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 those 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.
Seen as the archetypal English song, many have called for ‘Jerusalem’ to become the new national anthem instead of God Save the Queen. However, that was very far from the intentions of the poem’s author, William Blake (1757-1827). Blake wrote this poem about the English poet John Milton (1608-74); indeed, it appears in the preface to Milton: A Poem (1804). Most famous for his epic poem Paradise Lost, Milton was also a Parliamentarian sympathizer who allied himself to Cromwell’s new republic following the English Civil War. Inspired by the legend of Joseph of Arimathea’s journey to England after the Crucifixion (And did those feet in ancient times / Walk upon England’s mountains green?), he believed that by overthrowing their king, the English had been given the chance to build a new Jerusalem – a representation of heaven on earth.
Inspired by Milton’s revolutionary story, Blake is in turn advocating further rebellion and change in his own time but in a green and pleasant land and not one scarred by factories belching smoke (those dark satanic mills). As a young man, the poet had witnessed with revulsion the development of the first mechanized steam-driven mill, the Albion Flour Mills, in 1786 at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The giant and noisy mill was so efficient it could have driven all the small windmills out of business had it not burned down only five years later, in 1791, under mysterious circumstances. In his poem, Blake is arguing that England has to reject industrialization and return to more basic Christian values.
But this interpretation – with its vision of heaven on earth – was completely ignored when the poem was included in a collection of patriotic verse, published in an effort to raise public morale when Britain was entrenched in the middle of the First World War. When C. Hubert H. Parry set the poem to music in 1916, ‘Jerusalem’ was immediately seen as defining exactly what Britain was fighting for. With its soldierly devotion to duty (I will not cease from mental fight, / Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand) and stirring melody, it has symbolized English patriotism ever since. Blake must be positively spinning in his grave. (For the biblical origins of chariot of fire, see Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.)