April soft and cold: Pleasant pastures

For Good Friday in National Poetry Month, here’s one of my favorite hymns, which started out as a poem by William Blake.

Blake, whose life spanned the time when the landscape of Britain was literally and metaphorically being changed by the Industrial Revolution, wasn’t a poet by trade. He was an printmaker, who painted and wrote poetry on the side. Basically home schooled, he learned to read well enough to rip through the Bible every which way, and he learned to appreciate art by engraving copies of classical drawings.

From these humble beginnings he grew into a powerful poet/artist who took on highly metaphysical subjects in both those forms. He was a Dissenter in both religion and artistic style, despising, for example, the works of Joshua Reynolds.

This particular poem (not originally titled anything, actually) appeared in Blake’s preface to an epic poem he wrote about John Milton. It pulls from a number of elements from the Bible and ties them to the hope (or at least the inquiry) that the appearance of Christ might alter the face of England for the better.

We are left to work out for ourselves whether he’s talking about the Second Coming or the adoption of true Christian principles by the people.

“Jerusalem”

And did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England's mountains green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

And was Jerusalem builded here

Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold:

Bring me my arrows of desire:

Bring me my spear: O clouds unfold!

Bring me my chariot of fire.

I will not cease from mental fight,

Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand

Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

The poem was set to music in 1916 by Sir Hubert Parry and it’s come to be associated with England itself. It’s often sung on Saint George’s Day (23 April), and it’s the unofficial anthem of Women’s Institute chapters everywhere, and at national sporting events.

I personally find it magnificent, especially when sung with the descant at the end. But the poem stands on its own.