My daughter, how do I rejoice! for thy children flock around
Like the gay fishes on the wave, when the cold moon drinks the dew.
Ethinthus! thou art sweet as comforts to my fainting soul,
For now thy waters warble round the feet of Enitharmon.
“Manathu-Varcyon! I behold thee flaming in my halls,
Light of thy mother’s soul! I see thy lovely eagles round;
Thy golden wings are my delight, & thy flames of soft delusion.
“Where is my lureing bird of Eden? Leutha, silent love!
Leutha, the many colour’d bow delights upon thy wings:
Soft soul of flowers, Leutha!
Sweet smiling pestilence! I see thy blushing light;
Thy daughters, many changing,
Revolve like sweet perfumes ascending, O Leutha, silken queen!
“Where is the youthful Antamon, prince of the pearly dew?
O Antamon! why wilt thou leave thy mother Enitharmon?
Alone I see thee, crystal form,
Floating upon the bosom’d air
With lineaments of gratified desire.
My Antamon, the seven churches of Leutha seek thy love.
“I hear the soft Oothoon in Enitharmon’s tents;
Why wilt thou give up woman’s secrecy, my melancholy child?
Between two moments bliss is ripe.
O Theotormon! robb’d of joy, I see thy salt tears flow
Down the steps of my crystal house.
“Sotha & Thiralathal secret dwellers of dreamful caves,
Arise and please the horrent fiend with your melodious songs;
Still all your thunders, golden-hoof’d, & bind your horses black.
Ore! smile upon my children!
Smile, son of my afflictions.
Arise, 0 Ore, and give our mountains joy of thy red light!”
She ceas’d; for All were forth at sport beneath the solemn moon
Waking the stars of Urizen with their immortal songs,
That nature felt thro’ all her pores the enormous revelry
Till morning oped the eastern gate;
Then every one fled to his station, & Enitharmon wept.
But terrible Ore, when he beheld the morning in the east,
Shot from the heights of Enitharmon,
And in the vineyards of red France appear’d the light of his fury.
The sun glow’d fiery red!
The furious terrors flew around
On golden chariots raging with red wheels dropping with blood!
The Lions lash their wrathful tails!
The Tigers couch upon the prey & suck the ruddy tide, And Enitharmon groans & cries in anguish and dismay.
Then Los arose: his head he rear’d in snaky thunders clad;
And with a cry that shook all nature to the utmost pole, Call’d all his sons to the strife of blood.
THE FIRST BOOK OF URIZEN
(1794)
PRELUDIUM TO THE FIRST BOOK OF URIZEN
Of the primeval Priest’s assum’d power,
When Eternals spurn’d back his religion
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals! I hear your call gladly.
Dictate swift winged words & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.
I
1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos‘d, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form’d this abominable void,
This soul-shudd’ring vacuum? Some said
“It is Urizen.” But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark power hid.’
2. Times on times he divided & measur’d
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear’d
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation.
3. For he strove in battles dire,
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element,
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.
4. Dark, revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions:
An activity unknown and horrible,
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied.
5. But Eternals beheld his vast forests;
Age on ages he lay, clos’d, unknown,
Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific, abominable chaos.
6. His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
Prepar’d; his ten thousands of thunders,
Rang’d in gloom’d array, stretch out across
The dread world; & the rolling of wheels,
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds,
In his hills of stor’d snows, in his mountains
Of hail & ice; voices of terror
Are heard, like thunders of autumn
When the cloud blazes over the harvests.
II
1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction;
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses;
Death was not, but eternal life sprung.
2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke, & vast clouds of blood roll’d
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam’d
That solitary one in Immensity.
3. Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity
Muster around the bleak desarts,
Now fill’d with clouds, darkness, & waters,
That roll’d perplex’d, lab’ring; & utter’d
Words articulate bursting in thunders
That roll’d on the tops of his mountains:
4. “From the depths of dark solitude, From
The eternal abode in my holiness,
Hidden, set apart, in my stem counsels,
Reserv’d for the days of futurity,
I have sought for a joy without pain,
For a solid without fluctuation.
Why will you die, 0 Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?
5. “First I fought with the fire, consum’d
Inwards into a deep world within:
A void immense, wild, dark & deep,
Where nothing was: Nature’s wide womb;
And self balanc‘d, stretch’d o’er the void,
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
Bound; but condensing in torrents
They fall & fall; strong I repell’d
The vast waves, & arose on the waters
A wide world of solid obstruction.
6. “Here alone I, in books form’d of metals,
Have written the secrets of wisdom,
The secrets of dark contemplation,
By fightings and conflicts dire
With terrible monsters Sin-bred
Which the bosoms of all inhabit,
Seven deadly Sins of the soul.
7. “Lo! I unfold my darkness, and on
This rock place with strong hand the Book
Of eternal brass, written in my solitude:
8. “Laws of peace, of love, of unity,
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness;
Let each chuse one habitation,
His ancient infinite mansion,
One command, one joy, one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure,
One King, one God, one Law.”
III
1.The voice ended: they saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness, his hand
On the rock of eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage siez’d the strong,
2. Rage, fury, intense indignation,
In cataracts of fire, blood, & gall,
I
n whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke,
And enormous forms of energy,
All the seven deadly sins of the soul
In living creations appear’d,
In the flames of eternal fury.
3. Sund‘ring, dark’ning, thund’ring,
Rent away with a terrible crash,
Eternity roll’d wide apart,
Wide asunder rolling;
Mountainous all around
Departing, departing, departing,
Leaving ruinous fragments of life
Hanging, frowning cliffs & all between,
An ocean of voidness unfathomable.
4. The roaring fires ran o‘er the heav’ns
In whirlwinds & cataracts of blood,
And o’er the dark desarts of Urizen
Fires pour thro’ the void on all sides
On Urizen’s self-begotten armies.
5. But no light from the fires: all was darkness
In the flames of Eternal fury.
6. In fierce anguish & quenchless flames
To the desarts and rocks he ran raging
To hide; but he could not: combining,
He dug mountains & hills in vast strength,
He piled them in incessant labour,
In howlings & pangs & fierce madness,
Long periods in burning fires labouring
Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged,
In despair and the shadows of death.
7. And a roof vast, petrific around
On all sides he fram’d, like a womb,
Where thousands of rivers in veins
Of blood pour down the mountains to cool
The eternal fires, beating without
From Eternals; & like a black globe,
View’d by sons of Eternity standing
On the shore of the infinite ocean,
Like a human heart, strugling & beating,
The vast world of Urizen appear’d.
8. And Los, round the dark globe of Urizen,
Kept watch for Eternals to confine
The obscure separation alone;
For Eternity stood wide apart,
As the stars are apart from the earth.
9. Los wept, howling around the dark Demon,
And cursing his lot; for in anguish
Urizen was rent from his side,
And a fathomless void for his feet,
And intense fires for his dwelling.
10. But Urizen laid in a stony sleep,
Unorganiz’d, rent from Eternity.
11. The Eternals said: “What is this? Death.
Urizen is a clod of clay.”
12. Los howl’d 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.
IV [a]
1. Los, smitten with astonishment,
Frighten’d 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 shudd’ring fear
The dark changes, & bound every change
With rivets of iron & brass.
6. And these were the changes of Urizen:
IV [b]
1. Ages on ages roll’d over him;
In stony sleep ages roll’d over him,
Like a dark waste stretching, chang‘able,
By earthquakes riv’n, belching sullen fires:
On ages roll’d ages in ghastly
Sick torment; around him in whirlwinds
Of darkness the eternal Prophet howl’d,
Beating still on his rivets of iron,
Pouring sodor of iron; dividing
The horrible night into watches.
2. And Urizen (so his eternal name)
His prolific delight obscur’d more & more
In dark secresy, hiding in surgeing
Sulphureous fluid his phantasies.
The Eternal Prophet heav’d the dark bellows,
And turn’d restless the tongs, and the hammer
Incessant beat, forging chains new & new,
Numb’ring with links hours, days & years.
3. The Eternal mind, bounded, began to roll
Eddies of wrath ceaseless round & round,
And the sulphureous foam, surgeing thick,
Settled, a lake, bright & shining clear,
White as the snow on the mountains cold.
4. Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity,
In chains of the mind locked up,
Like fetters of ice shrinking together,
Disorganiz’d, rent from Eternity,
Los beat on his fetters of iron,
And heated his furnaces, & pour’d
Iron sodor and sodor of brass.
5. Restless turn’d the Immortal inchain’d,
Heaving dolorous, anguish’d unbearable;
Till a roof, shaggy wild, inclos’d
In an orb his fountain of thought.
6. In a horrible, dreamful slumber,
Like the linked infernal chain,
A vast Spine writh’d in torment
Upon the winds, shooting pain’d
Ribs, like a bending cavern;
And bones of solidness froze
Over all his nerves of joy.
And a first Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
7. From the caverns of his jointed Spine
Down sunk with fright a red
Round Globe, hot burning, deep,
Deep down into the Abyss;
Panting, Conglobing, Trembling,
Shooting out ten thousand branches
Around his solid bones.
And a second Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
8. In harrowing fear rolling round,
His nervous brain shot branches
Round the branches of his heart
On high into two little orbs,
And fixed in two little caves,
Hiding carefully from the wind,
His Eyes beheld the deep.
And a third Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
9. The pangs of hope began.
In heavy pain, striving, struggling,
Two Ears in close volutions
From beneath his orbs of vision
Shot spiring out and petrified
As they grew. And a fourth Age passed,
And a state of dismal woe.
10. In ghastly torment sick,
Hanging upon the wind,
Two Nostrils bend 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 channel’d Throat,
And, like a red flame, a Tongue
Of thirst & of hunger appear’d.
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 stamp’d the nether Abyss
In trembling & howling & dismay.
And a seventh Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
V
1.In terrors Los shrunk from his task:
His great hammer fell f
rom his hand.
His fires beheld, and sickening
Hid their strong limbs in smoke;
For with noises, ruinous, loud,
With hurtlings & clashings & groans,
The Immortal endur’d his chains,
Tho’ bound in a deadly sleep.
2.All the myriads of Eternity,
All the wisdom & joy of life
Roll like a sea around him,
Except what his little orbs
Of sight by degrees unfold.
3.And now his eternal life
Like a dream was obliterated.
4.Shudd’ring, the Eternal Prophet smote
With a stroke from his north to south region.
The bellows & hammer are silent now;
A nerveless silence his prophetic voice
Siez’d; a cold solitude & dark void
The Eternal Prophet & Urizen clos’d.
5.Ages on ages roll’d 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,
The Portable Blake Page 25
