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(Engraved 1795)
CHAP. I 1. ENO, agèd Mother, | |
| Who the chariot of Leutha guides, | |
| Since the day of thunders in old time, | |
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| 2. Sitting beneath the eternal Oak, | |
| Trembled and shook the steadfast Earth, | 5 |
| And thus her speech broke forth:— | |
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| 3. ‘O Times remote! | |
| When Love and Joy were adoration, | |
| And none impure were deem’d, | |
| Not eyeless Covet, | 10 |
| Nor thin-lipp’d Envy, | |
| Nor bristled Wrath, | |
| Nor Curlèd Wantonness; | |
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| 4. ‘But Covet was pourèd full, | |
| Envy fed with fat of lambs, | 15 |
| Wrath with lion’s gore, | |
| Wantonness lull’d to sleep | |
| With the virgin’s lute, | |
| Or sated with her love; | |
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| 5. ‘Till Covet broke his locks and bars, | 20 |
| And slept with open doors; | |
| Envy sung at the rich man’s feast; | |
| Wrath was follow’d up and down | |
| By a little ewe lamb; | |
| And Wantonness on his own true love | 25 |
| Begot a giant race. | |
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| 6. Raging furious, the flames of desire | |
| Ran thro’ heaven and earth, living flames, | |
| Intelligent, organiz’d, arm’d | |
| With destruction and plagues. In the midst | 30 |
| The Eternal Prophet, bound in a chain, | |
| Compell’d to watch Urizen’s shadow, | |
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| 7. Rag’d with curses and sparkles of fury: | |
| Round the flames roll, as Los hurls his chains, | |
| Mounting up from his fury, condens’d, | 35 |
| Rolling round and round, mounting on high | |
| Into Vacuum, into nonentity, | |
| Where nothing was; dash’d wide apart, | |
| His feet stamp the eternal fierce-raging | |
| Rivers of wide flame; they roll round | 40 |
| And round on all sides, making their way | |
| Into darkness and shadowy obscurity. | |
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| 8. Wide apart stood the fires: Los remain’d | |
| In the Void between fire and fire: | |
| In trembling and horror they beheld him; | 45 |
| They stood wide apart, driv’n by his hands | |
| And his feet, which the nether Abyss | |
| Stamp’d in fury and hot indignation. | |
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| 9. But no light from the fires! all was | |
| Darkness round Los: heat was not; for bound up | 50 |
| Into fiery spheres from his fury, | |
| The gigantic flames trembled and hid. | |
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| 10. Coldness, darkness, obstruction, a Solid | |
| Without fluctuation, hard as adamant, | |
| Black as marble of Egypt, impenetrable, | 55 |
| Bound in the fierce raging Immortal; | |
| And the separated fires, froze in | |
| A vast Solid, without fluctuation, | |
| Bound in his expanding clear senses. | |
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CHAP. II 1. The Immortal stood frozen amidst | 60 |
| The vast Rock of Eternity, times | |
| And times, a night of vast durance, | |
| Impatient, stifled, stiffen’d, hard’ned; | |
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| 2. Till impatience no longer could bear | |
| The hard bondage: rent, rent, the vast Solid, | 65 |
| With a crash from Immense to Immense, | |
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| 3. Crack’d across into numberless fragments. | |
| The Prophetic wrath, struggling for vent, | |
| Hurls apart, stamping furious to dust, | |
| And crumbling with bursting sobs, heaves | 70 |
| The black marble on high into fragments. | |
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| 4. Hurl’d apart on all sides as a falling | |
| Rock, the innumerable fragments away | |
| Fell asunder; and horrible Vacuum | |
| Beneath him, and on all sides round, | 75 |
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| 5. ‘Falling! falling! Los fell and fell, | |
| Sunk precipitant, heavy, down! down! | |
| Times on times, night on night, day on day— | |
| Truth has bounds, Error none—falling, falling, | |
| Years on years, and ages on ages; | 80 |
| Still he fell thro’ the Void, still a Void | |
| Found for falling, day and night without end; | |
| For tho’ day or night was not, their spaces | |
| Were measur’d by his incessant whirls | |
| In the horrid Vacuity bottomless. | 85 |
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| 6. The Immortal revolving, indignant, | |
| First in wrath threw his limbs, like the babe | |
| New-born into our world: wrath subsided, | |
| And contemplative thoughts first arose; | |
| Then aloft his head rear’d in the Abyss, | 90 |
| And his downward-borne fall chang’d oblique. | |
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| 7. Many ages of groans! till there grew | |
| Branchy forms, organizing the Human | |
| Into finite inflexible organs; | |
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| 8. Till in process from falling he bore | 95 |
| Sidelong on the purple air, wafting | |
| The weak breeze in efforts o’erwearièd: | |
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| 9. Incessant the falling Mind labour’d, | |
| Organizing itself, till the Vacuum | |
| Became Element, pliant to rise, | 100 |
| Or to fall, or to swim, or to fly, | |
| With ease searching the dire Vacuity. | |
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CHAP. III 1. The Lungs heave incessant, dull, and heavy; | |
| For as yet were all other parts formless, | |
| Shiv’ring, clinging around like a cloud, | 105 |
| Dim and glutinous as the white Polypus, | |
| Driv’n by waves and englob’d on the tide. | |
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| 2. And the unformèd part crav’d repose; | |
| Sleep began; the Lungs heave on the wave: | |
| Weary, overweigh’d, sinking beneath | 110 |
| In a stifling black fluid, he woke. | |
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| 3. He arose on the waters; but soon | |
| Heavy falling, his organs like roots | |
| Shooting out from the seed, shot beneath, | |
| And a vast World of Waters around him | 115 |
| In furious torrents began. | |
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| 4. Then he sunk, and around his spent Lungs | |
| Began intricate pipes that drew in | |
| The spawn of the waters, outbranching | |
| An immense Fibrous Form, stretching out | 120 |
| Thro’ the bottoms of Immensity: raging. | |
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| 5. He rose on the floods; then he smote | |
| The wild deep with his terrible wrath, | |
| Separating the heavy and thin. | |
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| 6. Down the heavy sunk, cleaving around | 125 |
| To the fragments of Solid: uprose | |
| The thin, flowing round the fierce fires | |
| That glow’d furious in the Expanse. | |
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CHAP. IV 1. Then Light first began: from the fires, | |
| Beams, conducted by fluid so pure, | 130 |
| Flow’d around the Immense. Los beheld | |
| Forthwith, writhing upon the dark Void, | |
| The Backbone of Urizen appear, | |
| Hurtling upon the wind, | |
| Like a serpent, like an iron chain, | 135 |
| Whirling about in the Deep. | |
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| 2. Upfolding his Fibres together | |
| To a Form of impregnable strength, | |
| Los, astonish’d and terrifièd, built | |
| Furnaces; he formed an Anvil, | 140 |
| A Hammer of adamant: then began | |
| The binding of Urizen day and night. | |
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| 3. Circling round the dark Demon with howlings, | |
| Dismay, and sharp blightings, the Prophet | |
| Of Eternity beat on his iron links. | 145 |
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| 4. And first from those Infinite fires, | |
| The light that flow’d down on the winds | |
| He seiz’d, beating incessant, condensing | |
| The subtil particles in an Orb. | |
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| 5. Roaring indignant, the bright sparks | 150 |
| Endur’d the vast Hammer; but unwearièd | |
| Los beat on the Anvil, till glorious | |
| An immense Orb of fire he fram’d. | |
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| 6. Oft he quench’d it beneath in the Deeps; | |
| Then survey’d the all-bright mass. Again | 155 |
| Seizing fires from the terrific Orbs, | |
| He heated the round Globe, then beat; | |
| While, roaring, his Furnaces endur’d | |
| The chain’d Orb in their infinite wombs. | |
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| 7. Nine ages completed their circles, | 160 |
| When Los heated the glowing mass, casting | |
| It down into the Deeps: the Deeps fled | |
| Away in redounding smoke: the Sun | |
| Stood self-balanc’d. And Los smil’d with joy: | |
| He the vast Spine of Urizen seiz’d, | 165 |
| And bound down to the glowing Illusion. | |
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| 8. But no light! for the Deep fled away | |
| On all sides, and left an unform’d | |
| Dark Vacuity: here Urizen lay | |
| In fierce torments on his glowing bed; | 170 |
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| 9. Till his Brain in a rock, and his Heart | |
| In a fleshy slough, formèd four rivers, | |
| Obscuring the immense Orb of fire, | |
| Flowing down into night; till a Form | |
| Was completed, a Human Illusion, | 175 |
In darkness and deep clouds involv’d.
THE END OF THE BOOK OF LOS | |
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