Bring me my bow of burning gold! and aim it at the Dean of Southwark...

Oh dear oh dear. William Blake's great, strange paean "Jerusalem",  written in revolutionary spirit as preface to his poem Milton, has been banned by clergy at Southwark Cathedral  on the mimsy grounds that it is not sufficiently "to the glory of God" and is "nationalistic".  Other churches in the past have called it "unChristian and too military in tone".  St Paul's banned it for a bit, many have fretted over the reference to the legend of Christ coming to Glastonbury, and St Margaret's Westminster once, allegedly, rejected it because the 'dark satanic mills' line discriminated against city-dwellers. Doh! Blake (nice essay here by Kenny McEwen on the redflag website) more likely meant the fat-cat established churches and cathedrals when he spoke of the satanic mills. But you'd think that the idea of mental fight to establish a better, wiser Britain would appeal to clergy at least a bit.

     Blake was a great dissenter, a red-bonnet wearer, friend of Tom Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft, believer in individual freedom.  Actually, he would probably be quite pleased to be banned by milksop Deans; as McEwen says furiously , "The conversion of this radical poem to a hymn typifies the way in which the establishment reinvents, as harmless dreamers, those that they cannot disregard."

     But what about the point about it being nationalistic?  It's not quite "Gott, Kaiser, Vaterland", after all.  It offers only a desire to live up to Jesus' standards and have the Countenance Divine shine on our clouded hills. Shall we ban God Save the Queen (simply not inclusive enough in the EU age) and censure those who sing God Bless America?  Or Finns for their national hymn "O Finland, your day is dawning"?

A fabulous little essay in the New York Times gives us a collection of international patriotic/religious songs from around the world from Vietnam to Mexico, and Jerusalem looks pretty mild and idealistic alongside Libya's bloodthirsty rant which ends: "Woe to the Imperialists!/ God is above the treacherous tyrant/
God is Greatest!/ Therefore glorify him, O my country/And seize the forehead of the tyrant/
And destroy him!"   

Comments

[Alice]

When someone explains to me what this means:

And was the holy lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen

Then I'll be happy to sing it. It should be banned for not making any sense. I've no problem with that in a poem, but in public worship, everyone should understand what they are singing about.

[Ian]

Too right they ought to ban Blake's poem, the guy did not believe in the existence of a 'God' other than the imagination of man. A careful look at his prose, especially the 'Marriage of Heaven & Hell', proves that. To allow his poems in 'Gods' house would be like M&S using a Tesco advert to sell their goods - 'it ain't acceptable'.
In any case when Christians at worship sing so-called nationalistic songs like "I vow to Thee my country", the meant vow is "I VOW MY COUNTRY TO GOD", and not the atheistic version which is, "I VOW MYSELF TO MY COUNTRY".
Blake's poetry does not carry this sentiment toward God because he saw no God other than man.

[Coel]

"Shall we ban God Save the Queen (simply not inclusive enough in the EU age)?"

God, what an awful tune,
God, what a hopeless tune;
it is just pap.
Send us a better tune,
and please do make it soon,
and without all of that
religious crap.

[Lux Aeterna]

God Save The Queen? Hmm. Always strikes me as a bit Calvinist. The Catholic position would be that she should save herself through faith and good works.

[Invicta]

Alice (13:36)
Holy lamb of god = Jesus
It refers to Jesus being taken to the British Isles and probably Glastonbury (England's pleasant pastures)when he was young by Joseph of Arimathea.

[Tom Hanna]

I always thought that Blake was referring to universities when he penned 'dark satanic mills'. In 1804 the industrial revolution had not really developed to the point where the concentration of industrial infrastructure would have allowed Blake to comment adversely in these symbolic terms. The Luddite movement did not emerge until 1811 so one cannot help but think that the industrial landscape of England was not his target.

[clare]

Tom, I have always understood. the dark satanic mills were the established churches.. Blake was a great critic of the established church. I have always thought it very strange that it has been adopted by the church.

[Stuart Hartill]

Hurray!
Now the church has given back a glorious song they should never have appropriated rabble-rousing heathens like me can sing it with gusto again.
Nationalistic? Coming from the C of E the words 'pot', kettle' and 'black' spring to mind.

[Alistair]

Jesus at Glastonbury? Were Third Day headlining?

[Peter Bolt]

As a un-reformed dyed in the wool philistine capitalist I would also ban the following by William Blake;
1."A truth thats told with bad intent Beats all the lies that you can invent"
2."Both read the Bible day and night.But thou read`st black where I read white".
.For all the intellectual cant from Southwark:
"Mock on mock tis all in vain
You throw the sand against the wind
And the wind blows it back again."
as well as :-
"And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds/And binding with briars my joys and desires"

[Philip Panter]

There are things in heaven and earth my friends that your philosophies have never dreamed of !Let Blake be, he was a poet and an inspired one. If we don't understand his imagery so much the worse for us.Poets sometimes see things that the rest of us don't understand...if they don't they have no true poetic vision. Does anyone other than an illiterate pretend that everything that Dante or Piers Plowman wrote were facts rather than visions ? The Dean should be ashamed of himself. A living culture has its singers: a dead culture its intellectuals.

[Frank Upton]

Duhhhh.....geniuses like Blake did not mean just one thing when they used a word. The point of a good poem is that the concepts, feelings and ideas within it can't be fully analysed or expressed better in other words. Therein lies its power and its danger. Blake's 'Jerusalem' is mystical, beautiful and untamed, so of course it won't appeal to plodding literalists like the Southwark clergy.

[J. Long]

Is it any wonder that organized religion is near irrelevant?

[J Marshall]

I think it is right that it should not be sung in Church since, after all, it is the English national anthem in-waiting.

[Michael S]

I was given to understand that the "dark satanic mills" were the tin mines of Cornwall standing in contrast to the beauty of the surrounding countryside. The whole poem is an allegory of the Resurrection alluding to the legend of Jospeh of Arimathea and the springing to life of his hawthorn staff which reputedly now happens every Christmas.

[lexhamfox]

I think that it is a great tune and has great lyrics... too nationalistic? I am American and I think it is inspiring and I find it sad that Brits think it too strong. I lived in the UK for many years. It would be nice to see people living in England get behind this song as their anthem for sporting events. It is uplifting and tame.

[ja]

What Stuart Hartill said.

How great to have a national anthem that the Church has disowned and is so much more evocative than all the forehead-seizing furrow-overflowing literalist anthems elsewhere in the world.

[LK London]

I was taught that the hymn/poem has a mythical reference as well as a personal and religious element.
The myth is the legend of Christ's visit to Cornwall as a teenager. The "dark, Satanic mills" were the Druid communities.
I learned (in confirmation class) that the hymn became one of social justice during the early labor movements in England. This idea resonates with us Americans, as the "New Jerusalem" was a very big concept with those pilgrims you sent.
The vicar believed the weapons mentioned were symbolic of the dedication of the bearer and the nobility of the aspiration- after all, chariots of fire and arrows of desire seem tools of heavenly, idealistic battle - don't you think?

[David B. Monier-williams]

There was the Harvard somewhat dated version of God Save the King:

Queen Mary so they say,
Had a peculiar way in everything.
And when George went on a date,
Queen Mary's sure to wait,
and if George stays out late?
God save the King.

[SR]

When will the media stop using this silly catch all word 'ban'? If health watchdogs say bacon or sausages may cause cancer, we're told they've banned these foods. A Dean says that a 'hymn' that's not religious should not be sung as part of service - this means he's banned it? Not likely - he would probably have no problem singing it in another context - eg a cricket or rugby match...

[David B. Monier-williams]

And was the Holy Lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen?

The Lamb of God is Christ.

However, Blake may have got his myths mixed. Joseph of Arimathea who planted his staff at Glastonbury Cathedral brought Christ in the form of the Holy Grail, i.e.the cup out of which Christ and the Apostles drank at the Last Supper.

The Staff grew into rose trees that bloom only at Christmas. Not even Cromwell could destroy all of them.

[Burt]

Brilliant hymn and lets keep it, makes us proud and foreigners can't understand it or sing it, whoppee

[e fletcher]

Sometimes a person in the public eye could do with less education and more common sense. They should spend a prolonged time on their own, away from all media, and ponder what life itself is all about. They should confront the shortcomings they themselves may have.

[james brownley]

Jerusalem was my school song, sung at end of term services, and I will always associate it with a sense of release and freedom.

[Dru Brooke-Taylor]

I was told long ago that the reference to 'dark satanic mills' was because there was a belief in the late eighteenth century that the Ancient Britons practiced human sacrifice on large millstones.

[Kevin Dunn]

Rubbish! Much of the Anglican church is now utterly contemptible, but even more contemptible are the deranged, pagan maunderings of the horrible William Blake and I think the better of the Dean of Southwark for banning his work at last. He was an enemy of civilization, sanity and Christianty.

[ACL]

What about 'God save the Queen and all those who sail in her'. That's pretty inclusive

[Michael Stevens]

It has a symbolic value beyond the meaning of its individual words, it is poetry first and foremost after all. And what are hymns, or the best ones anyhow, but great poetry?
I do not see how this can be seen as heretical - what in it contradicts the Nicene Creed?
The Dean is a prat.

[alan]

I was better at geography than at divinity. When we sang it in assembly, I just couldn't understand what this Jerusalem business was all about. But the tune was OK - as far as assemblies are concerned, at least.

[Derek Butler]

It is a national song, just like 'Flower of Scotland' "The Soldier's Song' or ' Land of My Fathers' and should be treated as such. Blake did not write it as a hymn. Our 'Celtic' neighbours rightly have their national pride and identity, Why should not the English have theirs? Just as they sing their songs on specific national occasions the English should sing this stirring piece on ours, certainly in place of the dreary monarchy sycophancy of the present National Anthem. As for Mother Church, she can go to Hell- and take her interpretation of Christianity with her!

[Julian Burn-Callander]

With reference to Clare and Tom Hanna (above), Blake's 'dark satanic mills' were certainly churches (he was likening their large stained-glass window 'crosses' to the vanes of windmills), and the poem was written well before the proliferation of industrial mills.
Blake saw the Church as oppressing natural passion and love. I'm sure he would have been amused to see it become such a popular hymn, but even more so by its adoption as the Women's Institute's anthem. (Have they never thought what this lusty man meant by his 'arrows of desire'?).

[Angela Vaughan Parry]

I'm with 'ACL' above. I interpret the poem as a paeon to the rights of the individual and the music brings the hairs up on the back of my neck. If anyone in London cares to organise a protest outside Southwark Cathedral (I was thinking along the lines of a 24-hour relay rendition of 'Jerusalem') let me know and I'll be down from North Wales like a shot.