CK. I. 47-53)

To return briefly to the much emended first speech of Tharmas, the line "Why hast thou taken sweet Jerusalem from my inmost soul" (K. I. 29) now takes on a deeper significance. Blake's Jerusalem, the mother of infinite regeneration and forgiveness of sin, is removed from the "inmost Soul" of Tharmas as a consequence of the fall, and her presence is replaced by a finite shrine of secrecy. This means that Enion finds sin, not regeneration and forgiveness, in the labyrinthian "Dark recesses" of Tharmas' "secret soul." Fallen too, she "cannot return" to the infinite. She is described as a "root growing in hell" (K. I. 57), an image that anticipates much, in particular the symbol of the tree of mystery on which Christ is crucified in Night the Eighth CK. VIII. 325-330). A ^'.sequent line--"Tho' thus heavenly beautiful to draw me to destruction" (K. I. 58)--helps define Tharmas' complementary relationship. His energies are drawn down to nourish Enion 's 'roots' in the deepest recesses of "hell." Blake's later additions to Tharmas' speech develop this concept more fully:

"Sometimes I think thou art a flower expanding,

60      "Sometimes I think thou art fruit, breaking from its bud

61      "In dreadful dolor & pain; & I am like an atom,

62      "A Nothing, left in darkness; yet I am an identity:

"I wish & feel & weep & groan. Ah, terrible! terrible.'" (K. I. 59-63)

The repeated word "Sometimes" emphasises an alternation in the function of Enion. Sometimes she is "a flower expanding," a symbol for the culmination of generation,and "Sometimes" she is "fruit, breaking from its bud," a symbol for the seed breaking into existence in pain. Hence, the birth/death cycle is established. By contrast, Tharmas is "like an