How is the pastoral presented in Blake's 'Songs of Innocence and Experience'?

Blake's use of the pastoral can be interpreted in a variety of different ways. Used as a landscape to condemn the current industrialisation of the countryside at the time, Blake holds up a mirror to both man, and the ideologies that man espouses. In particular, Blake negatively portrays the stringent religious ideologies that he associates with an industrial authority, and counters these ideologies with a more liberal Christianity. This can be seen in The Garden of Love, where the loss of the countryside is associated with a stringent strain of Christianity and, ultimately, industrial change. The symbolic transformation of the garden into a graveyard, 'And I saw it was filled with graves // And tombstones where flowers should be', demonstrates how this paradise of 'love', fertility and freedom, is now dominated by death, destruction and an authoritarian regime. Here, the figure of authority is the 'priests in black gowns' whose ominous presence is highlighted by their sombre garments. As they are 'walking their rounds', they represent the guardians of this changed world; one which favours political and religious systems over the lush 'green' banks that Blake recounts so fondly. Through negatively portraying religion's association with nature and the pastoral, Blake inevitably pairs the industrial revolution (and its negative effects on the pastoral landscape) with an archaic and traditional religious dogma that refuses to progress towards an eco-friendly political ideal.