The Complete Poems

by William Blake

  9 they took the Sun… Los The light of Prophecy is exploited to justify the temple of Empire.

  18 The day… religion War and Religion mutually support each other.

  19 Urizen namd it Pande Pandemonium, the demonic abode of Paradise Lost 1.756.

  20 Los reard his mighty stature Prophecy prepares to oppose Empire. Los here is a primitive bard (of epic poetry or heroic ballad) who ‘follows War’ (97.21).

  P. 98.22 The Prester Serpent The legendary medieval priest-tyrant Prester John. His cowl is a cobra’s head.

  P. 91.2 The nameless shadowy Vortex This is the SHADOWY FEMALE, fallen form of VALA, the Nature-goddess born in Night VII [a] 85 and set to guard Orc.

  17–19 The hairy shoulders… nameless shadow Revolution at last breaks loose, and ravishes Nature.

  P. 91.21–P. 93.19 The long war song of the ‘elemental Gods’ concerns the conflict between Urthona–Los of the north, and Urizen (‘the rising… King’, 91.30) of the south. It modulates between rhapsodic celebration and prophetic narrative. Comparable songs by ‘Demons of the Deep’ are in Night I.14.7ff., Night v.s8.22ff. Most of this song is repeated in f 65.6–55.

  P. 92.3 darts of wintry hail… black bow Artillery, cannon.

  9–13 clarions of Victory… death of Luvah The Druid practice, reported by Caesar, of sacrificing prisoners before a battle to ensure victory, is identified with the Crucifixion (which will occur in Night viii.P.106). We are not told which side wins this battle, for it does not matter. The victim is always Love.

  17–33 Then left the Sons… rules of life An interruption in the song. Blake associates warfare, industrialism and rationalism as mutually necessary parts of one system.

  34 In the following passage, Vala is the seductress, at once Nature-goddess and femme fatale, whose worship is responsible for War.

  P. 93.6 Remembers all thy feigned terrors By feigning chastity the seductress encourages her lovers to be warriors. War is the sublimation of thwarted sexual energy.

  33 The Shadowy Female Vala has seduced both Orc and Urizen. She now turns to Tharmas, appealing to his pity. Though triumphant in the war, she is a ‘howling melancholy’ (94.48) because she cannot reunite with Luvah.

  P. 94.16–17 Enitharmon & Ahania… Enion/Hid him A lie. Vala wants Tharmas to pity her, not blame her for Man’s Fall.

  P. 95.6 If ye will believe… rise again Repeats the promise given at the close of Night iv (56.18).

  II Repeats the decline of Night VII [a] (85.18).

  NIGHT THE EIGHTH

  The dark before the dawn; Mankind submerged in War; Incarnation and Crucifixion of the Lamb.

  The Council of God meets to create fallen Man on the limit of contraction. Man begins to wake. The activity of Prophecy goes on, as Los-Enitharmon continue receiving spectres of the dead from Urizen’s wars through Enitharmon’s broken heart gate, and Enitharmon makes looms to weave them bodies. The Divine Countenance shines on them. Urizen is perplexed by this sight (the Lamb of God in Luvah’s robes), for he thought he had conquered Luvah (Passion) by subverting Orc (Revolution). Meanwhile Orc in serpent form keeps eating the bread of sorrow, which breaks out in jewels all over him.

  Urizen at last makes war directly against Los (P. 100, second portion). His artillery is described. The battle takes the form of a HERMAPHRODITE called SATAN. Los and Enitharmon respond not by violence but by inspired contemplation, their prophecies receiving and humanizing the victims of war. Urizen augments his armaments, makes martial music to pervert souls, propagates his books. But Vala, begging him to return Luvah, soaks with her tears the Web of Religion until it falls, altering all the vortexes of knowledge and entangling Urizen himself. Meanwhile, Enitharmon’s opus, collectively, is JERUSALEM, the EMANATION of ALBION. The Lamb of God emerges from Jerusalem (P. 104). SATAN emerges from the hermaphroditic war. They meet. The synagogue of Satan, concealing the Great Whore RAHAB and the cruel TIRZAH within, judges and crucifies the Lamb. Los tries to teach Rahab, but she turns away. Urizen is transformed into a dragon – his final degeneration.

  The close of the book (P. 108) begins with a hopeful dialogue between Ahania and Enion, who anticipates regeneration, while the body of the Lamb is placed in a sepulchre. P. III gives the history of Rahab in the Christian era, down to the eighteenth century.

  P. 99.2 Gilead & Hermon Mountains on the frontiers of the Holy Land.

  16–17 Man began/To wake… sneezed seven times The prophet Elisha revived a dead child by lying upon his body, ‘and the child sneezed seven times and… opened his eyes’ (2 Kings 4:35).

  P. 101.8 a Serpent… among the Constellations Serpens is the constellation adjoining Ophiocus.

  17–18 Orc devourd the food… gems & gold Degenerated Revolution feeds on the Bread of Sorrow – made from the fruit of the Tree of Mystery – and becomes encrusted with emblems of wealth. Thus Revolution turns into Reaction.

  20–21 the dark shadowy female… food See America, preludium.

  P. 100.34 Synagogue of Satan A term in Revelation 3:9 denoting blasphemous religious hypocrisy.

  Sanhedrim Jewish councils or courts; in the Gospels, they are opposed to Jesus.

  P. 101.33–4 Urizen beheld the battle… hermaphrodite The hermaphrodite contains both sexes in contradiction without synthesis and is thus a Blakean symbol of monstrous absurdity. War is hermaphroditic because it is self-contradictory; note the idea that Reason never intends to produce contradiction, but always does.

  P. 101.43–P. 102.11 Feeling the hand of Los… beastial length A description of the lives of soldiers. While inspired by heroic ideals (works of Los) they may be temporarily ‘human’. But they soon relapse to bestiality.

  P. 102.15–16 linked chains… boring screws Chain-shot, and instruments for sinking enemy ships.

  P. 102.26 the Shadowy Female The Shadowy Female is Vala, now not a femme fatale but a dolorosa: the beloved who craves her lover.

  P. 103.3 the murderer of my Luvah Vala’s error: she does not see the Divine Vision except as her lover’s murderer.

  18 For he was source Love was a reality; Theology is a mockery.

  26 the… Web of Religion… fell Rational Religion – a flimsy web – cannot sustain the weight of Sorrow’s tears. It falls, and entangles even Reason in its collapse.

  P. 104.1 Jerusalem the holy The ‘family’ (103.37) of lost souls given form by Enitharmon collectively becomes Jerusalem, Albion’s emanation and bride.

  7 put off the dark Satanic body From Colossians 3:9–10, ‘ye have put off the old man… And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.’

  P. 113 A ‘set piece’ on life, death and the resurrection is inserted here. The Sons of Eden sing of Los and Enitharmon creating life, then of Tirzah and Rahab, Satan and Beelzeboul creating death, and finally of the Lamb’s triumph over death.

  1 Looms… Forges Painting and Poetry to create Man.

  2 Spindles… Mills Fate and Logic to destroy Man.

  4–5] Deleted lines used in M 24.63–4.

  16 Souls put on their bodies, at the brink of earthly life. Arnon A river at the border of the Holy Land.

  35 She smites with her knife of flint The knife used for circumcision (lit. ‘cutting-round’) destroys the body of the Lamb. But the body is removed (‘put off’) like a husk, and the spirit remains.

  39 They anoint his feet Mary does so for Jesus in John 12:3.

  P. 104.17 From Revelation 22:20: ‘Surely I come quickly: Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.’

  23–7 Satan… A male… Yet hiding the shadowy female Vala The apotheosis of Satan, concealing Vala (Nature) as his guiding power, immediately precedes the Nativity.

  32 the Lamb of God Descended The Nativity takes place.

  P. 105.5 the Synagogue of Satan in dire Sanhedrim The congregation of Hypocrisy (Revelation 3:9) in the court of the Commandments will condemn Jesus.

  7 From Isaiah 53:12, fulfilled in Mark 15:28 and Luke 22:37.

  11
A False Feminine Counterpart In the trial against Jesus, the guiding power is RAHAB, a ‘vegetated’ form of Vala. She is the final apotheosis of Nature which torments Spirit, and the Church of worldly corruption.

  27 Tirzah See Dictionary of Proper Names.

  31–54 O thou poor human form… Vegetation This song of female cruelty is repeated in f 67.44–68.9.

  42–3 Ephraim… Manasseh Regions in the north of the Holy Land (as are Shechem and Gilead, 1. 52), of which Tirzah was a secessionist capital, competing with Jerusalem.

  45–55 Noah, Malah, Hoglah, Milcah, Tirzah Daughters of Zelophe-had who successfully demanded female inheritance in the absence of sons (Numbers 27:1–7). B. makes them an example of cruel female will.

  48 Ebal The site of a ritual curse laid on Israel (Deuteronomy 27:13–26).

  49 Lebanon Famous for forests (thus representing ‘error’). sinai The site of the law.

  56 the twelve portions of Luvah Implies the twelve tribes of Israel.

  P. 106.26 the Sepulcher which Los had hewn Los fills the role of Joseph of Arimathea, who gave Jesus burial in his own tomb and who – according to legend – afterwards became the apostle of Britain.

  P. 113.50–51 Los likewise announces himself in M 22.15–16.

  P. 115 Catalogue of the children of Los and Enitharmon. The male and female lists both begin in myth and end in recorded history. Damon (387–8) considers this an intended catalogue of all human types through the ages, and interprets many of the names.

  Male list: In the Bard’s Song of M, Rintrah, Palambron, Theotormon, Bromion are Los’s ‘good’ sons. Antamon, Ozoth, Sotha are in minor roles. Satan is Los’s bad son. Har and Ijim are ‘law’ and ‘superstition’ in Tiriel. Adam is the first ‘historic’ hero, followed by the twelve tribes of Israel, then David and Solomon as Israel’s great kings. Paul, Constantine, Charlemaine, Luther represent the Churches of the Christian era. Finally, Milton is the most modern embodiment of the spirit of Prophecy.

  Female list: the first four are emanations of the first four males, and represent various aspects of female sexuality. The second four are mentioned in BU and Europe and represent the elements air, earth, fire, water. Moab and Midian were nations hostile to Israel. Adah, Zillah, Naamah, Tamar are biblical wives and sisters. Rahab and Tirzah are the temptresses and torturers of mankind. Finally, Mary perhaps pairs with Milton as the most recent female receptacle of the Holy Spirit.

  12 But Satan accusd Palamabron This story, here only sketchily suggested, is told in full in the Bard’s song of M Pls. 3–13. The main point is that Satan as a child of Los precipitated a quarrel which ended in his exclusion from Los’s family, and that the sacrifice of Jesus is a final result.

  42–50 Lucifer… Jesus The successive guardians of mankind are also named in M 13.17–27 (see note). They are the ‘eyes of God’ or ‘lamps of the Almighty’ given in Night 1.19.9–10. See SEVEN EYES OF GOD.

  P. 106.29 Urizen sitting in his web The Web of Religion fell and entangled Urizen himself in 103.26.

  36–42 His eyes shot outwards… the Abyss Attempting to embrace Nature, Urizen becomes a beast, falling prone like Satan in Paradise Lost x. 511–12. Reason has now collapsed to its opposite.

  P. 107.21–31 Then Tharmas & Urthona… strength The stupefying poison of Nature affects Tharmas and Urthona-Los. But Tharmas and Urthona sacrifice themselves to strengthen Los.

  P. 108.8 And thus Ahania cries aloud The lament of the fertile earth, now barren.

  11–12 Taken in modified form from VDA 5.41–6.1.

  21 A conflation of Romans 7:24: ‘O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ and I Corinthians 15:53: ‘For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.’

  P. 109.13 Enion replies… Grave Enion herself is ‘the grave’, now anticipating resurrection.

  21 Awake the bridegroom cometh In the parable of the wise and foolish virgins, Matthew 25:6, the bridegroom is Christ.

  32–3 cast away/The former things ‘There shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away’ (Revelation 21:4).

  P.111.4 John Saw these things Reveald ‘John of Patmos’ is the author of Revelation. The references are to Revelation 6:9–11 (the souls of the martyrs) and Revelation 17:3–5 (the triumph of the harlot).

  10–11 She secretly left… Orc B. outlines the history of Theology and the Church in the Christian era, alternating between legalism and radicalism.

  11 She hid him with the flax The harlot Rahab in Joshua 2:6 protected two Jewish spies by hiding them in the flax on her roof.

  20 To burn Mystery The old theology dies, but is renewed again in deism, the ‘rational’ religion of the eighteenth century.

  NIGHT THE NINTH

  The Last Judgement.

  Los in final desperation tears down the sun and moon, and the fires of Orc begin to consume the whole world. The dead awake to judgement, and Tyranny is cut off.

  Man awakes (119.24) and commands Urizen to resume his true form. Urizen weeping rejects ‘futurity’, accepts the present, gives up the effort to curb all the Zoas, and immediately rises into heaven as a radiant haloed youth. Ahania simultaneously rises, like a bubble – but bursts from excess of joy and is buried for the duration of winter. Man tells Urizen to plough and await the spring, and the remainder of Night IX follows a seasonal cycle.

  122.26: In winter, the universe explodes, the dead are resurrected and oppressors are punished by their victims, as flames roar. Man gets up from his rock, walks, tries to meet the Lord in the flames, but is driven back. Urizen ploughs, sows, harrows, awaits the harvest. The continual flames make the seeds grow. Ahania (spring) returns. Man again tries to enter the flames, is again driven back.

  P. 126: The advent of summer. As Orc is consumed in his own flames, Luvah and Vala appear, and enter a pastoral golden age. Tharmas and Enion are born as children in Vala’s garden. As autumn arrives (P. 132), Urizen reaps the last harvest. Tharmas and Enion reunite at a feast of the Eternals. Urizen threshes and winnows the nations: this is the end of Mystery and the liberation of slaves. Finally, Luvah presses the human grapes of the last vintage. Urthona (137. 34) rises and grinds the corn (the nations) in his mills. Tharmas sifts it, and the bread bakes in the last winter. Final chorale.

  P. 117.8–11 the Sun… the Moon… Sound of Loud Trumpet ‘Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light… And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet’ (Matthew 24:29–31).

  14–18 Folding like scrolls… Kings are shaken ‘And the heaven departed as a scroll… and every mountain and island were moved out of their places. And the Kings of the earth… hid themselves’ (Revelation 6:14–15).

  16 ‘The earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook’ (2 Samuel 22:8).

  P. 118.9 Orc began to Consume… fire Orc is consuming both ‘the whole creation’ and himself. The fires continue until P. 125.

  P. 119.3–4 twenty Seven/Folds M and f develop the image of a MUNDANE SHELL of twenty-seven heavens (successive Churches) encrusted round the material earth.

  15 the Dragon form… stony form Urizen was transformed to a prone dragon, while his human form petrified, in Night VIII.

  32 ‘But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind’ (Romans 7:23). ‘From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?’ (James 4:1).

  P. 119.33–P. 120.3 This passage, somewhat altered, appears in f 19.1–14.

  P. 120.10 Yet will I look… morning ‘Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him’ (Job 13:15). ‘My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning’ (Psalm 130:6). Albion at last begins his renewal.

  50 A ‘line of scarlet thread in the window’ (Joshua 2:18) was the sign to save Rahab and her family.

&n
bsp; P. 121.26 Urizen at last sees the light. The Reason which fears Passion and Sensation is only Doubt. When it relinquishes this fear it becomes Faith.

  35–7 Ahania rose in joy… She fell down dead Idealism cannot be sustained by Faith alone. The full restoration of Ahania will depend on Works. Ahania in VIII. Pp. 108–9 was ‘the furrowd field’, abandoned and barren. She now becomes a spirit of springtime, like Persephone, who rests in the underworld through the winter, and returns in new growth after the plough.

  P. 122.17–18 Jerusalem… out of heaven ‘And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband’ (Revelation 21:2).

  21 my Error remains with me The results of Error remain, even after repentance. They must be destroyed (‘All things reversd’, 1.27) and new works of Truth performed.

  27–8 rattling bones/To bones Join, shaking The resurrection of the dead. In Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones (37.7), ‘there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came together, bone to his bone’.

  P. 123.5 They shew their wounds… opressor The idea of a period of human retaliation and vengeance following the general resurrection occurs in the Koran.

  20 ‘Every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all… shall wail because of him’ (Revelation 1:7).

  27–8 the Cloud of the Son… Glory ‘They shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory’ (Luke 21:27).

  33–8 ‘A throne was set in heaven… And round about the throne were… four and twenty elders sitting… and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind’ (Revelation 4:2–6). The Greek for ‘beasts’ is Zωα, which may also be translated ‘living creatures’ or ‘lifes’.

  P. 124.5 the Redeemd Man… Consummation It is not enough for Christ to pay for (redeem) Man’s sins. Man himself must act.