Milton: A Poem in Two Books

Its hero is John Milton, who returns from Heaven and unites with the author to explore the relationship between living writers and their predecessors, and to undergo a mystical journey to correct his own spiritual errors.

[4] The preface to Milton includes the poem "And did those feet in ancient time", which was set to music as the hymn called "Jerusalem".

Book I opens with an epic invocation to the muses, drawing on the classical models of Homer and Virgil, which were also used by John Milton in Paradise Lost.

At this point Milton, hearing the Bard's song, appears and agrees to return to earth to purge the errors of his own Puritan imposture and go to "Eternal death".

Blake ties the sandal and, guided by Los, walks with it into the City of Art, inspired by the spirit of poetic creativity.

The poem concludes with a vision of a final union of living and dead, internal and external reality, and male and female, and a transformation of all of human perception.

Frontispiece to Milton . Milton's intention to "justify the ways of God to men" (from Paradise Lost ) appears beneath his depiction by Blake.
The preface to Milton , as it appeared in Blake's own illuminated version