<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=38305" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>A Prophecy</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">The deep of winter came,<br> What time the secret child</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Descended thro’ the orient gates of the eternal day.<br>War ceas’d, & all the troops like shadows fled to their abodes.<br>Then Enitharmon saw her sons & daughters rise around;<br>Like pearly clouds they meet together in the crystal house;<br>And Los, possessor of the moon, joy’d in the peaceful night,<br>Thus speaking, while his num’rous sons shook their bright fiery wings:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Again the night is come<br>That strong Urthona takes his rest,<br>And Urizen unloos’d from chains<br>Glows ike a meteor in the distant north.<br>Stretch forth your hands and strike the elemental strings!<br>Awake the thunders of the deep,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘The shrill winds wake!<br>Till all the sons of Urizen look out and envy Los:<br>Seize all the spirits of life and bind<br>Their warbling joys to our loud strings;<br>Bind all the nourishing sweets of earth<br>To give us bliss, that we may drink the sparkling wine of Los;<br>And let us laugh at war,<br>Despising toil and care,<br>Because the days and nights of joy in lucky hours renew.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Arise, O Orc, from thy deep den,<br>First born of Enitharmon, rise!<br>And we will crown thy head with garlands of the ruddy vine;<br>For now thou art bound,<br>And I may see thee in the hour of bliss, my eldest born.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The horrent Demon rose, surrounded with red stars of fire,<br>Whirling about in furious circles round the immortal fiend.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then Enitharmon down descended into his red light,<br>And thus her voice rose to her children; the distant heavens reply:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Now comes the night of Enitharmon’s joy!<br>Who shall I call? Who shall I send?<br>That Woman, lovely Woman! may have dominion?<br>Arise, O Rintrah, thee I call! & Palamabron, thee!<br>Go! tell the human race that Woman’s love is Sin;<br>That an Eternal life awaits the worms of sixty winters<br>In an allegorical abode where existence hath never come.<br>Forbid all Joy, & from her childhood shall the little female<br>Spread nets in every secret path.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘My weary eyelids draw towards the evening, my bliss is yet but new!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Arise, O Rintrah, eldest born, second to none but Orc.<br>O lion Rintrah, raise thy fury form thy forests black;<br>Bring Palamabron, horned priest, skipping upon the mountains,<br>And silent Elynittria, the silver bowed queen.<br>Rintrah, where has thou hid thy bride?<br>Weeps she in desart shades?<br>Alas, my Rintrah! bring all thy brethren, O thou king of fire.<br>Prince of the sun, I see thee with thy innumberable race,<br>Thick as the summer stars;<br>But each ramping his golden mane shakes,<br>And thine eyes rejoice because of strength, O Rintrah, furious king.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Enitharmon slept,<br>Eighteen hundred years. Man was a Dream!<br>The night of Nature and their harps unstrung.<br>She slept in middle of her nightly song,<br>Eighteen hundred years, a female dream.<br>Shadows of men in fleeting bands upon the winds<br>Divide the heavens of Europe,<br>Till Albion’s Angel, smitten with his own plagues, fled with his bands.<br>The cloud bears hard on Albion’s shore,<br>Fill’d with immortal demons of futurity.<br>In council gather the smitten Angels of Albion.<br>The cloud bears hard upon the council house, down rushing<br>On the heads of Albion’s Angels.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One hour they lay buried beneath the ruins of that hall;<br>But as the stars rise from the salt lake they arise in pain,<br>In troubled mists o’erclouded by the terrors of struggling times.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">In thoughts perturb’d they rose from the bright ruins, silent following<br>The fiery King, who sought his ancient temple serpertform’d<br>That stretches out its shady length along the Island white.<br>Round him roll’d his clouds of war; silent the Angel went,<br>Along the infininte shores of Thames to golden Verulam.<br>There stand the venerable porches that high-towering rear<br>Their oak-surrounded pillars, form’d of massy stones, uncut<br>Will tool, stones precious – such eternal in the heavens,<br>Of colours twelve, few known on earth, give light in the opake,<br>Plac’d in the order of the stars. When the five senses whelm’d<br>In deluge o’er the earth-born man, then turn’d the fluxile eyes<br>Into two stationary orbs, concentrating all things;<br>The ever-varying spiral ascents to the heavens of heavens<br>Were bended downward, and the nostrils’ golden gate shut,<br>Turn’d outward, barr’d and petrify’d against the infinite.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thought chang’d the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth<br>To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid<br>In forests of night. Then all the eternal forests were divided<br>Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush’d<br>And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh.<br>Then was the serpent temple form’d, image of infinite<br>Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel,<br>Heaven a mighty circle turning, god a tyrant crown’d.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Now arriv’d the ancient Guardian at the southern porch<br>That, planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, & in a vale<br>Obscure, inclos’d the stone of Night. Oblique it stood, o’erhung<br>With purple flowers and berries red, image of that sweet south<br>Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck,<br>Now overgrown with hair and cover’d with a stony roof.<br>Downward ‘tis sunk beneath th’ attractive north, that round the feet<br>A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Albion’s Angel rose upon the Stone of Night.<br>He saw Urizen on the Atlantic;<br>And his brazen Book<br>That Kings & Priests had copied on earth<br>Expanded from North to South.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the clouds & fires pale roll’d round in the night of Enitharmon,<br>Round Albion’s cliffs & London’s walls (still Enitharmon slept);<br>Rolling volumes of grey mist involve Churches, Palaces, Towers;<br>For Urizen unclasp’d his Book, feeding his soul with pity.<br>Thy youth of England, hid in gloom, curse the pain’d heavens, compell’d<br>Into the deadly night to see the form of Albion’s Angel.<br>Their parents brought them forth, & aged ignorance preaches, canting,<br>On a vast rock, perceived by those senses that are clos’d from thought –<br>Bleak, dark, abrupt it stands & overshadows London city.<br>They saw his boney feet on the rock, the flesh consum’d in flames;<br>They saw the Serpent temple lifted above, shadowing the Island white;<br>They heard the voice of Albion’s Angel howling in flames of Orc,<br>Seeking the trump of the last doom.<br>Above the rest the howl was heard from Westminster louder and louder.<br>The Guardian of the secret codes forsook his ancient mansion,<br>Driven out by the flames of Orc; his furr’d robes & false locks<br>Adhered and grew one with his flesh, and nerves & veins shot thro’ them.<br>With dismal torment sick, hanging upon the wind, he fled<br>Groveling along Great George Street thro’ the Park gate; all the soldiers<br>Fled from his sight; he drag’d his torments to the wilderness.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Thus was the howl thro’ Europe!<br>For Orc rejoic’d to hear the howling shadows;<br>But Palamabron shot his lightnings trenching down his wide back,<br>And Rintrah hung with all his legions in the nether deep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Enitharmon laugh’d in her sleep to see (O woman’s triumph)<br>Every house a den, every man bound; the shadows are fill’d<br>With specters, and the windows wove over with curses of iron;<br>Over the doors ‘Thou shalt not,’ & over the chimneys “Fear’ is written;<br>With bands of iron round their necks fasten’d into the walls<br>The citizens; in leaden gives the inhabitants of suburbs<br>Walk heavy; soft and bent are the bones of villagers.<br>Between the clouds of Urizen the flames of Orc roll heavy<br>Around the limbs of Albion’s Guardian, his flesh consuming.<br>Howlings & hissings, shrieks & groans & voices of despair<br>Arise around him in the cloudy Heavens of Albion. Furious,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The red limb’d Angel seiz’d, in horror and torment,<br>The Trump of the last doom; but he could not blow the iron tube!<br>Thrice he assay’d presumptuous to awake the dead to Judgment.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A mighty Spirit leap’d from the land of Albion,<br>Nam’d Newton; he seiz’d the Trump & blow’d the enormous blast!<br>Yellow as leaves of Autumn the myriads fo Angelic hosts<br>Fell thro’ the wintry skies seeking their graves,<br>Rattling their hollow bones in howling and lamentation.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then Enitharmon woke, nor knew that she had slept;<br>And eighteen hundred years were fled<br>As if they had not been.<br>She call’d her sons & daughters<br>To the sports of night,<br>Within her crystal house;<br>And thus her song proceeds:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Arise, Ethinthus! tho’ the earth-worm call,<br>Let him call in vain;<br>Till the night of holy shadows<br>And human solitude is past!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Ethinthus,, queen of waters, how thou shinest in the sky!<br>My daughter, how do I rejoice! for thy children flock around<br>Like the gay fishes on the wave when the cold moon drinks the dew.<br>Ethinthus! thou art sweet as comforts to my fainting soul,<br>For now thy waters warble round the feet of Enitharmon.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Manathu-Vorcyon! I behold thee flaming in my halls,<br>light of thy mother’s soul! I see thy lovely eagles round;<br>thy golden wings are my delight, & thy flames of soft delusion.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">’where is my lureing bird of Edin? Leutha, silent love!<br>Leutha, the many colur’d bow delights upon thy wings,<br>Soft soul of flowers, Leutha!<br>Sweet smiling pestilence! I see thy blushing light;<br>Thy daughters many changing<br>Revolve like sweet perfumes ascending, O Leutha, silken queen!</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Where is the youthful Antamon, prince of the pearly dew?<br>O Antamon, why wilt thou leave thy mother enitharmon?<br>Alone I see thee, crystal form,<br>Floating upon the bosom’d air<br>With lineaments of gratified desire.<br>My Antamon, the seven churches of Leutha seek thy love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘I hear the soft Oothoon in Enitharmon’s tents.<br>Why wilt thou give up woman’s secrecy, my melancholy child?<br>Between two moments bliss is ripe.<br>O Theotormon robb’d of joy, I see thy salt tears flow<br>Down the steps of my crystal house.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">‘Sotha & Thiralatha, secret dwellers of dreamful caves,<br>arise and please the horrent fiend with your melodious songs.<br>Still all your thunders golden hoof’d, & bind your horses black.<br>Orc! smile upon my children!<br>Smile, son of my afflictions.<br>Arise, O Orc, and give our mountains joy of thy red light.’</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She ceas’d; for All were forth at soport beneath the solemn moon,<br>Waking the stars of Urizen with their immortal songs,<br>That nature felt thro’ all the pores the enormous revelry,<br>Till morning oped the eastern gate.<br>Then every on fled to his station, & Enitharmon wept.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But terrible Orc, when he beheld the morning in the east,<br>Shot from the heights of Enitharmon,<br>And in the vineyards of red France appear’d the light of his fury.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The sun glow’d fiery red!<br>The furious terrors flew around<br>On golden chariots raging, with red wheels dropping with blood;<br>The Lions lash their wrathful tails;<br>The Tigers couch upon the prey & suck the ruddy tide;<br>And Enitharmon groans & cries in anguish and dismay.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Then Los arose; his head he rear’d in snaky thunders clad,<br>And with a cry that shook all nature to the utmost pole<br>Call’d all his sons to the strife of blood.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=William+Blake">William Blake</a> from <i>Europe a Prophecy</i><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=38305" data-title="A Prophecy de William Blake" data-description="The deep of winter came,/ What time the secret child/Descended thro’ the orient gates of the eternal day./War ceas’d, & all the troops like shadows fled to their abodes./Then Enitharmon saw her sons & daughters rise around;/Like pearly clouds..."></div> </div> </div>

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