The New Jerusalem : Blake's masterpiece
" The New Jerusalem" is perhaps the best known of Blake's poems--a famous anthology piece, which really gives the impression of both scope and power. It is also one that has been misunderstood and perhaps misinterpreted. Though when Jesus Christ was incarnate as man in Palestine, he certainly never visited England. Blake imagines that God Himself in Christ must have walked upon the mountains of England, and delighted in its pastures. What he implies by this is that true religion did exist in England in " ancient times", and hence the holy city Jerusalem was indeed symbolically built in England. Now, however, the dark Satanic Mills of Reason ]have come up like mushrooms, and the holy city has been again erased. The historic city of Jerusalem was of course razed to the ground several times in the course of its troubled history, but perhaps Blake is thinkinmg of the destruction of the city by the Babylonians, when they took the whole people of Israel away into captivity.
