Exactly what is meant here will be seen more clearly if we compare it with a much earlier statement of the same doctrine, in the poem 'To Tirzah' in the Songs of Experience, and the comparison will show us all the difference between the art of Blake in 1794, and what seemed to him the needful manner of his message ten years later. 'Tirzah' is Blake's name for Natural Religion.
'Whatever is Born of Mortal Birth
Must be consumed with the Earth,
To rise from Generation free:
Then what have I to do with thee?
The Sexes sprung from Shame and Pride
Blow'd in the morn; in evening died;
But Mercy changed Death into Sleep;
The Sexes rose to work and weep.
Thou Mother of my Mortal part
With cruelty didst mould my Heart,
And with false, self-deceiving Tears
Didst bind my Nostrils, Eyes, and Ears;
Didst close my Tongue in senseless clay,
And me to Mortal Life betray:
The Death of Jesus set me free:
Then what have I to do with thee? '
Here is expressed briefly and exquisitely a
