Albion, like Lazarus, is sick. "He whom Thou lovest is sick. He wanders from his house of Eternity." His "exteriors are become indefinite, opened to pain, in a fierce, hungry void, and none can visit his regions."
Pained and impotent, he laments like Job:
"Oh I am nothing if I enter into judgment with Thee. If Thou withdraw Thy breath I die, and vanish into Hades; If Thou dost lay Thy hand upon me, behold I am silent; If Thou withhold Thy hand I perish like a leaf; Oh I am nothing, and to nothing must return again. If Thou withdraw Thy breath, behold I am oblivion."
"Eternal death haunts all my expectations. Rent from Eternal Brotherhood we die and are no more."
"lay on the Rock. The Sea of Time and Space Beat round the rocks in mighty waves."
Even his limbs "vegetated in monstrous forms of death."
He is opaque and contracted. Yet mercifully there is a limit to his opacity and contraction, named by Blake Satan and Adam; else he would sleep eternally. The capacity remains to hear the Voice of the Son of God and live, and until that moment he is guarded in tender care by the "mild and gentle" Saviour.
"Then all in great Eternity, which is called the Council of God, Met as one Man, even Jesus--to awake the fallen Man. The fallen Man stretched like a corse upon the oozy rock, Washed with the tide, pale, overgrown with the waves, Just moved with horrible dreams."
Albion like Milton must tread the difficult way of self-annihilation and judgment.
His Day of Judgment is given with marvellous wealth of detail in _The Four Zoas_, Night IX. But there are still finer passages in _Jerusalem_ which lead Albion to his final beatitude.
"Albion said: O Lord, what can I do? my selfhood cruel Marches against Thee ... I behold the visions of my deadly sleep of six thousand years, Dazzling around Thy skirts like a serpent of precious stones and gold; I know it is my self, O my Divine Creator and Redeemer.
Jesus replied: Fear not, Albion; unless I die thou canst not live, But if I die I shall arise again and thou with Me. This is Friendship and Brotherhood, without it Man Is Not.
Jesus said: Thus do Men in Eternity, One for another, to put off by forgiveness every sin.
Albion replied: Cannot Man exist without mysterious Offering of Self for Another? is this Friendship and Brotherhood?