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(Milton, f. 12, ll. 10–41.)
THEN Milton rose up from the Heavens of Albion ardorous: | |
| The whole Assembly wept prophetic, seeing in Milton’s face | |
| And in his lineaments divine the shades of Death and Ulro; | |
| He took off the robe of the Promise, and ungirded himself from the oath of God. | |
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| And Milton said: ‘I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still | 5 |
| Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam, in pomp | |
| Of warlike Selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming. | |
| When will the Resurrection come to deliver the sleeping body | |
| From corruptibility? O when, Lord Jesus! wilt Thou come? | |
| Tarry no longer, for my soul lies at the gates of death. | 10 |
| I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave; | |
| I will go down to the sepulchre to see if morning breaks; | |
| I will go down to self-annihilation and Eternal Death; | |
| Lest the Last Judgement come and find me unannihilate, | |
| And I be seiz’d and giv’n into the hands of my own Selfhood. | 15 |
| The Lamb of God is seen thro’ mists and shadows, hov’ring | |
| Over the sepulchres, in clouds of Jehovah and winds of Elohim, | |
| A disk of blood, distant; and Heav’ns and Earths roll dark between. | |
| What do I here before the Judgement without my Emanation, | |
| With the Daughters of Memory, and not with the Daughters of Inspiration? | 20 |
| I, in my Selfhood, am that Satan! I am that Evil One! | |
| He is my Spectre! In my obedience to loose him from my Hells, | |
| To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.’ | |
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| And Milton said: ‘I go to Eternal Death!’ Eternity shudder’d; | |
| For he took the outside course, among the graves of the dead, | 25 |
| A mournful Shade. Eternity shudder’d at the image of Eternal Death. | |
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| Then on the verge of Beulah he beheld his own Shadow, | |
| A mournful form, double, hermaphroditic, male and female | |
| In one wonderful body, and he enter’d into it | |
| In direful pain; for the dread Shadow, twenty-seven-fold, | 30 |
| Reach’d to the depths of direst Hell, and thence to Albion’s land, | |
| Which is this Earth of Vegetation on which now I write. | |
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