Jerusalem!
— Photo and poem by Linda Gasparello
After William Blake’s great poem “Jerusalem,’’ set to music much later by Sir Hubert Parry. Happy Easter!
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon New England’s mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On New England’s pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem, R.I. builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
From William Blake’s preface, probably printed in 1808, to his epic Milton: A Poem in Two Books, one of a collection of writings known as the Prophetic Books.