[Tirzah]

(Jerusalem, f. 67, ll. 44–55.)

‘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 usèd 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!’