The Complete Poems
Despising toil and care,
Because the days and nights of joy, in lucky hours renew.
10 Arise O Orc from thy deep den,
First born of Enitharmon rise!
And we will crown thy head with garlands of the ruddy vine;
For now thou art bound;
And I may see thee in the hour of bliss, my eldest born.
The horrent Demon rose, surrounded with red stars of fire,
Whirling about in furious circles round the immortal fiend.
Then Enitharmon down descended into his red light,
And thus her voice rose to her children, the distant heavens reply:
PLATE 6
Now comes the night of Enitharmons joy!
Who shall I call? Who shall I send?
That Woman, lovely Woman! may have dominion?
Arise O Rintrah thee I call! & Palamabron thee!
Go! tell the Human race that Womans love is Sin!
That an Eternal life awaits the worms of sixty winters
In an allegorical abode where existence hath never come:
Forbid all Joy, & from her childhood shall the little
female
Spread nets in every secret path.
10 My weary eyelids draw towards the evening, my bliss is yet but new.
PLATE 8
Arise O Rintrah eldest born: second to none but Orc:
O lion Rintrah raise thy fury from thy forests black:
Bring Palamabron horned priest, skipping upon the
mountains:
And silent Elynittria the silver bowed queen:
Rintrah where hast thou hid thy bride:
Weeps she in desart shades?
Alas my Rintrah! bring the lovely jealous Ocalythron.
Arise my son: bring all thy brethren O thou king of fire.
Prince of the sun I see thee with thy innumerable race:
10 Thick as the summer stars:
But each ramping his golden mane shakes,
And thine eyes rejoice because of strength O Rintrah
furious king
PLATE 9
Enitharmon slept,
Eighteen hundred years: Man was a Dream!
The night of Nature and their harps unstrung:
She slept in middle of her nightly song,
Eighteen hundred years, a female dream!
Shadows of men in fleeting bands upon the winds:
Divide the heavens of Europe:
Till Albions Angel smitten with his own plagues fled
with his bands
The cloud bears hard on Albions shore:
10 Fill’d with immortal demons of futurity:
In council gather the smitten Angels of Albion
The cloud bears hard upon the council house; down
rushing
On the heads of Albions Angels.
One hour they lay buried beneath the ruins of that hall;
But as the stars rise from the salt lake they arise in pain,
In troubled mists o’erclouded by the terrors of
strugling times.
PLATE 10
In thoughts perturb’d. they rose from the bright ruins silent following
The fiery King, who sought his ancient temple serpent-form’d
That stretches out its shady length along the Island white.
Round him roll’d his clouds of war; silent the Angel went,
Along the infinite shores of Thames to golden Verulam.
There stand the venerable porches that high-towering rear
Their oak-surrounded pillars, form’d of massy stones, uncut
With tool; stones precious; such eternal in the heavens,
Of colours twelve. few known on earth, give light in the opake,
Plac’d in the order of the stars, when the five senses
10 whelm’d
In deluge o’er the earth-born man; then turn’d the fluxile eyes
Into two stationary orbs, concentrating all things.
The ever-varying spiral ascents to the heavens of heavens
Were bended downward; and the nostrils golden gates shut
Turn’d outward, barr’d and petrify’d against the infinite,
Thought chang’d the infinite to a serpent; that which pitieth:
To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid
In forests of night; then all the eternal forests were divided
Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush’d
20 And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh.
Then was the serpent temple form’d, image of infinite
Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel;
Heaven a mighty circle turning; God a tyrant crown’d.
Now arriv’d the ancient Guardian at the southern porch,
That planted thick with trees of blackest leaf, & in a vale
Obscure, enclos’d the Stone of Night; oblique it stood, o’erhung
With purple flowers and berries red; image of that sweet south,
Once open to the heavens and elevated on the human neck,
Now overgrown with hair and covered with a stony roof,
Downward ’tis sunk beneath th’ attractive north, that
30 round the feet
A raging whirlpool draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave:
PLATE II
Albions Angel rose upon the Stone of Night.
He saw Urizen on the Atlantic;
And his brazen Book,
That Kings & Priests had copied on Earth
Expanded from North to South.
PLATE 12
And the clouds & fires pale rolld round in the night of Enitharmon
Round Albions cliffs & Londons walls; still Enitharmon slept!
Rolling volumes of grey mist involve Churches, Palaces, Towers:
For Urizen unclaspd his Book! feeding his soul with pity
The youth of England hid in gloom curse the paind heavens; compell’d
Into the deadly night to see the form of Albions Angel
Their parents brought them forth & aged ignorance preaches canting,
On a vast rock, percievd by those senses that are clos’d from thought:
Bleak, dark, abrupt, it stands & overshadows London city
They saw his boney feet on the rock, the flesh consum’d in
10 flames:
They saw the Serpent temple lifted above, shadowing the Island white:
They heard the voice of Albions Angel howling in flames of Orc,
Seeking the trump of the last doom
Above the rest the howl was heard from Westminster louder & louder:
The Guardian of the secret codes forsook his ancient mansion,
Driven out by the flames of Orc; his furr’d robes & false locks
Adhered and grew one with his flesh, and nerves & veins shot thro’ them
With dismal torment sick, hanging upon the wind: he fled
Groveling along Great George Street thro’ the Park gate; all the soldiers
Fled from his sight: he drag’d his torments to the
20 wilderness.
Thus was the howl thro Europe!
For Orc rejoic’d to hear the howling shadows
But Palamabron shot his lightnings trenching down his wide back
And Rintrah hung with all his legions in the nether deep
Enitharmon laugh’d in her sleep to see (O womans triumph)
Every house a den, every man bound; the shadows are filld
With spectres, and the windows wove over with curses of iron:
Over the doors Thou shalt not; & over the chimneys Fear is written:
With bands of iron round their necks fasten’d into the walls
30 The citizens: in leaden gyves the inhabitants of suburbs
Walk heavy: soft and bent are the bones of villagers
Between the clouds of Urizen the flames of Orc roll heavy
Around the limbs of
Albions Guardian, his flesh consuming.
Howlings & hissings, shrieks & groans, & voices of despair
Arise around him in the cloudy
Heavens of Albion, Furious
PLATE 13
The red limb’d Angel siez’d, in horror and torment;
The Trump of the last doom; but he could not blow the iron tube!
Thrice he assay’d presumptuous to awake the dead to Judgment.
A mighty Spirit leap’d from the land of Albion,
Nam’d Newton; he siez’d the Trump. & blow’d the enormous blast!
Yellow as leaves of Autumn the myriads of Angelic hosts,
Fell thro’ the wintry skies seeking their graves;
Rattling their hollow bones in howling and lamentation.
Then Enitharmon woke, nor knew that she had slept
10 And eighteen hundred years were fled
As if they had not been
She calld her sons & daughters
To the sports of night,
Within her crystal house;
And thus her song proceeds.
Arise Ethinthus! tho’ the earth-worm call;
Let him call in vain;
Till the night of holy shadows
And human solitude is past!
PLATE 14
Ethinthus queen of waters, how thou shinest in the sky:
My daughter how do I rejoice! for thy children flock around
Like the gay fishes on the wave, when the cold moon drinks the dew.
Ethinthus! thou art sweet as comforts to my fainting soul:
For now thy waters warble round the feet of Enitharmon.
Manathu-Vorcyon! I behold thee flaming in my halls,
Light of thy mothers soul! I see thy lovely eagles round;
Thy golden wings are my delight, & thy flames of soft delusion.
Where is my lureing bird of Eden! Leutha silent love!
10 Leutha, the many colourd bow delights upon thy wings:
Soft soul of flowers Leutha!
Sweet smiling pestilence! I see thy blushing light:
Thy daughters many changing,
Revolve like sweet perfumes ascending O Leutha silken
queen!
Where is the youthful Antamon. prince of the pearly dew.
O Antamon. why wilt thou leave thy mother Enitharmon?
Alone I see thee crystal form.
Floting upon the bosomd air:
With lineaments of gratified desire.
20 My Antamon the seven churches of Leutha seek thy love.
I hear the soft Oothoon in Enitharmons tents:
Why wilt thou give up womans secrecy my melancholy child?
Between two moments bliss is ripe:
O Theotormon robb’d of joy, I see thy salt tears flow
Down the steps of my crystal house.
Sotha & Thiralatha, secret dwellers of dreamful caves,
Arise and please the horrent fiend with your melodious songs.
Still all your thunders golden hoofd, & bind your horses black.
Orc! smile upon my children!
30 Smile son of my afflictions.
Arise O Orc and give our mountains joy of thy red light.
She ceas’d, for All were forth at sport beneath the solemn moon
Waking the stars of Urizen with their immortal songs,
That nature felt thro’ all her pores the enormous revelry,
Till morning ope’d the eastern gate.
Then every one fled to his station. & Enitharmon wept.
But terrible Orc, when he beheld the morning in the east,
PLATE 15
Shot from the heights of Enitharmon;
And in the vineyards of red France appear’d the light of his fury
The sun glow’d fiery red!
The furious terrors flew around!
On golden chariots raging, with red wheels dropping with blood;
The Lions lash their wrathful tails!
The Tigers couch upon the prey & suck the ruddy tide:
And Enitharmon groans & cries in anguish and dismay.
Then Los arose his head he reard in snaky thunders clad:
10 And with a cry that shook all nature to the utmost pole,
Call’d all his sons to the strife of blood.
FINIS
THE SONG OF LOS
PLATE 3
AFRICA
I will sing you a song of Los. the Eternal Prophet:
He sung it to four harps at the tables of Eternity.
In heart-formed Africa.
Urizen faded! Ariston shudderd!
And thus the Song began
Adam stood in the garden of Eden:
And Noah on the mountains of Ararat;
They saw Urizen give his Laws to the Nations
By the hands of the children of Los.
10 Adam shudderd! Noah faded! black grew the sunny African
When Rintrah gave Abstract Philosophy to Brama in the East:
(Night spoke to the Cloud!
Lo these Human form’d spirits in smiling hipocrisy War
Against one another; so let them War on; slaves to the eternal Elements)
Noah shrunk, beneath the waters;
Abram fled in fires from Chaldea;
Moses beheld upon Mount Sinai forms of dark delusion:
To Trismegistus. Palamabron gave an abstract Law:
To Pythagoras Socrates & Plato.
20 Times rolled on o’er all the sons of Har, time after time
Orc on Mount Atlas howld, chain’d down with the Chain of Jealousy
Then Oothoon hoverd over Judah & Jerusalem
And Jesus heard her voice (a man of sorrows) he recievd
A Gospel from wretched Theotormon.
The human race began to wither, for the healthy built
Secluded places, fearing the joys of Love
And the disease’d only propagated:
So Antamon call’d up Leutha from her valleys of delight:
And to Mahomet a loose Bible gave.
30 But in the North, to Odin, Sotha gave a Code of War,
Because of Diralada thinking to reclaim his joy.
PLATE 4
These were the Churches: Hospitals: Castles: Palaces:
Like nets & gins & traps to catch the joys of Eternity And all the rest a desart;
Till like a dream Eternity was obliterated & erased.
Since that dread day when Har and Heva fled.
Because their brethren & sisters liv’d in War & Lust;
And as they fled they shrunk
Into two narrow doleful forms:
Creeping in reptile flesh upon
10 The bosom of the ground:
And all the vast of Nature shrunk
Before their shrunken eyes.
Thus the terrible race of Los & Enitharmon gave
Laws & Religions to the sons of Har binding them more
And more to Earth: closing and restraining:
Till a Philosophy of Five Senses was complete
Urizen wept & gave it into the hands of Newton & Locke
Clouds roll heavy upon the Alps round Rousseau & Voltaire:
And on the mountains of Lebanon round the deceased Gods
20 Of Asia; & on the desarts of Africa round the Fallen Angels
The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent
PLATE 6
ASIA
The Kings of Asia heard
The howl rise up from Europe!
And each ran out from his Web;
From his ancient woven Den;
For the darkness of Asia was startled
At the thick-flaming, thought-creating fires of Orc.
And the Kings of Asia stood
And cried in bitterness of soul.
Shall not the King call for Famine from the heath?
10 Nor the Priest, for Pestilence from the fen?
To restrain! to dismay! to thin!
The inhabitants of m
ountain and plain;
In the day, of full-feeding prosperity;
And the night of delicious songs.
Shall not the Councellor throw his curb
Of Poverty on the laborious?
To fix the price of labour;
To invent allegoric riches:
And the privy admonishers of men
20 Call for fires in the City
For heaps of smoking ruins,
In the night of prosperity & wantonness
To turn man from his path,
To restrain the child from the womb,
PLATE 7
To cut off the bread from the city,
That the remnant may learn to obey,
That the pride of the heart may fail;
That the lust of the eyes, may be quench’d:
That the delicate ear in its infancy
May be dull’d; and the nostrils clos’d up;
To teach mortal worms the path
That leads from the gates of the Grave.
Urizen heard them cry!
10 And his shudd’ring waving wings
Went enormous above the red flames
Drawing clouds of despair thro’ the heavens
Of Europe as he went:
And his Books of brass iron & gold
Melted over the land as he flew,
Heavy-waving, howling, weeping.
And he stood over Judea:
And stay’d in his ancient place:
And stretch’d his clouds over Jerusalem;
20 For Adam, a mouldering skeleton
Lay bleach’d on the garden of Eden;
And Noah as white as snow
On the mountains of Ararat.
Then the thunders of Urizen bellow’d aloud
From his woven darkness above.
Orc, raging in European darkness
Arose like a pillar of fire above the Alps
Like a serpent of fiery flame!
The sullen Earth
30 Shrunk!
Forth from the dead dust rattling bones to bones
Join: shaking convuls’d the shivring clay breathes
And all flesh naked stands: Fathers and Friends;
Mothers & Infants; Kings & Warriors:
The Grave shrieks with delight, & shakes
Her hollow womb, & clasps the solid stem:
Her bosom swells with wild desire:
And milk & blood & glandous wine
In rivers rush & shout & dance,
40 On mountain, dale and plain.
The SONG of LOS is Ended.
Urizen Wept.