Europe a Prophecy
The poem begins with a description of the source for the vision:[12] I'll sing to you to this soft lute; and shew you all alive The world, when every particle of dust breathes forth its joy.
[17] The poem concludes with Los calling his sons to arms:[18] But terrible Orc, when he beheld the morning in the east, Shot from the heights of Enitharmon; And in the vineyards of red France appear'd the light of his fury.
... Then Los arose his head he reared in snaky thunders clad: And with a cry that shook all nature to the utmost pole, Call'd all his sons to the strife of blood.
[21] God in The Ancient of Days is a "nous" figure, a creative principle in the universe that establishes mathematical order and permanence that allows life to keep from becoming nothingness.
The latter work describes the seduction of the Watchers of Heaven by the Daughters of Men; giants born of their union then proceed to ravage the land.
After Napoleon declared himself emperor in 1804, Blake believed that the revolutionary heroes were instead being treated as god kings that no longer cared about freedom.
[26] Blake's fame grew in 1816 with an entry in A Biographical Dictionary of the Living Authors of Great Britain and Ireland, which included Europe among the works of "an eccentric but very ingenious artist".
[27] Northrop Frye regarded it as Blake's "greatest achievement" in "a kind of 'free verse' recitativo in which the septenarius is mixed with lyrical meters.
"[28] According to John Beer: "The drift of the argument in Europe is to show how a Christian message that has been veiled, and cults exalting virginity, have together fostered the so-called Enlightenment philosophy which left no place for the visionary.
"[29] The title page of Europe a Prophecy was adapted for the cover of cultural critic Elizabeth Sandifer's 2017 book Neoreaction a Basilisk: Essays on and Around the Alt Right, a critique of 21st-century neoreactionary thought, leading proponents of the Dark Enlightenment, and their influence on the PayPal Mafia and the alt-right movement.
