3 ms·

"Dark satanic mills"

• dipsplacemat 4y ago
  It's from a hymn describing the environmental destruction of the industrial revolution: 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.
  • wing-_-nuts 4y ago
    Damn this sounds like William Blake
  • nonrandomstring 4y ago
    As I understood it Blake's Jerusalem didn't literally anticipate the inhumanity of the northern mills (child labour etc - which the phrase has since come to signify), but the orthodoxy of church, schools, law, and halls of Apollonian indoctrination which he saw as obstacles to a more fully human reality. He was, to use a term from Christopher Hitchens, an anti-theist in the fullest sense, against all theisms including those we would recognise today as "technological orthodoxies". While also arguably the worlds first multi-media artist, he eschewed the paper 'tygers' as Promethean follies. Rather prescient I would say.