SOURCE: Rose, E. J. “The Symbolism of the Opened Center and Poetic Theory in Blake's Jerusalem.” SEL: Studies in English Literature 5, no. 4 (autumn 1965): 587-606.

In the following essay, Rose examines how Blake handles the concept of time in Jerusalem and how this helps explain the context of the work.

Early in The Four Zoas, Blake describes metaphorically the way in which eternal time becomes historical time and, conversely, the way in which historical time becomes eternal. It is an especially important metaphor in Blake's work because it explains a great deal about the symbolic context of Jerusalem. It explains also his conception of the moment of poetic inspiration which is all time and which is the “Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find” (M 35.526).¹

Then Eno, a daughter of Beulah, took a Moment of Time And drew it out to seven thousand years with much care & affliction...