The morning comes, the night decays, the watchmen leave their stations;
The grave is burst, the spices shed, the linen wrapped up;
The bones of death, the cov'ring clay, the sinews shrunk & dry'd
Reviving shake, inspiring move, breathing, awakening,
Spring like redeemed captives when their bonds & bars are burst.
Let the slave grinding at the mill run out into the field,
Let him look up into the heavens & laugh in the bright air;
Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years,
Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open;
And let his wife and children return from the oppressor's scourge.
They look behind at every step & believe it is a dream,
Singing: "The Sun has left his blackness & has found a fresher morning,
And the fair Moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night;
For Empire is no more, and now the Lion & Wolf shall cease."

- From "America: A Prophecy" by William Blake

Something about this piece captures in a stroke the difficulties I've been having, capturing the meaning in my own work regarding angels - and the solution, in the same breath. It has that inexpressible quality to it, which I can only consider a sign that my poetry has been shut up too long, though the inexpressible itself carries a plangent scent which has come to signal wisdom.

This one has to do with empire, with oppression and dominance. With the fact that (per St. Augustine) "angel" is not their nature, it is the name of their office and their task. With the blessing and curse which knowledge of the Law brings, two sides of a flamberge.

Never mind God. What is "angel" when the Law is gone? Is there, in truth, any distinction between an angel and a demon, when there is no longer a winning side to uphold? Seems like one take [among many] on the nature of Heresy would be that the Ruin is, in simple, just the final victory of Lucifer - the defeat of the chains of that which is ordained, the victory of uncertainty over certainty. With all the bitterness that brings.

"The thing about the master-slave relationship is that it perverts everything it touches." - Frank Chalmers, in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars.

So very true at every level. Poor Blake, it's hard to be so right and yet so wrong. Empire is far from done...

... which hardly changes the fabulous optimism of the quote. What was it Robin Williams' character in Dead Poets Society called him, pointing at a wild-haired portrait? "Uncle William," I believe. Thanks, unc.

O Captain, My Captain.