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(Four Zoas, Night IX, ll. 5–23, 33–66.)
TERRIFIÈD at Non-Existence— | |
| For such they deem’d the death of the body—Los his vegetable hands | |
| Outstretch’d; his right hand, branching out in fibrous strength, | |
| Seiz’d the Sun; his left hand, like dark roots, cover’d the Moon, | |
| And tore them down, cracking the heavens across from immense to immense. | 5 |
| Then fell the fires of Eternity, with loud and shrill | |
| Sound of loud Trumpet, thundering along from heaven to heaven, | |
| A mighty sound articulate: ‘Awake! ye Dead, and come | |
| To Judgement from the four winds! awake, and come away!’ | |
| Folding like scrolls of the enormous volume of Heaven and Earth, | 10 |
| With thunderous noise and dreadful shakings, rocking to and fro, | |
| The Heavens are shaken, and the Earth removèd from its place; | |
| The foundations of the eternal hills discover’d. | |
| The thrones of Kings are shaken, they have lost their robes and crowns; | |
| The Poor smite their oppressors, they awake up to the harvest; 1 | 15 |
| The naked warriors rush together down to the seashore, | |
| Trembling before the multitudes of slaves now set at liberty: | |
| They are become like wintry flocks, like forests stripp’d of leaves. | |
| The Oppressèd pursue like the wind; there is no room for escape.… | |
| The Books of Urizen unroll with dreadful noise! The folding Serpent | 20 |
| Of Orc began to consume in fierce raving fire; his fierce flames | |
| Issu’d on all sides, gathering strength in animating volumes, | |
| Roaring abroad on all the winds, raging intense, reddening | |
| Into resistless pillars of fire, rolling round and round, gathering | |
| Strength from the earths consum’d, and heavens, and all hidden abysses, | 25 |
| Where’er the Eagle has explor’d, or Lion or Tiger trod, | |
| Or where the comets of the night, or stars of day | |
| Have shot their arrows or long-beamèd spears in wrath and fury. | |
| |
| And all the while the Trumpet sounds. | |
| From the clotted gore, and from the hollow den | 30 |
| Start forth the trembling millions into flames of mental fire, | |
| Bathing their limbs in the bright visions of Eternity. | |
| |
| Then, like the doves from pillars of smoke, the trembling families | |
| Of women and children throughout every nation under heaven | |
| Cling round the men in bands of twenties and of fifties, pale | 35 |
| As snow that falls round a leafless tree upon the green. | |
| Their oppressors are fall’n; they have stricken them; they awake to life. | |
| Yet, pale, the Just man stands erect, and looking up to Heav’n. | |
| Trembling and strucken by the universal stroke, the trees unroot; | |
| The rocks groan horrible and run about; the mountains and | 40 |
| Their rivers cry with a dismal cry; the cattle gather together, | |
| Lowing they kneel before the heavens; the wild beasts of the forests | |
| Tremble. The Lion, shuddering, asks the Leopard: ‘Feelest thou | |
| The dread I feel, unknown before? My voice refuses to roar, | |
| And in weak moans I speak to thee. This night, | 45 |
| Before the morning’s dawn, the Eagle call’d the Vulture, | |
| The Raven call’d the Hawk. I heard them from my forests, | |
| Saying: “Let us go up far, for soon I smell upon the wind | |
| A terror coming from the South.” The Eagle and Hawk fled away | |
| At dawn, and ere the sun arose, the Raven and Vulture follow’d. | 50 |
| Let us flee also to the North.’ They fled. The Sons of Men | |
| Saw them depart in dismal droves. The trumpets sounded loud, | |
| And all the Sons of Eternity descended into Beulah. | |
