Milton, the 1st Book, Prophetic Books

The prophetic books of William Blake, Milton — Book the first
Exported from Wikisource on 12/19/19
MILTON
BOOK THE FIRST
P. 3
DAUGHTERS of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poet's Song,
Record the journey of immortal Milton thro' your Realms
Of terror & mild moony lustre, in soft sexual delusions
Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer and repose
5⁠His burning thirst & freezing hunger! Come into my hand
By your mild power; descending down the Nerves of my right arm
From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine planted his Paradise,
And in it caus'd the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet form
10⁠In likeness of himself. Tell also of the False Tongue! vegetated
Beneath your land of shadows: of its sacrifices, and
Its offerings: even till Jesus, the image of the Invisible God,
Became its prey; a curse, an offering, and an atonement
For Death Eternal in the heavens of Albion, & before the Gates
15⁠Of Jerusalem his Emanation, in the heavens beneath Beulah.
Say first! what mov'd Milton, who walk'd about in Eternity
One hundred years, pond'ring the intricate mazes of Providence,
Unhappy tho' in heav'n, he obey'd, he murmur'd not, he was silent,
Viewing his Sixfold Emanation scatter'd thro' the deep
20⁠In torment: To go into the deep her to redeem & himself perish?
That cause at length mov'd Milton to this unexampled deed,
A Bard's prophetic Song! for sitting at eternal tables,
Terrific among the Sons of Albion, in chorus solemn & loud
A Bard broke forth: all sat attentive to the awful man.
25⁠Mark well my words! they are of your eternal salvation!
Three Classes are Created by the Hammer of Los, & Woven
P. 4 FROM Golgonooza the spiritual Four-fold London eternal,
In immense labours & sorrows, ever building, ever falling,
Thro' Albion's four Forests which overspread all the Earth
From London Stone to Blackheath east: to Hounslow west:
5⁠To Finchley north: to Norwood south: and the weights
Of Enitharmon's Loom play lulling cadences on the winds of Albion
From Caithness in the north, to Lizard-point & Dover in the south.
Loud sounds the hammer of Los, & loud his Bellows is heard
Before London to Hampstead's breadths & Highgate's heights, To
10⁠Stratford & old Bow, & across to the Gardens of Kensington
On Tyburn's Brook: loud groans Thames beneath the iron Forge
Of Rintrah & Palamabron, of Theotorm & Bromion, to forge the instruments
Of Harvest: The Plow & Harrow to pass over the Nations.
The Surrey hills glow like the clinkers of the furnace: Lambeth's Vale
15⁠ Where Jerusalem's foundations began; where they were laid in ruins,
Where they were laid in ruins from every Nation & Oak Groves rooted,
Dark gleams before the Furnace-mouth a heap of burning ashes.
When shall Jerusalem return & overspread all the Nations?
Return, return to Lambeth's Vale, O building of human souls!
20⁠ Thence stony Druid Temples overspread the Island white,
And thence from Jerusalem's ruins, from her walls of salvation
And praise, thro' the whole Earth were rear'd from Ireland
To Mexico & Peru west, & east to China & Japan: till Babel
The Spectre of Albion frown'd over the Nations in glory & war.
25⁠ All things begin & end in Albion's ancient Druid rocky shore:
But now the Starry Heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of Albion.
Loud sounds the Hammer of Los, loud turn the Wheels of Enitharmon:
Her Looms vibrate with soft affections, weaving the Web of Life
Out from the ashes of the Dead; Los lifts his iron Ladles
30⁠With molten ore: he heaves the iron cliffs in his rattling chains
From Hyde Park to the Alms-houses of Mile-end & old Bow.
Here the Three Classes of Mortal Men take their fix'd destinations,
And hence they overspread the Nations of the whole Earth & hence
The Web of Life is woven, & the tender sinews of life created,
35⁠And the three Classes of Men regulated by Los's Hammer, and woven
P. 5 BY Enitharmon's Looms & Spun beneath the Spindle of Tirzah.
The first, The Elect from before the foundation of the World:
The second, The Redeem'd: The Third, The Reprobate & form'd
To destruction from the mothers womb:. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . follow with me my plow.
5⁠Of the first class was Satan: with incomparable mildness;
His primitive tyrannical attempts on Los; with most endearing love
He soft intreated Los to give to him Palamabron's station.
For Palamabron return'd with labour wearied every evening:
Palamabron oft refus'd: and as often Satan offer'd
10⁠His service, till by repeated offers and repeated intreaties
Los gave to him the Harrow of the Almighty; alas, blamable
Palamabron fear'd to be angry lest Satan should accuse him of
Ingratitude, & Los believe the accusation thro' Satan's extreme
Mildness. Satan labour'd all day: it was a thousand years:
15⁠In the evening returning terrified, overlabour'd & astonish'd,
Embrac'd soft with a brother's tears Palamabron, who also wept.
Mark well my words! they are of your eternal salvation!
Next morning Palamabron rose: the horses of the Harrow
Were madden'd with tormenting fury, & the servants of the Harrow,
20⁠The Gnomes, accus'd Satan with indignation, fury and fire.
Then Palamabron, reddening like the Moon in an eclipse,
Spoke, saying: You know Satan's mildness and his self-imposition,
Seeming a brother, being a tyrant, even thinking himself a brother
While he is murdering the just; prophetic I behold
25⁠His future course thro' darkness and despair to eternal death.
But we must not be tyrants also: he hath assum'd my place
For one whole day, under pretence of pity and love to me!
My horses hath he madden'd! and my fellow servants injur'd!
How should he, he, know the duties of another? O foolish forbearance!
30⁠Would I had told Los all my heart! but patience, O my friends,
All may be well: silent remain, while I call Los and Satan.
Loud as the wind of Beulah that unroots the rocks & hills
Palamabron call'd: and Los & Satan came before him:
And Palamabron shew'd the horses & the servants. Satan wept,
35⁠And mildly cursing Palamabron, him accus'd of crimes
Himself had wrought. Los trembled: Satan's blandishments almost
Perswaded the Prophet of Eternity that Palamabron
Was Satan's enemy, & that the Gnomes, being Palamabron's friends,
Were leagued together against Satan thro' ancient enmity.
40⁠What could Los do? how could he judge, when Satan's self believ'd
That he had not oppressed the horses at the Harrow, nor the servants.
So Los said: Henceforth, Palamabron, let each his own station
Keep: nor in pity false, nor in officious brotherhood, where
None needs, be active. Mean time Palamabron's horses
45⁠Rag'd with thick flames redundant, & the Harrow madden'd with fury.
Trembling Palamabron stood, the strongest of Demons trembled:
Curbing his living creatures; many of the strongest Gnomes
They bit in their wild fury, who also madden'd like wildest beasts.
Mark well my words! they are of your eternal salvation!
P. 6 MEAN WHILE went Satan before Los accusing Palamabron:
Himself exculpating with mildest speech, for himself believ'd
That he had not oppress'd nor injur'd the refractory servants.
But Satan returning to his Mills (for Palamabron had serv'd
5⁠The Mills of Satan as the easier task) found all confusion:
And back return'd to Los, not fill'd with vengeance but with tears,
Himself convinc'd of Palamabron's turpitude. Los beheld
The servants of the Mills drunken with wine and dancing wild
With shouts and Palamabron's songs, rending the forests green
10⁠With ecchoing confusion, tho' the Sun was risen on high.
Then Los took off his left sandal, placing it on his head,
Signal of solemn mourning: when the servants of the Mills
Beheld the signal they in silence stood, tho' drunk with wine.
Los wept! But Rintrah also came, and Enitharmon on
15⁠His arm lean'd tremblingly, observing all these things.
And Los said: Ye Genii of the Mills! the Sun is on high,
Your labours call you: Palamabron is also in sad dilemma:
His horses are mad: his Harrow confounded: his companions enrag'd.
Mine is the fault! I should have remember'd that pity divides the soul,
20⁠And man, unmans: follow with me my Plow: this mournful day
Must be a blank in Nature: follow with me, and tomorrow again
Resume your labours, & this day shall be a mournful day.
Wildly they follow'd Los and Rintrah, & the Mills were silent:
They mourn'd all day, this mournful day of Satan & Palamabron:
25⁠And all the Elect & all the Redeem'd mourn'd one toward another
Upon the mountains of Albion among the cliffs of the Dead.
They Plow'd in tears! incessant pour'd Jehovah's rain & Molech's
Thick fires, contending with the rain, thunder'd above rolling
Terrible over their heads; Satan wept over Palamabron.
30⁠Theotormon & Bromion contended on the side of Satan,
Pitying his youth and beauty, trembling at eternal death.
Michael contended against Satan in the rolling thunder:
Thulloh the friend of Satan also reprov'd him: faint their reproof.
But Rintrah who is of the reprobate: of those form'd to destruction:
35⁠In indignation for Satan's soft dissimulation of friendship
Flam'd above all the plowed furrows, angry, red and furious:
Till Michael sat down in the furrow, weary, dissolv'd in tears.
Satan, who drave the team beside him, stood angry & red:
He smote Thulloh & slew him, & he stood terrible over Michael
40⁠Urging him to arise: he wept. Enitharmon saw his tears.
But Los hid Thulloh from her sight, lest she should die of grief.
She wept: she trembled: she kissed Satan: she wept over Michael:
She form'd a Space for Satan & Michael & for the poor infected.
Trembling she wept over the Space, & clos'd it with a tender Moon.
45⁠Los secret buried Thulloh, weeping disconsolate over the moony Space.
But Palamabron called down a Great Solemn Assembly,
That he who will not defend Truth, may be compelled to
Defend a Lie, that he may be snared & caught & taken.
P. 7 AND all Eden descended into Palamabron's tent,
Among Albion's Druids & Bards in the caves beneath Albion's
Death Couch, in the caverns of death, in the corner of the Atlantic.
And in the midst of the Great Assembly Palamabron pray'd:
5⁠O God, protect me from my friends, that they have not power over me:
Thou hast giv'n me power to protect myself from my bitterest enemies.
Mark well my words! they are of your eternal salvation!
Then rose the Two Witnesses, Rintrah & Palamabron:
And Palamabron appeal'd to all Eden, and receiv'd
10⁠Judgment: and Lo! it fell on Rintrah and his rage,
Which now flam'd high & furious in Satan against Palamabron,
Till it became a proverb in Eden. Satan is among the Reprobate.
Los in his wrath curs'd heaven & earth, he rent up Nations,
Standing on Albion's rocks among high-rear'd Druid temples
15⁠Which reach the stars of heaven & stretch from pole to pole.
He displac'd continents, the oceans fled before his face:
He alter'd the poles of the world, east, west & north & south,
But he clos'd up Enitharmon from the sight of all these things.
For Satan flaming with Rintrah's fury hidden beneath his own mildness
20⁠Accus'd Palamabron before the Assembly of ingratitude, of malice:
He created Seven deadly Sins, drawing out his infernal scroll
Of Moral laws and cruel punishments upon the clouds of Jehovah,
To pervert the Divine voice in its entrance to the earth
With thunder of war & trumpet's sound, with armies of disease,
25⁠Punishments & deaths muster'd & number'd, Saying: I am God alone:
There is no other: let all obey my principles of moral individuality.
I have brought them from the uppermost, innermost recesses
Of my Eternal Mind: transgressors I will rend off for ever,
As now I rend this accursed Family from my covering.
30⁠Thus Satan rag'd amidst the Assembly, and his bosom grew
Opake against the Divine Vision: the paved terraces of
His bosom inwards shone with fires, but the stones, becoming opake,
Hid him from sight in an extreme blackness and darkness.
And there a World of deeper Ulro was open'd in the midst
35⁠Of the Assembly, in Satan's bosom, a vast unfathomable Abyss.
Astonishment held the Assembly in an awful silence: and tears
Fell down as dews of night, & a loud solemn universal groan
Was utter'd from the east & from the west & from the south
And from the north; and Satan stood opake, immeasurable,
40⁠Covering the east with solid blackness, round his hidden heart,
With thunders utter'd from his hidden wheels: accusing loud
The Divine Mercy for protecting Palamabron in his tent.
Rintrah rear'd up walls of rocks and pour'd rivers & moats
Of fire round the walls: columns of fire guard around
45⁠Between Satan and Palamabron in the terrible darkness.
And Satan not having the Science of Wrath, but only of Pity,
Rent them asunder, and wrath was left to wrath, & pity to pity.
He sunk down a dreadful Death, unlike the slumbers of Beulah.
The Separation was terrible: the Dead was repos'd on his Couch
50⁠Beneath the Couch of Albion, on the seven mou[n]tains of Rome,
In the whole place of the Covering Cherub, Rome, Babylon & Tyre.
His Spectre raging furious descended into its Space.
P. 9 HE set his face against Jerusalem to destroy the Eon of Albion.
But Los hid Enitharmon from the sight of all these things,
Upon the Thames whose lulling harmony repos'd her soul:
Where Beulah lovely terminates in rocky Albion:
5⁠Terminating in Hyde Park on Tyburn's awful brook.
And the Mills of Satan were separated into a moony Space
Among the rocks of Albion's Temples, and Satan's Druid sons
Offer the Human Victims throughout all the Earth, and Albion's
Dread Tomb, immortal on his Rock, overshadow'd the whole Earth:
10⁠Where Satan making to himself Laws from his own identity
Compell'd others to serve him in moral gratitude & submission,
Being call'd God: setting himself above all that is called God.
And all the Spectres of the Dead, calling themselves Sons of God,
In his Synagogues worship Satan under the Unutterable Name.
15⁠And it was enquir'd: Why in a Great Solemn Assembly
The Innocent should be condemn'd for the Guilty? Then an Eternal rose,
Saying: If the Guilty should be condemn'd he must be an Eternal Death,
And one must die for another throughout all Eternity.
Satan is fall'n from his station & never can be redeem'd,
20⁠But must be new Created continually moment by moment.
And therefore the Class of Satan shall be call'd the Elect, & those
Of Rintrah the Reprobate, & those of Palamabron the Redeem'd:
For he is redeem'd from Satan's Law, the wrath falling on Rintrah.
And therefore Palamabron dared not to call a solemn Assembly
25⁠Till Satan had assum'd Rintrah's wrath in the day of mourning,
In a feminine delusion of false pride self-deceiv'd.
So spake the Eternal, and confirm'd it with a thunderous oath.
But when Leutha (a Daughter of Beulah) beheld Satan's condemnation,
She down descended into the midst of the Great Solemn Assembly,
30⁠Offering herself a Ransom for Satan, taking on her his Sin.
Mark well my words! they are of your eternal salvation!
And Leutha stood glowing with varying colours immortal, heart-piercing
And lovely: & her moth-like elegance shone over the Assembly.
At length, standing upon the golden floor of Palamabron,
35⁠She spake: I am the Author of this Sin! by my suggestion
My Parent power Satan has committed this transgression.
I loved Palamabron & I sought to approach his Tent,
But beautiful Elynittria with her silver arrows repell'd me.
P. 10 FOR her light is terrible to me: I fade before her immortal beauty.
O wherefore doth a Dragon-form forth issue from my limbs
To seize her new born son? Ah me! the wretched Leutha!
This to prevent, entering the doors of Satan's brain night after night,
5⁠Like sweet perfumes I stupified the masculine perceptions
And kept only the feminine awake: hence rose his soft
Delusory love to Palamabron; admiration join'd with envy!
Cupidity unconquerable! my fault, when at noon of day
The Horses of Palamabron call'd for rest and pleasant death:
10⁠I sprang out of the breast of Satan, over the Harrow beaming
In all my beauty, that I might unloose the flaming steeds
As Elynittria used to do; but too well those living creatures
Knew that I was not Elynittria, and they brake the traces.
But me the servants of the Harrow saw not, but as a bow
15⁠Of varying colours on the hills; terribly rag'd the horses.
Satan astonish'd, and with power above his own controll,
Compell'd the Gnomes to curb the horses, & to throw banks of sand
Around the fiery flaming Harrow in labyrinthine forms,
And brooks between to intersect the meadows in their course.
20⁠The Harrow cast thick flames: Jehovah thunder'd above.
Chaos & ancient night fled from beneath the fiery Harrow:
The Harrow cast thick flames & orb'd us round in concave fire,
A Hell of our own making, see, its flames still gird me round!
Jehovah thunder'd above: Satan in pride of heart
25⁠Drove the fierce Harrow among the constellations of Jehovah,
Drawing a third part in the fires as stubble, north & south,
To devour Albion and Jerusalem, the Emanation of Albion,
Driving the Harrow in Pity's paths: 'twas then, with our dark fires
Which now gird round us (O eternal torment) I form'd the Serpent
30⁠Of precious stones & gold, turn'd poisons on the sultry wastes.
The Gnomes in all that day spar'd not; they curs'd Satan bitterly.
To do unkind things in kindness: with power arm'd to say
The most irritating things in the midst of tears and love:
These are the stings of the Serpent! thus did we by them, till thus
35⁠They in return retaliated, and the Living Creatures madden'd.
The Gnomes labour'd. I weeping hid in Satan's inmost brain.
But when the Gnomes refus'd to labour more, with blandishments
I came forth from the head of Satan: back the Gnomes recoil'd
And called me Sin, and for a sign portentous held me. Soon
40⁠Day sunk and Palamabron return'd, trembling I hid myself
In Satan's inmost Palace of his nervous fine wrought Brain:
For Elynittria met Satan with all her singing women,
Terrific in their joy & pouring wine of wildest power,
They gave Satan their wine, indignant at the burning wrath.
45⁠Wild with prophetic fury his former life became like a dream.
Cloth'd in the Serpent's folds, in selfish holiness demanding purity,
Being most impure, self-condemn'd to eternal tears, he drove
Me from his inmost Brain & the doors clos'd with thunder's sound.
O Divine Vision who didst create the Female, to repose
50⁠The Sleepers of Beulah, pity the repentant Leutha. My
P. 11 SICK Couch bears the dark shades of Eternal Death infolding
The Spectre of Satan: he furious refuses to repose in sleep:
I humbly bow in all my Sin before the Throne Divine.
Not so the Sick-one; Alas, what shall be done him to restore,
5⁠Who calls the Individual Law Holy, and despises the Saviour,
Glorying to involve Albion's Body in fires of eternal War?
Now Leutha ceas'd: tears flow'd: but the Divine Pity supported her.
All is my fault! We are the Spectre of Luvah, the murderer
Of Albion! O Vala! O Luvah! O Albion! O lovely Jerusalem!
10⁠The Sin was begun in Eternity and will not rest to Eternity,
Till two Eternitys meet together. Ah! lost! lost! lost! for ever!
So Leutha spoke. But when she saw that Enitharmon had
Created a New Space to protect Satan from punishment:
She fled to Enitharmon's Tent & hid herself. Loud raging
15⁠Thunder'd the Assembly dark & clouded, and they ratify'd
The kind decision of Enitharmon, & gave a Time to the Space,
Even Six Thousand years, and sent Lucifer for its Guard.
But Lucifer refus'd to die, & in pride he forsook his charge:
And they elected Molech, and when Molech was impatient
20⁠The Divine hand found the Two Limits: first of Opacity, then of Contraction.
Opacity was named Satan, Contraction was named Adam.
Triple Elohim came: Elohim wearied fainted: they elected Shaddai:
Shaddai angry, Pahad descended: Pahad terrified, they sent Jehovah,
And Jehovah was leprous; loud he call'd stretching his hand to Eternity.
25⁠For then the Body of Death was perfected in hypocritic holiness,
Around the Lamb, a Female Tabernacle woven in Cathedron's Looms.
He died as a Reprobate, he was Punish'd as a Transgressor:
Glory! Glory! Glory! to the Holy Lamb of God!
I touch the heavens as an instrument to glorify the Lord!
30⁠The Elect shall meet the Redeem'd on Albion's rocks they shall meet
Astonish'd at the Transgressor, in him beholding the Saviour.
And the Elect shall say to the Redeemed: We behold it is of Divine
Mercy alone, of Free Gift and Election that we live:
Our Virtues & Cruel Goodnesses have deserv'd Eternal Death,
35⁠Thus they weep upon the fatal Brook of Albion's River.
But Elynittria met Leutha in the place where she was hidden,
And threw aside her arrows, and laid down her sounding Bow:
She sooth'd her with soft words & brought her to Palamabron's bed.
In moments new created for delusion interwoven round about,
40⁠In dreams she bore the shadowy Spectre of Sleep & nam'd him Death:
In dreams she bore Rahab the mother of Tirzah & her sisters
In Lambeth's vales; in Cambridge & in Oxford, places of Thought,
Intricate labyrinths of Times and Spaces unknown, that Leutha lived
In Palamabron's Tent, and Oothoon was her charming guard.
45⁠The Bard Ceas'd. All consider'd and a loud resounding murmur
Continu'd round the Halls and much they question'd the immortal
Loud voic'd Bard, and many condemn'd the high toned Song,
Saying: Pity and Love are too venerable for the imputation
Of Guilt. Others said: If it is true, if the acts have been performed,
50⁠Let the Bard himself witness. Where hadst thou this terrible Song?
The Bard replied: I am Inspired! I know it is Truth! for I Sing
P. 12 ACCORDING to the inspiration of the Poetic Genius,
Who is the eternal all protecting Divine Humanity,
To whom be Glory & Power & Dominion Evermore. Amen.
Then there was great murmuring in the Heavens of Albion
5⁠Concerning Generation & the Vegetative power & concerning
The Lamb the Saviour. Albion trembled to Italy, Greece & Egypt
To Tartary & Hindostan & China & to Great America,
Shaking the roots & fast foundations of the Earth in doubtfulness:
The loud voic'd Bard terrify'd took refuge in Milton's Bosom.
10⁠Then Milton rose up from the heavens of Albion ardorous:
The whole Assembly wept prophetic, seeing in Milton's face
And in his lineaments divine the shades of Death and Ulro:
He took off the robe of the promise, & ungirded himself from the oath of God.
And Milton said: I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still
15⁠Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam: in pomp
Of warlike selfhood contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come to deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility; O when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come.
Tarry no longer, for my soul lies at the gates of death.
20⁠I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave:
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks:
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death:
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate
And I be seiz'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood.
25⁠The Lamb of God is seen thro' mists & shadows, hov'ring
Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim,
A disk of blood distant; & heav'ns & earths roll dark between.
What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation?
With the daughters of memory & not with the daughters of inspiration?
30⁠I in my Selfhood am that Satan. I am that Evil One!
He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells,
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.
And Milton said: I go to Eternal Death! Eternity shudder'd
For he took the outside course, among the graves of the dead,
35⁠A mournful shade. Eternity shudder'd at the image of eternal death.
Then on the verge of Beulah he beheld his own Shadow:
A mournful form double, hermaphroditic, male & female
In one wonderful body, and he enter'd into it
In direful pain for the dread shadow, twenty-seven fold
40⁠Reach'd to the depths of direst Hell, & thence to Albion's land:
Which is this earth of vegetation on which now I write.
The Seven Angels of the Presence wept over Milton's Shadow:
P. 14 AS when a man dreams, he reflects not that his body sleeps,
Else he would wake; so seem'd he entering his Shadow: but
With him the Spirits of the Seven Angels of the Presence
Entering, they gave him still perceptions of his Sleeping Body
5⁠Which now arose and walk'd with them in Eden, as an Eighth
Image Divine tho' darken'd, and tho' walking as one walks
In sleep: and the Seven comforted and supported him.
Like as a Polypus that vegetates beneath the deep,
They saw his Shadow vegetated underneath the Couch
10⁠Of death: for when he enter'd into his Shadow, Himself,
His real and immortal Self; was as appear'd to those
Who dwell in immortality, as One sleeping on a couch
Of gold: and those in immortality gave forth their Emanations
Like Females of sweet beauty, to guard round him & to feed
15⁠His lips with food of Eden in his cold and dim repose:
But to himself he seem'd a wanderer lost in dreary night.
Onwards his Shadow kept its course among the Spectres, call'd
Satan, but swift as lightning passing them, startled the shades
Of Hell beheld him in a trail of light as of a comet
20⁠That travels into Chaos: so Milton went guarded within.
The nature of infinity is this: That every thing has its
Own Vortex; and when once a traveller thro' Eternity
Has passed that Vortex, he perceives it roll backward behind
His path, into a globe itself infolding, like a sun,
25⁠Or like a moon, or like a universe of starry majesty,
While he keeps onwards in his wondrous journey on the earth,
Or like a human form, a friend with whom he liv'd benevolent.
As the eye of man views both the east & west encompassing
Its vortex: and the north & south, with all their starry host:
30⁠Also the rising sun & setting moon he views surrounding
His corn-fields and his valleys of five hundred acres square.
Thus is the earth one infinite plane, and not as apparent
To the weak traveller confin'd beneath the moony shade.
Thus is the heaven a vortex pass'd already, and the earth
35⁠A vortex not yet pass'd by the traveller thro' Eternity.
First Milton saw Albion upon the Rock of Ages,
Deadly pale outstretch'd and snowy cold, storm cover'd:
A Giant form of perfect beauty outstretch'd on the rock
In solemn death: the Sea of Time & Space thunder'd aloud
40⁠Against the rock, which was inwrapped with the weeds of death.
Hovering over the cold bosom, in its vortex Milton bent down
To the bosom of death: what was underneath soon seem'd above,
A cloudy heaven mingled with stormy seas in loudest ruin:
But as a wintry globe descends precipitant thro' Beulah bursting
45⁠With thunders loud and terrible: so Milton's shadow fell
Precipitant loud thund'ring into the Sea of Time & Space.
Then first I saw him in the Zenith as a falling star,
Descending perpendicular, swift as the swallow or swift:
And on my left foot falling on the tarsus, enter'd there,
50⁠But from my left foot a black cloud redounding spread over Europe.
Then Milton knew that the Three Heavens of Beulah were beheld
By him on earth in his bright pilgrimage of sixty years
P. 15 IN the three females whom his wives, & these three whom his daughters
Had represented and contain'd, that they might be resum'd
By giving up of Selfhood: & they distant view'd his journey
In their eternal spheres now Human, tho' their Bodies remain clos'd
5⁠In the dark Ulro till the Judgment: also Milton knew, they and
Himself was Human, tho' now wandering thro' Death's Vale,
In conflict with those Female forms, which in blood & jealousy
Surrounded him dividing & uniting without end or number.
He saw the Cruelties of Ulro, and he wrote them down
10⁠In iron tablets: and his Wives' & Daughters' names were these:
Rahab and Tirzah, & Milcah & Malah & Noah & Hoglah.
They sat rang'd round him as the rocks of Horeb round the land
Of Canaan: and they wrote in thunder, smoke and fire
His dictate; and his body was the Rock Sinai: that body,
15⁠Which was on earth born to corruption: & the six Females
Are Hor & Peor & Bashan & Abarim & Lebanon & Hermon,
Seven rocky masses terrible in the Desarts of Midian.
But Milton's Human Shadow continu'd journeying above
The rocky masses of The Mundane Shell; in the Lands
20⁠Of Edom & Aram & Moab & Midian & Amalek.
The Mundane Shell is a vast Concave Earth: an immense
Harden'd shadow of all things upon our Vegetated Earth,
Enlarg'd into dimension & deform'd into indefinite space,
In Twenty-seven Heavens and all their Hells; with Chaos
25⁠And Ancient Night; & Purgatory. It is a cavernous Earth
Of labyrinthine intricacy twenty-seven-folds of opakeness,
And finishes where the lark mounts; here Milton journeyed
In that Region call'd Midian, among the rocks of Horeb.
For travellers from Eternity, pass onward to Satan's seat,
30⁠But travellers to Eternity, pass inward to Golgonooza.
Los, the Vehicular terror, beheld him, & divine Enitharmon
Call'd all her daughters, Saying: Surely to unloose my bond
Is this Man come! Satan shall be unloos'd upon Albion!
Los heard in terror Enitharmon's words: in fibrous strength
35⁠His limbs shot forth like roots of trees against the forward path
Of Milton's journey. Urizen beheld the immortal Man.
P. 17 AND he also darken'd his brows: freezing dark rocks between
The footsteps, and infixing deep the feet in marble beds:
That Milton labour'd with his journey, & his feet bled sore
Upon the clay now chang'd to marble; also Urizen rose,
5⁠And met him on the shores of Albion, & by the streams of the brooks.
Silent they met, and silent strove among the streams of Arnon
Even to Mahanaim, when with cold hand Urizen stoop'd down
And took up water from the river Jordan: pouring on
To Milton's brain the icy fluid from his broad cold palm.
10⁠But Milton took of the red clay of Succoth, moulding it with care
Between his palms: and filling up the furrows of many years,
Beginning at the feet of Urizen, and on the bones
Creating new flesh on the Demon cold, and building him,
As with new clay, a Human form in the Valley of Beth Peor.
15⁠Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic.
One to the North, named Urthona: One to the South, named Urizen:
One to the East, named Luvah: One to the West, named Tharmas:
They are the Four Zoas that stood around the Throne Divine.
But when Luvah assum'd the World of Urizen to the South,
20⁠And Albion was slain upon his mountains & in his tent:
All fell towards the Center in dire ruin, sinking down.
And in the South remains a burning fire: in the East, a void:
In the West, a world of raging waters: in the North, a solid,
Unfathomable, without end. But in the midst of these
25⁠Is built eternally the Universe of Los and Enitharmon:
Towards which Milton went, but Urizen oppos'd his path.
The Man and Demon strove many periods. Rahab beheld,
Standing on Carmel: Rahab and Tirzah trembled to behold
The enormous strife, one giving life, the other giving death
30⁠To his adversary, and they sent forth all their sons & daughters
In all their beauty to entice Milton across the river.
The Twofold form Hermaphroditic, and the Double-sexed,
The Female-male & the Male-female, self-dividing stood
Before him in their beauty, & in cruelties of holiness:
35⁠Shining in darkness, glorious upon the deeps of Entuthon.
Saying: Come thou to Ephraim! behold the Kings of Canaan!
The Beautiful Amalekites, behold the fires of youth
Bound with the Chain of Jealousy by Los & Enitharmon!
The banks of Cam, cold learning's streams, London's dark frowning towers,
40⁠Lament upon the winds of Europe in Rephaim's Vale,
Because Ahania, rent apart into a desolate night,
Laments! & Enion wanders like a weeping inarticulate voice,
And Vala labours for her bread & water among the Furnaces.
Therefore bright Tirzah triumphs, putting on all beauty,
45⁠And all perfection, in her cruel sports among the Victims.
Come bring with thee Jerusalem with songs on the Grecian Lyre!
In Natural Religion: in experiments on Men.
Let her be Offer'd up to Holiness: Tirzah numbers her:
She numbers with her fingers every fibre ere it grow:
50⁠Where is the Lamb of God? where is the promise of his coming?
Her shadowy sisters form the bones, even the bones of Horeb,
Around the marrow: and the orbed scull around the brain:
His Images are born for War, for Sacrifice to Tirzah:
To Natural Religion! to Tirzah, the Daughter of Rahab the Holy:
55⁠She ties the knot of nervous fibres into a white brain!
She ties the knot of bloody veins into a red hot heart!
Within her bosom Albion lies embalm'd, never to awake.
Hand is become a rock: Sinai & Horeb is Hyle & Coban:
Scofield is bound in iron armour before Reuben's Gate:
60⁠She ties the knot of milky seed into two lovely Heavens,
P. 18 TWO yet but one; each in the other sweet reflected: these
Are our Three Heavens beneath the shades of Beulah, land of rest:
Come then to Ephraim & Manasseh, O beloved-one!
Come to my ivory palaces, O beloved of thy mother!
5⁠And let us bind thee in the bands of War & be thou King
Of Canaan and reign in Hazor where the Twelve Tribes meet.
So spoke they as in one voice: Silent Milton stood before
The darken'd Urizen; as the sculptor silent stands before
His forming image: he walks round it patient labouring.
10⁠Thus Milton stood forming bright Urizen, while his Mortal part
Sat frozen in the rock of Horeb: and his Redeemed portion,
Thus form'd the Clay of Urizen; but within that portion
His real Human walk'd above in power and majesty,
Tho' darken'd; and the Seven Angels of the Presence attended him.
15⁠O how can I with my gross tongue that cleaveth to the dust,
Tell of the Four-fold Man in starry numbers fitly order'd,
Or how can I with my cold hand of clay! But thou, O Lord,
Do with me as thou wilt! for I am nothing, and vanity
If thou chuse to elect a worm, it shall remove the mountains.
20⁠For that portion nam'd the Elect: the Spectrous body of Milton:
Redounding from my left foot into Los's Mundane space,
Brooded over his Body in Horeb against the Resurrection,
Preparing it for the Great Consummation: red the Cherub on Sinai
Glow'd: but in terrors folded round his clouds of blood.
25⁠Now Albion's sleeping Humanity began to turn upon his Couch,
Feeling the electric flame of Milton's awful precipitate descent.
Seest thou the little winged fly smaller than a grain of sand?
It has a heart like thee: a brain open to heaven & hell,
Withinside wondrous & expansive: its gates are not clos'd:
30⁠I hope thine are not: hence it clothes itself in rich array:
Hence thou art cloth'd with human beauty, O thou mortal man.
Seek not thy heavenly father then beyond the skies:
There Chaos dwells & ancient Night & Og & Anak old:
For every human heart has gates of brass & bars of adamant,
35⁠Which few dare unbar, because dread Og & Anak guard the gates
Terrific: and each mortal brain is wall'd and moated round
Within: and Og & Anak watch here: here is the Seat
Of Satan in its Webs: for in brain and heart and loins
Gates open behind Satan's Seat to the City of Golgonooza,
40⁠Which is the spiritual fourfold London, in the loins of Albion.
Thus Milton fell thro' Albion's heart, travelling outside of Humanity
Beyond the Stars in Chaos in Caverns of the Mundane Shell.
But many of the Eternals rose up from eternal tables,
Drunk with the Spirit, burning round the Couch of death they stood,
45⁠Looking down into Beulah: wrathful, fill'd with rage:
They rend the heavens round the Watchers in a fiery circle,
And round the Shadowy Eighth: the Eight close up the Couch
Into a tabernacle, and flee with cries down to the Deeps:
Where Los opens his three wide gates, surrounded by raging fires:
50⁠They soon find their own place & join the Watchers of the Ulro.
Los saw them and a cold pale horror cover'd o'er his limbs.
Pondering he knew that Rintrah & Palamabron might depart:
Even as Reuben & as Gad: gave up himself to tears.
He sat down on his anvil-stock: and leaned upon the trough,
55⁠Looking into the black water, mingling it with tears.
At last when desperation almost tore his heart in twain
He recollected an old Prophecy in Eden recorded,
And often sung to the loud harp at the immortal feasts:
That Milton of the Land of Albion should up ascend
60⁠Forwards from Ulro from the Vale of Felpham, and set free
Orc from his Chain of Jealousy: he started at the thought,
P. 19 AND down descended into Udan-Adan; it was night:
And Satan sat sleeping upon his Couch in Udan-Adan:
His Spectre slept, his Shadow woke; when one sleeps th'other wakes.
But Milton entering my Foot, I saw in the nether
5⁠Regions of the Imagination; also all men on Earth
And all in Heaven, saw in the nether regions of the Imagination,
In Ulro beneath Beulah, the vast breach of Milton's descent.
But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
10⁠Reveal the secrets of Eternity: for more extensive
Than any other earthly things, are Man's earthly lineaments.
And all this Vegetable World appeared on my left Foot
As a bright sandal form'd immortal of precious stones & gold:
I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro' Eternity.
15⁠There is in Eden a sweet River of milk & liquid pearl
Nam'd Ololon: on whose mild banks dwelt those who Milton drove
Down into Ulro: and they wept in long resounding songs
For seven days of eternity, and the river's living banks,
The mountains wail'd! & every plant that grew, in solemn sighs lamented.
20⁠When Luvah's bulls each morning drag the sulphur Sun out of the Deep
Harness'd with starry harness, black & shining, kept by black slaves
That work all night at the starry harness: Strong and vigorous
They drag the unwilling Orb: at this time all the Family
Of Eden heard the lamentation and Providence began.
25⁠But when the clarions of day sounded they drown'd the lamentation,
And when night came all was silent in Ololon; & all refused to lament
In the still night fearing lest they should others molest.
Seven mornings Los heard them, as the poor bird within the shell
Hears its impatient parent bird; and Enitharmon heard them:
30⁠But saw them not, for the blue Mundane Shell inclos'd them in.
And they lamented that they had in wrath & fury & fire
Driven Milton into the Ulro; for now they knew too late
That it was Milton the Awakener: they had not heard the Bard,
Whose Song call'd Milton to the attempt; and Los heard these laments.
35⁠He heard them call in prayer all the Divine Family;
And he beheld the Cloud of Milton stretching over Europe.
But all the Family Divine collected as Four Suns
In the Four Points of heaven, East, West & North & South,
Enlarging and enlarging till their Disks approach'd each other:
40⁠And when they touch'd closed together Southward in One Sun
Over Ololon: and as One Man, who weeps over his brother
In a dark tomb, so all the Family Divine wept over Ololon.
Saying: Milton goes to Eternal Death! so saying they groan'd in spirit
And were troubled! and again the Divine Family groan'd in spirit!
45⁠And Ololon said: Let us descend also, and let us give
Ourselves to death in Ulro among the Transgressors.
Is Virtue a Punisher? O no! how is this wondrous thing?
This World beneath, unseen before; this refuge from the wars
Of Great Eternity! unnatural refuge! unknown by us till now.
50⁠Or are these the pangs of repentance? let us enter into them.
Then the Divine Family said: Six Thousand Years are now
Accomplish'd in this World of Sorrow; Milton's Angel knew
The Universal Dictate: and you also feel this Dictate.
And now you know this World of Sorrow, and feel Pity. Obey
55⁠The Dictate! Watch over this World, and with your brooding wings
Renew it to Eternal Life: Lo! I am with you alway:
But you cannot renew Milton: he goes to Eternal Death.
So spake the Family Divine as One Man, even Jesus,
Uniting in One with Ololon & the appearance of One Man,
60⁠Jesus the Saviour, appear'd coming in the Clouds of Ololon:
P. 20 THO' driven away with the Seven Starry Ones into the Ulro,
Yet the Divine Vision remains Every-where For-ever. Amen.
And Ololon lamented for Milton with a great Lamentation.
While Los heard indistinct in fear, what time I bound my sandals
5⁠On, to walk forward thro' Eternity, Los descended to me:
And Los behind me stood: a terrible flaming Sun: just close
Behind my back: I turned round in terror and behold,
Los stood in that fierce glowing fire; & he also stoop'd down
And bound my sandals on in Udan-Adan: trembling I stood
10⁠Exceedingly with fear & terror, standing in the Vale
Of Lambeth: but he kissed me and wish'd me health.
And I became One Man with him arising in my strength:
'Twas too late now to recede. Los had enter'd into my soul:
His terrors now posses'd me whole! I arose in fury & strength.
15⁠I am that Shadowy Prophet who Six Thousand Years ago
Fell from my station in the Eternal bosom. Six Thousand Years
Are finish'd. I return! both Time & Space obey my will.
I in Six Thousand Years walk up and down: for not one Moment
Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent,
20⁠But all remain: every fabric of Six Thousand Years
Remains permanent: tho' on the Earth where Satan
Fell, and was cut off, all things vanish & are seen no more,
They vanish not from me & mine, we guard them first & last.
The generations of men run on in the tide of Time,
25⁠But leave their destin'd lineaments permanent for ever & ever.
So spake Los as we went along to his supreme abode.
Rintrah and Palamabron met us at the Gate of Golgonooza,
Clouded with discontent & brooding in their minds terrible things.
They said: O Father most beloved! O merciful Parent!
30⁠Pitying and permitting evil, tho' strong & mighty to destroy.
Whence is this Shadow terrible? wherefore dost thou refuse
To throw him into the Furnaces? knowest thou not that he
Will unchain Orc? & let loose Satan, Og, Sihon & Anak,
Upon the Body of Albion? for this he is come! behold it written
35⁠Upon his fibrous left Foot black: most dismal to our eyes.
The Shadowy Female shudders thro' heaven in torment inexpressible:
And all the Daughters of Los prophetic wail: yet in deceit
They weave a new Religion from new Jealousy of Theotormon.
Milton's Religion is the cause: there is no end to destruction.
40⁠Seeing the Churches at their Period in terror & despair,
Rahab created Voltaire; Tirzah created Rousseau:
Asserting the Self-righteousness against the Universal Saviour,
Mocking the Confessors & Martyrs, claiming Self-righteousness,
With cruel Virtue: making War upon the Lamb's Redeemed:
45⁠To perpetuate War & Glory, to perpetuate the Laws of Sin.
They perverted Swedenborg's Visions in Beulah & in Ulro,
To destroy Jerusalem as a Harlot & her Sons as Reprobates,
To raise up Mystery the Virgin Harlot, Mother of War,
Babylon the Great, the Abomination of Desolation.
50⁠O Swedenborg! strongest of men, the Samson shorn by the Churches:
Shewing the Transgressors in Hell, the proud Warriors in Heaven,
Heaven as a Punisher, & Hell as One under Punishment:
With Laws from Plato & his Greeks to renew the Trojan Gods
In Albion: & to deny the value of the Saviour's blood.
55⁠But then I rais'd up Whitefield, Palamabron rais'd up Westley,
And these are the cries of the Churches before the two Witnesses.
Faith in God the dear Saviour who took on the likeness of men:
Becoming obedient to death, even the death of the Cross.
The Witnesses lie dead in the Street of the Great City:
60⁠No Faith is in all the Earth: the Book of God is trodden under Foot!
He sent his two Servants Whitefield & Westley: were they Prophets,
Or were they Idiots or Madmen? shew us Miracles!
P. 22 CAN you have greater Miracles than these? Men who devote
Their life's whole comfort to intire scorn & injury & death.
Awake, thou sleeper on the Rock of Eternity, Albion awake!
The trumpet of Judgment hath twice sounded: all Nations are awake,
5⁠But thou art still heavy and dull: Awake, Albion awake!
Lo, Orc arises on the Atlantic. Lo, his blood and fire
Glow on America's shore: Albion turns upon his Couch:
He listens to the sounds of War, astonished and confounded:
He weeps into the Atlantic deep, yet still in dismal dreams
10⁠Unwaken'd: and the Covering Cherub advances from the East.
How long shall we lay dead in the Street of the great City:
How long beneath the Covering Cherub give our Emanations?
Milton will utterly consume us & thee our beloved Father:
He hath enter'd into the Covering Cherub, becoming one with
15⁠Albion's dread Sons, Hand, Hyle & Coban surround him as
A girdle; Gwendolen & Conwenna as a garment woven
Of War & Religion; let us descend & bring him chained
To Bowlahoola, O father most beloved! O mild Parent!
Cruel in thy mildness, pitying and permitting evil,
20⁠Tho' strong and mighty to destroy, O Los our beloved Father.
Like the black storm, coming out of Chaos, beyond the stars:
It issues thro' the dark & intricate caves of the Mundane Shell,
Passing the planetary visions, & the well adorned Firmament.
The Sun rolls into Chaos & the stars into the Desarts:
25⁠And then the storms become visible, audible & terrible,
Covering the light of day & rolling down upon the mountains
Deluge all the country round. Such is a vision of Los,
When Rintrah & Palamabron spake: and such his stormy face
Appear'd as does the face of heaven, when cover'd with thick storms
30⁠Pitying and loving tho' in frowns of terrible perturbation.
But Los dispers'd the clouds even as the strong winds of Jehovah.
And Los thus spoke: O noble Sons, be patient yet a little:
I have embrac'd the falling Death, he is become one with me:
O Sons, we live not by wrath, by mercy alone we live!
35⁠I recollect an old Prophecy in Eden recorded in gold; and oft
Sung to the harp: That Milton of the land of Albion
Should up ascend forward from Felpham's Vale & break the Chain
Of Jealousy from all its roots; be patient therefore, O my Sons.
These lovely Females form sweet night and silence and secret
40⁠Obscurities to hide from Satan's Watch-Fiends Human loves
And graces, lest they write them in their Books & in the Scroll
Of mortal life, to condemn the accused: who at Satan's Bar
Tremble in Spectrous Bodies continually day and night,
While on the Earth they live in sorrowful Vegetation.
45⁠O when shall we tread our Wine-presses in heaven, and Reap
Our wheat with shoutings of joy, and leave the Earth in peace?
Remember how Calvin and Luther in fury premature
Sow'd War and stern division between Papists & Protestants.
Let it not be so now: O go not forth in Martyrdoms & Wars!
50⁠We were plac'd here by the Universal Brotherhood & Mercy,
With powers fitted to circumscribe this dark Satanic death,
And that the Seven Eyes of God may have space for Redemption.
But how this is as yet we know not, and we cannot know,
Till Albion is arisen: then patient wait a little while,
55⁠Six Thousand years are pass'd away, the end approaches fast:
This mighty one is come from Eden, he is of the Elect,
Who died from Earth & he is return'd before the Judgment. This thing
Was never known that one of the holy dead should willing return.
Then patient wait a little while till the Last Vintage is over:
60⁠Till we have quench'd the Sun of Salah in the lake of Udan-Adan.
O my dear Sons: leave not your Father, as your brethren left me:
Twelve Sons successive fled away in that thousand years of sorrow,
P. 23 OF Palamabron's Harrow, & of Rintrah's wrath & fury:
Reuben & Manazzoth & Gad & Simeon & Levi,
And Ephraim & Judah were Generated, because
They left me wandering with Tirzah: Enitharmon wept
5⁠One thousand years, and all the Earth was in a wat'ry deluge.
We call'd him Menassheh because of the Generations of Tirzah,
Because of Satan: & the Seven Eyes of God continually
Guard round them, but I the Fourth Zoa am also set
The Watchman of Eternity: the Three are not: & I am preserved.
10⁠Still my four mighty ones are left to me in Golgonooza,
Still Rintrah fierce, and Palamabron mild & piteous,
Theotormon fill'd with care, Bromion loving Science:
You O my Sons still guard round Los: O wander not & leave me!
Rintrah, thou well rememberest when Amalek & Canaan
15⁠Fled with their Sister Moab into that abhorred Void,
They became Nations in our sight beneath the hands of Tirzah.
And Palamabron thou rememberest when Joseph an infant,
Stolen from his nurses cradle wrap'd in needle-work
Of emblematic texture, was sold to the Amalekite,
20⁠Who carried him down into Egypt where Ephraim & Menassheh
Gather'd my Sons together in the Sands of Midian.
And if you also flee away and leave your Father's side
Following Milton into Ulro, altho' your power is great
Surely you also shall become poor mortal vegetations
25⁠Beneath the Moon of Ulro: pity then your Father's tears.
When Jesus rais'd Lazarus from the Grave I stood & saw
Lazarus, who is the Vehicular Body of Albion the Redeem'd,
Arise into the Covering Cherub, who is the Spectre of Albion,
By martyrdoms to suffer: to watch over the Sleeping Body,
30⁠Upon his Rock beneath his Tomb. I saw the Covering Cherub
Divide Four-fold into Four Churches when Lazarus arose,
Paul, Constantine, Charlemaine, Luther: behold they stand before us
Stretch'd over Europe & Asia: come O Sons, come, come away.
Arise O Sons give all your strength against Eternal Death,
35⁠Lest we are vegetated, for Cathedron's Looms weave only Death,
A Web of Death: & were it not for Bowlahoola & Allamanda
No Human Form but only a Fibrous Vegetation,
A Polypus of soft affections without Thought or Vision,
Must tremble in the Heavens & Earths thro' all the Ulro space.
40⁠Throw all the Vegetated Mortals into Bowlahoola:
But as to this Elected Form who is return'd again,
He is the Signal that the Last Vintage now approaches,
Nor Vegetation may go on till all the Earth is reap'd.
So Los spoke. Furious they descended to Bowlahoola & Allamanda:
45⁠Indignant, unconvinced by Los's arguments & thun[d]ers rolling:
They saw that wrath now sway'd and now pity absorb'd him,
As it was so it remain'd & no hope of an end.
Bowlahoola is nam'd Law by mortals, Tharmas founded it:
Because of Satan before Luban in the City of Golgonooza.
50⁠But Golgonooza is nam'd Art & Manufacture by mortal men.
In Bowlahoola Los's Anvils stand & his Furnaces rage:
Thundering the Hammers beat & the Bellows blow loud,
Living, self moving, mourning, lamenting & howling incessantly.
Bowlahoola thro' all its porches feels, tho' too fast founded
55⁠Its pillars & porticoes to tremble at the force
Of mortal or immortal arm: and softly lilling flutes
Accordant with the horrid labours make sweet melody.
The Bellows are the Animal Lungs: the Hammers the Animal Heart:
The Furnaces the Stomach for digestion: terrible their fury.
60⁠Thousands & thousands labour, thousands play on instruments
Stringed or fluted to ameliorate the sorrows of slavery.
Loud sport the dancers in the dance of death rejoicing in carnage:
The hard dentant Hammers are lull'd by the flutes lula lula,
The bellowing Furnaces blare by the long sounding clarion,
65⁠The double drum drowns howls & groans, the shrill fife shrieks & cries:
The crooked horn mellows the hoarse raving serpent, terrible, but harmonious.
Bowlahoola is the Stomach in every individual man.
Los is by mortals nam'd Time, Enitharmon is nam'd Space:
But they depict him bald & aged who is in eternal youth
70⁠All powerful and his looks flourish like the brows of morning:
He is the Spirit of Prophecy, the ever apparent Elias.
Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time's swiftness,
Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment.
All the Gods of the Kingdoms of Earth labour in Los's Halls:
75⁠Every one is a fallen Son of the Spirit of Prophecy:
He is the Fourth Zoa that stood around the Throne Divine.
P. 24 BUT the Wine-press of Los is eastward of Golgonooza before the Seat
Of Satan: Luvah laid the foundation & Urizen finish'd it in howling woe.
How red the sons & daughters of Luvah! here they tread the grapes:
Laughing & shouting, drunk with odours, many fall o'erwearied,
5⁠Drown'd in the wine is many a youth & maiden: those around
Lay them on skins of Tygers & of the spotted Leopard & the Wild Ass,
Till they revive, or bury them in cool grots, making lamentation.
This Wine-press is call'd War on Earth: it is the Printing-Press
Of Los: and here he lays his words in order above the mortal brain,
10⁠As cogs are form'd in a wheel to turn the cogs of the adverse wheel.
Timbrels & violins sport round the Wine-presses; the little Seed,
The sportive Root, the Earth-worm, the gold Beetle, the wise Emmet
Dance round the Wine-presses of Luvah: the Centipede is there:
The ground Spider with many eyes: the Mole clothed in velvet:
15⁠The ambitious Spider in his sullen web: the lucky golden Spinner:
The Earwig arm'd: the tender Maggot emblem of immortality:
The Flea: Louse: Bug: the Tape-worm: all the Armies of Disease:
Visible or invisible to the slothful vegetating Man.
The Slow Slug: the Grasshopper that sings & laughs & drinks:
20⁠Winter comes, he folds his slender bones without a murmur.
The cruel Scorpion is there: the Gnat: Wasp: Hornet & the Honey Bee:
The Toad & venomous Newt; the Serpent cloth'd in gems & gold.
They throw off their gorgeous raiment: they rejoice with loud jubilee
Around the Wine-presses of Luvah, naked & drunk with wine.
25⁠There is the Nettle that stings with soft down, and there
The indignant Thistle, whose bitterness is bred in his milk.
Who feeds on contempt of his neighbour: there all the idle weeds
That creep around the obscure places shew their various limbs
Naked in all their beauty dancing round the Wine-presses.
30⁠But in the Wine-presses the Human grapes sing not nor dance.
They howl & writhe in shoals of torment: in fierce flames consuming,
In chains of iron & in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires:
In pits & dens & shades of death: in shapes of torment & woe.
The plates & screws & wracks & saws & cords & fires & cisterns,
35⁠The cruel joys of Luvah's daughters lacerating with knives
And whips their Victims, & the deadly sport of Luvah's Sons.
They dance around the dying, & they drink the howl & groan,
They catch the shrieks in cups of gold, they hand them to one another:
These are the sports of love, & these the sweet delights of amorous play,
40⁠Tears of the grape, the death sweat of the cluster, the last sigh
Of the mild youth who listens to the lureing songs of Luvah.
But Allamanda, call'd on Earth Commerce, is the Cultivated land
Around the City of Golgonooza in the Forests of Entuthon:
Here the Sons of Los labour against Death Eternal; through all
45⁠The Twenty-seven Heavens of Beulah in Ulro, Seat of Satan,
Which is the False Tongue beneath Beulah: It is the Sense of Touch.
The Plow goes forth in tempests & lightnings & the Harrow cruel
In blights of the east, the heavy Roller follows in howlings of woe.
Urizen's sons here labour also; & here are seen the Mills
50⁠Of Theotormon on the verge of the Lake of Udan-Adan.
These are the starry voids of night & the depths & caverns of earth.
These Mills are oceans, clouds & waters ungovernable in their fury:
Here are the stars created & the seeds of all things planted,
And here the Sun & Moon received their fixed destinations.
55⁠But in Eternity the Four Arts: Poetry, Painting, Music,
And Architecture which is Science: are the Four Faces of Man.
Not so in Time & Space: there Three are shut out, and only
Science remains thro' Mercy: & by means of Science the Three
Become apparent in Time & Space in the Three Professions,
60⁠Poetry in Religion: Music, Law: Painting, in Physic & Surgery:
That Man may live upon Earth all the time of his awaking.
And from these Three Science derives every Occupation of Men:
And Science is divided into Bowlahoola & Allamanda.
P. 25 LOUD shout the Sons of Luvah at the Wine-presses, as Los descended
With Rintrah & Palamabron in his fires of resistless fury.
The Wine-press on the Rhine groans loud, but all its central beams
Act more terrific in the central Cities of the Nations,
5⁠Where Human Thought is crush'd beneath the iron hand of Power:
There Los puts all into the Press, the Opressor & the Opressed
Together, ripe for the Harvest & Vintage & ready for the Loom.
They sang at the Vintage. This is the Last Vintage: & Seed
Shall no more be sown upon Earth till all the Vintage is over,
10⁠And all gather'd in, till the Plow has pass'd over the Nations,
And the Harrow & heavy thundering Roller upon the mountains.
And loud the Souls howl round the Porches of Golgonooza,
Crying: O God deliver us to the Heavens or to the Earths
That we may preach righteousness & punish the sinner with death.
15⁠But Los refused, till all the Vintage of Earth was gathered in.
And Los stood & cried to the Labourers of the Vintage in voice of awe:
Fellow Labourers! The Great Vintage & Harvest is now upon Earth.
The whole extent of the Globe is explored. Every scatter'd Atom
Of Human Intellect now is flocking to the sound of the Trumpet.
20⁠All the Wisdom which was hidden in caves & dens from ancient
Time, is now sought out from Animal & Vegetable & Mineral.
The Awakener is come outstretch'd over Europe: the Vision of God is fulfilled:
The Ancient Man upon the Rock of Albion Awakes:
He listens to the sounds of War astonish'd & ashamed,
25⁠He sees his Children mock at Faith and deny Providence.
Therefore you must bind the Sheaves not by Nations or Families:
You shall bind them in Three Classes, according to their Classes
So shall you bind them: Separating What has been Mixed
Since Men began to be Wove into Nations by Rahab & Tirzah,
30⁠Since Albion's Death & Satan's Cutting off from our awful Fields:
When under pretence to benevolence the Elect Subdu'd All
From the Foundation of the World. The Elect is one Class: You
Shall bind them separate: they cannot Believe in Eternal Life
Except by Miracle & a New Birth. The other two Classes:
35⁠The Reprobate who never cease to Believe, and the Redeem'd
Who live in doubts & fears perpetually tormented by the Elect,
These you shall bind in a twin-bundle for the Consummation:
But the Elect must be saved [from] fires of Eternal Death,
To be formed into the Churches of Beulah that they destroy not the Earth.
40⁠For in every Nation & every Family the Three Classes are born,
And in every Species of Earth, Metal, Tree, Fish, Bird & Beast
We form the Mundane Egg, that Spectres coming by fury or amity,
All is the same, & every one remains in his own energy.
Go forth Reapers with rejoicing, you sowed in tears,
45⁠But the time of your refreshing cometh: only a little moment
Still abstain from pleasure & rest, in the labours of eternity,
And you shall Reap the whole Earth from Pole to Pole: from Sea to Sea:
Beglning at Jerusalem's Inner Court, Lambeth ruin'd and given
To the detestable Gods of Priam, to Apollo: and at the Asylum
50⁠Given to Hercules who labour in Tirzah's Looms for bread,
Who set Pleasure against Duty: who Create Olympic crowns
To make Learning a burden, & the Work of the Holy Spirit, Strife:
The Thor & cruel Odin who first rear'd the Polar Caves.
Lambeth mourns, calling Jerusalem: she weeps & looks abroad
55⁠For the Lord's coming, that Jerusalem may overspread all Nations.
Crave not for the mortal & perishing delights, but leave them
To the weak, and pity the weak as your infant care; Break not
Forth in your wrath lest you also are vegetated by Tirzah.
Wait till the judgement is past, till the Creation is consumed,
60⁠And then rush forward with me into the glorious spiritual
Vegetation: the Supper of the Lamb & his Bride: and the
Awaking of Albion our friend and ancient companion.
So Los spoke. But lightnings of discontent broke on all sides round
And murmurs of thunder rolling heavy long & loud over the mountains,
65⁠While Los call'd his Sons around him to the Harvest & the Vintage.
Thou seest the Constellations in the deep & wondrous Night:
They rise in order and continue their immortal courses
Upon the mountains & in vales with harp & heavenly song,
With flute & clarion: with cups & measures fill'd with foaming wine.
70⁠Glitt'ring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude,
And the calm Ocean joys beneath & smooths his awful waves:
P. 26 THESE are the Sons of Los, & these the Labourers of the Vintage.
Thou see'st the gorgeous clothed Flies that dance & sport in summer
Upon the sunny brooks & meadows: every one the dance
Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave:
5⁠Each one to sound his instruments of music in the dance,
To touch each other & recede: to cross & change & return.
These are the Children of Los. Thou seest the Trees on mountains:
The wind blows heavy, loud they thunder thro' the darksom sky,
Uttering prophecies & speaking instructive words to the sons
10⁠Of men: These are the Sons of Los: These the Visions of Eternity.
But we see only as it were the hem of their garments
When with our vegetable eyes we view these wondrous Visions.
There are two Gates thro' which all Souls descend, One Southward
From Dover Cliff to Lizard Point, the other toward the North,
15⁠Caithness & rocky Durness, Pentland & John Groat's House.
The Souls descending to the Body, wail on the right hand
Of Los: & those deliver'd from the Body on the left hand.
For Los against the east his force continually bends,
Along the Valleys of Middlesex from Hounslow to Blackheath,
20⁠Lest those Three Heavens of Beulah should the Creation destroy,
And lest they should descend before the north & south Gates:
Groaning with pity, he among the wailing Souls laments.
And these the Labours of the Sons of Los in Allamanda
And in the City of Golgonooza: & in Luban: & around
25⁠The Lake of Udan-Adan, in the Forests of Entuthon Benython:
Where Souls incessant wail, being piteous Passions & Desires,
With neither lineament nor form: but like to wat'ry clouds
The Passions & Desires descend upon the hungry winds:
For such alone Sleepers remain meer passion & appetite:
30⁠The Sons of Los clothe them & feed & provide houses & fields.
And every Generated Body in its inward form
Is a garden of delight & a building of magnificence,
Built by the Sons of Los in Bowlahoola & Allamanda:
And the herbs & flowers & furniture & beds & chambers
35⁠Continually woven in the Looms of Enitharmon's Daughters,
In bright Cathedron's golden Dome with care & love & tears.
For the various Classes of Men are all mark'd out determinate
In Bowlahoola: & as the Spectres choose their affinities,
So they are born on Earth, & every Class is determinate:
40⁠But not by Natural, but by Spiritual power alone. Because
The Natural power continually seeks & tends to Destruction,
Ending in death: which would of itself be Eternal Death.
And all are Class'd by Spiritual & not by Natural power.
And every Natural Effect has a Spiritual Cause, and Not
45⁠A Natural: for a Natural Cause only seems: it is a Delusion
Of Ulro & a ratio of the perishing Vegetable Memory.
P. 27 SOME Sons of Los surround the Passions with porches of iron & silver,
Creating form & beauty around the dark regions of sorrow,
Giving to airy nothing a name and a habitation
Delightful: with bounds to the Infinite putting off the Indefinite
5⁠Into most holy forms of Thought: (such is the power of inspiration).
They labour incessant, with many tears & afflictions,
Creating the beautiful House for the piteous sufferer.
Others, Cabinets richly fabricate of gold & ivory,
For Doubts & fears unform'd & wretched & melancholy.
10⁠The little weeping Spectre stands on the threshold of Death
Eternal: and sometimes two Spectres like lamps quivering
And often malignant they combat (heart-breaking sorrowful & piteous).
Antamon takes them into his beautiful flexible hands.
As the Sower takes the seed or as the Artist his clay
15⁠Or fine wax, to mould artful a model for golden ornaments,
The soft hands of Antamon draw the indelible Line:
Form immortal with golden pen; such as the Spectre admiring
Puts on the sweet form; then smiles Antamon bright thro' his windows.
The Daughters of beauty look up from their Loom & prepare
20⁠The integument soft for its clothing with joy & delight.
But Theotormon & Sotha stand in the Gate of Luban anxious:
Their numbers are seven million & seven thousand & seven hundred:
They contend with the weak Spectres, they fabricate soothing forms.
The Spectre refuses, he seeks cruelty: they create the crested Cock:
25⁠Terrified the Spectre screams & rushes in fear into their Net
Of kindness & compassion & is born a weeping terror.
Or they create the Lion & Tyger in compassionate thunderings:
Howling the Spectres flee: they take refuge in Human lineaments.
The Sons of Ozoth within the Optic Nerve stand fiery glowing:
30⁠And the number of his Sons is eight millions & eight.
They give delights to the man unknown; artificial riches
They give to scorn, & their possessors to trouble & sorrow & care,
Shutting the sun & moon & stars, & trees, & clouds, & waters,
And hills out from the Optic Nerve & hardening it into a bone
35⁠Opake, and like the black pebble on the enraged beach,
While the poor indigent is like the diamond which tho' cloth'd
In ragged covering in the mine, is open all within
And in his hallow'd center holds the heavens of bright eternity.
Ozoth here builds walls of rocks against the surging sea,
40⁠And timbers crampt with iron cramps bar in the joys of life
From fell destruction in the Spectrous cunning or rage. He Creates
The speckled Newt, the Spider & Beetle, the Rat & Mouse,
The Badger & Fox: they worship before his feet in trembling fear.
But others of the Sons of Los build Moments & Minutes & Hours
45⁠And Days & Months & Years & Ages & Periods: wondrous buildings
And every Moment has a Couch of Gold for soft repose,
(A Moment equals a pulsation of the artery),
And between every two Moments stands a Daughter of Beulah
To feed the Sleepers on their Couches with maternal care.
50⁠And every Minute has an azure Tent with silken Veils:
And every Hour has a bright golden Gate carved with skill:
And every Day & Night has Walls of brass & Gates of adamant,
Shining like precious Stones & ornamented with appropriate signs:
And every Month a silver paved Terrace builded high:
55⁠And every Year invulnerable Barriers with high Towers:
And every Age is Moated deep with Bridges of silver & gold:
And every Seven Ages is Incircled with a Flaming Fire.
Now Seven Ages is amounting to Two Hundred Years.
Each has its Guard, each Moment, Minute, Hour, Day, Month & Year.
60⁠All are the work of Fairy hands of the Four Elements:
The Guard are Angels of Providence on duty evermore.
Every Time less than a pulsation of the artery
Is equal in its period & value to Six Thousand Years.
P. 28 FOR in this Period the Poet's Work is Done; and all the Great
Events of Time start forth & are conceiv'd in such a Period,
Within a Moment, a Pulsation of the Artery.
The Sky is an immortal Tent built by the Sons of Los:
5⁠And every Space that a Man views around his dwelling-place,
Standing on his own roof, or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his Universe:
And on its verge the Sun rises & sets, the Clouds bow
To meet the flat Earth & the Sea in such an order'd space:
10⁠The Starry heavens reach no further, but here bend and set
On all sides, & the two Poles turn on their valves of gold:
And if he move his dwelling-place, his heavens also move
Wher'eer he goes & all his neighbourhood bewail his loss:
Such are the Spaces called Earth & such its dimension.
15⁠As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner
As of a Globe rolling thro' Voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro.
The Microscope knows not of this nor the Telescope: they alter
The ratio of the Spectator's Organs but leave Objects untouch'd.
For every Space larger than a red Globule of Man's blood,
20⁠Is visionary, and is created by the Hammer of Los:
And every Space smaller than a Globule of Man's blood opens
Into Eternity of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow:
The red Globule is the unwearied Sun by Los created
To measure Time and Space to mortal Men every morning.
25⁠Bowlahoola & Allamanda are placed on each side
Of that Pulsation & that Globule, terrible their power.
But Rintrah & Palamabron govern over Day & Night
In Allamanda & Entuthon Benython where Souls wail:
Where Orc incessant howls burning in fires of Eternal Youth,
30⁠Within the vegetated mortal Nerves; for every Man born is joined
Within into One mighty Polypus, and this Polypus is Orc.
But in the Optic vegetative Nerves Sleep was transformed
To Death in old time by Satan the father of Sin & Death:
And Satan is the Spectre of Orc, & Orc is the generate Luvah.
35⁠But in the Nerves of the Nostrils, Accident being Formed
Into Substance & Principle, by the cruelties of Demonstration
It became Opake & Indefinite: but the Divine Saviour
Formed it into a Solid by Los's Mathematic power.
He named the Opake, Satan: he named the Solid, Adam.
40⁠And in the Nerves of the Ear (for the Nerves of the Tongue are closed)
On Albion's Rock Los stands creating the glorious Sun each morning,
And when unwearied in the evening he creates the Moon,
Death to delude, who all in terror at their splendor leaves
His prey while Los appoints, & Rintrah & Palamabron guide,
45⁠The Souls clear from the Rock of Death, that Death himself may wake
In his appointed season when the ends of heaven meet.
Then Los conducts the Spirits to be Vegetated into
Great Golgonooza, free from the four iron pillars of Satan's Throne,
Temperance, Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, the four pillars of tyranny,
50⁠That Satan's Watch-Fiends touch them not before they Vegetate.
But Enitharmon and her Daughters take the pleasant charge
To give them to their lovely heavens till the Great Judgment Day:
Such is their lovely charge. But Rahab & Tirzah pervert
Their mild influences, therefore the Seven Eyes of God walk round
55⁠The Three Heavens of Ulro where Tirzah & her Sisters
Weave the black Woof of Death upon Entuthon Benython,
In the Vale of Surrey where Horeb terminates in Rephaim.
The stamping feet of Zelophehad's Daughters are cover'd with Human gore
Upon the treddles of the Loom: they sing to the winged shuttle
60⁠The River rises above his banks to wash the Woof:
He takes it in his arms; he passes it in strength thro' his current.
The veil of human miseries is woven over the Ocean,
From the Atlantic to the Great South Sea, the Erythrean.
Such is the World of Los, the labour of six thousand years:
65⁠Thus Nature is a Vision of the Science of the Elohim.
END OF THE FIRST BOOK
About this digital edition
This e-book comes from the online library Wikisource[1]. This multilingual digital library, built by volunteers, is committed to developing a free accessible collection of publications of every kind: novels, poems, magazines, letters...
We distribute our books for free, starting from works not copyrighted or published under a free license. You are free to use our e-books for any purpose (including commercial exploitation), under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported[2] license or, at your choice, those of the GNU FDL[3].
Wikisource is constantly looking for new members. During the realization of this book, it's possible that we made some errors. You can report them at this page[4].
The following users contributed to this book:
Cygnis insignis
Londonjackbooks
Kathleen.wright5
Mpaa
Gavin.collins
Mike Peel
* * *
↑ http://wikisource.org
↑ http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0
↑ http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html
↑ http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Scriptorium