Night the Sixth

So Urizen arose and leaning on his spear explored his dens.
He threw his flight through the dark air to where a river flowed,
And taking off his silver helmet filled it and drank;
But when, his thirst being sated, he assayed to gather more,
Lo, three terrific women at the verge of the bright flood,
Who would not suffer him to approach but drove him back with storm.

Urizen knew them not, and thus addressed the spirits of darkness:
Who art thou, eldest woman, sitting wrapped in these thy clouds?
What is that name written upon thy forehead? What art thou?
And wherefore dost thou pour this water forth in sighs and care?
She answered not, but filled her urn and poured it forth abroad.

Answerest thou not? said Urizen. Then thou must answer me,
Thou terrible woman clad in blue, whose strong attractive power
Draws all into a fountain at the rock of thy attraction,
With frowning brow thou sittest, mistress of these mighty waters.
She answered not, but stretched her arms and threw her limbs abroad.

Or wilt thou answer, youngest woman clad in shining green?
With labour and care thou dost divide the current into four.
Queen of these dreadful rivers, speak, and let me hear thy voice.

Then Urizen raised his spear, but they reared up a wall of rock.

They gave a scream — they knew their father: Urizen knew his daughters.

They shrank into their channels dry, — the strand beneath his feet, —
Hiding themselves in rocky forms from the eyes of Urizen.
Then Urizen wept, and thus his lamentations poured forth:

Oh, horrible! Oh, dreadful state! Those whom I loved best,
On whom I poured the branches of my light, adorning them
With jewels and jealous ornament laboured with art divine,
Vests of the radiant colours of heaven and crowns of golden fire, —
I gave sweet lilies to their breasts and roses to their hair,
I taught them songs of sweet delight, I gave them tender voices
Into the blue expanse, and I made, with laborious art,
Sweet instruments of sound. In pride encompassing my knees
They poured their radiance above all. The Daughters of Luvah envied
At their exceeding brightness, and eternity sent gifts.

Now will I pour my fury on them, and I will reverse
The precious benediction. For their hues of loveliness
I will give blackness; frost for jewels; ill form for ornament;
For crowns, wreathed serpents; for sweet smell, corruptibility;
For voices of delight, hoarse croaking, inarticulate;

For laboured flattery, care and sweet instruction. I will give
Chains of dark ignorance and cords of twisted self-conceit
And whips of stern repentance, and the food of obstinacy,
That they may curse Tharmas, their god, and Los, his adopted son;
That they may curse and worship the dark demon of destruction;

That they may worship terrors and obey the violent.

Go forth, sons of my curse. Go forth, daughters of my abhorrence.

Then Tharmas heard the deadly scream across his watery world,
And Urizen's loud-sounding voice lamenting on the wind,
And he came riding in his fury. Frozen were his waves,
Silent in ridges he beheld them stand round Urizen,
A dreary waste of solid waters. For the king of light
Darkened his brows with his cold helmet, and his gloomy spear
Darkened before him. Silent on the ridgy waves he took
His gloomy way. Before him Tharmas fled, and flying fought,
Crying: What and who art thou, cold demon? Art thou Urizen?
Art thou, like me, risen again from death? or art thou deathless?
If thou art he, my desperate purpose hear, and give me death,
For death to me is better far than life, — death, my desire,
That I in vain by various paths have sought, but still I live.

The body of man is given to me. I seek in vain to destroy,
For still it surges forth in fish and monsters of the deeps,
And in these monstrous forms I live in an Eternal woe,
And thou, oh Urizen, art fallen, never to be delivered.
Withhold thy light from me for ever, and I will withhold
From thee thy food, so shall we cease to be, and all our sorrows
End, and the Eternal Man no more renew beneath our power.
If thou refusest, in eternal fight thy beams in vain
Shall pursue Tharmas, and in vain shall crave for food. I will
Pour down my flight through dark immensity Eternal, falling.

Thou shalt pursue me, but in vain, till starved upon the void
Thou hangest, a dried skin, shrunk up, weak, wailing in the wind.

So Tharmas spoke, but Urizen replied not, on his way
He took, high sounding over hills and deserts, floods and chasms.

Infinite was his labour, without end his travel. He strove
In vain, for hideous monsters of the deep annoyed him sore, —

Scaled and finned with iron and brass, devoured the path before him
Incessant with the conflict. On he bent his weary steps,
Making a path toward the dark world of Urthona. He rose
With pain upon the weary mountains, and with pain went down
And saw their grizzly fears, and his eyes sickened at the sight,
The howlings, gnashings, groanings, shriekings, shudderings, sobbings, burstings,
Mingled together, to create a world for Los. In delight
Los brooded on the darkness, nor saw Urizen's globe of fire
Lighting his dismal journey through the pathless world of death,
Writing in bitter tears and groans in books of iron and brass
The enormous wonders of the Abysses, once his brightest joy.

For Urizen saw the terrors of the Abyss wandering among
The ruined spirits once his children, and the children of Luvah
Scared at the sound of their sigh that seemed to shake immensity.

They wander moping, in their heart a sun and weary moon,
An universe of fiery constellations in their brain,
An earth of wintry woe beneath their feet, and round their loins
Waters or winds, or clouds, lightnings and pestilential plagues
Beyond the bounds of their own self their senses cannot reach.
As the tree knoweth not what is outside its leaves and bark,
And yet it drinks the summer joy and fears the winter sorrow,
So in the regions of the grave none knows his dark compeer
Though he partakes of his dire woes, though he returns the pang,
The throb, the dolor, the convulsion, in soul-sickening woes.

The horrid shapes and sights of torment in burning dungeons and
Fetters of red-hot iron, some with serpent crowns and some
With monsters girding round their bosoms. Some in sulphur beds,
On racks and wheels. He beheld women march in burning wastes
Of sand in bands of hundreds, fifties, thousands, stricken with
Lightnings which blazed after on their shoulders in their march,
Successive volleys, with loud thunder. Swift flew the king of light
Over the burning deserts. Then the deserts passed in clouds
Of smoke, with myriads moping in the stifling vapours. Swift
Still flew the king, though flagged his powers, labouring, till over rocks
And mountains weary wandered he where multitudes were shut
Up in the solid mountains and in rocks their torment heaved.
Then came he among fiery cities, castles of fiery steel,
There beheld forms of Tigers, Lions, dishumanized men,
Many in serpents and in worms stretched out enormous length
Over the solid mould, and slimy tracks obstruct his way
Drawn out from deep to deep. Woven and ribbed
And scaled monsters armed in iron shell, or shell of brass
Or gold, a glittering torment hissing in eternal pain, —
Columns of fire, or of water, sometimes stretched in height,
Sometimes in length, sometimes englobing, wandering in vain for ease
His voice to them was inarticulate thunder, for their ears
Were dull and heavy and their eyes and nostrils closed up.
Oft he stood by a howling victim, questioning in words
Soothing or furious. No one answered, everyone wrapped up
In his own sorrow howled regardless of his voice, nor words
Or sweet response could he obtain though oft assayed with tears.
Oft would he stand and question a fierce scorpion glowing with gold
In vain; the terror heard not. Then a lion he would seize
By the fierce mane, staying his howling course; in vain the voice
Of Urizen, in vain the eloquent tongue. Rock, mountain, cloud
Were now not vocal as in climes of happy eternity.
Where the lamb replies to the infant's voice and the lion to the wail of ewes,
Giving them sweet instructions, when the cloud, or furrow'd field
Talk with the husbandman and shepherd. But these attacked him sore,
Seizing upon his feet, rending the sinews, that in caves
He had to revive his obstructed power with rest and oblivion.

When he had passed the Southern terrors he approached the East,
Void, pathless, beaten with eternal sleet, and eternal hail and rain.
No form was there, no living thing, and yet his way lay through
This dismal world. He stood awhile and looked back over his
Terrific voyages — hills and dales of torment and despair —
Sighing, and weeping a fresh tear. Then turning round he threw
Himself into the dismal void. Falling he fell and fell,
Whirling in unresistible revolutions down and down
In the horrid bottomless vacuity, falling, falling,
Into the Eastern vacuity, the empty world of Luvah.

The Ever-pitying One who seeth all things, saw his fall
And in the dark vacuity created a bosom of clay.

When wearied — dead — he fell, his limbs reposed in the bosom of slime.
As the seed falls from the sower's hand so Urizen fell, and death
Shut up his powers in oblivion. Then as the seed shoots forth
In pain and sorrow, so the slimy bed his limbs renewed.

At first an infantweakness period passed. He gathered strength,
But still in solitude he sat. Then rising threw his flight
Onward, though falling, through the waste of night ending in death
And in another resurrection to sorrow and weary travail.

But still his books he bore in his strong hands, and his iron pen.

For when he died they lay beside his grave, and when he rose
He seized them with a gloomy smile, for wrapped in his death-clothes
He hid them when he slept in death. When he revived the clothes
Were rolled by the winds; the clothes remained still unconsumed
Still to be written and interleaved with brass and iron and gold,
Time after time, for such a journey none but iron pens
Can write, and adamantine leaves receive, nor can who goes
The journey obstinate refuse to write, time after time.

Endless had been his travail, but the Hand Divine him led
For infinite the distance and obscured by combustion dire.
By rocky masses flourishing in the abyss revolving erratic,
Round lakes of fire in this dark deep, the ruins of Urizen's world.

Oft would he sit in a dark rift and regulate his books
Or sleep such sleep as spirits eternal wearied in the dark
Tearful and sorrowful state, then arise, look out and ponder
His dismal voyage, eyeing the next sphere though far remote,
Then darting into the abyss of night his venturous limbs
Through lightnings, thunders, earthquakes and confusion, fires and floods,
Stemming his downward fate, labouring up against futurity.
Creating many a vortex, many a science in the deep,
And thence throwing his venturous limbs into the vast unknown.
Swift, swift from chaos to chaos, from void to void a road immense.

For when he came to where a vortex ceased to operate
Nor down nor up remained. Then if he turned and looked back
From whence he came, 'twas upward all, and if he turned and viewed
The unpassed void upward was still his mighty wandering.
The midst between an equilibrium grey of air serene,
Where he might live in peace and where his life might meet repose.

But Urizen said, Can I not leave this world of cumbrous wheels
Circle over circle, nor on high attain a void
Where self-sustaining I may view all things beneath my feet
Or sinking through these elemental wonders, swift to fall,
I thought perhaps to find an end, a world beneath of voidness,
Whence I might travel round the outside of this dark confusion.
When I bend downward, bending my head down into the deep,
Tis upward all which way soever I my course begin,
But when a vortex formed on high with labour, sorrow and care,
And weariness begins on all my limbs, then sleep revives
My wearied spirits. Waking then 'tis downward all which way
Soever I my spirits turn, no way I find of all.
Oh, what a world is here, and how unlike those climes of bliss
Where my sons gather round my knees! Oh, thou poor ruined world,
Thou horrible ruin! Once, like me, thou wast all glorious,
And now, like me, partaking desolate thy master's lot.
Art thou, oh ruin, the once glorious heaven on these thy rocks
Where joy sang on the trees and pleasure sported in the rivers,
And laughter sat beneath the oaks, and innocence sported round,
Upon the green plains, and sweet friendship met in palaces,
And books and instruments of song and pictures of delight?
Where are they? Whelmed beneath these ruins, in horrible destruction.
And if, eternal-falling, .. repose on the dark bosom
Of winds and waters, or thence fall into the void where air
Is not, downfalling through immensity ever and ever,
How my powers weakened every revolution, till a death
Shuts up my powers; then in womb of darkness as a seed
I dwell in dim oblivion. Over me, the enormous worlds
Reorganize in shooting forth, in bones and flesh and blood.

I am regenerate, to fall, or rise, at will, or remain
A labourer, a dire discontent, a living awe
Wandering in vain. Here will I fix my foot and here re-build.
These mountains of brass promise riches in their deepest bosom.

So saying he began to form of gold, silver and iron
And brass, vast instruments to measure out the immense and fix
The whole into another world better, and made to obey
His will, where none should dare oppose his will, himself being king.
Of all, and all futurity he bound in his vast chain
And the sciences were fixed and the vortexes began to work
On all the sons of men, and every human soul terrified
At the living wheels of heaven shrunk inward, withering away.
Gaining a new dominion over all his sons and daughters,
And over the sons and daughters of Luvah in the horrible abyss.
For Urizen made over them a selfish lamentation
Till a white woof his cold limbs covered o'er from head to feet,
Hair white as snow now covered him in flakey locks terrific,
Overspreading his limbs. In pride he wandered weeping on,
Clothed in an aged venerableness, obstinately resolved,
Travelling through darkness, and wherever he travelled a dire web
Followed behind him, as the web of a spider dusky and cold,
Shivering across the vortexes, drawn from his mantle of years,
A living mantle joined to his life and growing from his soul,
And the web of Urizen stretched, direful, shivering, as clouds
And uttering such woes, and bursting with such thunderings.

The eyelids expansive as morning and the ears
As a golden ascent winding round to the heaven of heavens —
Within the dark horror of the abyss, lions or tigers, or scorpions.
For everyone opened into Eternity at will,
But they refused, because their outstretched forms were in the abyss
And the wing-like tent of the universe, beautiful, surrounding all,
Or drawn up or let down again at will of the immortal man,
Vibrated in such anguish as the eyelids quivered, weak,
That weaker their expansive orbs began again to shrink,
Pangs smote through all the brain and then a universal shriek.

Torment on torment through the abysses ran, rending the web.

Thus Urizen in sorrows wandered many a weary way
Warring with monsters of the deep in hideous pilgrimage
Till his bright hair scattered in snows, his skin barked o'er with wrinkles,
Four caverns rolling downwards, their foundations thrusting forth
The metal, rock, and stone in painful throes of vegetation.
The cave of Orc stood in the south, a furnace of dire flames,
Quenchless, unceasing. In the west the cave of Urizen; —

For Urizen fell, as midday sun falls down, into the west.
North stood Urthona's steadfast throne, a world of solid dark,
Obstruction stifling, shut up, rooted in dumb despair.

The East was void. But Tharmas rolled his waves in ceaseless eddies
All through the caverns of fire, air, and earth, seeking in vain
For Enion's limbs, nought finding but black sea and sickening slime
Flying away from Urizen that he might not give him food,
Above, beneath, on all sides round, in the deep of immensity,
That he might starve the sons and daughters of Urizen on the wind,
Making between horrible chasms with the vast unknown.

All these around the world of Los cast forth their monstrous births.

But in Eternal times the seat of Urizen in the south,
Urthona in the north, Luvah in east, Tharmas in west.

And now he came into the abhorred world of dark Urthona,
By Providence Divine conducted, not bent by his own will
Lest Death Eternal be the result, — for the will cannot be violated, —

Into the doleful vales where no tree grew or ruin flowed,
No man nor beast nor creeping thing, nor sun nor cloud nor star,
Till with his globe of fire immense, held in his venturous hand,
He bore on through the affrighted vales, ascending and descending,
And wearied in his cumbrous flight he ventured o'er dark rifts,
Or down dark precipices, or with pain and labour climbed,
Till from Urthona's peaked rock he saw the world of Los,
And heard the howling of red Orc distincter and distincter.

Redoubling his immortal effort, through the narrow vales
With difficulty down descending, guided by his ear
And by his globe of fire, he went down through Urthona's vale
Between the enormous iron walls built by the Spectre, dark,
Dark grew his globe reddening with mists, and full before his path,
Standing across the narrow vale the shadow of Urthona
A spectre vast appeared, whose legs and feet, with iron scaled,
Stamped the hard rocks expectant of the unknown wanderer
Whom he had seen wandering his nether world when distant far,
And watched his swift approach. Collected, dark, the spectre stood.
Beside him Tharmas stayed his flight and stood with stern defiance,
Communing with the spectre who rejoiced along the vale.
Around his loins a girdle glowed with many coloured fires,
And in his hand a knotted club whose knots like mountains frowned,
Desert among the stars there withering with its ridges cold.
Black scales of iron arm the dread image. Iron spikes instead
Of hair shoot from his orbed skull; the while his glowing eyes
Burned like two furnaces. He called with voice of thunder loud.

Four winged heralds mount the furious blast and blow their trumps
Gold, silver, brass, and iron clangours, clamouring, rend the shore.
Like white clouds rising from the vales, his armies fifty -two
Around the spectre, glowing, from Urthona's four cliffs rise.
Four sons of Urizen the squadrons of Urthona led, in arms
Of gold and silver, brass and iron: he knew his mighty sons.

Then Urizen arose upon the wind, back many a mile,
Returning into his dire web, scattering fleecy snows
As he ascended howling. Loud the net vibrated strong.

From heaven to heaven and globe to globe its vast eccentric paths,
Compulsive rolled the comets at his dread command their way,
Falling with wheel impetuous down among Urthona's vales
And round red Orc, to Urizen returning, gorged with blood.
Slow roll the massy globes at his command, and slow o'erwheel,
The dismal squadrons of Urthona weaving the dire web
In this progression, and preparing Urthona's path before him.