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Night the First

'If you account it Wisdom when you are angry to be silent and
Not shew it: I do not account that Wisdom but folly.
Every Man's Wisdom is peculiar ro his own Individuality.
Lo Satan, my youngest born, art thou not Prince of the Starry Hosts
And of the Wheels of Heaven, to turn the Mills day & night?
Art thou not Newton's Pantocrator weaving the the woof of Locke?
To Mortals the Mills seem every thing & the Harrow of Shaddai
A scheme of Human conduct invisible & incomprehensible.
Get to thy Labours at the Mills & leave me to my wrath.'

. . .

Ah weak & wide astray: Ah shut in narrow doleful form
Creeping in reptile flesh upon the bosom of the ground:
The Eye of Man a little narrow orb closd up & dark
Scarcely beholding the great light, conversing with the Void:
The Ear a little shell in small volutions shutting out
All melodies & comprehending only Discord & Harmony;
The Tongue a little moisture Fills, a little food it cloys,
A little sound it utters & its cries are fa;sely heard,
Then brings forth Moral Virtue the cruel Virgin Babylon.

'Can such an Eye judge of the stars? & looking thro its tubes
Measure the sunny rays that point their spears in Udanadan?
Can such an Ear filld with the vapours of the yawning pit
Judge of the pure melodious harp struck by a hand divine:
Can such closed Nostrils feel a joy? or tell of autumn fruits
When grapes & figs burst their covering to the joyful air?
Can such a Tongue boast of the living waters? or take in
Ought but the Vegetable Ratio & loathe the faint delight?
Can such gross Lips percieve? alas, folded within themselves
They touch not ought but pallid turn & tremble at every wind.'

For Satan flaming with Rintrah's fury hidden beneath his own mildness
Accus'd Palamabron before the Assembly of ingratitude: of malice:
He created Seven deadly Sins drawing out his infernal scroll
Of Moral laws and cruel punishments upon the clouds of Jehovah
To pervert the Divine voice in its entrance to the earth
With thunder of war & trumpets' sound, with armies of disease,
Punishments & deaths musterd & number'd; 'Saying I am God alone;
There is no other: let all obey my principles of moral individuality.
I have brough them from the uppermost innermost recesses
Of my Eternal Mind, transgressors I will rend off for ever,
As now I rend this accursed Family from my covering.'

Thus Satan rag'd amidst the Assembly: and his bosom grew
Opake against the Divine Vision, the paved terraces of
His bosom inwards shone with fires, but the stones becoming opake
Hid him from sight, in an extreme blackness and darkness,
And there a World of deeper Ulrio was opend, in the midst
Of the Assembly. In Satan's bosom a vast unfathomable Abyss.

Astonishment held the Assembly in an awful silence: and tears
Fell down as dews of night, & a loud solemn universal groan
Was utter'd from the east & from the west & from the south
And from the north; and Satan stood opake immeasurable
Covering the east with solid blackness, round his hidden heart
With thunders utterd from his hidden wheels: accusing loud
The Divine Mercy for protecting Palamabron in his tent.

Rintrah rear'd up walls of rocks and pourd rovers & moats
Of fire round the walls: columns of fire guard around
Between Satan and Palmabron in the terrible darkness.

And Satan not having the Science of Wrath, but only of Pity
Rent them asunder, and wrath was left to wrath, & pity to pity.
He sunk down a dreadful Death, unlike the slumbers of Beulah.

The Sparation was terrible: the Dead was repos'd on his Couch
Beneath the Couch of Albion, on the seven mountains of Rome
In the whole place of the Covering Cherub, Rome, Babylon & Tyre.
His Spectre raging furious descended into its Space.

. . .

'Let the Bard himself witness. Where hadst thou this terrible Song?'

The Bard replied: 'I am Inspired! I know it his Truth! for I Sing
According to the inspiration of Poetic Genius
Whos is the eternal all-protecting Divine Humanity
To whom he Glory & Power & Dominion Evermore Amen.'

. . .

Then Milton rose up from the heavens of Albion ardorous!
The whole Assembly wept propgetic, seeing in Milton's face
And in his lineaments divine the Shades of Death & Ulro.
He took off the robe of the promise, & ungirded himself from the oath of God.

And Milton said, 'I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still
Follow after the destestable Gods of Priam; in pomp
Of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come; ro deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility; O when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come?
Tarry no longer; for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave.
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks!
Lest the Last Judgement come & find me unannihilate
And I siez'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood.
The Lamb of God is seen thro' mists & shadows, hov'ring
Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim,
A disk of blood distant, distant; & heav'ns & earths will roll dark between.
What do I here before the Judgement? without my Emanation?
With the daufgters of memory, & not with the daughters of inspiration?
I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One!
He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells,
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.'

. . .

Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic,
One to the North, named Urthona: One to the South, named Urizen:
One to the East, named Luvah: One to the West, named Tharmas.
They are the Four Zoa's that stood around the Throne Divine:
But when Luvah assum;d the World of Urizen to the South:
And Albion was slain upon his mountains, & in his tent:
All fell towards the Center in dire ruiin, sinking down.
And in the South remains a burning fire; in the East a void;
In the West, a world of raging waters; in the North a solid,
Unfathomable: without end. But in the midst of these
In built eternally the Universe of Los and Enitharmon:

. . .

poem by William Blake from Vala or The Four Zoas‎: Night the First
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Related quotes

Book the First

Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poet’s Song,
Record the journey of immortal Milton thro’ you Realms
Of terror & mild moony luster, in soft sexual delusions
Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer and repose
His burning thirst & descending down the Nerves of my right arm
From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine planted his Paradise,
And in it caus’d the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms
In likeness of himself. Tell also of the False Tongue! vegetated
Beneath your land of shadows, of its sacrifices and
Its offerings, even till Jesus, the image of the Invisible God,
Became its prey – a curse, an offering and an atonement
For Death Eternal in the heavens of Albion, & before the Gates
Of Jerusalem his Emanation, in the heavens beneath Beulah.

Say first! what mov’d Milton, who walk’d about in Eternity
One hundred years, pond’ring the intricate mazes of Providence,
Unhappy tho’ in heav’n – he obey’d, he murmur’d not, he was silent
Viewing his Sixfold Emanation scatter’d thro’ the deep
In torment – To go into the deep, her to redeem & himself perish?
What cause at length mov’d Milton to this unexampled deed?
A Bard’s prophetic Song! for sitting at eternal tables,
Terrific among the Sons of Albion in chorus solemn & loud,
A Bard broke forth! all sat attentive to the awful man.

* * *

Then Milton rose up form the heavens of Albion ardorous.
The whole Assembly wept prophetic, seeing in Milton’s face
And in his lineaments divine the shades of Death & Ulro.
He took off the robe of the promise, & ungirded himself from the oath of God.
And Milton said: ‘I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still
Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam, in pomp
Of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come to deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility? O when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come?
Tarry no longer, for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave;
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks;
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate,
And I be seiz’d & giv’n into the hands of my own Selfhood.
The Lamb of God is seen thro’ mists & shadows, hov’ring
Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim,
A disk of blood, distant; & heav’ns & earths roll dark between.
What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation?
With the daughters of memory & not with the daughters of inspiration?
I in my Selfhood am that Satan; I am that Evil One!
He is my Spectre! In my obedience to loose him from my Hells,
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.’

* * *

But Milton entering my Foot, I saw in the nether
Regions of the Imagination – also all men on Earth
And all in Heaven saw in the nether region of the Imagination
In Ulro beneath Beulah – the vast breach of Milton’s descent.
But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
Reveal the secrets of Eternity; for more extensive
Than any other earthly things are Man’s earthly lineaments.

And all this Vegetable World appear’d on my left Foot,
As a bright sandal from’d immortal of precious stones & gold:
I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro’ Eternity.

* * *

…what time I bound my sandals
On to walk forward thro’ Eternity, Los descended to me;
And Los behind me stood, a terrible flaming Sun, just close
Behind my back. I turned round in terror, and behold!
Los stood in that fierce glowing fire, & he also stoop’d down
And bound my sandals on in Udan-Adan. Trembling I stood
Exceedingly with fear & terror, standing in the Vale
Of Lambeth; but he kissed me, and wish’d me health,
And I became One Man with him arising in my strength.
‘Twas too late now to recede. Los had enter’d into my soul;
his terrors now posses’d me whole! I arose in fury & strength.
‘I am that Shadowy Prophet who Six Thousand Years ago
Fell from my station in the Eternal bosom. Six Thousand Years
Are finish’d. I return! both Time & Space obey my will.
I in Six Thousand Years walk up and down; for not one Moment
Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent,
But all remain; every fabric of Six Thousand Years
Remains permanent. Tho’ on the Earth where Satan
Fell and was cut off all things vanish & are seen no more,
They vanish not from me & mine; we guard them first & last.
The generations of men run on in the tide of Time,
But leave their destin’d lineaments permanent for ever & ever.’

* * *

Los is by mortals nam’d Time; Enitharmon is nam’d Space.
But they depict him bald & aged who is in eternal youth,
All powerful, and his locks flourish like the brows of morning.
He is the Spirit of Prophecy, the ever apparent Elias.
Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time’s swiftness,
Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment.
All the Gods of the Kingdoms of Earth labour in Los’s Halls:
Every one is a fallen Son of the Spirit of Prophecy;
He is the Fourth Zoa, that stood around the Throne Divine.

* * *

Thou seest the Constellations in the deep & wondrous Night;
They rise in order and countinue their immortal courses
Upon the mountains & in vales, with harp & heavenly song,
With flute & clarion, with cups & measures fill’d with foaming wine.
Glitt’ring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude,
And the calm Ocean joys beneath & smooths his awful waves.
These are the Sons of Los, & these the Labourers of the Vintage.
Thou seest the gorgeous clothed Flies that dance & sport in summer
Upon the sunny brooks & meadows; every one the dance
Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave,
Each one to sound his instruments of music in the dace,
To touch each other & recede, to cross & change & return.
These are the Children of Los. Thou seest the Trees on mountains;
The wind blows heavy, loud they thunder thro’ the darksome sky,
Uttering prophecies & speaking instructive words to the sons
Of men. These are the Sons of Los, these the Visions of Eternity;
But we see only as it were the hem of their garments
When with our vegetable eyes we view these wondrous Visions.

…
And every Generated Body in its inward form
Is a garden of delight & a building of magnificence,
Built by the Sons of Los in Bowlahoola & Allamanda;
And the herbs & flowers & furniture & beds &chambers
Continually woven in the Looms of Enitharmon’s Daughters,
In bright Cathedron’s golden Dome with care & love & tears.
For the various Classes of Men are all mark’d out determinate
In Bowlahoola, & as the Spectures choose their affinities
So they are born on Earth, & every Class is determinate;
But not by Natural, but by Spiritual power alone, because
The Natural power continually seeks & tends to Destruction,
Ending in Death, which would of itself be Eternal Death.
And all are Class’d by Spiritual & not by Natural power,

And every Neutral Effect has a Spiritual Cause, and Not
A Natural; for a natural Cause only seems: it is a Delusion
Of Ulro, & a ratio of the perishing Vegetable Memory.

* * *

But others of the Sons of Los build Moments & Minutes & Hours
And Days & Months & Years & Ages & Periods, wondrous buildings;
And every Moment has a Couch of gold for soft repose,
(A Moment equals a pulsation of the artery),
And between every two Moments stands a Daughter of Beulah
To feed the Sleepers on their Couches with maternal care.
And Every Minute has an azure Tent with silken Veils;
And Every Hour has a bright golden Gate carved with skill;
And every Day & Night has Walls of brass & Gates of adamant,
Shining like precious stones & ornamented with appropriate signs;
And every Month a silver paved Terrace builded high;
And every Year invulnerable Barriers wit high Towers;
And every Age is Moated deep with Bridges of silver & gold;
And every Seven Ages is Incircled with a Flaming Fire.
Now Seven Ages is amounting to Two Hundred Years:
Each has its Guard, each Moment, Minute, Hour, Day, Month & Year.
All are the work of Fairy hands of the Four Elements.
The Guard are Angels of Providence on duty evermore.
Every Time less than a pulsation of the artery
Is equal in its period & value to Six Thousand Years;
For in this Period the Poet’s work is Done, and all the Great
Events of Time start forth & are conciev’d in such a Period,
Within a Moment, a Pulsation of the Artery.

The Sky is an immortal Tent built by the Sons of Los;
And every Space that a Man views around his dwelling-place,
Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his Universe;
And on its verge to Sun rises & sets, the Clouds bow
To meet the flat Earth & the Sea I such an order’d Space.
The Starry heavens reach no further, but here bend and set
On all sides, & the two Poles turn on their valves of gold;
And if he move his dwelling-place, his heavens also move
Where’er he goes, & all his neighbourhood bewail his loss.
Such are the Spaces called Earth, &such its dimension.
As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner,
As of a Globe rolling thro’ Voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro.
The Microscope knows not of this, nor the Telescope; they alter
The ration of the Spectator’s Organs, but leave Objects untouch’d.
For every Space larger than a red globule of Man’s blood
Is visionary, and is created by the Hammer of Los;
And every Space smaller than a Globule of Man’s blood opens
Into Eternity, of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow.
The red Globule is the unwearied Sun by Los created
To measure Time and Space to mortal Men every morning.
Bowlahoola & Allamanda are placed on each side
Of that Pulsation & that Globule, terrible their power.

* * *

poem by William Blake from Milton (1810)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Book the Second

Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring.
The Lark sitting upon his earthly bed, just as the morn
Apears, listens silent; then springing from the waving Corn-field loud
He leads the Choir of Day! trill, thrill, thrill, trill,
Mounting upon the wings of light into the great Expanse,
Reechoing against the lovely blue & shining heavenly Shell.
His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather
On throat & breast & wings vibrates with the effluence Divine.
All Nature listens silent to him, & the awful Sun
Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird
With eyes of soft humility & wonder, love & awe.
Then loud from their green covert all the Birds begin their Song:
The Thrush, the Linnet & the Goldfinch, Robin & the Wren
Awake the Sun from his sweet reverie upon the Mountain;
The Nightingale again assays his song, & thro’ the day
And thro’ the night warbles luxuriant, every Bird of Song
Attending his loud harmony with admiration & love.
This is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon.

Thou perceivest the Flowers put forth their precious Odours,
And none can tell how form so small a center comes such sweets,
Forgetting that within that Center Eternity expends
Its ever during doors that Og & Anak fiercely guard.
First, e’er the morning breaks, joy opens in the flowery bosoms,
Joy even to tears, which the
Sun rising dries; first the Wild Thyme
And Meadow-sweet, downy & soft, waving among the reeds,
Light springing on the air, lead the sweet Dance: they wake
The Honeysuckle sleeping on the Oak; the flaunting beauty
Revels along upon the wind; the White-thorn, lovely May,
Opens her many lovely eyes; listening the Rose still sleeps –
None dare to wake her; soon she bursts her crimson curtain’d bed
And comes forth in the majesty of beauty; every Flower,
The Pink, the Jessamine, the Wall-flower, the Carnation,
The Jonquil, the mild Lilly opes her heavens; every Tree
And Flower & Herb soon fill the air with an innumberable Dance,
Yet all in order sweet & lovely. Men are sick with Love.
Such is a Vision of the Lamentation of Beulah over Ololon.
And Milton oft sat upon the Couch of Death, & oft conversed
In vision & dream beatific with the Seven Angels of the Presence:
‘I have turned my back upon these Heavens builded on cruelty.
My Spectre still wandering thro’ them follows my Emanation;
He hunts her footsteps thro’ the snow & the wintry hail & rain.
The idiot Reasoner laughs at the Man of Imagination,
And from laughter proceeds o murder by undervaluing calumny.’
Then Hillel, who is Lucifer, replied over the Couch of Death,
And thus the Seven angels instructed him, & thus they converse:
‘We are not Individuals but States, Combinations of Individuals.
We were Angels of the Divine Presence, & were Druids in Annandale,
Compell’d to combine into Form by Satan, the Spectre of Albion,
Who make himself a God & destroyed the Human Form Divine.
But the divine Humanity & Mercy gave us a Human Form
Because we were combin’d in Freedom & holy Brotherhood;
Whild those combin’d by Satan’s Tyranny, first in the blood of War
And Sacrifice & next in Chains of imprisonment, are Shapeless Rocks
Retaining only Satan’s Mathematic holiness, Length, Bredth & Highth,
Calling the Human Imagination, which is the Divine Vision & Fruition
In which Man liveth eternally, madness & blasphemy, against
Its own Qualities, which are Servants of Humanity, not Gods or Lords.
Distinguish therefore States from Individuals in those States.
States change, but Individual Identities never change nor cease.
You cannot go to Eternal Death in that which can never Die.
Satan & Adam are States Created in Twenty-seven Churches,
And thou, O Milton, are a State about to be Created
Called Eternal Annihilation, that none but the Living shall
Dare to enter; & they shall enter triumphant over Death
And Hell & the Grave: States that are not, but ah! Seem to be.
‘Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore,
What is Eternal & what Changeable, & what Annihilable?
The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself.
Affection of Love becomes a State when divided from Imagination.
The Memory is a State always, & the Reason is a State
Created to be Annihilated & a new Ratio Created.
Whatever can be Created can be Annihilated. Forms cannot.
The Oak is cut down by the Ax, the Lamb falls by the Knife;
But their Forms Eternal Exist For-ever. Amen. Hallelujah!’

Thus they converse with the Dead, watching round the Couch of Death.
For God himself enters Death’s door always with those that enter,
And lays down in the grave with them, in Vision of Eternity,
Till they awake & see Jesus, & the Linen Clothes lying
That the Females had Woven for them, & the Gates of their Father’s House.

* * *

There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find,
Nor can his Watch Fiends find it; but the Industrious find
This Moment & it multiply; & when it once is found
It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed.
In this Moment Ololon descended to Los & Enitharmon,
Unseen beyond the Mundane Shell, Southward in Milton’s track.

Just in this Moment when the morning odours rise abroads,
And first from the Wild thyme, stands a Fountain in a rock
Of crystal flowing into two Streams: one flow thro’ Golgonooza
And thro’ Beulah to Eden, beneath Los’s western wall;
The other flows thro’ the Aerial Void & all the Churches,
Meeting again in Golgonooze beyond Satan’s Seat.

The Wild thyme is Los’s Messenger to Eden, a mighty Demon,
Terrible, deadly & poisonous his presence in Ulro dark;
Therefore the appears only a small Root creeping in grass,
Covering over the Rock of Odours his bright purple mantle
Beside the Fount, above the Lark’s Nest in Golgonooza.
Luvah slept here in death, & here is Luvah’s empty Tomb.
Ololon sat beside this Fountain on the Rock of Odours.

Just at the place to where the Lark mounts is a Crystal Gate:
It is the entrance of the First Heaven, named Luther; for
The Lark is Los’s Messenger thro’ the Twenty-seven Churches,
That the Seven Eyes of god, who walk even to Satan’s Seat
Thro’ all the Twenty-seven Heavens, may not slumber nor sleep.
But the Lark’s Nest is at the gate of Los, at the eastern
Gate of wide Golgonooza, & the Lark is Los’s Messenger.
When on the highest lift of his light pinions he arrives
At that bright Gate, another Lark meets him, & back to back
They touch their pinions, tip tip, and each descend
To their respective Earths, & there all night consult with Angels
Of Providence & with the eyes of God all night in slumbers
Inspired, & at the dawn of day send out another Lark
Into another Heaven to carry news upon his wings.
Thus are the Messengers dispatch’d till they reach the Earth again
In the East Gate of Golgonooza; & the twenty-eighth bright
Lark met the Female Ololon descending my Garden.
Thus it appears to Mortal eyes & those of the Ulro Heavens,
But not thus to Immortals; the Lark is a mighty Angel.
For Ololon step’d into the Polypus within the Mundane Shell –
They could not step into Vegetable Worlds without becoming
The enemies of Humanity, except in a Female Form –
And as One Female Ololon and all its mighty Hosts
Appear’d, a Virgin of twelve years. Nor time nor space was
To the perception of the Virgin Ololon; but as the
Flash of lightning, but more quick, the virgin in my Garden
Before my Cottage stood; for the Satanic space is delusion.

For when Los join’d with me he took me in his fi’ry
Whirlwind.
My Vegetated portion was hurried from Lambeth’s shades;
He set me down in Pelpham’s Vale & prepar’d a beautiful
Cottage for me, that in three years I might write all these Visions
To display Nature’s cruel holiness, the deceits of Natural Religion.
Walking in my Cottage Garden sudden I beheld
The Virgin Ololon & address’d her as a Daughter of Beulah:

‘Virgin of Providence fear not to enter into my Cottage.
What is thy message to thy friend? What am I now to do?
Is it again to plunge into deeper affliction? Behold me
Ready to obey, but pity thou my Shadow of Delight.
Enter my Cottage, comfort her, for she is sick with fatigue.’
The Virgin answer’d: ‘Knowest thou of Milton who descended
Driven form Eternity? Him I seek! terrified at my Act
In Great Eternity which thou knowest, I come him to seek.’

So Ololon utter’d in words distinct the anxious thought:
Mild was the voice, but more distinct than any earthly.
That Milton’s Shadow heard; & condensing all his Fibres
Into a strength impregnable of majesty & beauty infinite,
I saw he was the Covering Cherub, & within him Satan
And Rahab, in an outside which is fallacious, within
Beyond the outline of Identity, in the Selfhood deadly.
And he appear’d the Wicker Man of Scandinavia, in whom
Jerusalem’s children consume in flames among the Stars.

Descending down into my Garden, a Human Wonder of God
Reaching form heaven to earth, a Cloud & Human Form,
I beheld Milton with astonishment, & in him beheld
The Monstrous Churches of Beulah, the Gods of Ulro dark
Twelve monstrous dishumaniz’d terrors, Synagogues of Satan,
A Double Twelve & Thrice Nine: such their divisions.

* * *

and Milton, collecting all his fibres into impregnable strength,
Descended down a Paved work of all kinds of precious stones
Out from the eastern sky; descending down into my Cottage
Garden, clothed in black, severe & silent he descended.

The Spectre of Satan stood upon the roaring sea & beheld
Milton within his sleeping Humanity; trembling & shudd’ring
He stood upon the waves, a Twenty-seven-fold mighty Demon,
Gorgeous & beautiful; loud roll his thunders against Milton.
Loud Satan thunder’d, loud & dark upon mild Felpham shore;
Not daring to touch one fibre he howl’d round upon the Sea.

I also stood in Satan’s bosom & beheld its desolatons:
A ruin’d Man, a ruin’d building of God not made with hands;
Its plains of burning sand, its mountains of marble terrible;
Its pits & declivities flowing with molten ore & fountains
Of pitch & nitre; its ruin’d palaces & cities & mighty works;
Its furnaces of affliction, in which his Angels & Emanations
Labour with blacken’d visages among its stupendous ruins,
Arches & pyramids & porches, colonnades & domes,
In which dwells Mystery, Babylon; here is her secret place;
From hence she comes forth on the Churches in delight;
Here is her Cup fill’d with its poisons, in these horrid vales,
And here her scarlet Veil woven in pestilence & war;
Here is Jerusalem bound in chains, in the Dens of Babylon.

In the Eastern porch of Satan’s Universe Milton stood & said:
‘Satan! my Spectre! I know my power thee to annihilate
And be a greater in thy place, & be thy Tabernacle,
A covering for thee to do thy will, till one greater comes
And smites me as I Smote thee & becomes my covering.
Such are the laws of thy false Heav’ns; but Laws of eternity
Are not such. Know thou, I come to Self Annihilation.
Such are the Laws of Eternity, that each shall mutully
Annighilate himself for other’s good, as I for thee.
Thy purpose & the purpose of thy Priests & of thy Churches
Is to impress on men the fear of death, to teach
Trembling & fear, terror, constriction, abject selfishness.
Mine is to teach Men to despise death & to go on
In fearless majesty annihilating Self, laughing to scorn
Thy Laws & terrors, shaking down thy Synagogues as webs.
I come to discover before Heav’n & Hell the Self righteousness
In all it Hypocritic turpitude, opening to every eye
These wonders of Satan’s holiness, shewing to the Earth
The Idol Virtues of the Natural Hearth, & Satan’s Seat
Explore in all its Selfish Natural Virtue, & put off
In Self annihilation all that is not of God alone,
To put off Self & all I have, ever & ever. Amen.’

Satan heard, Coming in a cloud with trumpets & flaming fire,
Saying: ‘I am God the judge of all, the living & the dead.
Fall therefore down& worship me; submit thy supreme
Dictate to my eternal Will, & to my dictate bow.
I hold the Balances of Right & just, & mine the Sword.
Seven Angels bear my Name & in those Seven I appear;
But I alone am God, & I alone in Heav’n & Earth
Of all that live dare utter this; others tremble & bow,
Till All Things become One Great Satan, in Holiness
Oppos’d to Mercy, and the Divines Delusion, Jesus, be no more.’

Suddenly around Milton on my Path the Starry Seven
Burn’d terrible! My Path became a solid fire, as bright
As the clear Sun, & Milton silent came down on my Path.
And there went forth from the Starry limbs of the Seven, Forms
Human, with Trumpets innumerable, sounding articulate
As the Seven spake; and they stood in a mighty Column of Fire
Surrounding Felpham’s Vale, reaching to the Mundane Shell, Saying:

‘Awake, Albion awake! reclaim thy Reasoning Spectre. Subdue
Him to the Divine Mercy; Cast him down into the Lake
Of Los that ever burneth with fire, ever & ever, Amen!
Let the Four Zoas awake form Slumbers of Six Thousand Years.’

Then loud the Furnaces of Los were heard, & seen as Seven Heavens
Stretching from south to north over the mountains of Albion.
Satan heard’ trembling round his Body, he incircled it;
He trembled with exceeding great trembling & astonishment,
Howling in his Spectre round his Body, hung’ring to devour
But fearing for the pain; for if he touches a Vital
His torment is unendurable. Therefore he cannot devour,
But howls round it as a lion round his prey continually.
Loud Satan thunder’d, loud& dark upon mild Felpham’s Shore,
Coming in a Cloud with Trumpets & with Fiery Flame,
An awful Form eastward, form midst of a bright Pavedwork
Of Precious stones by Cherubim surrounded, so permitted
(Lest he should fall apart in his Eternal Death) to imitate
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine surrounded by
His Cherubim & Seraphim in ever happy Eternity.
Beneath sat Chaos: sin on his right hand, Death on his left;
And Ancient Night spread over all the heav’n his Mantle of Laws.
He trembled with exceeding great trembling & astonishment.

Then Albion rose up in the Night of Beulah on his Couch
Of dread repose seen by the visionary eye; his face is toward
The east, toward Jerusalem’s Gates; groaning he sat above
His rocks. London & Bath & Legions & Edinburgh
Are the four pillars of his Throne; his left foot near London
Covers the shades of Tyburn; his instep from Windsor
To Primrose Hill stretching to Highgate & Holloway;
London is between his knees, its basements fourfold;
His right foot stretches to the sea on Dover cliffs, his heel
On Canterbury’s ruins; his right hand covers lofty Wales,
His left Scotland; his bosom girt with gold involves
York, Edinburgh, Durham & Carlisle, & on the front
Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich; his right elbow
Leans on the Rocks of Erin’s Land, Ireland, ancient nation;
His head bends over London. He sees his embodied Spectre
Trembling before him with exceeding great trembling & fear.
He views Jerusalem & Babylon, his tears flow down.
He mov’d his right foot to Cornwall, his left to the rocks of Bognor;
He strove to rise to walk into the Deep, but strength failing
Forbad; & down with dreadful groans he sunk upon his Couch
In moony Beulah. Los, his strong Guard, walks round beneath the Moon.

Urizen faints in terror, striving among the Brooks of Arnon
With Milton’s Spirit. As the Plowman of Artificer of Shepherd
While in the labours of his Calling sends his thought abroad
To labour in the ocean or in the starry heaven, So Milton
Labour’d in Chasms of the Mundane Shell, tho’ here before
My Cottage midst the Starry Seven, where the Virgin Ololon
Stood rembling in the Porch. Loud Satan thunder’d on the stormy Sea,
Circling Albion’s Cliffs in which the Four-fold World resides,
Tho’s seen in fallacy outside, a fallacy of Satan’s Churches.
Before Ololon Milton stood & perceiv’d the Eternal Form
Of that mild Vision; wondrous were their acts by me unknown
Except remotely; and I heard Ololon say to Milton:

‘I see thee strive upon the Brooks of Arnon. There a dread
And awful Man I see, o’vercover’d with the mantle of years.
I behold Los & Urizen, I behold Orc & Tharmas,
The Four Zoas of Albion, & thy Spirit with them striving,
In Self annihilation giving thy life to thy enemies.
Are those who contemn Religion & seek to annihilate it
Become in their Feminine portions the causes & promoters
Of these Religions? How is this thing, this Newtonian Phantasm,
This Voltaire & Rousseau, this Hume & Gibbon & Bolingbroke,
This Natural Religion, this impossibleabsurdity?
Is Ololon the cause of this? O where shall I hide my face?
These tears fall for the little ones, the Children of Jerusalem,
Lest they be annihilated in thy annihilation.’

No sooner she had spoke but Rahab Babylon appear’d
Eastward upon the Paved work across Europe & Asia,
Glorious as the midday Sun, in Satan’s bosom glowing,
A Female hidden in a Male, Religion hidden in War,
Nam’d Moral Virtue, cruel two-fold Monster shining bright,
A Dragon red & hidden Harlot which John in Patmos saw.

And all beneath the Nations innumberable of Ulro
Apear’d: the Seven Kingdoms of Canaan & Five Baalim
Of Philistea into Twelve divided, call’d after the Names
Of Israel, as they are in Eden – Mountain, River & Plain,
City & sandy Desart intermingled beyond mortal ken.
But turning toward Ololon in terrible majesty, Milton
Replied: ‘Obey thou the Words of the Inspired Man.
All that can be annihilated must be annihilated
That the Children of Jerusalem may be saved form slavery.
There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary;
The Negation must be destroy’d to redeem the Contraries.
The Negation is the Spectre, the reasoning Power in Man.
This is a false body, an Incrustation over my Immortal
Spirit, a Selfhood which must be put off & annihilated always.
To cleanse the face of my Spirit by Self-examination,
To bathe in the Waters of Life, to wash off the Not Human,
I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration;
To cast off rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour,
To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration,
To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton form Albion’s covering,
To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination;
To cast aside from Poetry all that is not Inspiration,
That is no longer shall dare to mock with the aspersion of Madness
Cast on the Inspired by the tame high finisher of paltry Blots
Indefinite, or paltry Rhymes, or Paltry Harmonies,
Who creeps into State Government like a catterpiller to destroy;
To cast off the idiot Questioner who is always questioning
But never capable of answering, who sits wit a sly grin
Silent plotting when to question, like a thief in a cave;
Who publishes doubt & calls it knowledge, whose Science is Despair,
Whose pretence to knowledge is Envy, whose whole Science is
To destroy the wisdom of ages to gratify ravenous Envy,
That rages round him like a Wolf day & night without rest.
He smiles with condescension, he talks of Benevolence & Virtue,
And those who act with Benevolence & Virtue they murder time on time.
These are the destroyers of Jerusalem, these are the murderers
Of Jesus, who deny the Faith & mock at Eternal life;
Who pretend to Poetry that they may destroy Imagination
By imitation of Nature’s Images drawn from Remembrance.
These are the Sexual Garments, the Abomination of Desolation,
Hiding the Human Lineaments as with an Ark & Curtains,
Which Jesus rent & now shall wholly purge away with Fire,
Till Generation is swallow’d up in Regeneration.’

Then trembled the Virgin Ololon & reply’d in clouds of despair:

‘Is this our Feminine Portion, the Six-fold Miltonic Female?
Terrible this Portion trembles before thee, O awful Man!
Altho’ our Human Power can sustain the severe contentions
Of Friendship, our Sexual cannot, but flies into the Ulro.
Hence arose all our terrors in Eternity; & now remembrance
Returns upon us. Are we Contraries, O Milton, Thou & I?
O Immortal! how were we led to War the Wars of Death?
Is this the Void Outside of Existence, which if enter’d into
Becomes a Womb? & is this the Death Couch of Albion?
Thou goest to Eternal Death, & all must go with thee.’

So saying, the Virgin divided Six-fold, & with a shriek
Dolorous that ran thro’ all Creation, a Double-Six-fold Wonder,
Away from Ololon she divided & fled into the depths
Of Milton’s Shadow, as a Dove upon the stormy Sea.

Then as a Moony Ark Ololon descended to Felpham’s Vale
In clouds of blood, in streams of gore, with dreadful thunderings
Into the Fires of Intellect that rejoic’d in Felpham’s Vale
Around the Starry Eight. With one accord the Starry Eight became
One Man, Jesus the Saviour, wonderful! Round his limbs
The Clouds of Ololon folded as a Garment dipped in blood,
Written within & without in woven letters; & the Writing
Is the Divine Revelation in the Litteral expression,
A Garment of War. I heard it nam’d the Woof of Six Thousand Years.

And I beheld the Twenty-four Cities of Albion
Arise upon their Thrones to Judge the Nations of the Earth;
And the Immortal Four in whom the Twenty-four appear Four-fold
Arose around Albion’s body. Jesus wept & walked forth
From Felpham’s Vale clothed in Clouds of blood, to enter into
Albion’s Bosom, the bosom of death, & the Four surrounded him
In the Column of Fire in Felpham’s Vale. Then to their mouths the four
Applied their Four Trumpets & them sounded to the Four winds.

Terror struck in the Vale. I stood at that immortal sound;
My bones trembles. I fell outstretch’d upon the path
A moment, & my Soul return’d into its mortal state,
To Resurrection & Judgment in the Vegetable body;
And my sweet Shadow of Delight stood trembling by my side.

Immediately the Lark mounted with a loud trill form Felpham’s Vale,
And the Wild Thyme from Wimbleton’s green & impurpled Hills;
And Los& Enitharmon rose over the Hills of Surrey.
Their clouds roll over London with a south wind. Soft Oothoon
Pants in the Vales of Lambeth, weeping o’er her Human Harvest.
Los listens to the Cry of the Poor Man, his Cloud
Over London in volume terrific, low bended in anger.

Rintrah & Palamabron view the Human Harvest beneath.
Their Wine-presses & Barns stand open; the Ovens are prepar’d,
The Waggons ready; terrific, Lions & Tygers sport & play.
All Animals upon the Earth are prepar’d in all their strength
To go forth to the Great Harvest & Vintage of the Nations.

Finis

poem by William Blake from Milton (1810)
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The Book of Urizen: Chapter V

1. In terrors Los shrunk from his task:
His great hammer fell from his hand:
His fires beheld, and sickening,
Hid their strong limbs in smoke.
For with noises ruinous loud;
With hurtlings & clashings & groans
The Immortal endur'd his chains,
Tho' bound in a deadly sleep.

2. All the myriads of Eternity:
All the wisdom & joy of life:
Roll like a sea around him,
Except what his little orbs
Of sight by degrees unfold.

3. And now his eternal life
Like a dream was obliterated

4. Shudd'ring, the Eternal Prophet smote
With a stroke, from his north to south region
The bellows & hammer are silent now
A nerveless silence, his prophetic voice
Siez'd; a cold solitude & dark void
The Eternal Prophet & Urizen clos'd

5. Ages on ages rolld over them
Cut off from life & light frozen
Into horrible forms of deformity
Los suffer'd his fires to decay
Then he look'd back with anxious desire
But the space undivided by existence
Struck horror into his soul.

6. Los wept obscur'd with mourning:
His bosom earthquak'd with sighs;
He saw Urizen deadly black,
In his chains bound, & Pity began,

7. In anguish dividing & dividing
For pity divides the soul
In pangs eternity on eternity
Life in cataracts pourd down his cliffs
The void shrunk the lymph into Nerves
Wand'ring wide on the bosom of night
And left a round globe of blood
Trembling upon the Void
Thus the Eternal Prophet was divided
Before the death-image of Urizen
For in changeable clouds and darkness
In a winterly night beneath,
The Abyss of Los stretch'd immense:
And now seen, now obscur'd, to the eyes
Of Eternals, the visions remote
Of the dark seperation appear'd.
As glasses discover Worlds
In the endless Abyss of space,
So the expanding eyes of Immortals
Beheld the dark visions of Los,
And the globe of life blood trembling

8. The globe of life blood trembled
Branching out into roots;
Fib'rous, writhing upon the winds;
Fibres of blood, milk and tears;
In pangs, eternity on eternity.
At length in tears & cries imbodied
A female form trembling and pale
Waves before his deathy face

9. All Eternity shudderd at sight
Of the first female now separate
Pale as a cloud of snow
Waving before the face of Los

10. Wonder, awe, fear, astonishment,
Petrify the eternal myriads;
At the first female form now separate
They call'd her Pity, and fled

11. "Spread a Tent, with strong curtains around them
"Let cords & stakes bind in the Void
That Eternals may no more behold them"

12. They began to weave curtains of darkness
They erected large pillars round the Void
With golden hooks fastend in the pillars
With infinite labour the Eternals
A woof wove, and called it Science

poem by William Blake
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The Book of Urizen: Chapter II

1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses.
Death was not, but eternal life sprung

2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll'd
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam'd
That solitary one in Immensity

3. Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity,
Muster around the bleak desarts
Now fill'd with clouds, darkness & waters
That roll'd perplex'd labring & utter'd
Words articulate, bursting in thunders
That roll'd on the tops of his mountains

4. From the depths of dark solitude. From
The eternal abode in my holiness,
Hidden set apart in my stern counsels
Reserv'd for the days of futurity,
I have sought for a joy without pain,
For a solid without fluctuation
Why will you die O Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?

5. First I fought with the fire; consum'd
Inwards, into a deep world within:
A void immense, wild dark & deep,
Where nothing was: Natures wide womb
And self balanc'd stretch'd o'er the void
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
Bound; but condensing, in torrents
They fall & fall; strong I repell'd
The vast waves, & arose on the waters
A wide world of solid obstruction

6. Here alone I in books formd of metals
Have written the secrets of wisdom
The secrets of dark contemplation
By fightings and conflicts dire,
With terrible monsters Sin-bred:
Which the bosoms of all inhabit;
Seven deadly Sins of the soul.

7. Lo! I unfold my darkness: and on
This rock, place with strong hand the Book
Of eternal brass, written in my solitude.

8. Laws of peace, of love, of unity:
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness.
Let each chuse one habitation:
His ancient infinite mansion:
One command, one joy, one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure
One King, one God, one Law.

poem by William Blake
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The Book of Urizen: Chapter III

1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness; his hand
On the rock of eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage siez'd the strong

2. Rage, fury, intense indignation
In cataracts of fire blood & gall
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke:
And enormous forms of energy;
All the seven deadly sins of the soul
In living creations appear'd
In the flames of eternal fury.

3. Sund'ring, dark'ning, thund'ring!
Rent away with a terrible crash
Eternity roll'd wide apart
Wide asunder rolling
Mountainous all around
Departing; departing; departing:
Leaving ruinous fragments of life
Hanging frowning cliffs & all between
An ocean of voidness unfathomable.

4. The roaring fires ran o'er the heav'ns
In whirlwinds & cataracts of blood
And o'er the dark desarts of Urizen
Fires pour thro' the void on all sides
On Urizens self-begotten armies.

5. But no light from the fires. all was darkness
In the flames of Eternal fury

6. In fierce anguish & quenchless flames
To the desarts and rocks He ran raging
To hide, but He could not: combining
He dug mountains & hills in vast strength,
He piled them in incessant labour,
In howlings & pangs & fierce madness
Long periods in burning fires labouring
Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged,
In despair and the shadows of death.

7. And a roof, vast petrific around,
On all sides He fram'd: like a womb;
Where thousands of rivers in veins
Of blood pour down the mountains to cool
The eternal fires beating without
From Eternals; & like a black globe
View'd by sons of Eternity, standing
On the shore of the infinite ocean
Like a human heart strugling & beating
The vast world of Urizen appear'd.

8. And Los round the dark globe of Urizen,
Kept watch for Eternals to confine,
The obscure separation alone;
For Eternity stood wide apart,
As the stars are apart from the earth

9. Los wept howling around the dark Demon:
And cursing his lot; for in anguish,
Urizen was rent from his side;
And a fathomless void for his feet;
And intense fires for his dwelling.

10. But Urizen laid in a stony sleep
Unorganiz'd, rent from Eternity

11. The Eternals said: What is this? Death
Urizen is a clod of clay.

12. Los howld in a dismal stupor,
Groaning! gnashing! groaning!
Till the wrenching apart was healed

13. But the wrenching of Urizen heal'd not
Cold, featureless, flesh or clay,
Rifted with direful changes
He lay in a dreamless night

14. Till Los rouz'd his fires, affrighted
At the formless unmeasurable death.

poem by William Blake
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The Invocation

Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poet's Song,
Record the journey of immortal Milton thro' your realms
Of terror and mild moony lustre, in soft Sexual delusions
Of varièd beauty, to delight the wanderer, and repose
His burning thirst and freezing hunger! Come into my hand,
By your mild power descending down the nerves of my right arm
From out the portals of my Brain, where by your ministry
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine planted His Paradise,
And in it caus'd the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet form
In likeness of Himself. Tell also of the False Tongue, vegetated
Beneath your land of Shadows, of its sacrifices and
Its offerings; even till Jesus, the image of the Invisible God,
Became its prey; a curse, an offering, and an atonement
For Death Eternal, in the Heavens of Albion, and before the Gates
Of Jerusalem his Emanation, in the Heavens beneath Beulah!

poem by William Blake
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A Prophecy

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 they meet together in the crystal house;
And Los, possessor of the moon, joy’d in the peaceful night,
Thus speaking, while his num’rous sons shook their bright fiery wings:

‘Again the night is come
That strong Urthona takes his rest,
And Urizen unloos’d from chains
Glows ike a meteor in the distant north.
Stretch forth your hands and strike the elemental strings!
Awake the thunders of the deep,

‘The shrill winds wake!
Till all the sons of Urizen look out and envy Los:
Seize all the spirits of life and bind
Their warbling joys to our loud strings;
Bind all the nourishing sweets of earth
To give us bliss, that we may drink the sparkling wine of Los;
And let us laugh at war,
Despising toil and care,
Because the days and nights of joy in lucky hours renew.’

‘Arise, O Orc, from thy deep den,
First born of Enitharmon, rise!
And we will crown thy head with garlands of the ruddy vine;
For now thou art bound,
And I may see thee in the hour of bliss, my eldest born.’

The horrent Demon rose, surrounded with red stars of fire,
Whirling about in furious circles round the immortal fiend.

Then Enitharmon down descended into his red light,
And thus her voice rose to her children; the distant heavens reply:

‘Now comes the night of Enitharmon’s joy!
Who shall I call? Who shall I send?
That Woman, lovely Woman! may have dominion?
Arise, O Rintrah, thee I call! & Palamabron, thee!
Go! tell the human race that Woman’s love is Sin;
That an Eternal life awaits the worms of sixty winters
In an allegorical abode where existence hath never come.
Forbid all Joy, & from her childhood shall the little female
Spread nets in every secret path.

‘My weary eyelids draw towards the evening, my bliss is yet but new!

‘Arise, O Rintrah, eldest born, second to none but Orc.
O lion Rintrah, raise thy fury form thy forests black;
Bring Palamabron, horned priest, skipping upon the mountains,
And silent Elynittria, the silver bowed queen.
Rintrah, where has thou hid thy bride?
Weeps she in desart shades?
Alas, my Rintrah! bring all thy brethren, O thou king of fire.
Prince of the sun, I see thee with thy innumberable race,
Thick as the summer stars;
But each ramping his golden mane shakes,
And thine eyes rejoice because of strength, O Rintrah, furious king.’

Enitharmon slept,
Eighteen hundred years. Man was a Dream!
The night of Nature and their harps unstrung.
She slept in middle of her nightly song,
Eighteen hundred years, a female dream.
Shadows of men in fleeting bands upon the winds
Divide the heavens of Europe,
Till Albion’s Angel, smitten with his own plagues, fled with his bands.
The cloud bears hard on Albion’s shore,
Fill’d with immortal demons of futurity.
In council gather the smitten Angels of Albion.
The cloud bears hard upon the council house, down rushing
On the heads of Albion’s Angels.

One hour they lay buried beneath the ruins of that hall;
But as the stars rise from the salt lake they arise in pain,
In troubled mists o’erclouded by the terrors of struggling times.

In thoughts perturb’d they rose from the bright ruins, silent following
The fiery King, who sought his ancient temple serpertform’d
That stretches out its shady length along the Island white.
Round him roll’d his clouds of war; silent the Angel went,
Along the infininte shores of Thames to golden Verulam.
There stand the venerable porches that high-towering rear
Their oak-surrounded pillars, form’d of massy stones, uncut
Will tool, stones precious – such eternal in the heavens,
Of colours twelve, few known on earth, give light in the opake,
Plac’d in the order of the stars. When the five senses whelm’d
In deluge o’er the earth-born man, then turn’d the fluxile eyes
Into two stationary orbs, concentrating all things;
The ever-varying spiral ascents to the heavens of heavens
Were bended downward, and the nostrils’ golden gate shut,
Turn’d outward, barr’d and petrify’d against the infinite.

Thought chang’d the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth
To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid
In forests of night. Then all the eternal forests were divided
Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush’d
And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh.
Then was the serpent temple form’d, image of infinite
Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel,
Heaven a mighty circle turning, god a tyrant crown’d.

Now arriv’d the ancient Guardian at the southern porch
That, planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, & in a vale
Obscure, inclos’d the stone of Night. Oblique it stood, o’erhung
With purple flowers and berries red, image of that sweet south
Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck,
Now overgrown with hair and cover’d with a stony roof.
Downward ‘tis sunk beneath th’ attractive north, that round the feet
A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave.

Albion’s Angel rose upon the Stone of Night.
He saw Urizen on the Atlantic;
And his brazen Book
That Kings & Priests had copied on earth
Expanded from North to South.

And the clouds & fires pale roll’d round in the night of Enitharmon,
Round Albion’s cliffs & London’s walls (still Enitharmon slept);
Rolling volumes of grey mist involve Churches, Palaces, Towers;
For Urizen unclasp’d his Book, feeding his soul with pity.
Thy youth of England, hid in gloom, curse the pain’d heavens, compell’d
Into the deadly night to see the form of Albion’s Angel.
Their parents brought them forth, & aged ignorance preaches, canting,
On a vast rock, perceived by those senses that are clos’d from thought –
Bleak, dark, abrupt it stands & overshadows London city.
They saw his boney feet on the rock, the flesh consum’d in flames;
They saw the Serpent temple lifted above, shadowing the Island white;
They heard the voice of Albion’s Angel howling in flames of Orc,
Seeking the trump of the last doom.
Above the rest the howl was heard from Westminster louder and louder.
The Guardian of the secret codes forsook his ancient mansion,
Driven out by the flames of Orc; his furr’d robes & false locks
Adhered and grew one with his flesh, and nerves & veins shot thro’ them.
With dismal torment sick, hanging upon the wind, he fled
Groveling along Great George Street thro’ the Park gate; all the soldiers
Fled from his sight; he drag’d his torments to the wilderness.

Thus was the howl thro’ Europe!
For Orc rejoic’d to hear the howling shadows;
But Palamabron shot his lightnings trenching down his wide back,
And Rintrah hung with all his legions in the nether deep.

Enitharmon laugh’d in her sleep to see (O woman’s triumph)
Every house a den, every man bound; the shadows are fill’d
With specters, and the windows wove over with curses of iron;
Over the doors ‘Thou shalt not,’ & over the chimneys “Fear’ is written;
With bands of iron round their necks fasten’d into the walls
The citizens; in leaden gives the inhabitants of suburbs
Walk heavy; soft and bent are the bones of villagers.
Between the clouds of Urizen the flames of Orc roll heavy
Around the limbs of Albion’s Guardian, his flesh consuming.
Howlings & hissings, shrieks & groans & voices of despair
Arise around him in the cloudy Heavens of Albion. Furious,

The red limb’d Angel seiz’d, in horror and torment,
The Trump of the last doom; but he could not blow the iron tube!
Thrice he assay’d presumptuous to awake the dead to Judgment.

A mighty Spirit leap’d from the land of Albion,
Nam’d Newton; he seiz’d the Trump & blow’d the enormous blast!
Yellow as leaves of Autumn the myriads fo Angelic hosts
Fell thro’ the wintry skies seeking their graves,
Rattling their hollow bones in howling and lamentation.

Then Enitharmon woke, nor knew that she had slept;
And eighteen hundred years were fled
As if they had not been.
She call’d her sons & daughters
To the sports of night,
Within her crystal house;
And thus her song proceeds:

‘Arise, Ethinthus! tho’ the earth-worm call,
Let him call in vain;
Till the night of holy shadows
And human solitude is past!

‘Ethinthus,, queen of waters, how thou shinest in the sky!
My daughter, how do I rejoice! for thy children flock around
Like the gay fishes on the wave when the cold moon drinks the dew.
Ethinthus! thou art sweet as comforts to my fainting soul,
For now thy waters warble round the feet of Enitharmon.

‘Manathu-Vorcyon! I behold thee flaming in my halls,
light of thy mother’s soul! I see thy lovely eagles round;
thy golden wings are my delight, & thy flames of soft delusion.

’where is my lureing bird of Edin? Leutha, silent love!
Leutha, the many colur’d bow delights upon thy wings,
Soft soul of flowers, Leutha!
Sweet smiling pestilence! I see thy blushing light;
Thy daughters many changing
Revolve like sweet perfumes ascending, O Leutha, silken queen!

‘Where is the youthful Antamon, prince of the pearly dew?
O Antamon, why wilt thou leave thy mother enitharmon?
Alone I see thee, crystal form,
Floating upon the bosom’d air
With lineaments of gratified desire.
My Antamon, the seven churches of Leutha seek thy love.

‘I hear the soft Oothoon in Enitharmon’s tents.
Why wilt thou give up woman’s secrecy, my melancholy child?
Between two moments bliss is ripe.
O Theotormon robb’d of joy, I see thy salt tears flow
Down the steps of my crystal house.

‘Sotha & Thiralatha, secret dwellers of dreamful caves,
arise and please the horrent fiend with your melodious songs.
Still all your thunders golden hoof’d, & bind your horses black.
Orc! smile upon my children!
Smile, son of my afflictions.
Arise, O Orc, and give our mountains joy of thy red light.’

She ceas’d; for All were forth at soport beneath the solemn moon,
Waking the stars of Urizen with their immortal songs,
That nature felt thro’ all the pores the enormous revelry,
Till morning oped the eastern gate.
Then every on fled to his station, & Enitharmon wept.

But terrible Orc, when he beheld the morning in the east,
Shot from the heights of Enitharmon,
And in the vineyards of red France appear’d the light of his fury.

The sun glow’d fiery red!
The furious terrors flew around
On golden chariots raging, with red wheels dropping with blood;
The Lions lash their wrathful tails;
The Tigers couch upon the prey & suck the ruddy tide;
And Enitharmon groans & cries in anguish and dismay.

Then Los arose; his head he rear’d in snaky thunders clad,
And with a cry that shook all nature to the utmost pole
Call’d all his sons to the strife of blood.

poem by William Blake from Europe a Prophecy (1794)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Preludium

The shadowy daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc.
When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode;
His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron;
Crown'd with a helmet & dark hair the nameless female stood;
A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
When pestilence is shot from heaven; no other arms she need:
Invulnerable tho' naked, save where clouds roll round her loins,
Their awful folds in the dark air; silent she stood as night;
For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise;
But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace.

Dark virgin; said the hairy youth, thy father stern abhorr'd;
Rivets my tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars;
Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion,
Stalking upon the mountains, & sometimes a whale I lash
The raging fathomless abyss, anon a serpent folding
Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs,
On the Canadian wilds I fold, feeble my spirit folds.
For chaind beneath I rend these caverns; when thou bringest food
I howl my joy! and my red eyes seek to behold thy face
In vain! these clouds roll to & fro, & hide thee from my sight.

Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire;
Round the terrific loins he siez'd the panting struggling womb;
It joy'd: she put asider her clouds & smiled her first-born smile;
As when a black cloud shews its light'nings to the silent deep.

Soon as she saw the terrible boy then burst the virgin cry.

I know thee, I have found thee, & I will not let thee go;
Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa;
And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions
Edur'd by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep:
I see a serpent in Canada, who courts me to his love;
In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru;
I see a Whale in the South-sea, drinking my soul away.
O what limb rendering pains I feel. thy fire & my frost
Mingle in howling pains, in furrows by the ligtnings rent;
This is eternal death; and this the torment long foretold.

poem by William Blake from America a Prophecy (1793)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Song of Los

Africa

I will sing you a song of Los, the Eternal Prophet:
He sung it to four harps at the tables of Eternity.
In heart-formed Africa.
Urizen faded! Ariston shudder’d!
And thus the Song began:

ADAM stood in the garden of Eden
And Noah on the mountains of Ararat;
They saw Urizen give his Laws to the Nations
By the hands of the children of Los.
Adam shudder’d! Noah faded! Black grew the sunny African
When Rintrah gave Abstract Philosophy to Brama in the East.
(Night spoke to the Cloud:
‘Lo, these Human form’d spirits, in smiling hypocrisy Way
Against one another; so let them War on, slaves to the eternal Elements.’)
Noah shrunk beneath the wathers;
Abram fled in fires from Chaldea;
Moses beheld upon Mount Sinai forms of dark delusion.

To Trismegistur Palamabroon gave an abstract Law,
To Pythagoras, Socrates & Plato.

Time rolled on o’er all the sons of Har; time after time
Orc on Mount Atlas howl’d, chain’d down with the Chain of Jealousy.
Then Oothoon hover’d over Judah & Jerusalem,
And Jesus heard her voice (a man of sorrows); he reciev’d
A Gospel form wretched Theotormon.

The human race began to wither, for the healthy built
Secluded places, fearing the joys of Love,
And the diseased only propagated.
So Antamon call’d up Leutha from her valleys of delight
And to Mahomet a loose Bible gave.
But in the North to Odin Sotha gave a Code of War,
Because of Diralada, thinking to reclaim his joy.
These were the churches, Hospitals, Castles, Palace,
Like nets & gins & traps to catch the joys of Eternity,
And all the rest a desart;
Till like a dream Eternity was obliterated & erased,

Since that dread day when Har and Heva fled,
Because their brethren & sisters liv’d in War & Lust;
And as they fled, they shrunk
Into two narrow doleful forms,
Creeping in reptile flesh upon
The bosom of the ground,
And all the vast of Nature shrunk
Before their shrunken eyes.

Thus the terrible race of Los & Enitharmon gave
Laws & Religions to the sons of Har, binding them more
And more to Earth, closing and restraining,
Till a Philosophy of Five Senses was complete.
Urizen wept &gave it into the hands of Newton & Locke.

Clouds roll heavy upon the Alps round Rousseau & Voltaire,
And on the mountains of Lebanon round the deceased Gods
Of Asia, & on the desarts of Africa round the Fallen Angels.
The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent.

Asia

THE Kings of Asia heard
The howl rise up from Europe!
And each ran out from his Web,
From his ancient woven Den;
For the darkness of Asia was startled
At the thick-flaming, thought-creating fires or Orc.
And the Kings of Asia stood
And cried in bitterness of soul:

‘Shall not the King call for Famine from the heath,
Nor the Priest for Pestilence from the fen?
To restrain! To dismay! To thin!
The inhabitants of mountain and plain,
In the day of full-feeding prosperity
And the night of delicious songs.

‘Shall not the Councellor throw his curb
Of Poverty on the laborious?
To fix the price of labour,
To invent allegoric riches;

‘And the privy admonishers of men
Call for fires in the City,
For heaps of smoking ruins,
In the night of prosperity & wantonness?

‘To turn man form his path,
To restrain the child from the womb,

To cut off the bread from the city,
That the remnant may learn to obey;
‘That the pride of the heart may fail,
That the lust of the eyes may be quench’d,
That the delicate ear in its infancy
May be dull’d, and the nostrils clos’d up,
To teach mortal worms the path
That leads form the gates of the Grave.’

Urizen heard them cry,
And his shudd’ring waving wings
Went enormous above the red flames,
Drawing clouds of despair thro’ the havens
Of Europe as he went.
And his Books of brass, iron & gold
Melted over the land as he flew,
Heavy-waving, howling, weeping.
And he stood over Judea,
And stay’d in his ancient place,
And stretch’d his clouds over Jerusalem.

For Adam, a mouldering skeleton,
Lay bleach’d on the garden of Eden;
And Noah as whit as snow
On the mountains of Ararat.
Then the thunders of Urizen bellow’d aloud
From his woven darkness above.

Orc, raging in European darkness,
Arose like a pillar of fire above the Alps,
Like a serpent of fiery flame!

The sullen Earth
Shrunk!

Forth from the dead dust rattling bones to bones
Join; shaking convuls’d, the shiv’ring clay breathes,
And all flesh naked stands: Fathers and Friends,
Mothers & Infants, Kings & Warriors.
The Grave shrieks with delight, & shakes
Her hollow womb, & clasps the solid stem.
Her bosom swells with wild desire,
And milk & blood & glandous wine
In rivers rush & shout & dance
On mountain, dale and plain.

The SONG of LOS is Ended

Urizen Wept.

poem by William Blake (1795)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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America, A Prophecy

The shadowy Daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc,
When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode:
His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron:
Crown'd with a helmet and dark hair the nameless female stood;
A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
When pestilence is shot from heaven: no other arms she need!
Invulnerable though naked, save where clouds roll round her loins
Their awful folds in the dark air: silent she stood as night;
For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise,
But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace.
'Dark Virgin,' said the hairy youth, 'thy father stern, abhorr'd,
Rivets my tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars;
Sometimes an Eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a Lion
Stalking upon the mountains, and sometimes a Whale, I lash
The raging fathomless abyss; anon a Serpent folding
Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs
On the Canadian wilds I fold; feeble my spirit folds,
For chain'd beneath I rend these caverns: when thou bringest food
I howl my joy, and my red eyes seek to behold thy face--
In vain! these clouds roll to and fro, and hide thee from my sight.'

Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links; free are the wrists of fire;
Round the terrific loins he seiz'd the panting, struggling womb;
It joy'd: she put aside her clouds and smiled her first-born smile,
As when a black cloud shews its lightnings to the silent deep.

Soon as she saw the terrible boy, then burst the virgin cry:

'I know thee, I have found thee, and I will not let thee go:
Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa,
And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions
Endur'd by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep.
I see a Serpent in Canada who courts me to his love,
In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru;
I see a Whale in the south-sea, drinking my soul away.
O what limb-rending pains I feel! thy fire and my frost
Mingle in howling pains, in furrows by thy lightnings rent.
This is eternal death, and this the torment long foretold.'

poem by William Blake
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Preludium to Europe

The nameless shadowy female rose from out the breast of Orc,
Her snaky hair brandishing in the winds of Enitharmon;
And thus her voice arose:

'O mother Enitharmon, wilt thou bring forth other sons?
To cause my name to vanish, that my place may not be found,
For I am faint with travail,
Like the dark cloud disburden'd in the day of dismal thunder.

My roots are brandish'd in the heavens, my fruits in earth beneath
Surge, foam and labour into life, first born and first consum'd!
Consumed and consuming!
Then why shouldst thou, accursed mother, bring me into life?

I wrap my turban of thick clouds around my lab'ring head,
And fold the sheety waters as a mantle round my limbs;
Yet the red sun and moon
And all the overflowing stars rain down prolific pains.

Unwilling I look up to heaven, unwilling count the stars:
Sitting in fathomless abyss of my immortal shrine
I seize their burning power
And bring forth howling terrors, all devouring fiery kings,

Devouring and devoured, roaming on dark and desolate mountains,
In forests of eternal death, shrieking in hollow trees.
Ah mother Enitharmon!
Stamp not with solid form this vig'rous progeny of fires.

I bring forth from my teeming bosom myriads of flames,
And thou dost stamp them with a signet; then they roam abroad
And leave me void as death.
Ah! I am drown'd in shady woe and visionary joy.

And who shall bind the infinite with an eternal band?
To compass it with swaddling bands? and who shall cherish it
With milk and honey?
I see it smile, and I roll inward, and my voice is past.'

She ceased, and roll'd her shady clouds
Into the secret place.

poem by William Blake
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To End In Reproof

Don’t think it to be strange, about evil’s depth and range,
Or evil’s very strong allure, when sin knocks at your door,
As men on this earth confer, with that wicked one Lucifer,
Who is a fallen angel at best, for putting God to that test.

But, for Satan’s wicked desire, he is destined for the fire,
That’s the eternal fires of Hell, where he will forever dwell;
Until then, earth’s a stage, filled with Satan’s wicked rage,
Gathering, til his curtain falls, to Hell, many aimless souls.

Aimless souls are everywhere, many so eternally unaware,
Pursuing life’s empty dreams, of Satan’s darker schemes;
With so many Satan’s easy prey, along life’s broader way,
Exposed to his evil seduction, upon a path of destruction.

Blinding the eyes of the world, as his darkness is unfurled,
Employing darkness of night, to hinder God’s saving light,
The light Satan does despise, as it opens hearts and eyes,
To the saving Truth of Christ, that grants souls Eternal Life.

Satan will go to any length, to reduce one’s moral strength,
Enticing the soul to follow him, to pursue a dark life of sin;
While he deceives the heart, before from earth they depart,
So they don’t embrace Truth, to see God’s eternal reproof.

poem by Bob Gotti
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Preludium

The nameless shadowy female rose form out the breast of Orc,
Her snaky hair brandishing in the winds of Enitharmon;
And thus her voice arose:

‘O mother Enitharmon, wilt thou bring forth other sons,
To cause my name to vanish, that my place may not be found?
For I am faint with travel!
Like the dark cloud disburden’d in the day of dismal thunder.

‘My roots are brandish’d in the heavens, my fruits in earth beneath
Surge, foam and labour into life, first born & first consum’d!
Consumed and consuming!
Then why shouldst thou, accused mother, bring me into life?

‘I warp my turban of thick clouds around my lab’ring head,
And fold the sheety waters as a mantle round my limbs.
Yet the red sun and moon
And all the overflowing stars rain down prolific pains.

‘Unwilling I look up to heaven! unwilling count the stars!
Sitting in fathomless abyss of my immortal shrine,
I seize their burning power
And bring forth howling terrors, all devouring fiery kings,

‘Devouring & devoured, roaming in dark and desolate mountains
in forests of eternal death, shrieking in hollow trees.
Ah mother Enitharmon!
Stamp not with solid form the vig’rous progeny of fires.

‘I bring forth form my teeming bosom myriads of flames,
And thou dost stamp them with a signet; then they roam abroad
And leave me void as death.
Ah! I am drown’d in shady woe, and visionary joy.

‘And who shall bind the infinite with an eternal band?
To compass it with swaddling bands? And who shall cherish it
With milk and honey?
I see it smile & I roll inward & my voice is past.’

She ceast, & roll’d her shady clouds
Into the secret palce.

poem by William Blake from Europe a Prophecy (1794)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Wickedness Is Everywhere

His wicked spirit is everywhere, the prince and power of the air,
Born into a system led by him, Satan fills the world with evil sin.
God of the world, on this earth, inciting all born of natural birth,
On this earth, that God created, is a spirit by which He is hated.

God’s Kingdom is not of this world, is what Christ world herald,
Christ’s comes from God above, one filled with peace and love.
Men join His Kingdom from earth. Through Jesus and New Birth,
When in Christ we’re born again, we become to God, His friend.

That dragon is God’s enemy, who wants to destroy you and me,
Aware that he faces eternal fire, our destruction’s his only desire.
Satan’s power deceives the mind, making many spiritually blind,
This while he deceives the heart, wanting all, to from God depart.

God’s Kingdom soon will come, ruled on earth by Christ His Son,
With Satan cast into the abyss, upon earth will be Heaven’s Bliss.
Until then there’s a battle on, but, not against the weak or strong,
It’s against the evil principalities; the darker powers we can’t see.

Man was expelled from Paradise, into a world of darkened strife,
Where Satan sets out to deceive, men and women, just like Eve.
But accept as Savior Jesus Christ, and you’ll receive Eternal Life,
Delivered from this darkened night, into The Lord’s Eternal Light.

poem by Bob Gotti
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Rebellion

Within the heart, rebellion looms, of the soul in which it dooms,
To a life which opposes authority, even The God of all Eternity.
Always seeking their own way, regardless of what one may say,
Even rejecting Eternal Truth, in spite of another’s sound reproof.

In the heart of each and every man, there is a motive and a plan,
And if there’s rebellion in the mix, your intentions, God shall nix,
Rebellion is like witchcraft friend, which God will bring to an end.
Destroying it with all other sin, that brings no Glory at all to Him.

Rebellion began in the Garden, by whom, God will never pardon,
Satan, who caused us to rebel, will end up in the depths of Hell.
Before that man was quite pure, having fellowship with the Lord.
But, tainted when he listened to, Satan, who tempts me and you.

Lucifer, who fell from the top, has been rebelling since, nonstop,
Pulling souls to Hell with him, through the rebellion known as sin.
Rebellion’s been his best tool, for reducing man, down to a fool,
To turn a man’s heart and mind, against anything which is Divine.

Rebellion friend, is nothing new, and it affects, both me and you,
Satan sows rebellion in our life, to oppose the Son, Jesus Christ,
And through the power of his lie, all Truth, he leads men to deny,
To face death along with him; instead of forgiveness of their sin.

poem by Bob Gotti
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The Book of Urizen

PRELUDIUM TO THE [FIRST] BOOK OF URIZEN

Of the primeval Priests assum'd power,
When Eternals spurn'd back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals I hear your call gladly,
Dictate swift winged words, & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.

Chap: I

1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!
Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form'd this abominable void
This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? — Some said
"It is Urizen", But unknown, abstracted
Brooding secret, the dark power hid.

2. Times on times he divided, & measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness
Unseen, unknown! changes appeard
In his desolate mountains rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation

3. For he strove in battles dire
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness,
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.

4. Dark revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions;
An activity unknown and horrible;
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied

5. But Eternals beheld his vast forests
Age on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown
Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific abominable chaos

6. His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
Prepar'd: his ten thousands of thunders
Rang'd in gloom'd array stretch out across
The dread world, & the rolling of wheels
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds
In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains
Of hail & ice; voices of terror,
Are heard, like thunders of autumn,
When the cloud blazes over the harvests

Chap: II

1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses.
Death was not, but eternal life sprung

2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll'd
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam'd
That solitary one in Immensity

3. Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity,

Muster around the bleak desarts
Now fill'd with clouds, darkness & waters
That roll'd perplex'd labring & utter'd
Words articulate, bursting in thunders
That roll'd on the tops of his mountains

4: From the depths of dark solitude. From
The eternal abode in my holiness,
Hidden set apart in my stern counsels
Reserv'd for the days of futurity,
I have sought for a joy without pain,

For a solid without fluctuation
Why will you die O Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?

5 First I fought with the fire; consum'd
Inwards, into a deep world within:
A void immense, wild dark & deep,
Where nothing was: Natures wide womb

And self balanc'd stretch'd o'er the void
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
Bound; but condensing, in torrents
They fall & fall; strong I repell'd
The vast waves, & arose on the waters
A wide world of solid obstruction

7. Lo! I unfold my darkness: and on
This rock, place with strong hand the Book
Of eternal brass, written in my solitude.

8. Laws of peace, of love, of unity:
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness.
Let each chuse one habitation:
His ancient infinite mansion:
One command, one joy one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure
One King, one God, one Law.

Chap: III

1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness; his hand
On the rock of eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage siez'd the strong

2. Rage, fury, intense indignation
In cataracts of fire blood & gall
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke:
And enormous forms of energy;
All the seven deadly sins of the soul

In living creations appear'd
In the flames of eternal fury.

3. Sund'ring, dark'ning, thund'ring!
Rent away with a terrible crash
Eternity roll'd wide apart

Wide asunder rolling
Mountainous all around
Departing; departing; departing:
Leaving ruinous fragments of life
Hanging frowning cliffs & all between
An ocean of voidness unfathomable.

4. The roaring fires ran o'er the heav'ns
In whirlwinds & cataracts of blood
And o'er the dark desarts of Urizen
Fires pour thro' the void on all sides
On Urizens self-begotten armies.

5. But no light from the fires. all was darkness
In the flames of Eternal fury

8. And Los round the dark globe of Urizen,
Kept watch for Eternals to confine,
The obscure separation alone;
For Eternity stood wide apart,

As the stars are apart from the earth

9. Los wept howling around the dark Demon:
And cursing his lot; for in anguish,

Urizen was rent from his side;
And a fathomless void for his feet;
And intense fires for his dwelling.

10. But Urizen laid in a stony sleep
Unorganiz'd, rent from Eternity

11. The Eternals said: What is this? Death
Urizen is a clod of clay.

12: Los howld in a dismal stupor,
Groaning! gnashing! groaning!
Till the wrenching apart was healed

13: But the wrenching of Urizen heal'd not
Cold, featureless, flesh or clay,
Rifted with direful changes
He lay in a dreamless night

14: Till Los rouz'd his fires, affrighted
At the formless unmeasurable death.

Chap: IV[a]

1: Los smitten with astonishment
Frightend at the hurtling bones

2: And at the surging sulphureous
Perturbed Immortal mad raging

3: In whirlwinds & pitch & nitre
Round the furious limbs of Los

4: And Los formed nets & gins
And threw the nets round about

5: He watch'd in shuddring fear
The dark changes & bound every change
With rivets of iron & brass;

6. And these were the changes of Urizen.

Chap: IV[b]

1. Ages on ages roll'd over him!
In stony sleep ages roll'd over him!
Like a dark waste stretching chang'able
By earthquakes riv'n, belching sullen fires
On ages roll'd ages in ghastly

Sick torment; around him in whirlwinds
Of darkness the eternal Prophet howl'd
Beating still on his rivets of iron
Pouring sodor of iron; dividing
The horrible night into watches.

2. And Urizen (so his eternal name)
His prolific delight obscurd more & more
In dark secresy hiding in surgeing
Sulphureous fluid his phantasies.
The Eternal Prophet heavd the dark bellows,
And turn'd restless the tongs; and the hammer
Incessant beat; forging chains new & new
Numb'ring with links. hours, days & years

3. The eternal mind bounded began to roll
Eddies of wrath ceaseless round & round,
And the sulphureous foam surgeing thick
Settled, a lake, bright, & shining clear:
White as the snow on the mountains cold.

4. Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity!
In chains of the mind locked up,
Like fetters of ice shrinking together
Disorganiz'd, rent from Eternity,
Los beat on his fetters of iron;
And heated his furnaces & pour'd
Iron sodor and sodor of brass

5. Restless turnd the immortal inchain'd
Heaving dolorous! anguish'd! unbearable
Till a roof shaggy wild inclos'd
In an orb, his fountain of thought.

6. In a horrible dreamful slumber;
Like the linked infernal chain;
A vast Spine writh'd in torment
Upon the winds; shooting pain'd
Ribs, like a bending cavern
And bones of solidness, froze
Over all his nerves of joy.
And a first Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.

7. From the caverns of his jointed Spine,
Down sunk with fright a red
Round globe hot burning deep
Deep down into the Abyss:

Panting: Conglobing, Trembling
Shooting out ten thousand branches
Around his solid bones.
And a second Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.

8. In harrowing fear rolling round;
His nervous brain shot branches
Round the branches of his heart.
On high into two little orbs
And fixed in two little caves
Hiding carefully from the wind,
His Eyes beheld the deep,
And a third Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.

9. The pangs of hope began,
In heavy pain striving, struggling.
Two Ears in close volutions.
From beneath his orbs of vision
Shot spiring out and petrified
As they grew. And a fourth Age passed
And a state of dismal woe.

10. In ghastly torment sick;
Hanging upon the wind;

Two Nostrils bent down to the deep.
And a fifth Age passed over;
And a state of dismal woe.

11. In ghastly torment sick;
Within his ribs bloated round,
A craving Hungry Cavern;
Thence arose his channeld Throat,
And like a red flame a Tongue
Of thirst & of hunger appeard.
And a sixth Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.

12. Enraged & stifled with torment
He threw his right Arm to the north
His left Arm to the south
Shooting out in anguish deep,
And his Feet stampd the nether Abyss
In trembling & howling & dismay.
And a seventh Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.

Chap: V

I. In terrors Los shrunk from his task:
His great hammer fell from his hand:
His fires beheld, and sickening,
Hid their strong limbs in smoke.
For with noises ruinous loud;
With hurtlings & clashings & groans
The Immortal endur'd his chains,
Tho' bound in a deadly sleep.

2. All the myriads of Eternity:
All the wisdom & joy of life:
Roll like a sea around him,
Except what his little orbs
Of sight by degrees unfold.

3. And now his eternal life
Like a dream was obliterated

6. Los wept obscur'd with mourning:
His bosom earthquak'd with sighs;
He saw Urizen deadly black,
In his chains bound, & Pity began,

Thus the Eternal Prophet was divided
Before the death-image of Urizen
For in changeable clouds and darkness
In a winterly night beneath,
The Abyss of Los stretch'd immense:
And now seen, now obscur'd, to the eyes
Of Eternals, the visions remote
Of the dark seperation appear'd.
As glasses discover Worlds
In the endless Abyss of space,
So the expanding eyes of Immortals
Beheld the dark visions of Los,
And the globe of life blood trembling.

9. All Eternity shudderd at sight
Of the first female now separate
Pale as a cloud of snow
Waving before the face of Los

10. Wonder, awe, fear, astonishment,
Petrify the eternal myriads;
At the first female form now separate

11. "Spread a Tent, with strong curtains around them
"Let cords & stakes bind in the Void
That Eternals may no more behold them"

12. They began to weave curtains of darkness
They erected large pillars round the Void
With golden hooks fastend in the pillars
With infinite labour the Eternals
A woof wove, and called it Science

Chap: VI

1. But Los saw the Female & pitied
He embrac'd her, she wept, she refus'd
In perverse and cruel delight
She fled from his arms, yet he followd

2. Eternity shudder'd when they saw,
Man begetting his likeness,
On his own divided image.

3. A time passed over, the Eternals
Began to erect the tent;
When Enitharmon sick,
Felt a Worm within her womb.

4. Yet helpless it lay like a Worm
In the trembling womb
To be moulded into existence

5. All day the worm lay on her bosom
All night within her womb
The worm lay till it grew to a serpent
With dolorous hissings & poisons
Round Enitharmons loins folding,

6. Coild within Enitharmons womb
The serpent grew casting its scales,
With sharp pangs the hissings began
To change to a grating cry,
Many sorrows and dismal throes,
Many forms of fish, bird & beast,
Brought forth an Infant form
Where was a worm before.

7. The Eternals their tent finished
Alarm'd with these gloomy visions
When Enitharmon groaning
Produc'd a man Child to the light.

8. A shriek ran thro' Eternity:
And a paralytic stroke;
At the birth of the Human shadow.

9. Delving earth in his resistless way;
Howling, the Child with fierce flames
Issu'd from Enitharmon.

10. The Eternals, closed the tent
They beat down the stakes the cords

Stretch'd for a work of eternity;
No more Los beheld Eternity.

11. In his hands he siez'd the infant
He bathed him in springs of sorrow
He gave him to Enitharmon.

Chap: VII

1. They named the child Orc, he grew
Fed with milk of Enitharmon

2. Los awoke her; O sorrow & pain!
A tight'ning girdle grew,
Around his bosom. In sobbings
He burst the girdle in twain,
But still another girdle
Opressd his bosom, In sobbings
Again he burst it. Again
Another girdle succeeds
The girdle was form'd by day;
By night was burst in twain.

3. These falling down on the rock
Into an iron Chain
In each other link by link lock'd

4. They took Orc to the top of a mountain.
O how Enitharmon wept!
They chain'd his young limbs to the rock
With the Chain of Jealousy
Beneath Urizens deathful shadow

5. The dead heard the voice of the child
And began to awake from sleep
All things. heard the voice of the child
And began to awake to life.

6. And Urizen craving with hunger
Stung with the odours of Nature
Explor'd his dens around

7. He form'd a line & a plummet
To divide the Abyss beneath.
He form'd a dividing rule:

8. He formed scales to weigh;
He formed massy weights;
He formed a brazen quadrant;

He formed golden compasses
And began to explore the Abyss
And he planted a garden of fruits

9. But Los encircled Enitharmon
With fires of Prophecy
From the sight of Urizen & Orc.

10. And she bore an enormous race

Chap: VIII

1. Urizen explor'd his dens
Mountain, moor, & wilderness,
With a globe of fire lighting his journey
A fearful journey, annoy'd
By cruel enormities: forms

Of life on his forsaken mountains

2. And his world teemd vast enormities
Frightning; faithless; fawning
Portions of life; similitudes
Of a foot, or a hand, or a head
Or a heart, or an eye, they swam mischevous
Dread terrors! delighting in blood

3. Most Urizen sicken'd to see
His eternal creations appear
Sons & daughters of sorrow on mountains
Weeping! wailing! first Thiriel appear'd
Astonish'd at his own existence
Like a man from a cloud born, & Utha
From the waters emerging, laments!
Grodna rent the deep earth howling
Amaz'd! his heavens immense cracks
Like the ground parch'd with heat; then Fuzon
Flam'd out! first begotten, last born.
All his eternal sons in like manner
His daughters from green herbs & cattle
From monsters, & worms of the pit.

4. He in darkness clos'd, view'd all his race,
And his soul sicken'd! he curs'd
Both sons & daughters; for he saw
That no flesh nor spirit could keep
His iron laws one moment.

5. For he saw that life liv'd upon death

The Ox in the slaughter house moans
The Dog at the wintry door
And he wept, & he called it Pity
And his tears flowed down on the winds

6. Cold he wander'd on high, over their cities
In weeping & pain & woe!
And where-ever he wanderd in sorrows
Upon the aged heavens
A cold shadow follow'd behind him
Like a spiders web, moist, cold, & dim
Drawing out from his sorrowing soul
The dungeon-like heaven dividing.
Where ever the footsteps of Urizen
Walk'd over the cities in sorrow.

7. Till a Web dark & cold, throughout all
The tormented element stretch'd
From the sorrows of Urizens soul
And the Web is a Female in embrio
None could break the Web, no wings of fire.

8. So twisted the cords, & so knotted
The meshes: twisted like to the human brain

9. And all calld it, The Net of Religion

Chap: IX

1. Then the Inhabitants of those Cities:
Felt their Nerves change into Marrow
And hardening Bones began
In swift diseases and torments,
In throbbings & shootings & grindings
Thro' all the coasts; till weaken'd
The Senses inward rush'd shrinking,
Beneath the dark net of infection.

2. Till the shrunken eyes clouded over
BDiscernd not the woven hipocrisy
But the streaky slime in their heavens
Brought together by narrowing perceptions
Appeard transparent air; for their eyes
Grew small like the eyes of a man
And in reptile forms shrinking together
Of seven feet stature they remaind

3. Six days they shrunk up from existence
And on the seventh day they rested
And they bless'd the seventh day, in sick hope:
And forgot their eternal life

4. And their thirty cities divided
In form of a human heart
No more could they rise at will
In the infinite void, but bound down
To earth by their narrowing perceptions

They lived a period of years
Then left a noisom body
To the jaws of devouring darkness

5. And their children wept, & built
Tombs in the desolate places,
And form'd laws of prudence, and call'd them
The eternal laws of God

6. And the thirty cities remaind
Surrounded by salt floods, now call'd
Africa: its name was then Egypt.

7. The remaining sons of Urizen
Beheld their brethren shrink together
Beneath the Net of Urizen;
Perswasion was in vain;
For the ears of the inhabitants,
Were wither'd, & deafen'd, & cold:
And their eyes could not discern,
Their brethren of other cities.

8. So Fuzon call'd all together
The remaining children of Urizen:
And they left the pendulous earth:
They called it Egypt, & left it.

9. And the salt ocean rolled englob'd

The End of the [first] book of Urizen

poem by William Blake (1794)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Day of Judgement

Day of judgement, day of wonders!
Hark! the trumpet's awful sound,
Louder than a thousand thunders,
Shakes the vast creation round!
How the summons will the sinner's heart confound.

See the Judge, our nature wearing,
Cloth'd in majesty divine!
You who long for his appearing
Then shall say, "This God is mine!"
Gracious Saviour, own me in that day for thine!

At his call, the dead awaken,
Rise to life from earth and sea:
All the pow'rs of nature shaken
By his looks prepare to flee:
Careless sinner, what will then become of thee?

Horrors past imagination
Will surprise your trembling heart,
When you hear your condemnation,
"Hence, accursed wretch, depart!
"Thou with Satan and his angels have thy part!"

Satan, who now tries to please you,
Lest you timely warning take,
When that word is past, will seize you,
Plunge you in the burning lake:
Think, poor sinner, thy eternal all's at stake.

But to those who have confessed,
Lov'd and serv'd the Lord below,
He will say, "Come near, ye blessed,
"See the kingdom I bestow;
You for ever shall my love and glory know."

Under sorrows and reproaches,
May this thought your courage raise
Swiftly God's great day approaches,
Sighs shall then be chang'd to praise:
We shall triumph when the world is in a blaze.

poem by John Newton
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Book of Los

CHAP I

1: Eno aged Mother,
Who the chariot of Leutha guides,
Since the day of thunders in old time

2: Sitting beneath the eternal Oak
Trembled and shook the stedfast Earth
And thus her speech broke forth.

3: O Times remote!
When Love & joy were adoration:
And none impure were deem’d.
Not Eyeless Covet
Nor Thin-lip’d Envy
Nor Bristled Wrath
Nor Curled Wantonness

4: But Covet was poured full:
Envy fed with fat of lambs:
Wrath with lions gore:
Wantonness lulld to sleep
With the virgins lute,
Or sated with her love.

5: Till Covet broke his locks & bars,
And slept with open doors:
Envy sung at the rich mans feast:
Wrath was follow’d up and down
By a little ewe lamb
And Wantoness on his own true love
Begot a giant race:

6: Raging furious the flames of desire
Ran thro' heaven & earth, living flames
Intelligent, organiz’d: arm’d
With destruction & plagues. In the midst
The Eternal Prophet bound in a chain
Compell'd to watch Urizens shadow

7: Rag'd with curses & sparkles of fury
Round the flames roll as Los hurls his chains
Mounting up from his fury, condens’d
Rolling round & round, mounting on high
Into vacuum: into non-entity.
Where nothing was! dash'd wide apart
His feet stamp the eternal fierce-raging
Rivers of wide flame; they roll round
And round on all sides making their way
Into darkness and shadowy obscurity

8: Wide apart stood the fires: Los remain’d
In the void between fire and fire.
In trembling and horror they beheld him
They stood wide apart, driv’n by his hands
And his feet which the nether abyss
Stamp’d in fury and hot indignation

9: But no light from the fires all was
Darkness round Los: heat was not; for bound up
Into fiery spheres from his fury
The gigantic flames trembled and hid

10: Coldness, darkness, obstruction, a Solid
Without fluctuation, hard as adamant
Black as marble of Egypt; impenetrable
Bound in the fierce raging Immortal.
And the seperated fires froze in
A vast solid without fluctuation,
Bound in his expanding clear senses

CHAP II

1: The Immortal stood frozen amidst
The vast rock of eternity; times
And times; a night of vast durance:
Impatient, stifled, stiffend, hardned.

2: Till impatience no longer could bear
The hard bondage, rent: rent, the vast solid
With a crash from immense to immense

3: Crack’d across into numberless fragments
The Prophetic wrath, strug’ling for vent
Hurls apart, stamping furious to dust
And crumbling with bursting sobs; heaves
The black marble on high into fragments

4: Hurl’d apart on all sides, as a falling
Rock: the innumerable fragments away
Fell asunder; and horrible vacuum
Beneath him & on all sides round.

5: Falling, falling! Los fell & fell
Sunk precipitant heavy down down
Times on times, night on night, day on day
Truth has bounds. Error none: falling, falling:
Years on years, and ages on ages
Still he fell thro' the void, still a void
Found for falling day & night without end.
For tho’ day or night was not; their spaces
Were measur’d by his incessant whirls
In the horrid vacuity bottomless.

6: The Immortal revolving; indignant
First in wrath threw his limbs, like the babe
New born into our world: wrath subsided
And contemplative thoughts first arose
Then aloft his head rear’d in the Abyss
And his downward-borne fall. Chang’d oblique

7: Many ages of groans: till there grew
Branchy forms. organizing the Human
Into finite inflexible organs.

8: Till in process from falling he bore
Sidelong on the purple air, wafting
The weak breeze in efforts o’erwearied

9: Incessant the falling Mind labour’d
Organizing itself: till the Vacuum
Became element, pliant to rise,
Or to fall, or to swim, or to fly:
With ease searching the dire vacuity

CHAP III

1: The Lungs heave incessant, dull and heavy
For as yet were all other parts formless
Shiv’ring: clinging around like a cloud
Dim & glutinous as the white Polypus
Driv’n by waves & englob’d on the tide.

2: And the unformed part crav’d repose
Sleep began: the Lungs heave on the wave
Weary overweigh’d, sinking beneath
In a stifling black fluid he woke

3: He arose on the waters, but soon
Heavy falling his organs like roots
Shooting out from the seed, shot beneath,
And a vast world of waters around him
In furious torrents began.

4: Then he sunk, & around his spent Lungs
Began intricate pipes that drew in
The spawn of the waters. Outbranching
An immense Fibrous form, stretching out
Thro' the bottoms of immensity raging.

5: He rose on the floods: then he smote
The wild deep with his terrible wrath,
Seperating the heavy and thin.

6: Down the heavy sunk; cleaving around
To the fragments of solid: up rose
The thin, flowing round the fierce fires
That glow’d furious in the expanse.

CHAP IV

1: Then Light first began; from the fires
Beams, conducted by fluid so pure.
Flow’d around the Immense: Los beheld
Forthwith writhing upon the dark void
The Back bone of Urizen appear
Hurtling upon the wind
Like a serpent! like an iron chain
Whirling about in the Deep.

2: Upfolding his Fibres together
To a Form of impregnable strength
Los astonish’d and terrified, built
Furnaces; he formed an Anvil
A Hammer of adamant then began
The binding of Urizen day and night

3: Circling round the dark Demon, with howlings
Dismay & sharp blightings; the Prophet
Of Eternity beat on his iron links

4: And first from those infinite fires
The light that flow’d down on the winds
He siez’d; beating incessant, condensing
The subtil particles in an Orb.

5: Roaring indignant the bright sparks
Endur’d the vast Hammer; but unwearied
Los beat on the Anvil; till glorious
An immense Orb of fire he fram’d

6: Oft he quench’d it beneath in the Deeps
Then survey’d the all bright mass. Again
Siezing fires from the terrific Orbs
He heated the round Globe, then beat,
While roaring his Furnaces endur’d
The chain’d Orb in their infinite wombs

7: Nine ages completed their circles
When Los heated the glowing mass, casting
It down into the Deeps: the Deeps fled
Away in redounding smoke; the Sun
Stood self-balanc’d. And Los smild with joy.
He the vast Spine of Urizen siez’d
And bound down to the glowing illusion

8: But no light, for the Deep fled away
On all sides, and left an unform’d
Dark vacuity: here Urizen lay
In fierce torments on his glowing bed

9: Till his Brain in a rock, & his Heart
In a fleshy slough formed four rivers
Obscuring the immense Orb of fire
Flowing down into night: till a Form
Was completed, a Human Illusion
In darkness and deep clouds involvd.

poem by William Blake (1795)
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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God Is Real

God is real, but you don’t believe, as Satan wants to only deceive,
For Satan is real and so is Hell, his future state, not just for a spell,
Forever in the fire’s where he will be, in those flames for all eternity,
Where fires are never quenched, as Satan will be eternally benched.

All those who Satan shall deceive, judgment too, they shall receive,
And this because of their unbelief, to finish in a place with no relief;
Yes, God is a God of Love, but, must be true to what is spoken of,
Word’s recorded within His Word, Truths, I’m sure that you’ve heard.

For God sent His Only Son to die, to provide salvation to you and I,
To save us from sin’s dreaded curse; the judgment of, will be worse,
And Satan, God’s eternal enemy, only wants to deceive you and me,
For knowing his end, his only desire, is to see you in the lake of fire.

That curse began with Adam and Eve, as Satan slithered to deceive,
So to turn their trust away from God, with his cunning deceptive nod,
“God did not say” he uttered to Eve, so his words she would believe,
When she was deceived Paradise, became cursed with sin and strife.

But, God sent to the world His Son, to provide salvation to everyone,
To offer in place of sin and strife, for all, through Jesus, Eternal Life;
But, this Truth you can only conceive, when in God, you truly believe,
And He brings you into His Family, to live with Him now and eternally.

poem by Bob Gotti
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The Book of Ahania

CHAP: 1

1. Fuzon, on a chariot iron-wing’d,
On spiked flames rose; his hot visage
Flam’d furious; sparkles his hair & beard
Shot down his wide bosom and shoulders.
On clouds of smoke rages his chariot,
And his right hand burns red in its cloud,
Moulding into a vast globe his wrath
As the thunder-stone is moulded,
Son of Urizen’s silent burnings.

2. ‘Shall we worship this Demon of smoke,’
Said Fuzon, ‘this abstract non-entity,
This cloudy God seated on waters,
Now seen, now obscur’d, King of Sorrow?’

3. So he spoke, in a fiery flame,
On Urizen frowning indignant,
The Globe of wrath shaking on high.
Roaring with fury, he threw
The howling Globe; burning it flew,
Length’ning into a hungry beam. Swiftly

4. Oppos’d to the exulting flam’d beam
the broad Disk of Urizen uphav’d
Across the Void many a mile.

5. It was forg’d in mills where the winter
Beats incessant; ten winters the disk
Unremitting endur’d the cold hammer.

6. But the strong arm that sent it remember’d
The sounding beam; laughing it tore through
That beaten mass, keeping its direction,
The cold loins of Urizen dividing.

7. Dire shriek’d his invisible Lust.
Deep groan’d Urizen! Stretching his awful hand,
Ahania (so name his parted soul)
He seiz’d on his mountains of Jealousy.
He groan’d, anguish’d, & called her Sin,
Kissing her and weeping over her;
Then hid her in darkness, in silence,
Jealous tho’ she was invisible.

8. She fell down, a faint shadow wand’ring
In chaos and circling dark Urizen,
As the moon, anguish’d, circles the earth:
Hopeless! Abhorr’d! a death-shadow,
Unseen, unbodied, unknown,
The mother of Pestilence.

9. But the fiery beam of Fuzon
Was a pillar of fire to Egypt,
Five hundred years wand’ring on earth,
Till Los seiz’d it and beat in a mass
With the body of the sun.

CHAP: II

1. But the forehead of Urizen gathering,
And his eyes pale with anguish, his lips
Blue & changing, in tears and bitter
Contrition he prepar’d his Bow,

2. Form’d of Ribs, that in his dark solitude
When obscur’d in his forests fell monsters
Arose. For his dire Contemplations
Rush’d down like floods from his mountains,
In torrents of mud settling thick,
With Eggs of unnatural production
Forthwith hatching; some howl’d on his hills,
Some in vales, some aloft flew in air.

3. Of these, an enormous dread Serpent,
Scaled and poisonous horned,
Approach’d Urizen even to his knees
As he sat on his dark rooted Oak.

4. With his horns he push’d furious.
Great the conflict & Great the jealousy
In cold poisons; but Urizen smote him.

5. First he poison’d the rocks with his blood;
Then polish’d his ribs, and his sinews
Dried; laid them apart till winter;
Then a Bow black prepar’d; on this Bow
A poisoned rock plac’d in silence.
He utter’d these words to the Bow:

6. ‘O Bow of the clouds of secrecy,
O nerve of that lust form’d monster!
Send this rock swift, invisible thro’
The black clouds, on the bosom of Fuzon.’

7. So saying, in torment of his wounds,
He bent the enormous ribs slowly:
A circle of darkness! Then fixed
The sinew in its rest; then the Rock,
Poisonous source, plac’d with art, lifting difficult
Its weighty bulk; silent the rock lay,

8. While Fuzon, his tigers unloosing,
Thought Urizen slain by his wrath.
‘I am God,’ said he, ‘eldest of things!’

9. Sudden sings the rock; swift & invisible
On Fuzon flew; enter’d his bosom.
His beautiful visage, his tresses
That gave light to the mornings of heaven
Were smitten with darkenss, deform’d
And outstretch’d on the edge of the forest.

10. But the rock fell upon the Earth,
Mount Sinai in Arabia.

CHAP: III

1. The Globe shook; and Urizen, seated
On black clouds, his sore wound anointed.
The ointment flow’d down on the void
Miz’d with blood – here the snake gets her poison.

2. With difficulty & great pain Urizen
Lifted on high the dead corse;
On his shoulders he bore it to where
A Tree hung over the Immensity.

3. For when Urizen shrunk away
From Eternals, he sat on a rock
Barren, a rock which himself
From redounding fancies had petrified.
Many tears fell on the rock,
Many sparks of vegetation.
Soon shot the pained root
Of Mystery under his heel.
It grew a thick tree; he wrote
In silence his book of iron;
Till the horrid plant, bending its boughs,
Grew to roots when it felt the earth
And again sprung to many a tree.

4. Amaz’d started Urizen! When
He beheld himself compassed round
And high roofed over with trees.
He arose, but the stems stood so thick
He with difficulty and great pain
Brought his Books, all but the Book
Of iron, form the dismal shade.

5. The Tree still grows over the Void,
Enrooting itself all around,
An endless labyrinth of woe!

6. The corse of his first begotten
on the accursed Tree of Mystery
On the topmost stem of this Tree
Urizen nail’d Fuzon’s corse.

CHAP: IV

1. Forth flew the arrows of pestilence
Round the pale living Corse on the tree;

2. For in Urizen’s slumbers of abstraction
In the infinite ages of Eternity,
When his Nerves of joy melted and flow’d
A white Lake on the dark blue air,
In perturb’d pain and dismal torment
Now stretching out, now swift conglobing,

3. Effluvia vapor’d above
In noxious clouds; these hover’d thick
Over the disorganiz’d Immortal,
Till petrific pain scruf’d o’er the Lakes
As the bones of man, solid & dark.

4. The clouds of disease hover’d wide
Around the Immortal in torment,
Perching around the hurtling bones,
Disease on disease, shape on shape,
Winged, screaming in blood & torment.

5. The Eternal Prophet beat on his anvils,
Enrag’d in the desolate darkness;
he forg’d nets of iron around
And Los threw them around the bones.

6. The shapes, screaming, flutter’d vain;
Some combin’d into muscles & glands,
Some organs for craving and lust;
Most remain’d on the tormented void,
Urizen’s army of horrors.

7. Round the pale living Corse on the Tree
Forty years flew the arrows of pestilence.

8. Wailing and terror and woe
Ran thro’ all his dismal world;
Forty yyears all his sons & daughters
Felt their skulls harden; then Asia
Arose in the pendulous deep.

9. They reptilize upon the Earth.

10. Fuzon groan’d on the Tree.

CHAP: V

1. The lamenting voice of Ahania,
Weeping upon the void
And round the Tree of Fuzon:
Distant in solitary night
Her voice was heard , but no form
Had she; but her tears from clouds
Eternal fell round the Tree;

2. And the voice cried: ‘Ah, Urizen! Love!
Flower of morning! I weep on the verge
Of Non-entity; how wide the Abyss
Between Ahania and thee!

3. ‘I lie on the verge of the deep,
I see thy dark clouds ascend,
I see thy black forests and floods,
A horrible waste to my eyes!

4. ‘Weeping I walk over rocks,
Over dens & thro’ valleys of death.
Why didst thou despise Ahania,
To cast me from thy bright presence
Into the World of Loneness?

5. ‘I cannot touch his hand,
Nor weep on his knees, nor hear
his voice & bow, nor see his eyes
And joy, nor hear his footsteps and
My heart leap at the lovely sound!
I cannot kiss the place
Whereon his bright feet have trod,
But I wander on the rocks
With hard necessity.

6. ‘Where is my golden palace?
Where my ivory bed?
Where the joy of my morning hour?
Where the sons of eternity singing

7. ‘To awake bright Urizen, my king,
To arise to the mountain sport,
To the bliss of eternal valleys;

8. ‘To awake my king in the morn
To embrace Ahania’s joy
On the bredth of his open bosom,
From my soft cloud of dew to fall
In showers of life on his harvests?

9. ‘When he gave my happy soul
To the sons of eternal joy;
When he took the daughters of life
into my chambers of love;

10. When I found babes of bless on my beds,
And bosoms of mild in my chambers
Fill’d with eternal seed,
O! eternal births sung round Ahania
In interchange sweet of their joys.

11. “Swell’d with ripeness & fat with fatness,
Bursting on winds my odors,
My ripe figs and rich pomegranates
In infant joy at thy feet,
O Urizen, sported and sang.

12. ‘Then thou with thy lap full of seed,
With thy hand full of generous fire,
Walked forth form the clouds of morning,
On the virgins of springing joy,
On the human soul to cast
The seed of eternal science.

13. ‘The sweat poured down thy temples;
To Ahania return’d in evening
The moisture awoke to birth
My mother’s-joys, sleeping in bliss.

14. ‘But now, alone, over rocks, mountains,
Cast out form thy lovely bosom.
Cruel jealousy, selfish fear,
self-destroying: how can delight
Renew in these chains of darkness,
Where bones of beasts are strown
On the bleak and snowy mountains,
Where bones form the birth are buried
Before they see the light?’

poem by William Blake
Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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En.Citatepedia®.ro

Night the First

Related quotes

Book the First

Book the Second

The Book of Urizen: Chapter V

The Book of Urizen: Chapter II

The Book of Urizen: Chapter III

The Invocation

A Prophecy

Preludium

The Song of Los

America, A Prophecy

Preludium to Europe

To End In Reproof

Preludium

Wickedness Is Everywhere

Rebellion

The Book of Urizen

The Day of Judgement

The Book of Los

God Is Real

The Book of Ahania

En.Citatepedia^®.ro