Chap. VI

But Los saw the Female, and pitied;
He embrac'd her; she wept, she refus'd;
In perverse and cruel delight
She fled from his arms, yet he follow'd.

Eternity shudder'd when they saw
Man begetting his likeness
On his own Divided Image!

A time passed over: the Eternals
Began to erect the tent,
When Enitharmon, sick,
Felt a Worm within her womb.

Yet helpless it lay, like a Worm
In the trembling womb,

To be moulded into existence.

All day the Worm lay on her bosom;
All night within her womb
The Worm lay till it grew to a Serpent,
With dolorous hissings and poisons
Round Enitharmon's loins folding.

Coil'd within Enitharmon's womb
The Serpent grew, casting its scales;
With sharp pangs the hissings began
To change to a grating cry —
Many sorrows and dismal throes,
Many forms of fish, bird, and beasts
Brought forth an Infant form.
Where was a Worm before.

The Eternals their tent finished,
Alarm'd with these gloomy visions,
When Enitharmon, groaning,
Produc'd a Man-Child Jo the light,

A shriek ran thro' Eternity,
And a paralytic stroke,
At the birth of the Human Shadow.

Delving earth in his resistless way,
Howling, the Child with fierce flames
Issu'd from Enitharmon.

The Eternals closed the tent;
They beat down the stakes, the cords
Stretch'd for a work of Eternity —
No more Los beheld Eternity!

In his hands he seiz'd the Infant,
He bathed him in springs of sorrow,
He gave him to Enitharmon.