Albion slept on the Rock.


Rock of Ages:
(Look also at The Rock.)

About the Image

From Erdman Illuminated Blake page 145:

A weeping tree overlays most of the figures:

Three birds of paradise sit in the branches and another bird flies upward.

Notice the drooping catkins,

A ram is sleeping with two naked children on or beside it.

Behind the ram is a large grape leaf.
From Works: "This gentle, pastoral scene contrasts sharply with the apocalyptic 
tone of the text on the plate."

America 7

                                                                            
The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations; The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up; The bones of death, the cov'ring clay, the sinews shrunk & dry'd. Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing! awakening! Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst; Let the slave grinding at the mill, run out into the field: Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air; Let the inchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing, Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years; Rise and look out, his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open. And let his wife and children return from the opressors scourge; They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream. Singing. The Sun has left his blackness, & has found a fresher morning And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night; 
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease.                                     

The first lines of the text reflect the passage in Ezekiel and the Resurrection, of which

Ezekiel's passage is a precursor. 

"The Sun has left his blackness, & has found a fresher morning"

This line is found near the end of Night 9 of 4Z at Erdman 406.

The text is fascinating , also famous among Blake's poems:

"Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave

grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier
in the field
When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier
dead"
(Erdman 325; Night 2 of 4Z.)

"Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air
Let the inchaind soul shut up in darkness & in sighing
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years
Rise & look out his chains are loose his dungeon doors are open
And let his wife & children return from the opressors scourge
They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream
Are these the Slaves that groand along the streets of Mystery
Where are your chains where are your tears why do you look around
If you are thirsty there is the river go bathe your parched limbs
The good of all the Land is before you for Mystery is no more"
(Erdman 402-3; FZ Night 9) 

The whole thing: America, the 4Z's and many other poems has as its
theme deliverance; it's central to Blake's myth: Fall, Creation, Generation
Regeneration, Salvation, Eternity. The American Revolution was a symbol
of all that, as also the French Revolution, although in the case of France
it was a false deliverance:

"He crushed the Tyrant in the head
And became a tyrant in his stead."
(Erdman 490; The Grey Monk)

But in America Blake focused on the positive side, the deliverance of the
people from their oppressors.

About the Image

A better image appears in Blake Archives.

A similar image appears in MHH 21.

The young man is an emblem of the "burst grave, redemption from slave labor.

life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in the bright air" (Erdman 144 of The

Illuminated Blake) "the skull represents his dead self.

At the bottom is a blooming thistle ("a symbol of oppression") while under it is

a red salamander.  "The thistle has lost his prickles".

America 6

Plate 6 of America
Rosenwald LC

Text

PLATE 5
Albions Angel stood beside the Stone of night, and saw
The terror like a comet, or more like the planet red
That once inclos'd the terrible wandering comets in its sphere.
Then Mars thou wast our center, & the planets three flew round
Thy crimson disk; so e'er the Sun was rent from thy red sphere;  
The Spectre glowd his horrid length staining the temple long
With beams of blood; & thus a voice came forth, and shook the
     temple

About the Text

Stone of night may appear ambiguous, but with a later 
Book, namely Europe a Prophecy, he developed the term:
Erdman 63-4 Plates 10 and 11:
"Now arriv'd the ancient Guardian at the southern porch,
That planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, & in a vale
Obscure, inclos'd the Stone of Night; oblique it stood, o'erhung
With purple flowers and berries red; image of that sweet south,
Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck,
Now overgrown with hair and coverd with a stony roof,
Downward 'tis sunk beneath th' attractive north, that round the
feet
A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave:
PLATE 11

Albions Angel rose upon the Stone of Night.                  
He saw Urizen on the Atlantic;
And his brazen Book,
That Kings & Priests had copied on Earth
Expanded from North to South."

About the Image

This is a small text with a humongous picture:
The top illustrates the bound Prince in the hands of three naked
youths, the one of the left with a scale weighing the Prince and
finding him wanting. The one of the right carrying the Sword,
reminiscent of the king and Queen of France, guilotined about
this time.

The two figures below the text are said to represent the Prince
of Albion: in the center a Serpent forms a ring with coiled
tails downward. The Prince is headed downward through the rings.