The Book of Urizen: Chapter 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
poem by William Blake
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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
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.
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
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.
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
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
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 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
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Book of Urizen: Chapter 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
Discernd 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.
poem by William Blake
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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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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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 (excerpts)
Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos'd, 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.
Times on times he divided and measur'd
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear'd
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation.
For he strove in battles dire,
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent and element,
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.
Dark, revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions:
An activity unknown and horrible,
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied.
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.
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; and the rolling of wheels,
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds,
In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains
Of hail and ice; voices of terror
Are heard, like thunders of autumn
When the cloud blazes over the harvests
poem by William Blake
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The Book of Urizen: Chapter 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
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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Sons And Daughters
There's a place in the city they call the Archway
Where we rented three rooms for a dollar a day
and I worked semi-skilled at the capstans for years
And my wife was a good woman but the love disappeared
Sons and Daughters, Daughters and Sons
When a marriage goes down they're the loneliest ones
Sons and Daughters, Daughters and Sons
How I hope they can cope with the damage I've done
I found me a band, I went out on tour
So the kids wouldn't know I was with them no more
When they said, "Where's me dad?" She'd say, "He's a star!"
Oh if only stars knew what fools they all are.
Sons and Daughters, Daughters and Sons
When a marriage goes down they're the loneliest ones
Sons and Daughters, Daughters and Sons
How I hope they can cope with the damage I've done
I got a new contract, I got a new life
No more capstans for me and I've got a new wife
Sometimes she gets angry, says she wants a family
Then that nightmare returns like a ghost haunting me
Sons and Daughters, Daughters and Sons
When a marriage breaks up you're the loneliest ones
Sons and Daughters, Daughters and Sons
How I hope you all cope with the damage we done
song performed by by Ian Hunter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sons & Daughters
(ian hunter)
Theres a place in the city they call the archway
Where we rented three rooms for a dollar a day
And I worked semi-skilled at the capstans for years
And my wife was a good woman but the love disappeared
Sons and daughters, daughters and sons
When a marriage goes down theyre the loneliest ones
Sons and daughters, daughters and sons
How I hope they can cope with the damage Ive done
I found me a band, I went out on tour
So the kids wouldnt know I was with them no more
When they said, wheres me dad? shed say, hes a star!
Oh if only stars knew what fools they all are.
Sons and daughters, daughters and sons
When a marriage goes down theyre the loneliest ones
Sons and daughters, daughters and sons
How I hope they can cope with the damage Ive done
I got a new contract, I got a new life
No more capstans for me and Ive got a new wife
Sometimes she gets angry, says she wants a family
Then that nightmare returns like a ghost haunting me
Sons and daughters, daughters and sons
When a marriage breaks up youre the loneliest ones
Sons and daughters, daughters and sons
How I hope you all cope with the damage we done
song performed by by Ian Hunter
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Genesis BK XVIII
(ll. 1082-1089) And there was also in that tribe another son of
Lamech, called Tubal Cain, a smith skilled in his craft. He was
the first of all men on the earth to fashion tools of husbandry;
and far and wide the city-dwelling sons of men made use of bronze
and iron.
(ll. 1090-1103) Then to his two beloved wives, Adah and Zillah,
Lamech rehearsed a tale of shame: "I have struck down a kinsman
unto death! I have defiled my hands with the blood of Cain! I
smote down Enoch's father, slayer of Abel, and poured his blood
upon the ground. Full well I know that for that mortal deed
shall come God's seven-fold vengeance. With fearful torment
shall my deed of death and murder be requited, when I go hence."
(ll. 1104-1111) Then another son was born to Adam in Abel's
stead; and his name was Seth. He was a righteous son and
blessed, a solace to his parents, his father and mother, Adam and
Eve. And he filled the place of Abel in the world. Then Adam
spake, the first of men:
(ll. 1111-1116) "The eternal God of victory, the Lord of life,
hath vouchsafed me another son in place of my beloved whom Cain
slew. So our Lord hath stilled the sorrow of my heart. To Him
be thanks!"
(ll. 1117-1127) Now, when Adam begat another son to be his heir,
that sturdy man had lived an hundred and thirty winters of this
life in the world. The writings tell us that Adam increased his
tribe on earth, begetting sons and daughters eight hundred years.
And all the years of Adam were nine hundred and thirty winters,
and he died.
(ll. 1128-1142) And Seth succeeded Adam: at his father's death
the well-loved son possessed the treasure, and took himself a
wife. And Seth lived an hundred and five winters in the world
and increased his tribe, begetting sons and daughters. Enos was
first-born of the sons of Seth; and he was first of all the sons
of men to call upon the name of God since Adam, first a living
spirit, set foot on the green earth. Seth prospered, eight
hundred and seven winters begetting sons and daughters. And all
the years of Seth were nine hundred and twelve winters, and he
died.
(ll. 1143-1154) And after he went hence, and the earth received
the body of seed-bearing Seth, Enos was warden of the heritage.
Dear was he unto God! He lived for ninety winters in the world,
and begat children. And Cainan was first-born of the sons of
Enos. Eight hundred and fifteen winters the man of wisdom lived,
at peace with God, begetting sons and daughters. And all the
years of Enos were nine hundred and five winters, and he died.
(ll. 1155-1166) And after Enos Cainan ruled the tribe as lord and
leader. He lived seventy winters, and begat a son. An heir was
born unto his house, and his name was Mahalaleel. Eight hundred
and forty winters Cainan lived, and increased his tribe. And all
the years of the son of Enos were nine hundred and ten winters,
and he died, and his appointed days beneath the heavens were
fulfilled.
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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The Dark Belongs to the Feral Ones
A lone assistant, an all-night stand
Somebody's daughters and somebody's sons
Flash of a blade behind a door
The dark belongs to the feral ones
Mayhem & menace, muggings & fear
Somebody's daughters and somebody's sons
Drugs and litter and fights, and beer
The dark belongs to the feral ones
Boots that stamp on a victim's face
Somebody's daughters and somebody's sons
Is it the fault of blood, or place?
The dark belongs to the feral ones
Gym-slip bride in her council flat
Somebody's daughters and somebody 's sons
She's the local hoodies' welcome mat
The dark belongs to the feral ones
Speed and jellies and hash and smack
Somebody's daughters and somebody's sons
Dealers in playgrounds pushing crack
The dark belongs to the feral ones
Gangs, graffiti and poxed-up sex
Somebody's daughters and somebody's sons
Smash society..clear its decks
The dark belongs to the feral ones
poem by Sheena Blackhall
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The Book of Urizen: Chapter 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
poem by William Blake
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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We Salute You Gallant Sons And Daughters Of The Soil
Gallant sons and daughters of the soil, hail heros, we salute you
for the tremendous and outrageous job you did in restoration of the lost glory and hope, FREEDOM...
We salute you gallant sons and daughters of the soil for putting
your lives at risk and the sacrifise
you made in restoring our legacy,
from our fore fathers.
We salute you gallant sons and daughters of the soils, today we
are enjoying the fruits of your sacrifise and dedication of your
lives just to restore the legacy
heritage and freedom which we
enjoy today....
Freedom was born out of bloodshed of the gallant sons and daughters of the soil, freedom was
born out of the armed struggle, we
salute you gallant sons and daughters of the soil..
We salute you gallant sons and daughters of the soil, thank you
for restoring the glory, heritage
and legacy which had been robbed from us! !
Hail gallant sons and daughters
of the soil, they exchanged freedom with the blood which
the spilt in the process of restoring the lost prestige and glory, heritage..
We salute you gallant sons and daughters of the soil for breaking
down the iron york from our necks granting us solace, you did
all this out of love and loyalty.
We salute you gallant sons and daughters of the soil for the enduarance, dedication you made
in bringing freedom and the lost
heritage, through the wire and many challenges you met, but you
risked your lives to bring freedom..
Today we enjoy the fruits of the
armed struggle which brought freedom, revolution completed
its course we are enjoying the fruits of the armed struggle
we salute you gallant sons and daughters of the soil may your
soul rest in peace
dedication to the gallant sons and
daughters of the soil of zimbabwe who lost their lives in the process of fighting for freedom..
poem by Donald Kuutsi
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Long Journey Home
written in memory of my Aunt Rose Mary from her point of view
A long journey home
It is from birth to death
From my first infant scream
To my sighing last breath
In between is a life
Filled with lessons I did learn
As the years did pass
And the seasons did turn
A life of joys and sorrows
Laughter and tears
Life lessons I've
Shared with my daughters
Oh what a wonderful
Life it has been
Shared with parents, brothers,
Daughters, and grandchildren
Cry your tears of sorrow
But be joyful some
For me, because I've finished
A long journey home
poem by Steph N. Janusz
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Today... 'Abba
'Abba, Father', Jesus said, 'Take this cup from me'
whilst praying in the garden of Gethsemane.
'I know that all things are possible for You
and that there is nothing that You cannot do.'
'Yet not what I will but what You will, ' He said
as in deep anguish great drops of blood He bled.
Then He went on to complete salvations plan
agreed by the Godhead before time began.
'Abba, Father, ' like Jesus we too can cry
as we pour out our soul to the Lord on high.
For the sons and daughters of our God are we
and never more in slavery shall we be.
The Spirit of Christ is dwelling in our heart
and causes all the fear and dread to depart.
For our Lord Jesus drained the bitter cup dry
when He bowed His head upon the cross to die.
Abba Father, the Spirit has testified
that I am the child for whom He has died.
An heir of God and co-heir with Jesus Christ
sharing in His suffering and sacrifice.
No more an orphan for the Father I know
I'm in His family where life's riches flow.
Led by the Spirit I gaze into His face
as God's love floods into my soul by His grace.
We are sons and daughters of the living God
and we walk the same pathway that Jesus trod.
All saved by His grace and purchased with His blood
and trusting in the promises of our God.
(see also the additional information in the Poet's notes box)
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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Out In The Cold
The day fell down, the air got cold
I walked out in the street
Daydreamed for a mil e or two
Staring at my feet
Like a workin boy, out of luck
Fallin through the cracks
Night rolled in, I turned back home
A hard wind at my back
Im out in the cold (out in the cold)
Body and soul (out in the cold)
Th eres nowhere to go (out in the cold)
Im out in the cold (out in the cold)
Well I woke up
My brain was stunned
I could come around
I reached out to grab my keys
Tumbled to the ground
I thought of you
Starry eyed
I wondered where we stand
Did I just fall from your arms
Down into your hands
Im out in the cold (out in the cold)
Body and soul (out in the cold)
Theres nowhere to go (out in the cold)
Im out in the cold (out in the cold)
Im out
Standin in a doorway
Im out
Walkin around
Hands in my pockets
Im out in the cold (out in the cold)
Body and soul (out in the cold)
Theres nowhere to go (out in the cold)
Im out in the cold (o ut in the cold)
song performed by by Tom Petty
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Unknown Dream234
here and there is where i went up and around and back down again into hell and out again it spat me upto the high heavens cold and hot and warm and lost all over again the island of lost dreams lose your self and never be found again go to where souls never leave from from there down to hell again and all; around the cosmos a dark abyss eternal lonliness in a dark corner of the universe ur spirit wanders and wanders until it comes to where u realize where u are again at the starting point of a journey in which one wants to lose himself to all forces and be free and cross into starlight vale go and fly eat to yonder hills west to which kithop mountains blue and big and twice as long from north to south and back again after a while u stop and shoot for the darkness and go to where u never been before a new dream forms and it forms as u go on ur eternal journey of sleep forever.
poem by Dorian Suchelle
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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