all was darkness

In the flames of Eternal fury

6. In fierce anguish & quenchless flames

20   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;

30   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,

40   The obscure separation alone;

For Eternity stood wide apart,

PLATE 6

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[.]

10  Urizen is a clod of clay.

PLATE 7

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.

PLATE 8

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

10   The dark changes & bound every change

With rivets of iron & brass;

6. And these were the changes of Urizen.

PLATE 10

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

10   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

20   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

30   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

40   Over all his nerves of joy.

And a first Age passed over,

And a state of dismal woe.

PLATE II

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.

10   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,

20   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;

PLATE 13

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.

10   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

20   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:

30   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

40   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;

50   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

PLATE 15

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

10   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.

PLATE 18

8. The globe of life blood trembled

Branching out into roots;

Fibrous, 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 deathly face

9. All Eternity shudderd at sight

10   Of the first female now separate

Pale as a cloud of snow

Waving before the face of Los

10.