The Portable Blake

by William Blake

  And the bright Cloud sail’d on, to find his partner in the vale.

  III

  Then Thel astonish’d view’d the Worm upon its dewy bed.

  “Art thou a Worm? Image of weakness, art thou but a Worm?

  I see thee like an infant wrapped in the Lilly’s leaf.

  Ah! weep not, little voice, thou canst not speak, but thou canst weep.

  Is this a Worm? I see thee lay helpless & naked, weeping,

  And none to answer, none to cherish thee with mother’s smiles.”

  The Clod of Clay heard the Worm’s voice & rais’d her pitying head:

  She bow’d over the weeping infant, and her life exhal’d

  In milky fondness: then on Thel she fix’d her humble eyes.

  “O beauty of the vales of Har! we live not for ourselves.

  Thou seest me the meanest thing, and so I am indeed.

  My bosom of itself is cold, and of itself is dark;

  But he, that loves the lowly, pours his oil upon my head,

  And kisses me, and binds his nuptial bands around my breast,

  And says: ‘Thou mother of my children, I have loved thee

  And I have given thee a crown that none can take , away.’

  But how this is, sweet maid, I know not, and I cannot know;

  I ponder, and I cannot ponder; yet I live and love.”

  The daughter of beauty wip’d her pitying tears with her white veil,

  And said: “Alas! I knew not this, and therefore did I weep.

  That God would love a Worm I knew, and punish the evil foot

  That wilful bruis’d its helpless form; but that he cherish’ d it

  With milk and oil I never knew, and therefore did I weep;

  And I complain’d in the mild air, because I fade away,

  And lay me down in thy cold bed, and leave my shining lot.”

  “Queen of the vales,” the matron Clay answer’d, “I heard thy sighs,

  And all thy moans flew o’er my roof, but I have call’d them down.

  Wilt thou, O Queen, enter my house? ’Tis given thee to enter

  And to return: fear nothing, enter with thy virgin feet.”

  IV

  The eternal gates’ terrific porter lifted the northern bar:

  Thel enter’d in & saw the secrets of the land unknown.

  She saw the couches of the dead, & where the fibrous roots

  Of every heart on earth infixes deep its restless twists:

  A land of sorrows & of tears where never smile was seen.

  She wander’d in the land of clouds thro’ valleys dark, list’ning

  Dolours & lamentations; waiting oft beside a dewy grave

  She stood in silence, list’ning to the voices of the ground,

  Till to her own grave plot she came, & there she sat down,

  And heard this voice of sorrow breathed from the hollow pit.

  “Why cannot the Ear be closed to its own destruction?

  Or the glist’ning Eye to the poison of a smile?

  Why are Eyelids stor’d with arrows ready drawn,

  Where a thousand fighting men in ambush lie?

  Or an Eye of gifts & graces show’ring fruits & coined gold?

  Why a Tongue impress’d with honey from every wind?

  Why an Ear, a whirlpool fierce to draw creations in?

  Why a Nostril wide inhaling terror, trembling, & affright ?

  Why a tender curb upon the youthful burning boy?

  Why a little curtain of flesh on the bed of our desire?”

  The Virgin started from her seat, & with a shriek

  Fled back unhinder’d till she came into the vales of Har.

  THE END

  VISIONS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF ALBION

  The Eye sees more than the Heart knows

  (1793)

  THE ARGUMENT

  I loved Theotormon,

  And I was not ashamed;

  I trembled in my virgin fears,

  And I hid in Leutha’s vale!

  I plucked Leutha’s flower,

  And I rose up from the vale;

  But the terrible thunders tore

  My virgin mantle in twain.

  VISIONS

  Enslav’d, the Daughters of Albion weep; a trembling lamentation

  Upon their mountains; in their valleys, sighs toward America.

  For the soft soul of America, Oothoon, wander’d in woe,

  Along the vales of Leutha seeking flowers to comfort her;

  And thus she spoke to the bright Marygold of Leutha’s vale:

  “Art thou a flower? art thou a nymph? I see thee now a flower,

  Now a nymph! I dare not pluck thee from thy dewy bed!”

  The Golden nymph replied: “Pluck thou my flower, Oothoon the mild!

  Another flower shall spring, because the soul of sweet delight

  Can never pass away.” She ceas’d, & clos’d her golden shrine.

  Then Oothoon pluck’d the flower, saying: “I pluck thee from thy bed,

  Sweet flower, and put thee here to glow between my breasts,

  And thus I turn my face to where my whole soul seeks.”

  Over the waves she went in wing’d exulting swift delight,

  And over Theotormon’s reign took her impetuous course.

  Bromion rent her with his thunders; on his stormy bed

  Lay the faint maid, and soon her woes appall’d his thunders hoarse.

  Bromion spoke: “Behold this harlot here on Bromion’s bed,

  And let the jealous dolphins sport around the lovely maid!

  Thy soft American plains are mine, and mine thy north & south:

  Stampt with my signet are the swarthy children of the sun;

  They are obedient, they resist not, they obey the scourge;

  Their daughters worship terrors and obey the violent.

  Now thou maist marry Bromion’s harlot, and protect the child

  Of Bromion’s rage, that Oothoon shall put forth in nine moons’ time.”

  Then storms rent Theotormon’s limbs: he roll’d his waves around

  And folded his black jealous waters round the adulterate pair.

  Bound back to back in Bromion’s caves, terror & meekness dwell:

  At entrance Theotormon sits, wearing the threshold hard

  With secret tears; beneath him sound like waves on a desart shore

  The voice of slaves beneath the sun, and children bought with money,

  That shiver in religious caves beneath the burning fires

  Of lust, that belch incessant from the summits of the earth.

  Oothoon weeps not; she cannot weep! her tears are locked up;

  But she can howl incessant writhing her soft snowy limbs

  And calling Theotormon’s Eagles to prey upon her flesh.

  “I call with holy voice! Kings of the sounding air,

  Rend away this defiled bosom that I may reflect

  The image of Theotormon on my pure transparent breast.”

  The Eagles at her call descend & rend their bleeding prey:

  Theotormon severely smiles; her soul reflects the smile,

  As the clear spring, mudded with feet of beasts, grows pure & smiles.

  The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, & eccho back her sighs.

  “Why does my Theotormon sit weeping upon the threshold,

  And Oothoon hovers by his side, perswading him in vain?

  I cry: arise, 0 Theotormonl for the village dog

  Barks at the breaking day; the nightingale has done lamenting;

  The lark does rustle in the ripe corn, and the Eagle returns

  From nightly prey and lifts his golden beak to the pure east,

  Shaking the dust from his immortal pinions to awake

  The sun that sleeps too long. Arise, my Theotormon, I am pure

  Because the night is gone that clos’d me in its deadly black.

  “They told me that the night & day were all that I could see;

  Th
ey told me that I had five senses to inclose me up,

  And they inclos’d my infinite brain into a narrow circle,

  And sunk my heart into the Abyss, a red, round globe, hot burning,

  Till all from life I was obliterated and erased.

  Instead of morn arises a bright shadow, like an eye

  In the eastern cloud; instead of night a sickly charnel house:

  That Theotormon hears me not! to him the night and morn

  Are both alike; a night of sighs, a morning of fresh tears,

  And none but Bromion can hear my lamentations.

  “With what sense is it that the chicken shuns the ravenous hawk?

  With what sense does the tame pigeon measure out the expanse?

  With what sense does the bee form cells? have not the mouse & frog

  Eyes and ears and sense of touch? yet are their habitations

  And their pursuits as different as their forms and as then joys.

  Ask the wild ass why he refuses burdens, and the meek camel

  Why he loves man: is it because of eye, ear, mouth, or skin,

  Or breathing nostrils? No, for these the wolf and tyger have.

  Ask the blind worm the secrets of the grave, and why her spires

  Love to curl round the bones of death; and ask the rav’nous snake

  Where she gets poison, & the wing’d eagle why he loves the sun;

  And then tell me the thoughts of man, that have been hid of old.

  “Silent I hover all the night, and all day could be silent

  If Theotormon once would turn his loved eyes upon me.

  How can I be defil’d when I reflect thy image pure?

  Sweetest the fruit that the worm feeds on, & the soul prey’d on by woe,

  The new wash’d lamb ting’d with the village smoke, & the bright swan

  By the red earth of our immortal river. I bathe my wings,

  And I am white and pure to hover round Theotormon’s breast.”

  Then Theotormon broke his silence, and he answered:

  “Tell me what is the night or day to one o’erflow’d with woe?

  Tell me what is a thought, & of what substance is it made?

  Tell me what is a joy, & in what gardens do joys grow?

  And in what rivers swim the sorrows? and upon what mountains

  Wave shadows of discontent? and in what houses dwell the wretched,

  Drunken with woe forgotten, and shut up from cold despair?

  Tell me where dwell the thoughts forgotten till thou call them forth?

  Tell me where dwell the joys of old? & where the ancient loves,

  And when will they renew again, & the night of oblivion past,

  That I might traverse times & spaces far remote, and bring

  Comforts into a present sorrow and a night of pain?

  Where goest thou, O thought? to what remote land is thy flight?

  If thou returnest to the present moment of affliction

  Wilt thou bring comforts on thy wings, and dews and honey and balm,

  Or poison from the desart wilds, from the eyes of the envier?”

  Then Bromion said, and shook the cavern with his lamentation :

  “Thou knowest that the ancient trees seen by thine eyes have fruit,

  But knowest thou that trees and fruits flourish upon the earth

  To gratify senses unknown? trees, beasts and birds unknown;

  Unknown, not unperciev’d, spread in the infinite microscope,

  In places yet unvisited by the voyager, and in worlds

  Over another kind of seas, and in atmospheres unknown :

  Ah! are there other wars beside the wars of sword and fire?

  And are there other sorrows beside the sorrows of poverty?

  And are there other joys beside the joys of riches and ease?

  And is there not one law for both the lion and the ox?

  And is there not eternal fire and eternal chains

  To bind the phantoms of existence from eternal life?”

  Then Oothoon waited silent all the day and all the night;

  But when the mom arose, her lamentation renew’d.

  The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, & eccho back her sighs.

  “O Urizen! Creator of men! mistaken Demon of heaven!

  Thy joys are tears, thy labour vain to form men to thine image.

  How can one joy absorb another? are not different joys

  Holy, eternal, infinite? and each joy is a Love.

  “Does not the great mouth laugh at a gift, & the narrow eyelids mock

  At the labour that is above payment? and wilt thou take the ape

  For thy councellor, or the dog for a schoolmaster to thy children?

  Does he who contemns poverty and he who turns with abhorrence

  From usury feel the same passion, or are they moved alike?

  How can the giver of gifts experience the delights of the merchant?

  How the industrious citizen the pains of the husbandman?

  How different far the fat fed hireling with hollow drum,

  Who buys whole corn fields into wastes, and sings upon the heath!

  How different their eye and earl how different the world to them!

  With what sense does the parson claim the labour of the farmer?

  What are his nets & gins & traps; & how does he surround him

  With cold floods of abstraction, and with forests of solitude,

  To build him castles and high spires, where kings & priests may dwell;

  Till she who burns with youth, and knows no fixed lot, is bound

  In spells of law to one she loaths? and must she drag the chain

  Of life in weary lust? must chilling, murderous thoughts obscure

  The clear heaven of her eternal spring; to bear the wintry rage

  Of a harsh terror, driv’n to madness, bound to hold a rod

  Over her shrinking shoulders all the day, & all the night

  To turn the wheel of false desire, and longings that wake her womb

  To the abhorred birth of cherubs in the human form,

  That live a pestilence & die a meteor, & are no more;

  Till the child dwell with one he hates, and do the deed he loaths,

  And the impure scourge force his seed into its unripe birth

  Ere yet his eyelids can behold the arrows of the day?

  “Does the whale worship at thy footsteps as the hungry dog;

  Or does he scent the mountain prey because his nostrils wide

  Draw in the ocean? does his eye discern the flying cloud

  As the raven’s eye? or does he measure the expanse like the vulture?

  Does the still spider view the cliffs where eagles hide their young;

  Or does the fly rejoice because the harvest is brought in?

  Does not the eagle scorn the earth & despise the treasures beneath?

  But the mole knoweth what is there, & the worm shall tell it thee.

  Does not the worm erect a pillar in the mouldering church yard

  And a palace of eternity in the jaws of the hungry grave?

  Over his porch these words are written: “Take thy bliss, O Man!

  And sweet shall be thy taste, & sweet thy infant joys renew!’

  “Infancy! fearless, lustful, happy, nestling for delight

  In laps of pleasure: Innocence! honest, open, seeking

  The vigorous joys of morning light; open to virgin bliss.

  Who taught thee modesty, subtil modesty, child of night & sleep?

  When thou awakest wilt thou dissemble all thy secret joys,

  Or wert thou not awake when all this mystery was disclos’ d ?

  Then com’st thou forth a modest virgin, knowing to dissemble,

  With nets found under thy night pillow, to catch virgin joy

  And brand it with the name of whore, & sell it in the night,

  In silence, ev’n without a whisper, and in seeming sleep.

  Religious dreams and ho
ly vespers light thy smoky fires:

  Once were thy fires lighted by the eyes of honest mom.

  And does my Theotormon seek this hypocrite modesty,

  This knowing, artful, secret, fearful, cautious, trembling hypocrite?

  Then is Oothoon a whore indeed! and all the virgin joys

  Of life are harlots, and Theotormon is a sick man’s dream;

  And Oothoon is the crafty slave of selfish holiness.

  “But Oothoon is not so: a virgin fill’d with virgin fancies,

  Open to joy and to delight where ever beauty appears; If in the morning sun I find it, there my eyes are fix’d

  In happy copulation; if in evening mild, wearied with work,

  Sit on a bank and draw the pleasures of this free born joy.

  “The moment of desire! the moment of desire! The virgin

  That pines for man shall awaken her womb to enormous joys

  In the secret shadows of her chamber: the youth shut up from

  The lustful joy shall forget to generate & create an amorous image

  In the shadows of his curtains and in the folds of his silent pillow.

  Are not these the places of religion, the rewards of continence,

  The self enjoyings of self denial? why dost thou seek religion?

  Is it because acts are not lovely that thou seekest solitude

  Where the horrible darkness is impressed with reflections of desire?