Scripture Verse

The mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha. 2 Kings 6:17

Introduction

portrait
William Blake
1757–1827

Words: Will­iam Blake, cir­ca 1804 (some sourc­es cre­dit the first two lines to John Mil­ton).

Music: Je­ru­sa­lem (Par­ry) Charles H. H. Par­ry, 1916 (🔊 pdf nwc).

portrait
Charles H. H. Parry
1848–1918

Origin of the Hymn

Having be­gun work on his ep­ic poems Mil­ton, a Po­em in Two Books and Je­ru­sa­lem, on mov­ing to Felp­ham, Sus­sex, in 1800, Blake com­plet­ed his Pre­face to Mil­ton in 1804, ap­par­ent­ly while await­ing tri­al in Chi­ches­ter for high trea­son (he moved back to Lon­don af­ter be­ing ac­quit­ted).

Charles Par­ry set Blake’s Pre­face to Mil­ton to mu­sic for a ral­ly of the Fight for the Right move­ment in Queen’s Hall. It be­came more ge­ne­ral­ly known as Je­ru­sa­lem when Par­ry con­duct­ed it in 1918 at a con­cert to mark the fi­nal stage in the Votes for Wo­men Cam­paign, af­ter which it was adopt­ed by the Na­tio­nal Fed­er­a­tion of Wo­men’s In­sti­tutes (WI) (and is still sung at meet­ings of WI Groups all over Bri­tain).

Edward El­gar add­ed an or­ches­tral score to Par­ry’s ra­ther som­ber tune in time for the Leeds Fes­ti­val of 1922, turn­ing it in­to a po­pu­lar na­tion­al hymn which tra­di­tion­al­ly ends the last night of the an­nu­al Sir Hen­ry Wood prom­e­nade con­certs at the Roy­al Al­bert Hall. This work al­so made an ap­pear­ance in the Aca­de­my Award win­ning mo­vie Char­iots of Fire (1981).

The theme is unique­ly Eng­lish, and there is an un­der­tone of 19th Cen­tu­ry pol­i­tics. The lyr­ics may re­fer to folk­lore that says Je­sus vis­it­ed Bri­tain as a teen­ag­er with Jo­seph of Ar­i­ma­thea, who was said to be a dis­tant rel­a­tive and had a stake in Cor­nish tin mines. How­ev­er, there is no hi­stor­ic­al da­ta sup­port­ing this sto­ry.

This hymn was sung at the wed­ding of Bri­tain’s Prince Will­iam and Ca­the­rine Mid­dle­ton in West­min­ster Ab­bey, Lon­don, Ap­ril 29, 2011.

Lyrics

And did those feet in an­cient time
Walk upon Eng­land’s moun­tains green?
And was the Ho­ly Lamb of God
On Eng­land’s plea­sant pas­tures seen?
And did the coun­te­nance di­vine
Shine forth up­on our cloude­d hills?
And was Je­ru­sa­lem build­ed here
Among these dark sa­tan­ic mills?

Bring me my bow of burn­ing gold!
Bring me my ar­rows of desire!
Bring me my spear! O clouds, un­fold!
Bring me my cha­ri­ot of fire!
I will not cease from men­tal fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Je­ru­sa­lem
In Eng­land’s green and plea­sant land.