William Blake (1757–1827). The Poetical Works. 1908.
The [First] Book of UrizenC
1. L
In Eternity! unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos’d, all-repelling. What Demon
Hath form’d this abominable Void,
This soul-shudd’ring Vacuum? Some said
It is Urizen. But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark Power hid.
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear’d
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation.
In unseen conflictions with Shapes,
Bred from his forsaken wilderness,
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent, and element,
Combustion, blast, vapour, and cloud.
Unseen in tormenting passions,
An Activity unknown and horrible,
A self-contemplating Shadow,
In enormous labours occupièd.
Ages on ages he lay, clos’d, unknown,
Brooding, shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific, abominable Chaos.
Prepar’d; his ten thousands of thunders,
Rang’d in gloom’d array, stretch out across
The dread world; and the rolling of wheels,
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds,
In his hills of stor’d snows, in his mountains
Of hail and ice; voices of terror
Are heard, like thunders of autumn,
When the cloud blazes over the harvests.
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all-flexible senses;
Death was not, but Eternal life sprung.
Awoke, and vast clouds of blood roll’d
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam’d
That solitary one in Immensity.
Muster around the bleak deserts,
Now fill’d with clouds, darkness, and waters,
That roll’d perplex’d, lab’ring; and utter’d
Words articulate, bursting in thunders,
That roll’d on the tops of his mountains:—
The Eternal abode in my Holiness,
Hidden, set apart, in my stern counsels,
Reserv’d for the days of futurity,
I have sought for a joy without pain,
For a solid without fluctuation.
Why will you die, O Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?
Inwards into a deep world within,
A Void immense, wild, dark and deep,
Where nothing was—Nature’s wide womb;
And self-balanc’d, stretch’d o’er the void,
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
Bound; but condensing in torrents
They fall and fall; strong I repell’d
The vast waves, and arose on the waters
A wide World of solid obstruction.
Have written the secrets of Wisdom,
The secrets of dark Contemplation,
By fightings and conflicts dire
With terrible monsters sin-bred,
Which the bosoms of all inhabit—
Seven deadly Sins of the Soul.
This rock place, with strong hand, the Book
Of Eternal brass, written in my solitude:
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness;
Let each choose one habitation,
His ancient infinite mansion,
One command, one joy, one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure,
One King, one God, one Law.’
Emerge from the darkness, his hand
On the rock of Eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage seiz’d the strong—
In cataracts of fire, blood, and gall,
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke,
And enormous forms of energy,
In living creations appear’d,
In the flames of eternal fury.
Rent away with a terrible crash,
Eternity roll’d wide apart,
Wide asunder rolling;
Mountainous, all around
Departing, departing, departing,
Leaving ruinous fragments of life,
Hanging, frowning cliffs, and, all between,
An Ocean of voidness unfathomable.
In whirlwinds and cataracts of blood,
And o’er the dark deserts of Urizen
Fires pour thro’ the void, on all sides,
On Urizen’s self-begotten armies.
In the flames of Eternal fury.
To the deserts and rocks he ran raging,
To hide; but he could not. Combining,
He dug mountains and hills in vast strength,
He pilèd them in incessant labour,
In howlings and pangs and fierce madness,
Long periods in burning fires labouring;
Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged,
In despair and the shadows of death.
On all sides he fram’d, like a womb,
Where thousands of rivers, in veins
Of blood, pour down the mountains to cool
The eternal fires, beating without
From Eternals; and like a black Globe,
View’d by sons of Eternity, standing
On the shore of the infinite ocean,
Like a human heart, struggling and beating,
The vast world of Urizen appear’d.
Kept watch for Eternals to confine
The obscure separation alone;
For Eternity stood wide apart,
As the stars are apart from the earth.
And cursing his lot; for in anguish
Urizen was rent from his side,
And a fathomless Void for his feet,
And intense fires for his dwelling.
Unorganiz’d, rent from Eternity.
Urizen is a clod of clay!’
Groaning, gnashing, groaning,
Till the wrenching apart was hearèd.
Cold, featureless, flesh or clay,
Rifted with direful changes,
He lay in a dreamless night,
At the formless, unmeasurable Death.
Frighten’d at the hurtling bones
2. And at the surging, sulphureous,
Perturbèd, immortal, mad raging
Round the furious limbs of Los.
And threw the nets round about.
The dark changes, and bound every change
With rivets of iron and brass.
In stony sleep ages roll’d over him,
Like a dark waste stretching, changeable,
By earthquakes riv’n, belching sullen fires:
On ages roll’d ages in ghastly
Sick torment; around him in whirlwinds
Of darkness the Eternal Prophet howl’d,
Beating still on his rivets of iron,
Pouring solder of iron; dividing
The horrible night into watches.
His prolific delight obscur’d more and more,
In dark secrecy hiding in surging
Sulphureous fluid his phantasies.
The Eternal Prophet heav’d the dark bellows,
And turn’d restless the tongs, and the hammer
Incessant beat, forging chains new and new,
Numb’ring with links hours, days, and years.
Eddies of wrath, ceaseless, round and round,
And the sulphureous foam, surging thick,
Settled, a lake, bright and shining clear,
White as the snow on the mountains cold.
In chains of the mind lockèd up,
Like fetters of ice shrinking together,
Disorganiz’d, rent from Eternity,
Los beat on his fetters of iron;
And heated his furnaces, and pour’d
Iron solder and solder of brass.
Heaving dolorous, anguish’d, unbearable;
Till a roof, shaggy, wild, enclos’d
In an orb his fountain of thought.
Like the linkèd infernal chain,
A vast Spine writh’d in torment
Upon the winds, shooting pain’d
Ribs, like a bending cavern;
And bones of solidness froze
Over all his nerves of joy—
And a first Age passèd over,
And a state of dismal woe.
Down sunk with fright a red
Round Globe, hot, burning, deep,
Deep down into the Abyss;
Panting, conglobing, trembling,
Shooting out ten thousand branches
Around his solid bones—
And a second Age passèd over,
And a state of dismal woe.
His nervous Brain shot branches
Round the branches of his Heart,
On high, into two little orbs,
And fixèd in two little caves,
Hiding carefully from the wind,
His Eyes beheld the deep—
And a third Age passèd over,
And a state of dismal woe.
In heavy pain, striving, struggling,
Two Ears, in close volutions,
From beneath his orbs of vision
Shot spiring out, and petrified
As they grew—And a fourth Age passèd,
And a state of dismal woe.
Hanging upon the wind,
Two Nostrils bent down to the deep—
And a fifth Age passèd over,
And a state of dismal woe.
Within his ribs bloated round
A craving, hungry Cavern;
Thence arose his channell’d Throat,
And, like a red flame, a Tongue
Of thirst and of hunger appear’d—
And a sixth Age passèd over,
And a state of dismal woe.
He threw his right Arm to the North,
His left Arm to the South,
Shooting out in anguish deep,
And his Feet stamp’d the nether Abyss
In trembling and howling and dismay—
And a [seventh] Age passèd over,
And a state of dismal woe.
His great hammer fell from his hand;
His fires beheld, and sickening
Hid their strong limbs in smoke;
For with noises, ruinous, loud,
With hurtlings and clashings and groans,
The Immortal endur’d his chains,
Tho’ bound in a deadly sleep.
All the wisdom and joy of life
Roll like a sea around him;
Except what his little orbs
Of sight by degrees unfold.
Like a dream, was obliterated.
With a stroke from his North to South region.
The bellows and hammer are silent now;
A nerveless silence his prophetic voice
Seiz’d; a cold Solitude and dark Void
The Eternal Prophet and Urizen clos’d.
Cut off from life and light, frozen
Into horrible forms of deformity.
Los suffer’d his fires to decay;
Then he look’d back with anxious desire,
But the Space, undivided by existence,
Struck horror into his soul.
His bosom earthquak’d with sighs;
He saw Urizen, deadly, black,
In his chains bound; and Pity began,
For Pity divides the soul—
In pangs, Eternity on Eternity,
Life in cataracts pour’d down his cliffs.
The Void shrunk the lymph into Nerves,
Wand’ring wide on the bosom of night,
And left a round globe of blood
Trembling upon the Void.
Thus the Eternal Prophet was divided
Before the death image of Urizen;
For in changeable clouds and darkness,
In a winterly night beneath,
The Abyss of Los stretch’d immense;
And now seen, now obscur’d, to the eyes
Of Eternals the visions remote
Of the dark separation appear’d:
As glasses discover Worlds
In the endless Abyss of space,
So the expanding eyes of Immortals
Beheld the dark visions of Los,
And the globe of life-blood trembling.
Branching out into roots,
Fibrous, writhing upon the winds,
Fibres of blood, milk, and tears,
In pangs, Eternity on Eternity.
At length in tears and cries embodièd,
A Female form, trembling and pale,
Waves before his deathy face.
Of the first Female, now separate,
Pale as a cloud of snow,
Waving before the face of Los.
Petrify the Eternal myriads
At the first Female form now separate.
They call’d her Pity, and fled.
Let cords and stakes bind in the Void,
That Eternals may no more behold them.’
They erected large pillars round the Void,
With golden hooks fasten’d in the pillars;
With infinite labour the Eternals
A woof wove, and callèd it Science.
He embrac’d her; she wept, she refus’d;
In perverse and cruel delight
She fled from his arms, yet he follow’d.
Man begetting his likeness
On his own Divided Image!
Began to erect the tent,
When Enitharmon, sick,
Felt a Worm within her womb.
4. Yet helpless it lay, like a Worm
In the trembling womb,
To be moulded into existence.
All night within her womb
The Worm lay till it grew to a Serpent,
With dolorous hissings and poisons
Round Enitharmon’s loins folding.
The Serpent grew, casting its scales;
With sharp pangs the hissings began
To change to a grating cry—
Many sorrows and dismal throes,
Many forms of fish, bird, and beast
Brought forth an Infant form
Where was a Worm before.
Alarm’d with these gloomy visions,
When Enitharmon, groaning,
Produc’d a Man-Child to the light.
And a paralytic stroke,
At the birth of the Human Shadow.
Howling, the Child with fierce flames
Issu’d from Enitharmon.
They beat down the stakes, the cords
Stretch’d for a work of Eternity—
No more Los beheld Eternity!
He bathèd him in springs of sorrow,
He gave him to Enitharmon.
Fed with milk of Enitharmon.
A tight’ning girdle grew
Around his bosom. In sobbings
He burst the girdle in twain;
But still another girdle
Oppress’d his bosom. In sobbings
Again he burst it. Again
Another girdle succeeds.
The girdle was form’d by day;
By night was burst in twain.
Into an iron Chain,
In each other link by link lock’d.
O how Enitharmon wept!
They chain’d his young limbs to the Rock
With the Chain of Jealousy,
Beneath Urizen’s deathful Shadow.
And began to awake from sleep;
All things heard the voice of the Child,
And began to awake to life.
Stung with the odours of Nature,
Explor’d his dens around.
To divide the Abyss beneath;
He form’d a dividing rule;
He formèd massy weights;
He formèd a brazen quadrant;
He formèd golden compasses,
And began to explore the Abyss;
And he planted a garden of fruits.
With fires of Prophecy
From the sight of Urizen and Orc.
Mountain, moor, and wilderness,
With a globe of fire lighting his journey—
A fearful journey, annoy’d
By cruel enormities, forms
Of life on his forsaken mountains.
Fright’ning, faithless, fawning,
Portions of life, similitudes
Of a foot, or a hand, or a head,
Or a heart, or an eye; they swam mischievous,
Dread terrors, delighting in blood!
His eternal creations appear,
Sons and daughters of sorrow, on mountains,
Weeping, wailing. First Thiriel appear’d,
Astonish’d at his own existence,
Like a man from a cloud born; and Utha,
From the waters emerging, laments;
Grodna rent the deep earth, howling,
Amaz’d; his heavens immense crack
Like the ground parch’d with heat; then Fuzon
Flam’d out, first begotten, last born;
All his Eternal sons in like manner;
His daughters, from green herbs and cattle,
From monsters and worms of the pit.
And his soul sicken’d! He curs’d
Both sons and daughters; for he saw
That no flesh nor spirit could keep
His iron laws one moment.
The Ox in the slaughter-house moans;
The Dog at the wintry door;
And he wept, and he callèd it Pity,
And his tears flowèd down on the winds.
In weeping and pain and woe;
And wherever he wander’d, in sorrows
Upon the agèd Heavens,
A cold Shadow follow’d behind him
Like a spider’s web, moist, cold, and dim,
Drawing out from his sorrowing soul,
The dungeon-like heaven dividing,
Wherever the footsteps of Urizen
Walkèd over the cities in sorrow;
The tormented element stretch’d
From the sorrows of Urizen’s soul.
And the Web is a Female in embryo;
None could break the Web, no wings of fire,
The meshes, twisted like to the human brain.
Felt their Nerves change into Marrow,
And hardening Bones began
In swift diseases and torments,
In throbbings and shootings and grindings,
Thro’ all the coasts; till weaken’d
The Senses inward rush’d, shrinking
Beneath the dark Net of infection;
Discern’d not the woven Hypocrisy;
But the streaky slime in their heavens,
Brought together by narrowing perceptions,
Appear’d transparent air; for their eyes
Grew small like the eyes of a man,
And, in reptile forms shrinking together,
Of seven feet stature they remain’d.
And on the seventh day they rested,
And they bless’d the seventh day, in sick hope,
And forgot their Eternal life.
In form of a Human Heart.
No more could they rise at will
In the infinite Void, but bound down
To earth by their narrowing perceptions,
They livèd a period of years;
Then left a noisome body
To the jaws of devouring darkness.
Tombs in the desolate places,
And form’d Laws of Prudence, and call’d them
The Eternal Laws of God.
Surrounded by salt floods, now call’d
Africa: its name was then Egypt.
Beheld their brethren shrink together
Beneath the Net of Urizen.
Persuasion was in vain;
For the ears of the inhabitants
Were wither’d and deafen’d and cold,
And their eyes could not discern
Their brethren of other cities.
The remaining children of Urizen,
And they left the pendulous earth.
They callèd it Egypt, and left it.