Night the Third

Now sat the King of Light again upon his starry throne
And bright Ahania bow'd herself before his splendid feet.
O Urizen, look on thy wife, that like a mournful stream
Embraces round thy knees and wets her bright hair with her tears.

Why sighs my lord? Are not the morning stars obedient sons?
Do they not bow their bright heads at thy voice, at thy command
Do they not fly into their stations and return their light to thee?
The immortal Atmospheres are thine. There thou art seen in glory
Surrounded by the ever-changing daughters of the light.

Thou sits in harmony, for God hath set thee over all.
Why wilt thou look upon futurity darkening present joy?

She ceased. The Prince of Light obscured the splendour of his crown,
Infolded in thick clouds from which his mighty voice went forth.

O bright Ahania, a boy is born of the dark ocean
Whom Urizen doth serve with light replenishing his darkness.

I am set here a king of trouble, commanded here to serve
And do my ministry to those who eat of my wide Table.
All this is mine, yet I must serve, and that Prophetic boy
Must grow up to command his prince, and all his kingly power.

But Vala shall become a worm in Enitharmon's womb
Laying her seed upon the fibres, soon to issue forth,
And Luvah in the Loins of Los a dark and furious death.
Alas for me! What will become of me at that dread time?

Ahania bowed her head and wept seven days before the King.
And on the eighth day when his clouds unfolded from his throne
She raised her bright head sweet perfumed, and with heavenly voice,
O Prince, the Eternal One hath set thee leader of his works,
Raise then thy radiant eyes to him, raise thy obedient hands,
And comfort shall descend from heaven into thy darkening clouds.

Leave all futurity to him. Resume thy fields of light.

Why didst thou listen to the voice of Luvah that dread morn
To give the immortal steeds of light to his deceitful hands?
No longer now obedient to thy will, thou art compelled
To forge the curbs of iron and brass, to build them iron mangers.
To feed them with intoxication from the wine-press of Luvah.
Till the Divine Vision and Fruition is quite obliterated.
They call thy lions to the field of blood. They rouse thy tigers
Out of the halls of justice, till their dens thy windows framed
Golden and beautiful, but unlike those sweet fields of bliss
Where liberty was justice, and eternal science was mercy.
Then, oh my dear lord, listen to Ahania, hear this vision,
The vision of Ahania in the slumbers of Urizen
When Urizen slept in the porch and the Ancient Man was smitten.

The darkening Man walked on the steps of fire before his halls
And Vala walked with him in dreams of soft deluding slumber.
He looked up and saw the Prince of Light with splendour faded,
But saw not Los nor Enitharmon; Luvah hid them in shadow
Of a soft cloud outstretched across, and Luvah dwelt in this cloud.

The Man ascended mourning into the splendour of his palace,
Above him rose a shadow from his wearied intellect
Of living gold, pure, perfect, holy; in white linen pure it hovered,
A sweet entrancing self-delusion, a watery vision of Man,
Soft, exulting in existence, all the Man absorbing.
Man fell upon his face postrate before the watery shadow
Saying, oh Lord, whence is this change? Thou knowest I am nothing.
And Vala trembled and covered her face and her locks were spread on the pavement.

I heard — astonished at the vision, and my heart trembled within me —
I heard the voice of the slumberous man, and thus he spoke
Idolatrous to his own shadow, words of eternity uttering, —

Oh, I am nothing if I enter into judgment with thee.

If thou withdraw thy breath I die, and vanish into Hades;

If thou dost lay thy hand upon me, behold I am silent;

If thou withhold thy hand I perish like a fallen leaf;

Or I am nothing, and to nothing must return again.
If thou withdraw thy breath, behold I am oblivion.

The shadowy voice was silent, but the cloud hung o'er their heads
In golden wreathes, the sorrow of Man, and the balmy drops fell down
And lo! that Son of Man, that shadowy spirit of the Fallen One,
Luvah, descended from the cloud. In terror Man arose..
Indignant rose the Awful Man and turned his back on Vala.

We heard the voice of the Fallen One starting from his sleep.
Whence is this voice crying Enion that soundeth in my ears?
Oh, cruel pity. Oh, dark deceit, can love seek for dominion?
Why roll thy clouds in sickening mists. I can no longer hide
The dismal vision of mine eyes. Oh, love! Oh, life! Oh, light!
Prophetic dreads urge me to speak. Eternity is before me.
Like a dark lamp. Eternal death haunts all my expectations.
Bent from Eternal Brotherhood we die and are no more.

And Luvah strove to gain dominion over the Ancient Man.

They strove together over the body where Vala was enclosed.
And the dark body of Man left prostrate on the crystal pavement
Covered with boils from head to foot, the terrible smitings of Luvah.
Then frowned the Fallen Man and put forth Luvah from his presence.
I heard him; — frown not, Urizen, but listen to my vision —

Saying, — Go die the death of Man for Vala the sweet Wanderer.

I will turn the volutions of your ears outward, and bend your nostrils
Downward, and your fluxile eyes englobed roll round in fear,
Your writhing lips and tongue shrink up into a narrow circle
Till into narrow forms you creep. Go take your fiery way
And learn what it is to absorb the Man, you spirits of pity and love.

Oh, Urizen, — why art thou pale at the visions of Albion?
Listen to her who loves thee, lest we also are driven away.

They heard the voice and flew, swift as the winter setting son
And now the Human Blood flow'd high. I saw that Luvah and Vala
Went down the Human Heart where Paradise and its joys abound,
In jealous fears and rage, and flames rolled round their fervid feet,
And the vast form of Nature like a serpent played before them,
And as they went in folding fires and thunders of the deep
Vala shrunk in like the dark sea that leaves its slimy banks,
And from her bosom Luvah fell far as the East and West
And the vast form of Nature, like a serpent, rolled between.
Whether this is Jerusalem or Babylon we know not.
All is confusion, all is tumult, and we alone are escaped.

Albion closed the western gate, and shut America out
By the Atlantic, for a curse, and for a hidden horror,
And for an altar of victims offered to Sin and Repentance.

Am I not God, said Urizen? Who is equal to me?
Do I not stretch the heavens abroad, and fold them up like a garment?
He spoke, mustering his heavy clouds around him, black, opaque.
Then thunders rolled around, and lightnings darted to and fro;

His visage changed to darkness, and his strong right hand came forth
To cast Ahania to the earth. He seized her by the hair,
And threw her from the steps of ice that froze around his throne,
Saying, Art thou also become like Vala? Thus I cast thee out.

Shall the feminine indolent bliss, the indulgent self of weariness,
The passive idle sleep, the enormous night and darkness and death,
Set herself up to give her laws to this active masculine virtue?
Thou little diminutive portion that darest be a counterpart,
Thy passivity, thy laws of obedience and insincerity,
Are my abhorrence. Wherefore hast thou taken this fair form?
Whence is this power given thee? Once thou was in my breast
A sluggish current of dim waters, on whose verdant margin
A cavern shagged with horrid shades, dark, cool and deadly, where
I laid my head in the hot noon, after the broken clods
Had wearied me. There I laid my plough, and there my horses fed:

And thou hast risen with thy moist locks into a watery image,
Reflecting all my indolence, my weakness and my death,
To weigh me down beneath the grave into Non-Entity,
Where Luvah strives, scorned by Vala, age after age wandering,
Shrinking and shrinking from her Lord and calling him the Tempter.
And art thou also become like Vala? Thus I cast thee out.

So loud in thunder spoke the King, folded in dark despair,
And threw Ahania from his bosom obdurate. She fell like lightning.
Then fled the sons of Urizen from his thund'rous throne, petrified;
They fled to East and West and left the North and South of Heaven.

A crash ran through the universe; the bounds of Destiny were broken.
The bounds of Destiny crashed direful, and the swelling sea
Burst from its bonds in whirlpools fierce, and roaring with human voice,
Triumphing even to the stars at bright Ahania's fall.

Down from the dismal North the Prince of thunders and thick clouds,
As when the thunder-bolt downfalleth on the appointed place,
Fell down rushing, ruining, thundering, shuddering,
Into the caverns of the grave and places of human seed,
Where the impressions of despair and hope enroot for ever
A world of darkness; — Ahania fell far into nonentity.

She continued falling. Loud the crash continued, loud and hoarse.
From the crash roared a blue sulphurous fire, and from the flame
A dolorous groan that struck with dumbness all confusion,
Swallowing up the horrible din in agony on agony.

Through the confusion, like a crack across from immense to immense,
Loud, strong, a universal groan of death louder was heard
Than all the elements, deafened and rendered worse
Than Urizen and all his hosts in curst despair down rushing.
But from the dolorous groan on high a shadow of smoke appeared,
And human bones rattling together in the smoke and stamping
The nether abyss, and gnashing in fierce despair, and panting in sobs,
Thick, short, incessant, bursting, sobbing, deep despairing, stamping,
Struggling to utter the voice of man, to take features of man,
To take the limbs of man. At length, emerging from the smoke
Of Urizen dashed in pieces from his precipitate fall,
Tharmas reared up his hands and stood on the affrighted ocean,
The dead reared up his voice and stood on the resounding shore,
Crying: Fury in my limbs! Destruction in my bone and marrow!
My skull riven into filaments, my ears into sea-jellies,
Floating upon the tide, wander bubbling and bubbling,
Uttering lamentations and begetting little monsters
Who sit mocking upon the little pebbles of the tide
In all my rivers, and on my dried shells that now the fish
Have quite forsaken. Oh, fool! fool! to lose my sweetest bliss.

Where art thou, Enion? Ah, too near thou seemest, too far off,
And yet too near, dashed down I send thee into distant darkness
Far as my strength can hurl thee; wander there, and laugh and play,
Scream and fall off and laugh at Tharmas, lovely summer beauty,
Till winds rend thee into shivers as thou hast rended me.

So Tharmas bellowed on the ocean, thund'ring, sobbing, bursting.
The bounds of Destiny were broken, and hatred now began
Instead of love to Enion. Enion, blind and age-bent,
Plunged into the cold billows, living a life in midst of waters.
In terrors she withered away to Entuthon Benython,
A world of deep darkness where all things in horror are rooted.

These are the words of Enion, heard from the cold wave of despair:
Oh, Tharmas, I had lost thee when I hoped that I had found thee;
Oh, Tharmas, do not thou destroy me quite, but let
A little shadow, but a little showery form of Enion,
Be near the loved terror. Let me still remain. Do thou
Thy righteous doom upon me; only let me hear thy voice.
Driven by thy rage I wander like a cloud into the deep
Where never yet existence came; there losing all my life,
I back return, weaker and weaker. Consume me not away
In thy great wrath, though I have sinned, though I have rebelled.
Make me not as the things forgotten, — as they had not been.

Tharmas replied, riding on storms, his voice in thunder rolled:
Image of grief, thy fading lineaments make my eyelids fail.
What have I done? Both rage and mercy are alike to me;

Looking upon thee, image of faint waters, I recoil
From my fierce rage into thy semblance. Enion, return.
Why does thy piteous face evanish like a rainy cloud
Melting, a shower of falling tears, nothing but tears! Enion!
Substanceless, voiceless, weeping, vanished, nothing but tears, Enion!

Art thou for ever vanished from the watery eyes of Tharmas.

Rage, rage shall never from my bosom. Winds and waters of woe
Consuming, — all to the end consuming! Love and hope are ended.

For now no more remained of Enion in the distant air,
Only a voice eternal wailing in the elements.
Where Enion, blind and age-bent, wandered, Ahania wanders now.

She wanders in eternal fear of falling into the indefinite;

For her bright eyes behold the abyss. Sometimes a little sleep
Weighs down her eyelids. Then she falls; then, starting back in fear,
Sleepless to wander round, repelled on the margin of nonentity.