Morton Paley
suggests that on "the historical level, the stars represent the armies of monarchy;
as early as the Poetical Sketches and as late as Jerusalem, Blake
associates the stars with tyranny and war" (86).
The stars of heaven tremble; the roaring voice of war,
the trumpet, calls to battle!
("Prologue to King John," K.34)Loud the Sun & Moon rage in the conflict: loud the Stars
Shout in the night of the battle, & their spears grow to their hands,
With blood weaving the deaths of the Mighty into a Tabernacle
For Rahab & Tirzah, till the Great Polypus of Generation
covered the Earth.
(Jerusalem, 61: 31-34, K. 704)(qtd. in Paley 86).