Allen Ginsberg’s 1979 Naropa lecture on William Blake’s “America – A Prophecy” continues from here
AG: And then the speaker here – “Devourer of thy parent, now thy unutterable torment renews.” (And I had a note here to read the “New York Times” on Iran, which I read the last time. And as you’ll see, there is some (connection)).
“..the harlot womb oft opened in vain/Heaves in enormous circles, now the times are return’d upon thee,/Devourer of thy parent, now thy unutterable torment renews.”
So, today’s paper (February 26, 1979) relating of the Iranian Revolution has the beginning of the split between the Mullahs and the Fedaheen,between the political radicals and the spiritual Urizenics.
[“...Today’s parade by the Guard followed a challenge to Ayatollah Khomeini by the Marxist People’s Fedayeen, who had a rally Friday at Teheran University in defiance of the Ayatollah’s order to Iranians to stay away. Yesterday and again today another important guerrilla group, the Mujahedeenn, joined the Fedayeen’s demands that all political groups, including Communists, have a role in running the country..“]
So, “Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels!/ Ah terrible birth! a young one bursting!” – (So that’s in the illustration – the young one bursting).
“Where is the weeping mouth?/And where the mothers milk? Instead those ever-hissing jaws/And parched lips drip with fresh gore; now roll thou in the clouds/Thy mother lays her length outstretch’d upon the shore beneath.” – (Roll in fear, actually. “Roll thou in the clouds”. Roll in the emotion of fear, as a revolution takes place)
“Sound! sound! my loud war trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels!/Loud howls the eternal Wolf: the eternal Lion lashes his tail!” – (So that slogan -“Loud howls the eternal Wolf” and “the eternal Lion lashes his tail!” – whenever there is revolution, whenever Orc is born in flames to avenge the slaughter of the lamb by the wolf, Blake’ll sound that as sort of the trumpet cry.)
“Thus wept the Angel voice..” (this is the King of England talking now) – “…& as he wept the terrible blasts/Of trumpets, blew a loud alarm across the Atlantic deep./No trumpets answer; no reply of clarions or of fifes,/Silent the Colonies remain and refuse the loud alarm.” – (In other words, the Loyalists don’t really want to fight for George III. There is rebellion brewing).
[Audio for the above can be found here, beginning at approximately five-and-a-quarter minutes in and concluding approximately eight-and-a-quarter minutes in]