A vision from afar!
Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels:
Ah vision from afar! Ah rebel form that rent the ancient
Heavens; Eternal Viper self-renew’d, rolling in clouds
I see thee in thick clouds and darkness on America’s shore.
Writhing in pangs of abhorred birth; red flames the crest rebellious
And eyes of death; the harlot womb oft opened in vain
Heaves in enormous circles, now the times are return’d upon thee,
20 Devourer of thy parent, now thy unutterable torment renews.
Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels!
Ah terrible birth! a young one bursting! where is the weeping mouth?
And where the mothers milk? instead those ever-hissing jaws
And parched lips drop with fresh gore; now roll thou in the clouds
Thy mother lays her length outstretch’d upon the shore beneath.
Sound! sound! my loud war-trumpets & alarm my thirteen Angels!
Loud howls the eternal Wolf: the eternal Lion lashes his tail!
PLATE 10
Thus wept the Angel voice & as he wept the terrible blasts
Of trumpets, blew a loud alarm across the Atlantic deep.
No trumpets answer; no reply of clarions or of fifes,
Silent the Colonies remain and refuse the loud alarm.
On those vast shady hills between America & Albions shore;
Now barr’d out by the Atlantic sea: call’d Atlantean hills:
Because from their bright summits you may pass to the Golden world
An ancient palace, archetype of mighty Emperies,
Rears its immortal pinnacles, built in the forest of God
10 By Ariston the king of beauty for his stolen bride,
Here on their magic seats the thirteen Angels sat perturb’d
For clouds from the Atlantic hover o’er the solemn roof.
PLATE 11
Fiery the Angels rose, & as they rose deep thunder roll’d
Around their shores: indignant burning with the fires of Orc
And Bostons Angel cried aloud as they flew thro’ the dark night.
He cried: Why trembles honesty and like a murderer,
Why seeks he refuge from the frowns of his immortal station!
Must the generous tremble & leave his joy, to the idle: to the pestilence!
That mock him? who commanded this? what God? what Angel!
To keep the gen’rous from experience till the ungenerous
Are unrestraind performers of the energies of nature;
10 Till pity is become a trade, and generosity a science,
That men get rich by, & the sandy desart is giv’n to the strong
What God is he, writes laws of peace, & clothes him in a tempest
What pitying Angel lusts for tears, and fans himself with sighs
What crawling villain preaches abstinence & wraps himself
In fat of lambs? no more I follow, no more obedience pay.
PLATE 12
So cried he, rending off his robe & throwing down his scepter.
In sight of Albions Guardian, and all the thirteen Angels
Rent off their robes to the hungry wind, & threw their golden scepters
Down on the land of America, indignant they descended
Headlong from out their heav’nly heights, descending swift as fires
Over the land; naked & flaming are their lineaments seen
In the deep gloom, by Washington & Paine & Warren they stood
And the flame folded roaring fierce within the pitchy night
Before the Demon red, who burnt towards America,
10 In black smoke thunders and loud winds rejoicing in its terror
Breaking in smoky wreaths from the wild deep, & gath’ring thick
In flames as of a furnace on the land from North to South
PLATE 13
What time the thirteen Governors that England sent convene
In Bernards house; the flames coverd the land, they rouze they cry
Shaking their mental chains they rush in fury to the sea
To quench their anguish; at the feet of Washington down fall’n
They grovel on the sand and writhing lie, while all
The British soldiers thro’ the thirteen states sent up a howl
Of anguish: threw their swords & muskets to the earth & ran
From their encampments and dark castles seeking where to hide
From the grim flames; and from the visions of Orc: in sight
10 Of Albions Angel; who enrag’d his secret clouds open’d
From north to south, and burnt outstretchd on wings of wrath cov’ring
The eastern sky, spreading his awful wings across the heavens;
Beneath him roll’d his num’rous hosts, all Albions Angels camp’d
Darkend the Atlantic mountains & their trumpets shook the valleys
Arm’d with diseases of the earth to cast upon the Abyss,
Their numbers forty millions, must’ring in the eastern sky.
PLATE 14
In the flames stood & view’d the armies drawn out in the sky
Washington Franklin Paine & Warren Allen Gates & Lee:
And heard the voice of Albions Angel give the thunderous command:
His plagues obedient to his voice flew forth out of their clouds
Falling upon America, as a storm to cut them off
As a blight cuts the tender corn when it begins to appear.
Dark is the heaven above, & cold & hard the earth beneath;
And as a plague wind fill’d with insects cuts off man & beast;
And as a sea o’erwhelms a land in the day of an earthquake:
10 Fury! rage! madness! in a wind swept through America
And the red flames of Orc that folded roaring fierce around
The angry shores, and the fierce rushing of th’inhabitants together:
The citizens of New-York close their books & lock their chests;
The mariners of Boston drop their anchors and unlade;
The scribe of Pensylvania casts his pen upon the earth;
The builder of Virginia throws his hammer down in fear.
Then had America been lost, o’erwhelm’d by the Atlantic,
And Earth had lost another portion of the infinite,
But all rush together in the night in wrath and raging fire
20 The red fires rag’d! the plagues recoil’d! then rolld they
back with fury
PLATE 15
On Albions Angels; then the Pestilence began in streaks of red
Across the limbs of Albions Guardian, the spotted plague smote Bristols
And the Leprosy Londons Spirit, sickening all their bands:
The millions sent up a howl of anguish and threw off their hammerd mail,
And cast their swords & spears to earth, & stood a naked multitude.
Albions Guardian writhed in torment on the eastern sky
Pale quivring toward the brain his glimmering eyes, teeth chattering
Howling & shuddering his legs quivering; convuls’d each muscle & sinew
Sick’ning lay Londons Guardian, and the ancient miter’d York
10 Their heads on snowy hills, their ensigns sick’ning in the sky
The plagues creep on the burning winds driven by flames of Orc,
And by the fierce Americans rushing together in the night
Driven o’er the Guardians of Ireland and Scotland and Wales
They spotted with plagues forsook the frontiers & their banners seard
With fires of hell, deform their ancient heavens with shame & woe.
Hid in his caves the Bard of Albion felt the enormous plagues.
And a cowl of flesh grew o’er his head & scales on his back & ribs;
And rough with black scales all his Angels fright their ancient heavens
The doors of marriage are open, and the Priests in rustling scales
20 Rush into reptile coverts, hiding from the fires of Orc,
That play around the golden roofs in wreaths of fierce desire,
Leaving the females naked and glowing with the lusts of youth
For the female spirits of the dead pining in bonds of religion;
Run from their fetters reddening, & in long drawn arches sitting:
They feel the nerves of youth renew, and desires of ancient times,
Over their pale limbs as a vine when the tender grape appears
PLATE 16
Over the hills, the vales, the cities, rage the red flames fierce;
The Heavens melted from north to south; and Urizen who sat
Above all heavens in thunders wrap’d, emerg’d his leprous head
From out his holy shrine, his tears in deluge piteous
Falling into the deep sublime! flag’d with grey-brow’d snows
And thunderous visages, his jealous wings wav’d over the deep;
Weeping in dismal howling woe he dark descended howling
Around the smitten bands, clothed in tears & trembling shudd’ring cold.
His stored snows he poured forth, and his icy magazines
10 He open’d on the deep, and on the Atlantic sea white shiv’ring.
Leprous his limbs, all over white, and hoary was his visage.
Weeping in dismal howlings before the stern Americans
Hiding the Demon red with clouds & cold mists from the earth;
Till Angels & weak men twelve years should govern o’er the strong:
And then their end should come, when France reciev’d the Demons light.
Stiff shudderings shook the heav’nly thrones! France Spain & Italy,
In terror view’d the bands of Albion, and the ancient Guardians
Fainting upon the elements, smitten with their own plagues
They slow advance to shut the five gates of their lawbuilt heaven
20 Filled with blasting fancies and with mildews of despair
With fierce disease and lust, unable to stem the fires of Orc;
But the five gates were consum’d, & their bolts and hinges melted
And the fierce flames burnt round the heavens, & round the abodes of men
FINIS
[CANCELLED PLATES]
PLATE [b]
Reveal the dragon thro’ the human; coursing swift as fire
To the close hall of counsel, where his Angel form renews.
In a sweet vale shelter’d with cedars, that eternal stretch
Their unmov’d branches, stood the hall; built when the moon shot forth,
In that dread night when Urizen call’d the stars round his feet;
Then burst the center from its orb, and found a place beneath;
And Earth conglob’d, in narrow room, roll’d round its sulphur Sun.
To this deep valley situated by the flowing Thames;
Where George the third holds council. & his Lords & Commons meet:
10 Shut out from mortal sight the Angel came; the vale was dark
With clouds of smoke from the Atlantic, that in volumes roll’d
Between the mountains, dismal visions mope around the house.
On chairs of iron, canopied with mystic ornaments
Of life by magic power condens’d; infernal forms art-bound
The council sat; all rose before the aged apparition;
His snowy beard that streams like lambent flames down his wide breast
Wetting with tears, & his white garments cast a wintry light.
Then as arm’d clouds arise terrific round the northern drum;
The world is silent at the flapping of the folding banners;
20 So still terrors rent the house: as when the solemn globe
Launch’d to the unknown shore, while Sotha held the northern helm,
Till to that void it came & fell; so the dark house was rent,
The valley mov’d beneath; its shining pillars split in twain,
And its roofs crack across down falling on th’ Angelic seats.
PLATE [c]
[Then Albions Angel rose] resolv’d to the cove of armoury:
His shield that bound twelve demons & their cities in its orb,
He took down from its trembling pillar; from its cavern deep,
His helm was brought by Londons Guardian, & his thirsty spear
By the wise spirit of Londons river: silent stood the
King breathing [with flames/hoar frosts] damp mists:
And on his [shining] aged limbs they clasp’d the armour of terrible gold.
Infinite Londons awful spires cast a dreadful [gleam] cold
Even on rational things beneath, and from the palace walls
Around Saint James’s [glow the fires/till by the freeze]
chill & heavy, even to the city gate.
10 On the vast stone whose name is Truth he stood, his cloudy shield
Smote with his scepter, the scale bound orb loud howld;
th’ [eternal] ancie[nt] pillar
Trembling sunk, an earthquake roll’d along the mossy pile.
In glittring armour, swift as winds; intelligent as [flames] clouds;
Four winged heralds mount the furious blasts & blow their trumps
Gold, silver, brass & iron [ardors] clangors clamoring rend the shores.
Like white clouds rising from the deeps, his fifty-two armies
From the four cliffs of Albion rise, [glowing] mustering
around their Prince;
Angels of cities and of parishes and villages and families,
In armour as the nerves of wisdom, each his station holds.
20 In opposition dire, a warlike cloud the myriads stood
In the red air before the Demon; [seen even by mortal men:
Who call it Fancy, or shut the gates of sense & in their chambers,
Sleep like the dead.] But like a constellation ris’n and blazing
Over the rugged ocean; so the Angels of Albion hung
[Over the frowning shadow, like a King]
a frowning shadow, like an aged King in arms of gold,
Who wept over a den, in which his only son outstretch’d
By rebels hands was slain; his white beard wav’d in the wild wind.
On mountains & cliffs of snow the awful apparition hover’d;
30 And like the voices of religious dead, heard in the mountains:
When holy zeal scents the sweet valleys of ripe virgin bliss;
Such was the hollow voice that o’er [the red demon] America lamented.
[FRAGMENT]
As when a dream of Thiralatha flies the midnight hour:
In vain the dreamer grasps the joyful images, they fly
Seen in obscured traces in the Vale of Leutha, So
The British Colonies beneath the woful Princes fade.
And so the Princes fade from earth, scarce seen by souls of men
But tho’ obscur’d, this is the form of the Angelic land.
EUROPE
A PROPHECY
PLATE iii
Five windows light the cavern’d Man; thro’ one he breathes the air;
Thro’ one, hears music of the spheres; thro’ one, the eternal vine
Flourishes, that he may recieve the grapes; thro’ one can look.
And see small portions of the eternal world that ever groweth;
Thro’ one, himself pass out what time he please, but he will not;
For stolen joys are sweet, & bread eaten in secret pleasant.
So sang a Fairy mocking as he sat on a streak’d Tulip,
Thinking none saw him: when he ceas’d I started from the trees!
And caught him in my hat as boys knock down a butterfly
How know you this said I small Sir? where did you
10 learn this song
Seeing himself in my possession thus he answered me:
My master, I am yours. command me, for I must obey.
Then tell me, what is the material world, and is it dead?
He laughing answer’d: I will write a book on leaves of flowers,
If you will feed me on love-thoughts, & give me now and then
A cup of sparkling poetic fancies; so when I am tipsie,
I’ll sing to you to this soft lute; and shew you all alive
The world, when every particle of dust breathes forth its joy.
I took him home in my warm bosom: as we went along
Wild flowers I gatherd; & he shew’d me each eternal
20 flower:
He laugh’d aloud to see them whimper because they were pluck’d.
They hover’d round me like a cloud of incense: when I came
Into my parlour and sat down, and took my pen to write:
My Fairy sat upon the table, and dictated EUROPE.
PLATE 1
PRELUDIUM
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 travel!
Like the dark cloud disburdend 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!
10 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.
PLATE 2
Unwilling I look up to heaven! unwilling count the stars!
Sitting in fathomless abyss of my immortal shrine.
I sieze their burning power
And bring forth howling terrors, all devouring fiery kings.
Devouring & 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
10 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 & rolld her shady clouds
Into the secret place.
PLATE 3
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
10 That strong Urthona takes his rest,
And Urizen unloos’d from chains
Glows like a meteor in the distant north
Stretch forth your hands and strike the elemental strings!
Awake the thunders of the deep,
PLATE 4
The shrill winds wake!
Till all the sons of Urizen look out and envy Los:
Sieze 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.
10 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:
PLATE 6
Now comes the night of Enitharmons 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 Womans 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.
10 My weary eyelids draw towards the evening, my bliss is yet but new.
PLATE 8
Arise O Rintrah eldest born: second to none but Orc:
O lion Rintrah raise thy fury from thy forests black:
Bring Palamabron horned priest, skipping upon the
mountains:
And silent Elynittria the silver bowed queen:
Rintrah where hast thou hid thy bride:
Weeps she in desart shades?
Alas my Rintrah! bring the lovely jealous Ocalythron.
Arise my son: bring all thy brethren O thou king of fire.
Prince of the sun I see thee with thy innumerable race:
10 Thick as the summer stars:
But each ramping his golden mane shakes,
And thine eyes rejoice because of strength O Rintrah
furious king
PLATE 9
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 Albions Angel smitten with his own plagues fled
with his bands
The cloud bears hard on Albions shore:
10 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 Albions 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
strugling times.
PLATE 10
In thoughts perturb’d. they rose from the bright ruins silent following
The fiery King, who sought his ancient temple serpent-form’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 infinite 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
With 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
10 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 gates 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
20 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, enclos’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 covered with a stony roof,
Downward ’tis sunk beneath th’ attractive north, that
30 round the feet
A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave:
PLATE II
Albions 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.
PLATE 12
And the clouds & fires pale rolld round in the night of Enitharmon
Round Albions cliffs & Londons walls; still Enitharmon slept!
Rolling volumes of grey mist involve Churches, Palaces, Towers:
For Urizen unclaspd his Book! feeding his soul with pity
The youth of England hid in gloom curse the paind heavens; compell’d
Into the deadly night to see the form of Albions Angel
Their parents brought them forth & aged ignorance preaches canting,
On a vast rock, percievd 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
10 flames:
They saw the Serpent temple lifted above, shadowing the Island white:
They heard the voice of Albions Angel howling in flames of Orc,
Seeking the trump of the last doom
Above the rest the howl was heard from Westminster louder & 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
20 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 womans triumph)
Every house a den, every man bound; the shadows are filld
With spectres, 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
30 The citizens: in leaden gyves 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 Albions Guardian, his flesh consuming.
Howlings & hissings, shrieks & groans, & voices of despair
Arise around him in the cloudy
Heavens of Albion, Furious
PLATE 13
The red limb’d Angel siez’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 siez’d the Trump. & blow’d the enormous blast!
Yellow as leaves of Autumn the myriads of 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
10 And eighteen hundred years were fled
As if they had not been
She calld 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!
PLATE 14
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 mothers soul! I see thy lovely eagles round;
Thy golden wings are my delight, & thy flames of soft delusion.
Where is my lureing bird of Eden! Leutha silent love!
10 Leutha, the many colourd 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.
Floting upon the bosomd air:
With lineaments of gratified desire.
20 My Antamon the seven churches of Leutha seek thy love.
I hear the soft Oothoon in Enitharmons tents:
Why wilt thou give up womans 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 hoofd, & bind your horses black.
Orc! smile upon my children!
30 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 sport beneath the solemn moon
Waking the stars of Urizen with their immortal songs,
That nature felt thro’ all her pores the enormous revelry,
Till morning ope’d the eastern gate.
Then every one fled to his station. & Enitharmon wept.
But terrible Orc, when he beheld the morning in the east,
PLATE 15
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 reard in snaky thunders clad:
10 And with a cry that shook all nature to the utmost pole,
Call’d all his sons to the strife of blood.
FINIS
THE SONG OF LOS
PLATE 3
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 shudderd!
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.
10 Adam shudderd! 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 hipocrisy War
Against one another; so let them War on; slaves to the eternal Elements)
Noah shrunk, beneath the waters;
Abram fled in fires from Chaldea;
Moses beheld upon Mount Sinai forms of dark delusion:
To Trismegistus. Palamabron gave an abstract Law:
To Pythagoras Socrates & Plato.
20 Times rolled on o’er all the sons of Har, time after time
Orc on Mount Atlas howld, chain’d down with the Chain of Jealousy
Then Oothoon hoverd over Judah & Jerusalem
And Jesus heard her voice (a man of sorrows) he recievd
A Gospel from wretched Theotormon.
The human race began to wither, for the healthy built
Secluded places, fearing the joys of Love
And the disease’d only propagated:
So Antamon call’d up Leutha from her valleys of delight:
And to Mahomet a loose Bible gave.
30 But in the North, to Odin, Sotha gave a Code of War,
Because of Diralada thinking to reclaim his joy.
PLATE 4
These were the Churches: Hospitals: Castles: Palaces:
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
10 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
20 Of Asia; & on the desarts of Africa round the Fallen Angels
The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent
PLATE 6
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 of Orc.
And the Kings of Asia stood
And cried in bitterness of soul.
Shall not the King call for Famine from the heath?
10 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
20 Call for fires in the City
For heaps of smoking ruins,
In the night of prosperity & wantonness
To turn man from his path,
To restrain the child from the womb,
PLATE 7
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 from the gates of the Grave.
Urizen heard them cry!
10 And his shudd’ring waving wings
Went enormous above the red flames
Drawing clouds of despair thro’ the heavens
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;
20 For Adam, a mouldering skeleton
Lay bleach’d on the garden of Eden;
And Noah as white 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
30 Shrunk!
Forth from the dead dust rattling bones to bones
Join: shaking convuls’d the shivring 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,
40 On mountain, dale and plain.
The SONG of LOS is Ended.
Urizen Wept.
THE [FIRST] BOOK OF URIZEN
PLATE 2
PRELUDIUM TO THE [FIRST] BOOK OF URIZEN
Of the primeval Priests assum’d power,
When Eternals spurn’d back his religion;
And gave him 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.
PLATE 3
CHAP: I
1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!
Self-closed, 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
10 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;
20 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
30 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
40 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,
PLATE 4
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,
10 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
20 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;
30 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
40 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
PLATE 5
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
10 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.
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