Blake’s “Jerusalem”

It seems appropriate to repost William Blake’s Jerusalem, which some have proposed as a new national anthem to replace the 300-year-old God Save the Queen [King].  (For one thing, they point out, it seems odd to sing God Save the Queen, thus invoking divine aid against the monarch’s enemies, when England plays against intra-UK rival Wales.)

Anyway, here is the poem by Blake (d. 1827):

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.

And here it is, as set to music by Hubert Parry and arranged by Sir Edward Elgar:

Here, though, is a dissenting voice:

“There’s nothing patriotic about William Blake’s Jerusalem”

She may be right.  Nevertheless, Latter-day Saints might be disposed to sympathy for the notion that there is an essentially undocumented sacred history to the ancient British Isles.  (I need to run to the airport, but perhaps some readers are familiar with statements of Joseph Smith and of others about ancient disciples who  had walked the land of England, making some places holy long before Heber C. Kimball and the Twelve arrived on the English soil in this dispensation.)

And if, with his “dark Satanic mills,” Blake intended to refer to the apostate Christianity of his day?  Well, that wouldn’t bother us, either.

Posted from London, England