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At first glance, the poem seems to be talking about the Christian Church's continual struggle against its enemy, the Devil symbolised by the serpent. However, the images Blake chooses to use indicate that he feels that the established church has lost its positive qualities and become corrupt. The true believers are pictured as being in mourning over this state of affairs, and the fact that they are "without" suggests that true believers feel excluded from the established church, either by their own choice or because they no longer fit in - "none did dare to enter in". The Serpent, I feel, is a deliberately phallic symbol used to show how the church has been desecrated. Reading the poem, one almost feels that it is an actual rape being described. the church is represented as a virtuous virgin through the use of colour and precious elements. White is usually a symbol of purity. Gold, for a long time represented the most precious and valuable items. Rubies is another Christian allusion. Solomon describes a viruous woman as being priced "above rubies" and in time, rubies were used to sympolise chastity. The serpent is seen as "raping" the church and robbing it of its virtue and at the climax of this he vomits or ejaculates "his poison out/On the bread and on the wine". Blake is clearly expressing his digust of the established church in this poem.
Christine M from Kenya