| William Blake (1757–1827). The Poetical Works. 1908. | | | | Selections from ‘Jerusalem’ | | [The Builders of Golgonooza] |
| | (Jerusalem, f. 12, ll. 25–44.)
WHAT are those Golden Builders doing? Where was the burying-place | |
| Of soft Ethinthus? near Tyburn’s fatal Tree? Is that | |
| Mild Zion’s hill’s most ancient promontory, near mournful | |
| Ever-weeping Paddington? Is that Calvary and Golgotha | |
| Becoming a building of Pity and Compassion? Lo! | 5 |
| The stones are Pity, and the bricks well-wrought Affections | |
| Enamell’d with Love and Kindness; and the tiles engraven gold, | |
| Labour of merciful hands; the beams and rafters are Forgiveness, | |
| The mortar and cement of the work tears of Honesty, the nails | |
| And the screws and iron braces are well-wrought Blandishments | 10 |
| And well-contrivèd words, firm fixing, never forgotten, | |
| Always comforting the remembrance; the floors Humility, | |
| The ceilings Devotion, the hearths Thanksgiving. | |
| Prepare the furniture, O Lambeth, in thy pitying looms! | |
| The curtains, woven tears and sighs, wrought into lovely forms | 15 |
| For Comfort; there the secret furniture of Jerusalem’s chamber | |
| Is wrought. Lambeth! the Bride, the Lamb’s Wife loveth thee; | |
| Thou art one with her, and knowest not of Self in thy supreme joy. | |
| Go on, Builders in hope! tho’ Jerusalem wanders far away | |
| Without the Gate of Los, among the dark Satanic wheels. | 20 | | | |
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