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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
JERUSALEM; THE EMANATION OF THE GIANT ALBION: CHAPTER 3, by WILLIAM BLAKE Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: But los, who is the vehicular form of strong urthona Last Line: In englands green & pleasant bowers. Subject(s): Bible; England; Mythology; Peace; War; English | |||
But Los, who is the Vehicular Form of strong Urthona Wept vehemently over Albion where Thames currents spring From the rivers of Beulah; pleasant river! soft, mild, parent stream And the roots of Albions Tree enterd the Soul of Los As he sat before his Furnaces clothed in sackcloth of hair In gnawing pain dividing him from his Emanation; Inclosing all the Children of Los time after time. Their Giant forms condensing into Nations & Peoples & Tongues Translucent the Furnaces, of Beryll & Emerald immortal: And Seven-fold each within other: incomprehensible To the Vegetated Mortal Eye's perverted & single vision The Bellows are the Animal Lungs. the hammers, the Animal Heart The Furnaces, the Stomach for Digestion; terrible their fury Like seven burning heavens rang'd from South to North Here on the banks of the Thames, Los builded Golgonooza, Outside of the Gates of the Human Heart, beneath Beulah In the midst of the rocks of the Altars of Albion. In fears He builded it, in rage & in fury. It is the Spiritual Fourfold London: continually building & continually decaying desolate! In eternal labours: loud the Furnaces & loud the Anvils Of Death thunder incessant around the flaming Couches of The Twentyfour Friends of Albion and round the awful Four For the protection of the Twelve Emanations of Albions Sons The Mystic Union of the Emanation in the Lord; Because Man divided from his Emanation is a dark Spectre His Emanation is an ever-weeping melancholy Shadow But she is made receptive of Generation thro' mercy In the Potters Furnace, among the Funeral Urns of Beulah From Surrey hills, thro' Italy and Greece, to Hinnoms vale. In Great Eternity, every particular Form gives forth or Emanates Its own peculiar Light, & the Form is the Divine Vision And the Light is his Garment This is Jerusalem in every Man A Tent & Tabernacle of Mutual Forgiveness Male & Female Clothings. And Jerusalem is called Liberty among the Children of Albion But Albion fell down a Rocky fragment from Eternity hurld By his own Spectre, who is the Reasoning Power in every Man Into his own Chaos which is the Memory between Man & Man The silent broodings of deadly revenge springing from the All powerful parental affection, fills Albion from head to foot Seeing his Sons assimilate with Luvah, bound in the bonds Of spiritual Hate, from which springs Sexual Love as iron chains: He tosses like a Cloud outstretchd among Jerusalems Ruins Which overspread all the Earth, he groans among his ruind porches But the Spectre like a hoar frost & a Mildew rose over Albion Saying, I am God O Sons of Men! I am your Rational Power! Am I not Bacon & Newton & Locke who teach Humility to Man! Who teach Doubt & Experiment & my two Wings Voltaire: Rousseau. Where is that Friend of Sinners! that Rebel against my Laws! Who teaches Belief to the Nations, & an unknown Eternal Life Come hither into the Desart & turn these stones to bread. Vain foolish Man! wilt thou believe without Experiment? And build a World of Phantasy upon my Great Abyss! A World of Shapes in craving Lust & devouring appetite So spoke the hard cold constrictive Spectre he is named Arthur Constricting into Druid Rocks round Canaan Agag & Aram & Pharoh Then Albion drew England into his bosom in groans & tears But she stretchd out her starry Night in Spaces against him. like A long Serpent, in the Abyss of the Spectre which augmented The Night with Dragon wings coverd with stars & in the Wings Jerusalem & Vala appeard: & above between the Wings magnificent The Divine Vision dimly appeard in clouds of blood weeping. When those who disregard all Mortal Things, saw a Mighty-One Among the Flowers of Beulah still retain his awful strength They wonderd; checking their wild flames & Many gathering Together into an Assembly; they said, let us go down And see these changes! Others said, If you do so prepare For being drived from our fields, what have we to do with the Dead? To be their inferiors or superiors we equally abhor; Superior, none we know: inferior none: all equal share Divine Benevolence & joy, for the Eternal Man Walketh among us, calling us his Brothers & his Friends: Forbidding us that Veil which Satan puts between Eve & Adam By which the Princes of the Dead enslave their Votaries Teaching them to form the Serpent of precious stones & gold To sieze the Sons of Jerusalem & plant them in One Mans Loins To make One Family of Contraries: that Joseph may be sold Into Egypt: for Negation; a Veil the Saviour born & dying rends. But others said: Let us to him who only Is, & who Walketh among us, give decision. bring forth all your fires! So saying, an eternal deed was done: in fiery flames The Universal Conclave raged, such thunderous sounds as never Were sounded from a mortal cloud, nor on Mount Sinai old Nor in Havilah where the Cherub rolld his redounding flame. Loud! loud! the Mountains lifted up their voices, loud the Forests Rivers thunderd against their banks, loud Winds furious fought Cities & Nations contended in fires & clouds & tempests. The Seas raisd up their voices & lifted their hands on high The Stars in their courses fought. the Sun! Moon! Heaven! Earth. Contending for Albion & for Jerusalem his Emanation And for Shiloh, the Emanation of France & for lovely Vala. Then far the greatest number were about to make a Separation And they Elected Seven, calld the Seven Eyes of God; Lucifer, Molech, Elohim, Shaddai, Pahad, Jehovah, Jesus. They namd the Eighth. he came not, he hid in Albions Forests But first they said: (& their Words stood in Chariots in array Curbing their Tygers with golden bits & bridles of silver & ivory) Let the Human Organs be kept in their perfect Integrity At will Contracting into Worms, or Expanding into Gods And then behold! what are these Ulro Visions of Chastity! Then as the moss upon the tree: or dust upon the plow: Or as the sweat upon the labouring shoulder: or as the chaff Of the wheat-floor or as the dregs of the sweet wine-press Such are these Ulro Visions, for tho we sit down within The plowed furrow, listning to the weeping clods till we Contract or Expand Space at will: or if we raise ourselves Upon the chariots of the morning. Contracting or Expanding Time! Every one knows, we are One Family! One Man blessed for ever Silence remaind & every one resumd his Human Majesty And many conversed on these things as they labourd at the furrow Saying: It is better to prevent misery, than to release from misery It is better to prevent error, than to forgive the criminal: Labour well the Minute Particulars, attend to the Little-ones: And those who are in misery cannot remain so long If we do but our duty: labour well the teeming Earth. They Plow'd in tears, the trumpets sounded before the golden Plow And the voices of the Living Creatures were heard in the clouds of heaven Crying: Compell the Reasoner to Demonstrate with unhewn Demonstrations Let the Indefinite be explored. and let every Man be judged By his own Works, Let all Indefinites be thrown into Demonstrations To be pounded to dust & melted in the Furnaces of Affliction: He who would do good to another, must do it in Minute Particulars General Good is the plea of the scoundrel hypocrite & flatterer: For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars And not in generalizing Demonstrations of the Rational Power. The Infinite alone resides in Definite & Determinate Identity Establishment of Truth depends on destruction of Falshood continually On Circumcision: not on Virginity, O Reasoners of Albion So cried they at the Plow. Albions Rock frowned above And the Great Voice of Eternity rolled above terrible in clouds Saying Who will go forth for us! & Who shall we send before our face? Then Los heaved his thund'ring Bellows on the Valley of Middlesex And thus he chaunted his Song: the Daughters of Albion reply. What may Man be? who can tell! But what may Woman be? To have power over Man from Cradle to corruptible Grave. He who is an Infant, and whose Cradle is a Manger Knoweth the Infant sorrow: whence it came, and where it goeth: And who weave it a Cradle of the grass that withereth away. This World is all a Cradle for the erred wandering Phantom: Rock'd by Year, Month, Day & Hour; and every two Moments Between, dwells a Daughter of Beulah, to feed the Human Vegetable Entune: Daughters of Albion. your hymning Chorus mildly! Cord of affection thrilling extatic on the iron Reel: To the golden Loom of Love! to the moth-labourd Woof A Garment and Cradle weaving for the infantine Terror: For fear; at entering the gate into our World of cruel Lamentation: it flee back & hide in Non-Entitys dark wild Where dwells the Spectre of Albion: destroyer of Definite Form. The Sun shall be a Scythed Chariot of Britain: the Moon; a Ship In the British Ocean! Created by Los's Hammer; measured out Into Days & Nights & Years & Months. to travel with my feet Over these desolate rocks of Albion: O daughters of despair! Rock the Cradle, and in mild melodies tell me where found What you have enwoven with so much tears & care? so much Tender artifice: to laugh: to weep: to learn: to know; Remember! recollect what dark befel in wintry days O it was lost for ever! and we found it not: it came And wept at our wintry Door: Look! look! behold! Gwendolen Is become a Clod of Clay! Merlin is a Worm of the Valley! Then Los uttered with Hammer & Anvil: Chaunt! revoice! I mind not your laugh: and your frown I not fear! and You must my dictate obey from your gold-beam'd Looms; trill Gentle to Albions Watchman, on Albions mountains; reeccho And rock the Cradle while! Ah me! Of that Eternal Man And of the cradled Infancy in his bowels of compassion: Who fell beneath his instruments of husbandry & became Subservient to the clods of the furrow! the cattle and even The emmet and earth-Worm are his superiors & his lords. Then the response came warbling from trilling Looms in Albion We Women tremble at the light therefore: hiding fearful The Divine Vision with Curtain & Veil & fleshly Tabernacle Los utter'd: swift as the rattling thunder upon the mountains: Look back into the Church Paul! Look! Three Women around The Cross! O Albion why didst thou a Female Will Create? And the voices of Bath & Canterbury & York & Edinburgh. Cry Over the Plow of Nations in the strong hand of Albion thundering along Among the Fires of the Druid & the deep black rethundering Waters Of the Atlantic which poured in impetuous loud loud. louder & louder. And the Great Voice of the Atlantic howled over the Druid Altars: Weeping over his Children in Stone-henge in Maiden & Colchester. Round the Rocky Peak of Derbyshire London Stone & Rosamonds Bower What is a Wife & what is a Harlot? What is a Church? & What Is a Theatre? are they Two & not One? can they Exist Separate? Are not Religion & Politics the Same Thing? Brotherhood is Religion O Demonstrations of Reason Dividing Families in Cruelty & Pride! But Albion fled from the Divine Vision, with the Plow of Nations enflaming The Living Creatures maddend and Albion fell into the Furrow, and The Plow went over him & the Living was Plowed in among the Dead But his Spectre rose over the starry Plow. Albion fled beneath the Plow Till he came to the Rock of Ages. & he took his Seat upon the Rock. Wonder siezd all in Eternity! to behold the Divine Vision. open The Center into an Expanse, & the Center rolled out into an Expanse. In beauty the Daughters of Albion divide & unite at will Naked & drunk with blood Gwendolen dancing to the timbrel Of War: reeling up the Street of London she divides in twain Among the Inhabitants of Albion. the People fall around. The Daughters of Albion. divide & unite in jealousy & cruelty The Inhabitants of Albion at the Harvest & the Vintage Feel their Brain cut round beneath the temples shrieking Bonifying into a Scull, the Marrow exuding in dismal pain They flee over the rocks bonifying: Horses: Oxen: feel the knife. And while the Sons of Albion by severe War & Judgment, bonify The Hermaphroditic Condensations are divided by the Knife The obdurate Forms are cut asunder by jealousy & Pity. Rational Philosophy and Mathematic Demonstration Is divided in the intoxications of pleasure & affection Two Contraries War against each other in fury & blood, And Los fixes them on his Anvil, incessant his blows: He fixes them with strong blows. placing the stones & timbers. To Create a World of Generation from the World of Death: Dividing the Masculine & Feminine: for the comingling Of Albions & Luvahs Spectres was Hermaphroditic Urizen wrathful strode above directing the awful Building: As a Mighty Temple; delivering Form out of confusion. Jordan sprang beneath its threshold bubbling from beneath Its pillars: Euphrates ran under its arches: white sails And silver oars reflect on its pillars, & sound on its ecchoing Pavements: where walk the Sons of Jerusalem who remain Ungenerate But the revolving Sun and Moon pass thro its porticoes, Day & night, in sublime majesty & silence they revolve And shine glorious within! Hand & Koban archd over the Sun In the hot noon, as he traveld thro his journey; Hyle & Skofield Archd over the Moon at midnight & Los Fixd them there, With his thunderous Hammer; terrified the Spectres rage & flee Canaan is his portico; Jordan is a fountain in his porch; A fountain of milk & wine to relieve the traveller: Egypt is the eight steps within. Ethiopia supports his pillars; Lybia & the Lands unknown. are the ascent without; Within is Asia & Greece, ornamented with exquisite art: Persia & Media are his halls: his inmost hall is Great Tartary. China & India & Siberia are his temples for entertainment Poland & Russia & Sweden, his soft retired chambers France & Spain & Italy & Denmark & Holland & Germany Are the temples among his pillars. Britain is Los's Forge; America North & South are his baths of living waters. Such is the Ancient World of Urizen in the Satanic Void Created from the Valley of Middlesex by Londons River From Stone-henge and from London Stone, from Cornwall to Cathnes The Four Zoa's rush around on all sides in dire ruin Furious in pride of Selfhood the terrible Spectres of Albion Rear their dark Rocks among the Stars of God: stupendous Works! A World of Generation continually Creating; out of The Hermaphroditic Satanic World of rocky destiny. And formed into Four precious stones. for enterance from Beulah For the Veil of Vala which Albion cast into the Atlantic Deep To catch the Souls of the Dead: began to Vegetate & Petrify Around the Earth of Albion. among the Roots of his Tree This Los formed into the Gates & mighty Wall, between the Oak Of Weeping & the Palm of Suffering beneath Albions Tomb, Thus in process of time it became the beautiful Mundane Shell, The Habitation of the Spectres of the Dead & the Place Of Redemption & of awaking again into Eternity For Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic One to the North; Urthona: One to the South; Urizen: One to the East: Luvah: One to the West, Tharmas; They are the Four Zoas that stood around the Throne Divine Verulam: London: York & Edinburgh: their English names But when Luvah assumed the World of Urizen Southward And Albion was slain upon his Mountains & in his Tent. All fell towards the Center, sinking downwards in dire ruin, In the South remains a burning Fire: in the East. a Void In the West, a World of raging Waters: in the North; solid Darkness Unfathomable without end: but in the midst of these Is Built eternally the sublime Universe of Los & Enitharmon And in the North Gate, in the West of the North. toward Beulah Cathedrons Looms are builded. and Los's Furnaces in the South A wondrous golden Building immense with ornaments sublime Is bright Cathedrons golden Hall, its Courts Towers & Pinnacles And one Daughter of Los sat at the fiery Reel & another Sat at the shining Loom with her Sisters attending round Terrible their distress & their sorrow cannot be utterd And another Daughter of Los sat at the Spinning Wheel Endless their labour, with bitter food. void of sleep, Tho hungry they labour: they rouze themselves anxious Hour after hour labouring at the whirling Wheel Many Wheels & as many lovely Daughters sit weeping Yet the intoxicating delight that they take in their work Obliterates every other evil; none pities their tears Yet they regard not pity & they expect no one to pity For they labour for life & love, regardless of any one But the poor Spectres that they work for, always incessantly They are mockd, by every one that passes by. they regard not They labour; & when their Wheels are broken by scorn & malice They mend them sorrowing with many tears & afflictions. Other Daughters Weave on the Cushion & Pillow, Network fine That Rahab & Tirzah may exist & live & breathe & love Ah, that it could be as the Daughters of Beulah wish! Other Daughters of Los, labouring at Looms less fine Create the Silk-worm & the Spider & the Catterpiller To assist in their most grievous work of pity & compassion And others Create the wooly Lamb & the downy Fowl To assist in the work: the Lamb bleats: the Sea-fowl cries Men understand not the distress & the labour & sorrow That in the Interior Worlds is carried on in fear & trembling Weaving the shuddring fears & loves of Albions Families Thunderous rage the Spindles of iron. & the iron Distaff Maddens in the fury of their hands, Weaving in bitter tears The Veil of Goats-hair & Purple & Scarlet & fine twined Linen The clouds of Albions Druid Temples rage in the eastern heaven While Los sat terrified beholding Albions Spectre who is Luvah Spreading in bloody veins in torments over Europe & Asia; Not yet formed but a wretched torment unformed & abyssal In flaming fire; within the Furnaces the Divine Vision appeard On Albions hills: often walking from the Furnaces in clouds And flames among the Druid Temples & the Starry Wheels Gatherd Jerusalems Children in his arms & bore them like A Shepherd in the night of Albion which overspread all the Earth I gave thee liberty and life O lovely Jerusalem And thou hast bound me down upon the Stems of Vegetation I gave thee Sheep-walks upon the Spanish Mountains Jerusalem I gave thee Priams City and the Isles of Grecia lovely! I gave thee Hand & Scofield & the Counties of Albion: They spread forth like a lovely root into the Garden of God: They were as Adam before me: united into One Man, They stood in innocence & their skiey tent reachd over Asia To Nimrods Tower to Ham & Canaan walking with Mizraim Upon the Egyptian Nile, with solemn songs to Grecia And sweet Hesperia even to Great Chaldea & Tesshina Following thee as a Shepherd by the Four Rivers of Eden Why wilt thou rend thyself apart, Jerusalem? And build this Babylon & sacrifice in secret Groves, Among the Gods of Asia: among the fountains of pitch & nitre Therefore thy Mountains are become barren Jerusalem! Thy Valleys, Plains of burning sand. thy Rivers: waters of death Thy Villages die of the Famine and thy Cities Beg bread from house to house, lovely Jerusalem Why wilt thou deface thy beauty & the beauty of thy little-ones To please thy Idols, in the pretended chastities of Uncircumcision? Thy Sons are lovelier than Egypt or Assyria; wherefore Dost thou blacken their beauty by a Secluded place of rest. And a peculiar Tabernacle, to cut the integuments of beauty Into veils of tears and sorrows O lovely Jerusalem! They have perswaded thee to this, therefore their end shall come And I will lead thee thro the Wilderness in shadow of my cloud And in my love I will lead thee, lovely Shadow of Sleeping Albion. This is the Song of the Lamb, sung by Slaves in evening time. But Jerusalem faintly saw him, closd in the Dungeons of Babylon Her Form was held by Beulahs Daughters. but all within unseen She sat at the Mills, her hair unbound her feet naked Cut with the flints: her tears run down, her reason grows like The Wheel of Hand. incessant turning day & night without rest Insane she raves upon the winds hoarse, inarticulate: All night Vala hears. she triumphs in pride of holiness To see Jerusalem deface her lineaments with bitter blows Of despair. while the Satanic Holiness triumphd in Vala In a Religion of Chastity & Uncircumcised Selfishness Both of the Head & Heart & Loins, closd up in Moral Pride. But the Divine Lamb stood beside Jerusalem. oft she saw The lineaments Divine & oft the Voice heard, & oft she said: O Lord & Saviour, have the Gods of the Heathen pierced thee? Or hast thou been pierced in the House of thy Friends? Art thou alive! & livest thou for-evermore? or art thou Not: but a delusive shadow, a thought that liveth not. Babel mocks saying, there is no God nor Son of God That thou O Human Imagination, O Divine Body art all A delusion. but I know thee O Lord when thou arisest upon My weary eyes even in this dungeon & this iron mill. The Stars of Albion cruel rise; thou bindest to sweet influences: For thou also sufferest with me altho I behold thee not; And altho I sin & blaspheme thy holy name, thou pitiest me; Because thou knowest I am deluded by the turning mills. And by these visions of pity & love because of Albions death. Thus spake Jerusalem, & thus the Divine Voice replied. Mild Shade of Man, pitiest thou these Visions of terror & woe! Give forth thy pity & love. fear not! lo I am with thee always. Only believe in me that I have power to raise from death Thy Brother who Sleepeth in Albion: fear not trembling Shade Behold: in the Visions of Elohim Jehovah, behold Joseph & Mary And be comforted O Jerusalem in the Visions of Jehovah Elohim She looked & saw Joseph the Carpenter in Nazareth & Mary His espoused Wife. And Mary said, If thou put me away from thee Dost thou not murder me? Joseph spoke in anger & fury. Should I Marry a Harlot & an Adulteress? Mary answerd, Art thou more pure Than thy Maker who forgiveth Sins & calls again Her that is Lost Tho She hates. he calls her again in love. I love my dear Joseph But he driveth me away from his presence. yet I hear the voice of God In the voice of my Husband. tho he is angry for a moment, he will not Utterly cast me away. if I were pure, never could I taste the sweets Of the Forgiveness of Sins! if I were holy! I never could behold the tears Of love! of him who loves me in the midst of his anger in furnace of fire. Ah my Mary: said Joseph: weeping over & embracing her closely in His arms: Doth he forgive Jerusalem & not exact Purity from her who is Polluted. I heard his voice in my sleep O his Angel in my dream: Saying, Doth Jehovah Forgive a Debt only on condition that it shall Be Payed? Doth he Forgive Pollution only on conditions of Purity That Debt is not Forgiven! That Pollution is not Forgiven Such is the Forgiveness of the Gods, the Moral Virtues of the Heathen, whose tender Mercies are Cruelty. But Jehovahs Salvation Is without Money & without Price, in the Continual Forgiveness of Sins In the Perpetual Mutual Sacrifice in Great Eternity! for behold! There is none that liveth & Sinneth not! And this is the Covenant Of Jehovah: If you Forgive one-another, so shall Jehovah Forgive You: That He Himself may Dwell among You. Fear not then to take To thee Mary thy Wife, for she is with Child by the Holy Ghost Then Mary burst forth into a Song! she flowed like a River of Many Streams in the arms of Joseph & gave forth her tears of joy Like many waters, and Emanating into gardens & palaces upon Euphrates & to forests & floods & animals wild & tame from Gihon to Hiddekel, & to corn fields & villages & inhabitants Upon Pison & Arnon & Jordan. And I heard the voice among The Reapers Saying, Am I Jerusalem the lost Adulteress? or am I Babylon come up to Jerusalem? And another voice answerd Saying Does the voice of my Lord call me again? am I pure thro his Mercy And Pity. Am I become lovely as a Virgin in his sight who am Indeed a Harlot drunken with the Sacrifice of Idols does he Call her pure as he did in the days of her Infancy when She Was cast out to the loathing of her person. The Chaldean took Me from my Cradle. The Amalekite stole me away upon his Camels Before I had ever beheld with love the Face of Jehovah; or known That there was a God of Mercy: O Mercy O Divine Humanity! O Forgiveness & Pity & Compassion! If I were Pure I should never Have known Thee; If I were Unpolluted I should never have Glorified thy Holiness, or rejoiced in thy great Salvation. Mary leaned her side against Jerusalem, Jerusalem received The Infant into her hands in the Visions of Jehovah. Times passed on Jerusalem fainted over the Cross & Sepulcher She heard the voice Wilt thou make Rome thy Patriarch Druid & the Kings of Europe his Horsemen? Man in the Resurrection changes his Sexual Garments at will Every Harlot was once a Virgin: every Criminal an Infant Love! Repose on me till the morning of the Grave. I am thy life. Jerusalem replied. I am an outcast: Albion is dead! I am left to the trampling foot & the spurning heel! A Harlot I am calld. I am sold from street to street! I am defaced with blows & with the dirt of the Prison! And wilt thou become my Husband O my Lord & Saviour? Shall Vala bring thee forth! shall the Chaste be ashamed also? I see the Maternal Line, I behold the Seed of the Woman! Cainah, & Ada & Zillah & Naamah Wife of Noah. Shuahs daughter & Tamar & Rahab the Canaanites: Ruth the Moabite & Bathsheba of the daughters of Heth Naamah the Ammonite, Zibeah the Philistine, & Mary These are the Daughters of Vala, Mother of the Body of death But I thy Magdalen behold thy Spiritual Risen Body Shall Albion arise? I know he shall arise at the Last Day! I know that in my flesh I shall see God: but Emanations Are weak. they know not whence they are, nor whither tend. Jesus replied. I am the Resurrection & the Life. I Die & pass the limits of possibility, as it appears To individual perception. Luvah must be Created And Vala; for I cannot leave them in the gnawing Grave. But will prepare a way for my banished-ones to return Come now with me into the villages. walk thro all the cities. Tho thou art taken to prison & judgment, starved in the streets I will command the cloud to give thee food & the hard rock To flow with milk & wine, tho thou seest me not a season Even a long season & a hard journey & a howling wilderness! Tho Valas cloud hide thee & Luvahs fires follow thee! Only believe & trust in me, Lo. I am always with thee! So spoke the Lamb of God while Luvahs Cloud reddening above Burst forth in streams of blood upon the heavens & dark night Involvd Jerusalem. & the Wheels of Albions Sons turnd hoarse Over the Mountains & the fires blaz'd on Druid Altars And the Sun set in Tyburns Brook where Victims howl & cry. But Los beheld the Divine Vision among the flames of the Furnaces Therefore he lived & breathed in hope. but his tears fell incessant Because his Children were closd from him apart: & Enitharmon Dividing in fierce pain: also the Vision of God was closd in clouds Of Albions Spectres, that Los in despair oft sat, & often ponderd On Death Eternal in fierce shudders upon the mountains of Albion Walking: & in the vales in howlings fierce, then to his Anvils Turning, anew began his labours, tho in terrible pains! Jehovah stood among the Druids in the Valley of Annandale When the Four Zoas of Albion, the Four Living Creatures, the Cherubim Of Albion tremble before the Spectre, in the starry likeness of the Plow Of Nations. And their Names are Urizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona Luvah slew Tharmas the Angel of the Tongue & Albion brought him To Justice in his own City of Paris, denying the Resurrection Then Vala the Wife of Albion, who is the Daughter of Luvah Took vengeance Twelve-fold among the Chaotic Rocks of the Druids Where the Human Victims howl to the Moon & Thor & Friga Dance the dance of death contending with Jehovah among the Cherubim. The Chariot Wheels filled with Eyes rage along the howling Valley In the Dividing of Reuben & Benjamin bleeding from Chesters River The Giants & the Witches & the Ghosts of Albion dance with Thor & Friga, & the Fairies lead the Moon along the Valley of Cherubim Bleeding in torrents from Mountain to Mountain, a lovely Victim And Jehovah stood in the Gates of the Victim, & he appeared A weeping Infant in the Gates of Birth in the midst of Heaven The Cities & Villages of Albion became Rock & Sand Unhumanized The Druid Sons of Albion & the Heavens a Void around unfathomable No Human Form but Sexual & a little weeping Infant pale reflected Multitudinous in the Looking Glass of Enitharmon, on all sides Around in the clouds of the Female, on Albions Cliffs of the Dead Such the appearance in Cheviot: in the Divisions of Reuben When the Cherubim hid their heads under their wings in deep slumbers When the Druids demanded Chastity from Woman & all was lost. How can the Female be Chaste O thou stupid Druid Cried Los Without the Forgiveness of Sins in the merciful clouds of Jehovah And without the Baptism of Repentance to wash away Calumnies. and The Accusations of Sin that each may be Pure in their Neighbours sight O when shall Jehovah give us Victims from his Flocks & Herds Instead of Human Victims by the Daughters of Albion & Canaan Then laugh'd Gwendolen & her laughter shook the Nations & Familys of The Dead beneath Beulah from Tyburn to Golgotha, and from Ireland to Japan. furious her Lions & Tygers & Wolves sport before Los on the Thames & Medway. London & Canterbury groan in pain Los knew not yet what was done: he thought it was all in Vision In Visions of the Dreams of Beulah among the Daughters of Albion Therefore the Murder was put apart in the Looking-Glass of Enitharmon He saw in Vala's hand the Druid Knife of Revenge & the Poison Cup Of Jealousy, and thought it a Poetic Vision of the Atmospheres Till Canaan rolld apart from Albion across the Rhine: along the Danube And all the Land of Canaan suspended over the Valley of Cheviot From Bashan to Tyre & from Troy to Gaza of the Amalekite And Reuben fled with his head downwards among the Caverns Of the Mundane Shell which froze on all sides round Canaan on The vast Expanse: where the Daughters of Albion Weave the Web Of Ages & Generations, folding & unfolding it, like a Veil of Cherubim And sometimes it touches the Earths summits, & sometimes spreads Abroad into the Indefinite Spectre, who is the Rational Power. Then All the Daughters of Albion became One before Los: even Vala! And she put forth her hand upon the Looms in dreadful howlings Till she vegetated into a hungry Stomach & a devouring Tongue. Her Hand is a Court of Justice, her Feet: two Armies in Battle Storms & Pestilence: in her Locks: & in her Loins Earthquake. And Fire. & the Ruin of Cities & Nations & Families & Tongues She cries: The Human is but a Worm, & thou O Male: Thou art Thyself Female, a Male: a breeder of Seed: a Son & Husband: & Lo. The Human Divine is Womans Shadow, a Vapor in the summers heat Go assume Papal dignity thou Spectre, thou Male Harlot! Arthur Divide into the Kings of Europe in times remote O Woman-born And Woman-nourishd & Woman-educated & Woman-scorn'd! Wherefore art thou living? said Los, & Man cannot live in thy presence Art thou Vala the Wife of Albion O thou lovely Daughter of Luvah All Quarrels arise from Reasoning. the secret Murder, and The violent Man-slaughter. these are the Spectres double Cave The Sexual Death living on accusation of Sin & judgment To freeze Love & Innocence into the gold & silver of the Merchant Without Forgiveness of Sin Love is Itself Eternal Death Then the Spectre drew Vala into his bosom magnificent terrific Glittering with precious stones & gold, with Garments of blood & fire He wept in deadly wrath of the Spectre, in self-contradicting agony Crimson with Wrath & green with jealousy dazling with Love And jealousy immingled & the purple of the violet darkend deep Over the Plow of Nations thundring in the hand of Albions Spectre A dark Hermaphrodite they stood frowning upon Londons River And the Distaff & Spindle in the hands of Vala with the Flax of Human Miseries turnd fierce with the Lives of Men along the Valley As Reuben fled before the Daughters of Albion Taxing the Nations Derby Peak yawnd a horrid Chasm at the Cries of Gwendolen, & at The stamping feet of Ragan upon the flaming Treddles of her Loom That drop with crimson gore with the Loves of Albion & Canaan Opening along the Valley of Rephaim, weaving over the Caves of Machpelah To decide Two Worlds with a great decision: a World of Mercy, and A World of justice: the World of Mercy for Salvation To cast Luvah into the Wrath, and Albion into the Pity In the Two Contraries of Humanity & in the Four Regions. For in the depths of Albions bosom in the eastern heaven, They sound the clarions strong! they chain the howling Captives! They cast the lots into the helmet; they give the oath of blood in Lambeth They vote the death of Luvah, & they naild him to Albions Tree in Bath: They staind him with poisonous blue, they inwove him in cruel roots To die a death of Six thousand years bound round with vegetation The sun was black & the moon rolld a useless globe thro Britain! Then left the Sons of Urizen the plow & harrow, the loom The hammer & the chisel, & the rule & compasses; from London fleeing They forg'd the sword on Cheviot, the chariot of war & the battle-ax, The trumpet fitted to mortal battle, & the flute of summer in Annandale And all the Arts of Life. they changd into the Arts of Death in Albion. The hour-glass contemnd because its simple workmanship. Was like the workmanship of the plowman, & the water wheel, That raises water into cisterns: broken & burnd with fire: Because its workmanship. was like the workmanship of the shepherd. And in their stead, intricate wheels invented, wheel without wheel: To perplex youth in their outgoings, & to bind to labours in Albion Of day & night the myriads of eternity that they may grind And polish brass & iron hour after hour laborious task! Kept ignorant of its use, that they might spend the days of wisdom In sorrowful drudgery, to obtain a scanty pittance of bread: In ignorance to view a small portion & think that All, And call it Demonstration: blind to all the simple rules of life. Now: now the battle rages round thy tender limbs O Vala Now smile among thy bitter tears: now put on all thy beauty Is not the wound of the sword sweet! & the broken bone delightful? Wilt thou now smile among the scythes when the wounded groan in the field? We were carried away in thousands from London; & in tens Of thousands from Westminster & Marybone in ships closd up: Chaind hand & foot, compelld to fight under the iron whips Of our captains; fearing our officers more than the enemy. Lift up thy blue eyes Vala & put on thy sapphire shoes: O melancholy Magdalen behold the morning over Malden break; Gird on thy flaming zone, descend into the sepulcher of Canterbury. Scatter the blood from thy golden brow, the tears from thy silver locks: Shake off the waters from thy wings! & the dust from thy white garments Remember all thy feigned terrors on the secret couch of Lambeths Vale When the sun rose in glowing morn, with arms of mighty hosts Marching to battle who was wont to rise with Urizens harps Girt as a sower with his seed to scatter life abroad over Albion: Arise O Vala! bring the bow of Urizen: bring the swift arrows of light. How rag'd the golden horses of Urizen, compelld to the chariot of love! Compelld to leave the plow to the ox, to snuff up the winds of desolation To trample the corn fields in boastful neighings: this is no gentle harp This is no warbling brook, nor shadow of a mirtle tree: But blood and wounds and dismal cries, and shadows of the oak: And hearts laid open to the light, by the broad grizly sword: And bowels hid in hammerd steel rip'd quivering on the ground. Call forth thy smiles of soft deceit: call forth thy cloudy tears: We hear thy sighs in trumpets shrill when morn shall blood renew. So sang the Spectre Sons of Albion round Luvahs Stone of Trial: Mocking and deriding at the writhings of their Victim on Salisbury: Drinking his Emanation in intoxicating bliss rejoicing in Giant dance; For a Spectre has no Emanation but what he imbibes from decieving A Victim! Then he becomes her Priest & she his Tabernacle. And his Oak Grove, till the Victim rend the, woven Veil. In the end of his sleep when Jesus calls him from his grave Howling the Victims on the Druid Altars yield their souls To the stern Warriors: lovely sport the Daughters round their Victims; Drinking their lives in sweet intoxication. hence arose from Bath Soft deluding odours, in spiral volutions intricately winding Over Albions mountains, a feminine indefinite cruel delusion. Astonishd: terrified & in pain & torment. Sudden they behold Their own Parent the Emanation of their murderd Enemy Become their Emanation and their Temple and Tabernacle They knew not. this Vala was their beloved Mother Vala Albions Wife. Terrified at the sight of the Victim: at his distorted sinews! The tremblings of Vala vibrate thro' the limbs of Albions Sons: While they rejoice over Luvah in mockery & bitter scorn: Sudden they become like what they behold in howlings & deadly pain. Spasms smite their features, sinews & limbs: pale they look on one another. They turn, contorted: their iron necks bend unwilling towards Luvah: their lips tremble: their muscular fibres are crampd & smitten They become like what they behold! Yet immense in strength & power, In awful pomp & gold, in all the precious unhewn stones of Eden They build a stupendous Building on the Plain of Salisbury; with chains Of rocks round London Stone: of Reasonings: of unhewn Demonstrations In labyrinthine arches. (Mighty Urizen the Architect.) thro which The Heavens might revolve & Eternity be bound in their chain. Labour unparallelld! a wondrous rocky World of cruel destiny Rocks piled on rocks reaching the stars: stretching from pole to pole. The Building is Natural Religion & its Altars Natural Morality A building of eternal death: whose proportions are eternal despair Here Vala stood turning the iron Spindle of destruction From heaven to earth: howling! invisible! but not invisible Her Two Covering Cherubs afterwards named Voltaire & Rousseau: Two frowning Rocks: on each side of the Cove & Stone of Torture: Frozen Sons of the feminine Tabernacle of Bacon, Newton & Locke. For Luvah is France: the Victim of the Spectres of Albion. Los beheld in terror: he pour 'd his loud storms on the Furnaces: The Daughters of Albion clothed in garments of needle work Strip them off from their shoulders and bosoms, they lay aside Their garments; they sit naked upon the Stone of trial. The Knife of flint passes over the howling Victim: his blood Gushes & stains the fair side of the fair Daughters of Albion. They put aside his curls; they divide his seven locks upon His forehead: they bind his forehead with thorns of iron They put into his hand a reed, they mock: Saying: Behold The King of Canaan whose are seven hundred chariots of iron! They take off his vesture whole with their Knives of flint: But they cut asunder his inner garments: searching with Their cruel fingers for his heart, & there they enter in pomp, In many tears; & there they erect a temple & an altar: They pour cold water on his brain in front, to cause. Lids to grow over his eyes in veils of tears: and caverns To freeze over his nostrils, while they feed his tongue from cups And dishes of painted clay. Glowing with beauty & cruelty: They obscure the sun & the moon; no eye can look upon them. Ah! alas! at the sight of the Victim, & at sight of those who are smitten, All who see. become what they behold. their eyes are coverd With veils of tears and their nostrils & tongues shrunk up Their ear bent outwards. as their Victim, so are they in the pangs Of unconquerable fear! amidst delights of revenge Earth-shaking! And as their eye & ear shrunk, the heavens shrunk away The Divine Vision became First a burning flame, then a column Of fire, then an awful fiery wheel surrounding earth & heaven: And then a globe of blood wandering distant in all unknown night: Afar into the unknown night the mountains fled away: Six months of mortality; a summer: & six months of mortality; a winter: The Human form began to be alterd by the Daughters of Albion And the perceptions to be dissipated into the Indefinite. Becoming A mighty Polypus nam'd Albions Tree: they tie the Veins And Nerves into two knots: & the Seed into a double knot: They look forth: the Sun is shrunk: the Heavens are shrunk Away into the far remote: and the Trees & Mountains witherd Into indefinite cloudy shadows in darkness & separation. By Invisible hatreds adjoind, they seem remote and separate From each other; and yet are a Mighty Polypus in the Deep! As the Misletoe grows on the Oak, so Albions Trce on Eternity: Lo! He who will not comingle in Love, must be adjoind by Hate They look forth from Stone-henge! from the Cove round London Stone They look on one another: the mountain calls out to the mountain: Plinlimmon shrunk away: Snowdon trembled: the mountains Of Wales & Scotland beheld the descending War: the routed flying: Red run the streams of Albion: Thames is drunk with blood: As Gwendolen cast the shuttle of war: as Cambel returnd the beam. The Humber & the Severn: are drunk with the blood of the slain: London feels his brain cut round: Edinburghs heart is circumscribed! York & Lincoln hide among the flocks, because of the griding Knife. Worcester & Hereford: Oxford & Cambridge reel & stagger, Overwearied with howling: Wales & Scotland alone sustain the fight! The inhabitants are sick to death: they labour to divide into Days And Nights, the uncertain Periods: and into Weeks & Months. In vain They send the Dove & Raven: & in vain the Serpent over the mountains. And in vain the Eagle & Lion over the four-fold wilderness. They return not: but generate in rocky places desolate. They return not; but build a habitation separate from Man. The Sun forgets his course like a drunken man; he hesitates, Upon the Cheselden hills, thinking to sleep on the Severn In vain: he is hurried afar into an unknown Night He bleeds in torrents of blood as he rolls thro heaven above He chokes up the paths of the sky; the Moon is leprous as snow: Trembling & descending down seeking to rest upon high Mona: Scattering her leprous snows in flakes of disease over Albion. The Stars flee remote: the heaven is iron, the earth is sulphur, And all the mountains & hills shrink up like a withering gourd, As the Senses of Men shrink together under the Knife of flint, In the hands of Albions Daughters, among the Druid Temples. By those who drink their blood & the blood of their Covenant And the Twelve Daughters of Albion united in Rahab & Tirzah A Double Female: and they drew out from the Rocky Stones Fibres of Life to Weave, for every Female is a Golden Loom The Rocks are opake hardnesses covering all Vegetated things And as they Wove & Cut from the Looms in various divisions Stretching over Europe & Asia from Ireland to Japan They divided into many lovely Daughters to be counterparts To those they Wove, for when they Wove a Male, they divided Into a Female to the Woven Male. in opake hardness They cut the Fibres from the Rocks groaning in pain they Weave; Calling the Rocks Atomic Origins of Existence; denying Eternity By the Atheistical Epicurean Philosophy of Albions Tree Such are the Feminine & Masculine when separated from Man They call the Rocks Parents of Men, & adore the frowning Chaos Dancing around in howling pain clothed in the bloody Veil. Hiding Albions Sons within the Veil, closing Jerusalems Sons without; to feed with their Souls the Spectres of Albion Ashamed to give Love openly to the piteous & merciful Man Counting him an imbecile mockery: but the Warrior They adore: & his revenge cherish with the blood of the Innocent They drink up Dan & Gad, to feed with milk Skofeld & Kotope They strip off Josephs Coat & dip it in the blood of battle Tirzah sits weeping to hear the shrieks of the dying: her Knife Of flint is in her hand: she passes it over the howling Victim The Daughters Weave their Work in loud cries over the Rock Of Horeb! still eyeing Albions Cliffs eagerly siezing & twisting The threads of Vala & Jerusalem running from mountain to mountain Over the whole Earth: loud the Warriors rage in Beth Peor Beneath the iron whips of their Captains & consecrated banners Loud the Sun & Moon rage in the conflict: loud the Stars Shout in the night of battle & their spears grow to their hands With blood, weaving the deaths of the Mighty into a Tabernacle For Rahab & Tirzah; till the Great Polypus of Generation covered the Earth In Verulam the Polypus's Head, winding around his bulk Thro Rochester, and Chichester, & Exeter & Salisbury, To Bristol: & his Heart beat strong on Salisbury Plain Shooting out Fibres round the Earth, thro Gaul & Italy And Greece, & along the Sea of Rephaim into Judea To Sodom & Gomorrha: thence to India, China & Japan The Twelve Daughters in Rahab & Tirzah have circumscribd the Brain Beneath & pierced it thro the midst with a golden pin. Blood hath staind her fair side beneath her bosom. O thou poor Human Form! said she. O thou poor child of woe! Why wilt thou wander away from Tirzah: why me compel to bind thee! If thou dost go away from me I shall consume upon these Rocks These fibres of thine eyes that used to beam in distant heavens Away from me: I have bound down with a hot iron. These nostrils that expanded with delight in morning skies I have bent downward with lead melted in my roaring furnaces Of affliction; of love; of sweet despair; of torment unendurable My soul is seven furnaces, incessant roars the bellows Upon my terribly flaming heart, the molten metal runs In channels thro my fiery limbs: O love! O pity! O fear! O pain! O the pangs, the bitter pangs of love forsaken Ephraim was a wilderness of joy where all my wild beasts ran The River Kanah wanderd by my sweet Manassehs side To see the boy spring into heavens sounding from my sight! Go Noah fetch the girdle of strong brass, heat it red-hot: Press it around the loins of this ever expanding cruelty Shriek not so my only love! I refuse thy joys: I drink Thy shrieks because Hand & Hyle are cruel & obdurate to me O Skofield why art thou cruel? Lo Joseph is thine! to make You One: to weave you both in the same mantle of skin Bind him down Sisters bind him down on Ebal. Mount of cursing: Malah come forth from Lebanon: & Hoglah from Mount Sinai: Come circumscribe this tongue of sweets & with a screw of iron Fasten this car into the rock! Milcah the task is thine Weep not so Sisters! weep not so! our life depends on this Or mercy & truth are fled away from Shechem & Mount Gilead Unless my beloved is bound upon the Stems of Vegetation And thus the Warriors cry, in the hot day of Victory, in Songs. Look: the beautiful Daughter of Albion sits naked upon the Stone Her panting Victim beside her: her heart is drunk with blood Tho her brain is not drunk with wine: she goes forth from Albion In pride of beauty: in cruelty of holiness: in the brightness Of her tabernacle, & her ark & secret place, the beautiful Daughter Of Albion, delights the eyes of the Kings. their hearts & the Hearts of their Warriors glow hot before Thor & Friga. O Molech! O Chemosh! O Bacchus! O Venus! O Double God of Generation The Heavens are cut like a mantle around from the Cliffs of Albion Across Europe; across Africa; in howlings & deadly War A sheet & veil & curtain of blood is let down from Heaven Across the hills of Ephraim & down Mount Olivet to The Valley of the Jebusite: Molech rejoices in heaven He sees the Twelve Daughters naked upon the Twelve Stones Themselves condensing to rocks & into the Ribs of a Man Lo they shoot forth in tender Nerves across Europe & Asia Lo they rest upon the Tribes, where their panting Victims lie Molech rushes into the Kings in love to the beautiful Daughters But they frown & delight in cruelty, refusing all other joy Bring your Offerings, your first begotten: pamperd with milk & blood Your first born of seven years old: be they Males or Females: To the beautiful Daughters of Albion! they sport before the Kings Clothed in the skin Of the Victim! blood! human blood! is the life And delightful food of the Warrior: the well fed Warriors flesh Of him who is slain in War: fills the Valleys of Ephraim with Breeding Women walking in pride & bringing forth under green trees With pleasure, without pain, for their food is. blood of the Captive Molech rejoices thro the Land from Havilah to Shur: he rejoices In moral law & its severe penalties: loud Shaddai & Jehovah Thunder above: when they see the Twelve panting Victims On the Twelve Stones of Power, & the beautiful Daughters of Albion If you dare rend their Veil with your Spear; you are healed of Love! From the Hills of Camberwell & Wimbledon: from the Valleys Of Walton & Esher: from Stone-henge & from Maldens Cove Jerusalems Pillars fall in the rendings of fierce War Over France & Germany: upon the Rhine & Danube Reuben & Benjamin flee; they hide in the Valley of Rephaim Why trembles the Warriors limbs when he beholds thy beauty Spotted with Victims blood: by the fires of thy secret tabernacle And thy ark & holy place: at thy frowns: at thy dire revenge Smitten as Uzzah of old: his armour is softend; his spear And sword faint in his hand, from Albion across Great Tartary O beautiful Daughter of Albion: cruelty is thy delight O Virgin of terrible eyes, who dwellest by Valleys of springs Beneath the Mountains of Lebanon, in the City of Rehob in Hamath Taught to touch the harp: to dance in the Circle of Warriors Before the Kings of Canaan: to cut the flesh from the Victim To roast the flesh in fire: to examine the Infants limbs In cruelties of holiness: to refuse the joys of love: to bring The Spies from Egypt, to raise jealousy in the bosoms of the Twelve Kings of Canaan: then to let the Spies depart to Meribah Kadesh To the place of the Amalekite; I am drunk with unsatiated love I must rush again to War: for the Virgin has frownd & refusd Sometimes I curse & sometimes bless thy fascinating beauty Once Man was occupied in intellectual pleasures & energies But now my soul is harrowd with grief & fear & love & desire And now I hate & now I love & Intellect is no more: There is no time for any thing but the torments of love & desire The Feminine & Masculine Shadows soft, mild & ever varying In beauty: are Shadows now no more, but Rocks in Horeb Then all the Males combined into One Male & every one Became a ravening eating Cancer growing in the Female A Polypus of Roots of Reasoning Doubt Despair & Death. Going forth & returning from Albions Rocks to Canaan: Devouring Jerusalem from every Nation of the Earth. Envying stood the enormous Form at variance with Itself In all its Members: in eternal torment of love & jealousy: Drivn forth by Los time after time from Albions cliffy shore, Drawing the free loves of Jerusalem into infernal bondage; That they might be born in Contentions of Chastity & in Deadly Hate between Leah & Rachel, Daughters of Deceit & Fraud Bearing the Images of various Species of Contention And Jealousy & Abhorrence & Revenge & deadly Murder. Till they refuse liberty to the male; & not like Beulah Where every Female delights to give her maiden to her husband The Female searches sea & land for gratification to the Male Genius: who in return clothes her in gems & gold And feeds her with the food of Eden. hence all her beauty beams She Creates at her will a little moony night & silence With Spaces of sweet gardens & a tent of elegant beauty: Closed in by a sandy desart & a night of stars shining. And a little tender moon & hovering angels on the wing. And the Male gives a Time & Revolution to her Space Till the time of love is passed in ever varying delights For All Things Exist in the Human Imagination And thence in Beulah they are stolen by secret amorous theft, Till they have had Punishment enough to make them commit Crimes Hence rose the Tabernacle in the Wilderness & all its Offerings, From Male & Female Loves in Beulah & their Jealousies But no one can consummate Female bliss in Los's World without Becoming a Generated Mortal, a Vegetating Death And now the Spectres of the Dead awake in Beulah: all The Jealousies become Murderous: uniting together in Rahab A Religion of Chastity, forming a Commerce to sell Loves With Moral Law, an Equal Balance, not going down with decision Therefore the Male severe & cruel filld with stern Revenge: Mutual Hate returns & mutual Deceit & mutual Fear. Hence the Infernal Veil grows in the disobedient Female: Which Jesus rends & the whole Druid Law removes away From the Inner Sanctuary: a False Holiness hid within the Center, For the Sanctuary of Eden. is in the Camp: in the Outline, In the Circumference: & every Minute Particular is Holy: Embraces are Cominglings: from the Head even to the Feet; And not a pompous High Priest entering by a Secret Place. Jerusalem pined in her inmost soul over Wandering Reuben As she slept in Beulahs Night hid by the Daughters of Beulah And this the form of mighty Hand sitting on Albions cliffs Before the face of Albion, a mighty threatning Form. His bosom wide & shoulders huge overspreading wondrous Bear Three strong sinewy Necks & Three awful & terrible Heads Three Brains in contradictory council brooding incessantly. Neither daring to put in act its councils, fearing each-other, Therefore rejecting Ideas as nothing & holding all Wisdom To consist. in the agreements & disagreements of Ideas. Plotting to devour Albions Body of Humanity & Love. Such Form the aggregate of the Twelve Sons of Albion took; & such Their appearance when combind: but often by birth-pangs & loud groans They divide to Twelve: the key-bones & the chest dividing in pain Disclose a hideous orifice; thence issuing the Giant-brood Arise as the smoke of the furnace, shaking the rocks from sea to sea. And there they combine into Three Forms, named Bacon & Newton & Locke, In the Oak Groves of Albion which overspread all the Earth. Imputing Sin & Righteousness to Individuals; Rahab Sat deep within him hid: his Feminine Power unreveal'd Brooding Abstract Philosophy. to destroy Imagination, the Divine- -Humanity A Three-fold Wonder: feminine: most beautiful: Three- fold Each within other. On her white marble & even Neck, her Heart Inorb'd and bonified: with locks of shadowing modesty, shining Over her beautiful Female features, soft flourishing in beauty Beams mild, all love and all perfection, that when the lips Receive a kiss from Gods or Men, a threefold kiss returns From the pressd loveliness: so her whole immortal form three-fold Three-fold embrace returns: consuming lives of Gods & Men In fires of beauty melting them as gold & silver in the furnace Her Brain enlabyrinths the whole heaven of her bosom & loins To put in act what her Heart wills; O who can withstand her power Her name is Vala in Eternity: in Time her name is Rahab The Starry Heavens all were fled from the mighty limbs of Albion And above Albions Land was seen the Heavenly Canaan As the Substance is to the Shadow: and above Albions Twelve Sons Were seen Jerusalems Sons: and all the Twelve Tribes spreading Over Albion. As the Soul is to the Body, so Jerusalems Sons, Are to the Sons of Albion: and Jerusalem is Albions Emanation What is Above is Within, for every-thing in Eternity is translucent: The Circumference is Within: Without, is formed the Selfish Center And the Circumference still expands going forward to Eternity. And the Center has Eternal States! these States we now explore. And these the Names of Albions Twelve Sons, & of his Twelve Daughters With their Districts. Hand dwelt in Selsey & had Sussex & Surrey And Kent & Middlesex: all their Rivers & their Hills, of flocks & herds: Their Villages Towns Cities Sea-Ports Temples sublime Cathedrals; All were his Friends & their Sons & Daughters intermarry in Beulah For all are Men in Eternity. Rivers Mountains Cities Villages, All are Human & when you enter into their Bosoms you walk In Heavens & Earths; as in your own Bosom you bear your Heaven And Earth, & all you behold, tho it appears Without it is Within In your Imagination of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow. Hyle dwelt in Winchester comprehending Hants Dorset Devon Cornwall. Their Villages Cities SeaPorts, their Corn fields & Gardens spacious Palaces, Rivers & Mountains, and between Hand & Hyle arose Gwendolen & Cambel who is Boadicea: they go abroad & return Like lovely beams of light from the mingled affections of the Brothers The Inhabitants of the whole Earth rejoice in their beautiful light. Coban dwelt in Bath. Somerset Wiltshire Gloucestershire, Obeyd his awful voice Ignoge is his lovely Emanation; She adjoind with Gwantokes Children, soon lovely Cordella arose. Gwantoke forgave & joyd over South Wales & all its Mountains. Peachey had North Wales Shropshire Cheshire & the Isle of Man. His Emanation is Mehetabel terrible & lovely upon the Mountains Brertun had Yorkshire Durham Westmoreland & his Emanation Is Ragan, she adjoind to Slade, & produced Gonorill far beaming. Slade had Lincoln Stafford Derby Nottingham & his lovely Emanation Gonorill rejoices over hills & rocks & woods & rivers. Huttn had Warwick Northampton Bedford Buckingham Leicester & Berkshire: & his Emanation is Gwinefred beautiful Skofeld had Ely Rutland Cambridge Huntingdon Norfolk Suffolk Hartford & Essex: & his Emanation is Gwinevera Beautiful, she beams towards the east, all kinds of precious stones And pearl, with instruments Of music in holy Jerusalem Kox had Oxford Warwick Wilts: his Emanation is Estrild: Joind with Cordella she shines southward over the Atlantic. Kotope had Hereford Stafford Worcester, & his Emanation Is Sabrina joind with Mehetabel she shines west over America Bowen had all Scotland, the Isles, Northumberland & Cumberland His Emanation is Conwenna, she shines a triple form Over the north with pearly beams gorgeous & terrible Jerusalem & Vala rejoice in Bowen & Conwenna. But the Four Sons of Jerusalem that never were Generated Are Rintrah and Palamabron and Theotormon and Bromion. They Dwell over the Four Provinces of Ireland in heavenly light The Four Universities of Scotland, & in Oxford & Cambridge & Winchester But now Albion is darkened & Jerusalem lies in ruins: Above the Mountains of Albion, above the head of Los. And Los shouted with ceaseless shoutings & his tears poured down His immortal cheeks, rearing his hands to heaven for aid Divine! But he spoke not to Albion: fearing lest Albion should turn his Back Against the Divine Vision: & fall over the Precipice of Eternal Death. But he receded before Albion & before Vala weaving the Veil With the iron shuttle of War among the rooted Oaks of Albion; Weeping & shouting to the Lord day & night; and his Children Wept round him as a flock silent Seven Days of Eternity And the Thirty-two Counties of the Four Provinces of Ireland Are thus divided: The Four Counties are in the Four Camps Munster South in Reubens Gate, Connaut West in Josephs Gate Ulster North in Dans Gate, Leinster East in Judahs Gate For Albion in Eternity has Sixteen Gates among his Pillars But the Four towards the West were Walled up & the Twelve That front the Four other Points were turned Four Square By Los for Jerusalems sake & called the Gates of Jerusalem Because Twelve Sons of Jerusalem fled successive thro the Gates But the Four Sons of Jerusalem who fled not but remaind Are Rintrah & Palamabron & Theotormon & Bromion The Four that remain with Los to guard the Western Wall And these Four remain to guard the Four Walls of Jerusalem Whose foundations remain in the Thirty-two Counties of Ireland And in Twelve Counties of Wales, & in the Forty Counties Of England & in the Thirty-six Counties of Scotland And the names of the Thirty-two Counties of Ireland are these Under Judah & Issachar & Zebulun are Lowth Longford Eastmeath Westmeath Dublin Kildare Kings County Queens County Wicklow Catherloh Wexford Kilkenny And those under Reuben & Simeon & Levi are these Waterford Tipperary Cork Limerick Kerry Clare And those under Ephraim Manasseh & Benjamin are these Galway Roscommon Mayo Sligo Leitrim And those under Dan Asher & Napthali are these Donnegal Antrim Tyrone Fermanagh Armagh Londonderry Down Managhan Cavan. These are the Land of Erin All these Center in London & in Golgonooza. from whence They are Created continually East & West & North & South And from them are Created all the Nations of the Earth Europe & Asia & Africa & America, in fury Fourfold! And Thirty-two the Nations: to dwell in Jerusalems Gates O Come ye Nations Come ye People Come up to Jerusalem Return Jerusalem & dwell together as of old! Return Return! O Albion let Jerusalem overspread all Nations As in the times of old! O Albion awake! Reuben wanders The Nations wait for Jerusalem. they look up for the Bride France Spain Italy Germany Poland Russia Sweden Turkey Arabia Palestine Persia Hindostan China Tartary Siberia Egypt Lybia Ethiopia Guinea Caffraria Negroland Morocco Congo Zaara Canada Greenland Carolina Mexico Peru Patagonia Amazonia Brazil. Thirty-two Nations And under these Thirty-two Classes of Islands in the Ocean All the Nations Peoples & Tongues throughout all the Earth And the Four Gates of Los surround the Universe Within and Without; & whatever is visible in the Vegetable Earth, the same Is visible in the Mundane Shell; reversd in mountain & vale And a Son of Eden was set over each Daughter of Beulah to guard In Albions Tomb the wondrous Creation: & the Four-fold Gate Towards Beulah is to the South. Fenelon, Guion, Teresa, Whitefield & Hervey, guard that Gate; with all the gentle Souls Who guide the great Wine-press of Love; Four precious stones that Gate: Such are Cathedrons golden Halls: in the City of Golgonooza And Los's Furnaces howl loud; living: self-moving: lamenting With fury & despair, & they stretch from South to North Thro all the Four Points: Lo! the Labourers at the Furnaces Rintrah & Palamabron, Theotormon & Bromion, loud labring With the innumerable multitudes of Golgonooza, round the Anvils Of Death. But how they came forth from the Furnaces & how long Vast & severe the anguish eer they knew their Father; were Long to tell & of the iron rollers, golden axle-trees & yokes Of brass, iron chains & braces & the gold, silver & brass Mingled or separate: for swords; arrows; cannons; mortars The terrible ball: the wedge: the loud sounding hammer of destruction The sounding flail to thresh: the winnow: to winnow kingdoms The water wheel & mill of many innumerable wheels resistless Over the Four fold Monarchy from Earth to the Mundane Shell. Perusing Albions Tomb in the starry characters of Og & Anak: To Create the lion & wolf the bear: the tyger & ounce: To Create the wooly lamb & downy fowl & sealy serpent The summer & winter: day & night: the sun & moon & stars The tree: the plant: the flower: the rock: the stone: the metal: Of Vegetative Nature: by their hard restricting condensations. Where Luvahs World of Opakeness grew to a period: It Became a Limit, a Rocky hardness without form & void Accumulating without end: here Los. who is of the Elohim Opens the Furnaces of affliction in the Emanation Fixing The Sexual into an ever-prolific Generation Naming the Limit of Opakeness Satan & the Limit of Contraction Adam, who is Peleg & Joktan: & Esau & Jacob: & Saul & David Voltaire insinuates that these Limits are the cruel work of God Mocking the Remover of Limits & the Resurrection of the Dead Setting up Kings in wrath: in holiness of Natural Religion Which Los with his mighty Hammer demolishes time on time In miracles & wonders in the Four-fold Desart of Albion Permanently Creating to be in Time Reveald & Demolishd Satan Cain Tubal Nimrod Pharoh Priam Bladud Belin Arthur Alfred the Norman Conqueror Richard John Edward Henry Elizabeth James Charles William George And all the Kings & Nobles of the Earth & all their Glories These are Created by Rahab & Tirzah in Ulro: but around These, to preserve them from Eternal Death Los Creates Adam Noah Abraham Moses Samuel David Ezekiel Pythagoras Socrates Euripedes Virgil Dante Milton Dissipating the rocky forms of Death, by his thunderous Hammer As the Pilgrim passes while the Country permanent remains So Men pass on: but States remain permanent for ever The Spectres of the Dead bowl round the porches of Los In the terrible Family feuds of Albions cities & villages To devour the Body of Albion, hungring & thirsting & ravning The Sons of Los clothe them & feed, & provide houses & gardens And every Human Vegetated Form in its inward recesses Is a house of pleasantness & a garden of delight Built by the Sons & Daughters of Los in Bowlahoola & in Cathedron From London to York & Edinburgh the Furnaces rage terrible Primrose Hill is the mouth of the Furnace & the Iron Door; The Four Zoa's clouded rage; Urizen stood by Albion With Rintrah and Palamabron and Theotormon and Bromion These Four are Verulam & London & York & Edinburgh And the Four Zoa's are Urizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona In opposition deadly, and their Wheels in poisonous And deadly stupor turn'd against each other loud & fierce Entering into the Reasoning Power, forsaking Imagination They became Spectres; & their Human Bodies were reposed In Beulah, by the Daughters of Beulah with tears & lamentations The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man; & when separated From Imagination, and closing itself as in steel, in a Ratio Of the Things of Memory. It thence frames Laws & Moralities To destroy Imagination! the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms & Wars Teach me O Holy Spirit the Testimony of Jesus! let me Comprehend wonderous things out of the Divine Law I behold Babylon in the opening Street of London, I behold Jerusalem in ruins wandering about from house to house This I behold the shudderings of death attend my steps I walk up and down in Six Thousand Years: their Events are present before me To tell how Los in grief & anger, whirling round his Hammer on high Drave the Sons & Daughters of Albion from their ancient mountains They became the Twelve Gods of Asia Opposing the Divine Vision The Sons of Albion are Twelve: the Sons of Jerusalem Sixteen I tell how Albions Sons by Harmonies of Concords & Discords Opposed to Melody, and by Lights & Shades, opposed to Outline And by Abstraction opposed to the Visions of Imagination By cruel Laws divided Sixteen into Twelve Divisions How Hyle roofd Los in Albions Cliffs by the Affections rent Asunder & opposed to Thought, to draw Jerusalems Sons Into the Vortex of his Wheels. therefore Hyle is called Gog Age after age drawing them away towards Babylon Babylon, the Rational Morality deluding to death the little ones In strong temptations of stolen beauty; I tell how Reuben slept On London Stone & the Daughters of Albion ran around admiring His awful beauty: with Moral Virtue the fair deciever; offspring Of Good & Evil, they divided him in love upon the Thames & sent Him over Europe in streams of gore out of Cathedrons Looms How Los drave them from Albion & they became Daughters of Canaan Hence Albion was calld the Canaanite & all his Giant Sons. Hence is my Theme. O Lord my Saviour open thou the Gates And I will lead forth thy Words, telling how the Daughters Cut the Fibres of Reuben, how he rolld apart & took Root In Bashan, terror-struck Albions Sons look toward Bashan They have divided Simeon he also rolld apart in blood Over the Nations till he took Root beneath the shining Looms Of Albions Daughters in Philistea by the side of Amalek They have divided Levi: he bath shot out into Forty eight Roots Over the Land of Canaan: they have divided Judah He hath took Root in Hebron, in the Land of Hand & Hyle Dan: Napthali: Gad: Asher: Issachar: Zebulun: roll apart From all the Nations of the Earth to dissipate into Non Entity I see a Feminine Form arise from the Four terrible Zoas Beautiful but terrible struggling to take a form of beauty Rooted in Shechem: this is Dinah, the youthful form of Erin The Wound I see in South Molton S reet & Stratford place Whence Joseph & Benjamin rolld apart away from the Nations In vain they rolld apart; they are fixd into the Land of Cabul And Rahab Babylon the Great hath destroyed Jerusalem Bath stood upon the Severn with Merlin & Bladud & Arthur The Cup of Rahab in his hand: her Poisons Twenty-sevenfold And all her Twenty-seven Heavens now hid & now reveal'd Appear in strong delusive light of Time & Space drawn out In shadowy pomp by the Eternal Prophet created evermore For Los in Six Thousand Years walks up & down continually That not one Moment of Time be lost & every revolution Of Space he makes permanent in Bowlahoola & Cathedron. And these the names of the Twenty-seven Heavens & their Churches Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech; these are the Giants mighty, Hermaphroditic Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Cainan the Second, Salah, Heber, Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah: these are the Female Males: A Male within a Female hid as in an Ark & Curtains. Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Paul, Constantine, Charlemaine, Luther. these Seven are the Male Females: the Dragon Forms The Female hid within a Male: thus Rahab is reveald Mystery Babylon the Great: the Abomination of Desolation Religion hid in War: a Dragon red, & hidden Harlot But Jesus breaking thro' the Central Zones of Death & Hell Opens Eternity in Time & Space; triumphant in Mercy Thus are the Heavens formd by Los within the Mundane Shell And where Luther ends Adam begins again in Eternal Circle To awake the Prisoners of Death; to bring Albion again With Luvah into light eternal, in his eternal day. But now the Starry Heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of Albion To the Christians. Devils are False Religions "Saul Saul" "Why persecutest thou me." I give you the end of a golden string, Only wind it into a ball: It will lead you in at Heavens gate, Built in Jerusalems wall. We are told to abstain from fleshly desires that we may lose no time from the Work of the Lord. Every moment lost, is a moment that cannot be redeemed every pleasure that intermingles with the duty of our station is a folly unredeemable & is planted like the seed of a wild flower among our wheat. All the tortures of repentance. are tortures of self-reproach on account of our leaving the Divine Harvest to the Enemy, the struggles of intanglement with incoherent roots. I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body & mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination. Imagination the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable Universe is but a faint shadow & in which we shall live in our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies, when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies are no more. The Apostles knew of no other Gospel. What were all their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine Spirit? is the Holy Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain? What is the Harvest of the Gospel & its Labours? What is that Talent which it is a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which we are to lay up for ourselves, are they any other than Mental Studies & Performances? What are all the Gifts. of the Gospel, are they not all Mental Gifts? Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in Spirit & in Truth and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing to Man? O ye Religious discountenance every one among you who shall pretend to despise Art & Science! I call upon you in the Name of Jesus! What is the Life of Man but Art & Science? is it Meat & Drink? is not the Body more than Raiment? What is Mortality but the things relating to the Body, which Dies? What is Immortality but the things relating to the Spirit, which Lives Eternally! What is the joy of Heaven but Improvement in the things of the Spirit? What are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance, Bodily Lust, Idleness & devastation of the things of the Spirit? Answer this to yourselves, & expel from among you those who pretend to despise the labours of Art & Science, which alone are the labours of the Gospel: Is not this plain & manifest to the thought? Can you think at all & not pronounce heartily! That to Labour in Knowledge. is to Build up Jerusalem: and to Despise Knowledge, is to Despise Jerusalem & her Builders. And remember: He who despises & mocks a Mental Gift in another; calling it pride & selfishness & sin; mocks Jesus the giver of every Mental Gift, which always appear to the ignorance-loving Hypocrite, as Sins. but that which is a Sin in the sight of cruel Man, is not so in the sight of our kind God. Let every Christian as much as in him lies engage himself openly & publicly before all the World in some Mental pursuit for the Building up of Jerusalem I stood among my valleys of the south And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel Of fire surrounding all the heavens: it went From west to cast against the current of Creation and devourd all things in its loud Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth By it the Sun was rolld into an orb: By it the Moon faded into a globe, Travelling thro the night: for from its dire And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up Into a little root a fathom long. And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-One Its Name? he answerd. It is the Wheel of Religion I wept & said. Is this the law of Jesus This terrible devouring sword turning every way He answerd; Jesus died because he strove Against the current of this Wheel: its Name Is Caiaphas, the dark Preacher of Death Of sin, of sorrow, & of punishment; Opposing Nature! It is Natural Religion But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life Creating Nature from this fiery Law, By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin. Go therefore, cast out devils in Christs name Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease Pity the evil, for thou art not sent To smite with terror & with punishments Those that are sick, like the Pharisees Crucifying &,encompassing sea & land For proselytes to tyranny & wrath, But to the Publicans & Harlots go! Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace For Hell is opend to heaven; thine eyes beheld The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free. England! awake! awake! awake! Jerusalem thy Sister calls! Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death? And close her from thy ancient walls. Thy hills & valleys felt her feet, Gently upon their bosoms move: Thy gates beheld sweet Zions ways; Then was a time of joy and love. And now the time returns again: Our souls exult & Londons towers, Receive the Lamb of God to dwell In Englands green & pleasant bowers. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...NINETEEN FORTY by NORMAN DUBIE GHOSTS IN ENGLAND by ROBINSON JEFFERS STAYING UP FOR ENGLAND by LIAM RECTOR STONE AND FLOWER by KENNETH REXROTH THE HANGED MAN by KENNETH REXROTH ENGLISH TRAIN COMPARTMENT by JOHN UPDIKE A CRADLE SONG by WILLIAM BLAKE |
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