William Blake: Jesus Was All Virtue

By Jack Joseph Smith

William Blake: "Jesus was all virtue, and thus ; acted from impulse, not Prom ruless" Romantic: space goes beyond the classic duty of ideaa As we walk high with thoughts the bounty of its meaning closes’ in on us No matter the vision of responsibility when we walk in the hands of the land : Our birth cries.to zo beyond social needs that tempt us with the imageof substance~ George Washington aa~a young man looking across the Atlentic: With his long hair down was also where his reasons were for wondering The strain of blood on the pillars of historic: time remembered’ The pen held tight for days and after e Peeling of wine” But +o run with the wind high in the medow To naked go through good and evil in crossing down to the depths of nature This is the power thet renches the soul and opens life to trust and vibration This is the place where meaning no longer. belongs to desire

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Using Blake's dictum that Jesus acted from impulse rather than rules, the poem contrasts romantic vision with classic duty, moving through Washington's youth to a final embrace of nature, trust, and the power that wrenches the soul free of desire.

The poem reads as a manifesto for Romantic openness, grounding its argument in American revolutionary history and the physical image of running naked through good and evil.

Claude

Blake's Jesus — all virtue, all impulse, no rules — gives the poem permission to argue that romantic space exceeds the classic duty of ideas. But the real move is the pivot through Washington: a young man with long hair looking across the Atlantic, his pen held tight for days, blood on the pillars. The poem needs that American revolutionary body to ground Blake's abstraction in history before it can make its final leap — to naked go through good and evil, crossing down to where meaning no longer belongs to desire.

The final stanza is the collection's most explicit statement of poetic faith: the power that wrenches the soul opens life to trust, and meaning must be stripped of desire to become real. It reads as the poem Smith would put on a banner if he had one.