Night the Eighth

Then all in great Eternity, which is called the counsel of God,
Met as one Man, even Jesus, upon Gilead and Hermon,
Upon the limit of contraction to awake the fallen Man.
The fallen Man stretched like a corse upon the oosy rock,
Washed with the tide, pale, overgrown with the waves,
Just moved with horrible dreams, and waving high over his head
Two winged immortal shapes were seen, one standing at his feet
Toward the east, one standing at his head toward the west,
Their wings joined in the Zenith overhead; but other wings
They had that clothed their bodies like a garment of soft down,
Silvery, bright, shining upon the dark blue sky in silver.
These wings touched the heavens. Their fair feet hovered above
The swelling tides; they bent over the dead corse like an arch,
Pointed at the top in highest heaven of precious stones and pearl.
Such is a vision of all Beulah hovering over the sleeper.

The limit of contraction was now fixed, and Man began
To wake upon the couch of death. He sneezed seven times,
A tear of blood dropped from either eye. Again he reposed
In the Saviour's arms, in the arms of tender mercy and loving kindness.

Then Los said: I behold the Divine Vision through the broken gates
Of thy poor broken heart, astonished, melted into compassion and love.

Enitharmon said: I see the Lamb of God upon Mount Zion.

Wondering with love and awe they felt the Divine Hand upon them;
For nothing could restrain the dead in Beulah from dissolving
Unto Ulro's night, tempted by the shadowy females, sweet
Delusive cruelty. They descend away from the daughters of Beulah
And enter Urizen's temple, Enitharmon pitying, and her heart —
Gates broken down. They descend through the gate of Pity —
The broken heart-gate of Enitharmon. She sighs them forth upon the wind
Of Golgonooza. Los stood at the gate receiving them —
For Los could enter into Enitharmon's bosom and explore
Its intricate labyrinths now the obdurate heart was broken —
From out the war of Urizen and Tharmas receiving them
Into his hands. Then Enitharmon erected looms in Laban's gate,
And called the looms Cathedron. In these looms she wove the Spectres
Bodies of vegetation. Singing lulling cadences to drive away
Despair from the poor wandering spectres; and Los loved them
With a parental love, for the Divine hand was upon him
And upon Enitharmon, and the Divine countenance shone
In Golgonooza. Looking down, the daughters of Beulah saw,
With joy, the bright light, and in it a human form,
And knew he was the Saviour, even Jesus: and they worshipped,
Astonished, comforted, delighted, in notes of rapturous ecstacy.

All Beulah stood astonished, looking down to Eternal Death.
They saw the Saviour beyond the pit of Death and of Destruction.
For whether they looked upward they saw the Divine Vision,
Or whether they looked downward still they saw the Divine Vision,
Surrounding them on all sides beyond sin and death and hell.

And Enitharmon, now in tears, singing songs of lamentation
And pitying comfort, as she sighs forth on the wind the Spectre,
Also the vegetated bodies which Enitharmon wove,
Opened within their hearts, and in their loins, and in their brain.
To Beulah; and the dead in Ulro descended from the war
Of Urizen and Tharmas, and from the shadowy female's clouds.
And some were woven single, and some twofold, and some threefold,
In head or heart or reins, according to the fittest order
Of most merciful pity and compassion to the spectrous dead.

When Urizen saw the Lamb of God clothed in Luvah's robes,
Perplexed and terrified he stood, though well he knew that Orc
Was Luvah. But he now beheld a new Luvah, or Orc,
Who assumed Luvah's form and stood before him opposite.

But he saw Orc, a serpent form, augmenting times on times
In the fierce battle; and he saw the Lamb of God and the world of Los
Surrounded by his dark machine, for Orc augmented swift
In fury, a serpent wondrous amongst the constellations of Urizen.
A crest of fire rose on his forehead, red as a carbuncle,
Beneath, down to his eyelids, scales of pearl, then gold and silver
Inmingled with the ruby, overspread his visage down
His furious neck; writhing, contorted in dire budding pains.

The scaly armour shot out. Stubborn down his back and bosom
The emerald, orange, sulphur, jasper, beryl, amethyst,
Stood, in terrific emulation which should gain a place
Upon the mighty fiend — the fruit of the mysterious tree
Kneaded in Uvith's kneading trough. Still Orc devoured the food
In raging hunger. Still the pestilential food, in gems and gold,
Exuded round his awful limbs, stretching to serpent length
His human bulk. While the dark shadowy female, brooding o'er,
Measured his food morning and evening in cups and baskets of iron.
With tears of sorrow incessant she laboured the food of Orc,
Compelled by the iron-hearted sisters, daughters of Urizen.
Gathering the fruit of that mysterious tree, circling its root,
She spread herself through all the branches in the form of Orc.

Thus Urizen, in soft deceit, his warlike preparations fabricated.

And when all things were finished, sudden waved among the stars
His hurtling hand gave the dire signal. Thund'rous clarions blow.

And all the hollow deep re-bellowed with the thund'rous war.

But Urizen his mighty rage let loose in the mid-deep.

Sparkles of dire afflictions issued round his frozen limbs.

Horrible hooks and nets he formed, twisting the cords of iron
And brass and molten metals, cast in hollow globes and bored
Tubes in petrific steel, and rammed combustibles, and wheels
And chains and pulleys, fabricated all round the heavens of Los,
Communing with the serpent Orc in dark dissimulation,
And with the Synagogue of Satan in dark Sanhedrin,
To undermine the world of Los, to tear bright Enitharmon
To the four winds, hopeless of future. All futurity
Seems teeming with endless destruction never to be expelled;
Desperate remorse swallows the present in a quenchless rage.

The battle howls, the terrors fired rage in the work of death;
Enormous work. Los contemplated, inspired by the holy Spirit.

Los builds the walls of Grolgonooza against the stirring battle,
That only through the gates of death they can enter to Enitharmon.

Raging they take the human visage and the human form,
Feeling the hand of Los in Golgonooza, and the force
Attractive of his hammers beating, and the silver looms
Of Enitharmon singing lulling cadences on the wind.

They humanize in the fierce battle, where in direful pain,
Terrified and astonished, Urizen beheld the battle take a form
Which he intended not, a shadowy hermaphrodite, black and opaque,
The soldiers named it Satan, but he was as yet unformed and vast.

Hermaphroditic it at length became, hiding the male
Within as in a tabernacle, abominable, deadly.

Troop by troop the bestial drove rend one another, sounding loud
The instruments of sound; and troop by troop, in human forms, they urge
The dire confusion till the battle faints. Those that remain
Return in pangs and horrible convulsions to their bestial state;

For the monsters of the elements, lions or tigers or wolves
Sound loud the howls, music inspired by Los and Enitharmon sounding loud and terrific. Men
They seem to one another, laughing terrible among the banners.
And when the revolution of the day of battles was o'er,
Relapsing in dire torment, they return to forms of woe,
To moping visages, retiring, inanimate, furious.

No more erect, though strong, drawn out in length they ravin
For senseless gratification, and their visages thrust forth,
Flatten above and beneath and stretch out into bestial length.

Weakened they stretch beyond their power in dire droves till war begins,
Or secret religion in their temples before secret shrines.

And Urizen gave life and sense by his immortal power
To all his engines of deceit, that linked chains might run
Through ranks of war, spontaneous: that hooks and boring screws
Might act according to their forms by innate cruelty.

He formed also harsh instruments of sound
To grate the soul into destruction, or to inflame with fury
The spirits of life, to pervert all the faculties of sense
Into their own destruction, if perhaps he might avert
His own despair even at the cost of everything that breathes.

Thus in the temple of the sun his books of iron and brass
And silver and gold he consecrated, reading incessantly
To myriads of perturbed spirits: through the universe
They propagated the deadly words, the shadowy female absorbing
The enormous science of Urizen, age after age exploring
The fell destruction, and she said: Oh! Urizen, Prince of Light,
What words of dread pierce my faint ear? What falling snows around
My feeble limbs enfold my destined misery?

I alone dare the last abide to sit beneath the blast
Unhurt, and dare the inclement forehead of the King of Light,
From dark abysses of the times remote, fated to be.
The Sorrower of Eternity in love with tears, submiss I rear
My eyes to thy Pavilions. Hear my prayer for Luvah's sake.

I see the murderer of my Luvah clothed in robes of blood,
He who assumed my Luvah's robes in times of Everlasting
Where hast thou hid him whom I love; in what remote abyss
Resides that God of my delight? Oh! might my eyes behold
My Luvah, then would I deliver all the Sons of God
From bondage of these terrors, and with influences sweet,
As once in those eternal fields of brotherhood and love,
United we should live in bliss as those who sinned not.

The Eternal Man is sealed by thee, never to be delivered.

We are all servants to thy will. Oh! King of Light, relent Thy furious power; be our father and our loved king.

But if my Luvah is no more, if thou hast smitten him
And laid him in the sepulchre, or if thou wilt revenge
His murder on another, silent I bow with dread.

But happiness can never come to thee, oh! King, nor me, or he
For he was the source of every joy that this mysterious tree
Unfolds in allegoric fruit. When shall the dead revive?

Can that which has existed cease? Can love and life expire?

Urizen heard the voice, and saw the shadow underneath
His woven darkness, and in laws and deceitful religions,
Beginning at the tree of Mystery, circling its roots,
He spread himself through all the branches in the power of Orc,
A shapeless and indefinite cloud, in tears of sorrow incessant.
Steeping the direful web of religion, swagging, heavy, it fell
From heaven to earth, through all its meshes, altering the vortexes,
Misplacing every centre. Hungry desire and lust began
Gathering the fruit of that mysterious tree, till Urizen,
Sitting within his temple, furious, felt the ruining stupor,
Himself caught in his own net, in sorrow, lust, repentance.

Enitharmon wove in tears, singing songs of lamentations,
And pitying comfort as she sigh'd forth on the wind the spectres,
And wove them bodies, calling them her beloved sons and daughters,
Employing the daughters in her looms, and Los employed the sons
In Golgonooza's furnaces among the anvils of time and space.
Thus forming a vast family, wondrous in beauty and love,
And they appeared a Universal female form created
From those who were dead in Ulro, from the spectres of the dead.

And Enitharmon named the female Jerusalem the Holy.
Wondering, she saw the Lamb of God within Jerusalem's veil;

The Divine Vision seen within the inmost deep recess
Of fair Jerusalem's bosom in a gently beaming fire.

Then sang the sons of Eden round the Lamb of God, and said,—

Glory, Glory — Glory to the Holy Lamb of God, —

Who now beginneth to put off the dark Satanic body.

Now we behold redemption. Now we know that life eternal
Depends alone upon the Universal hand, and not in us
Is aught but death. In individual weakness, sorrow and pain,
We behold with wonder Enitharmon's looms and Los's forges,
And the spindles of Tirzah and Rahab, and the mills of Satan and Beelzebub.
In Golgonooza Los's anvils stand and his furnaces rage, —

The hard dentant hammers lulled by the flutes' lula-lula —
The bellowing furnaces blaze by the long resounding clarions,
Ten thousand demons labour at the forges creating continually
The times and spaces of Mortal life, the Sun, the Moon, the Stars,
In periods of pulsative furor, breaking into wedges and bars,
Then drawing into wires the terrific Passions and Affections
Of Spectrous Dead, thence to the looms of Cathedron conveyed.
The daughters of Enitharmon weave the ovarium and integument
In soft silk, drawn from their own bowels in lascivious delight,
With songs of sweetest cadence to the turning spindle and reel,
Lulling the weeping spectres of the dead, clothing their limbs
With gifts and gold of Eden. Astonished, stupefied with delight,
The terrors put on their sweet clothing on the banks of Arnon,
Whence they plunge into the river of space for a period, until
The dread sleep of Ulro is passed. But Satan, Og, and Sihon
Build mills of resistless wheels to unwind the soft threads and reveal
Naked of their clothing the poor spectres before the accusing heavens,
While Rahab and Tirzah far different mantles prepare, webs of torture,
Mantles of despair, girdles of bitter compunction, shoes of indolence,
Veils of ignorance, covering from head to foot with a cold web.

We look down into Ulro, and we behold the wonders of the grave.
Eastward of Golgonooza stands the lake of Udan Adan, in
Entuthon Benython, a lake not of waters but of spaces,
Perturbed, black, and deadly. On its strands and its margins,
The mills of Satan and Beelzebub stand round the roots of Urizen's tree, for this lake is formed of the tears and sighs and death-sweat of the victims
Of Urizen's laws, to irrigate the roots of the tree of Mystery.
They unweave the soft threads, then they weave them anew in forms
Of dark death and despair, and none from Eternity to Eternity could escape.
But thou Universal Humanity, who is One Man, blessed for ever,
Receivest the integuments woven. Rahab beholds the Lamb of God.
She smites with her knife of flint. She destroys her own work
Times upon times, thinking to destroy the Lamb, blessed for ever.
He puts off the clothing of blood, — he redeems spectres from their bonds.
He awakes sleepers in Ulro. The daughters of Beulah praise him,
They anoint his feet with ointment, they wipe them with the hairs of their head.

We now behold the ends of Beulah, and we now behold, —
Where death eternal is put off eternally. Oh! Lamb,
Assume the dark Satanic body in the Virgin's womb.
Oh! Lamb Divine, it cannot thee annoy! Oh! pitying one,
Thy pity is from the foundation of the world, and thy Redemption
Begins already in Eternity. Come, then, oh! Lamb of God,
Come, Lord Jesus, quickly.

So saying in Eternity, looking down into Beulah,
The war roared round Jerusalem's gates. It took a hideous form
Seen in the aggregate, a vast Hermaphroditic form,
Heaved like an earthquake, labouring with convulsive groans
Intolerable. At length an awful wonder burst
From the Hermaphroditic bosom. Satan, he was named
Son of Perdition, terrible his form, dishumanized, monstrous,
A male without a female counterpart, a howling fiend
Forlorn of Eden, and repugnant to the forms of life —
Yet hiding the shadowy female Vala, as in an ark and curtains —
Abhorred, accursed, ever dying an eternal death.
Being multitudes of tyrant men in union blasphemous
Against the Divine Image, congregated assemblies of wicked men.

Pitying, the Lamb of God descended through Jerusalem's gates
To put off the Mystery, time after time, and as a Man
Is born on earth, so was he born of fair Jerusalem
In Mystery's woven mantle, and in the robes of Luvah.
He stood in fair Jerusalem to awake up into Eden
The fallen Man, — but first to give his vegetated body
To be cut off that the Spiritual body may be revealed.

The Lamb of God stood before Satan opposite,
In Entuthon Benython, in the shadows of torment and woe,
Upon the heights of Amalek, taking refuge in his arms.

The victims fled from punishment, for all his words were peace.
Urizen called together the synagogue of Satan in dark Sanhedrin,
To Judge the Lamb of God to death as a murderer and a robber,
As it is written he was numbered among the transgressors.

Cold, dark, opaque, the assembly met twelvefold in Amalek,
Twelve rocky unshaped forms, terrific forms of torture and woe,
Such seemed the synagogue to distant view, amidst them beamed
A false female counterpart of Lovely Delusive Beauty,
Dividing and uniting at will in cruelties of holiness, —

Vala, — drawn down into a vegetative body, now triumphant,
The synagogue of Satan clothed her with scarlet robes and gems,
And on her forehead was her name, written in blood, — "Mystery."
When viewed remote she is One, when viewed near she divides
To multitudes, as it is in Eden, so permitted because
It was the best possible in the state called Satan to save
From Death Eternal, and to put off Satan continually.
The synagogue created her from fruit of Urizen's tree,
By Devilish arts, abominable, unlawful, unutterable,
Perpetually vegetating in detestable birth
Of female forms, beautiful through poisons hidden in secret,
Which give attraction to false beauty. Then was hidden within
The bosom of Satan the False Female, as in an ark and veil,
Which Christ must rend and her reveal. Her daughters are called
Tirzah. She is named Rahab. Their various divisions are called
The daughters of Amalek, Canaan, and Moab, binding on the stones
Their victims, and with knives wounding them, singing with tears
Over their victims. Hear ye the song of the females of Amalek.

Oh, thou poor human form! Oh, thou poor child of woe!
Why dost thou wander away from Tirzah; why we compel to bind thee?

If thou dost go away from me, I shall consume upon the rocks
These fibres of thine eyes that used to wander in distant heavens
Away from me. I have bound down with a hot iron chain
These nostrils that expanded with delight in morning skies,
I have bent downward with lead molten in my furnaces.

My soul is seven furnaces, incessant roar the bellows,
Upon my terribly flaming heart the molten metal runs
In channels through my fiery limbs. Oh, Love! Oh, Pity! Oh, Pain!
Oh, the pangs, the bitter pangs of love forsaken!
Ephraim was a wilderness of joy where all my wild beasts ran.

The River Kanah wandered by my sweet Manasseh's side.
Go, Noah, fetch the girdle of strong brass, heat it red hot,
Press it around the loins of this expanding cruelty.
Shriek not so, my only love.
Bind him down, sisters, bind him down on Ebal, mount of cursing.

Malah, come forth from Lebanon, and Hoglah from Mount Sinai —
Come, circumscribe this tongue of sweets, and with a screw of iron
Fasten this ear into the rock. Milcah, the task is thine.
Weep not so, sisters, weep not so; our life depends on this.
Or Mercy and Truth are fled away from Shechem and Mount Gilead,
Unless my beloved is bound down on the stems of Vegetation.

Such are the songs of Tirzah, such the loves of Amalek.

The Lamb of God descended through the nether portions of Luvah,
Bearing his sorrows and receiving all his cruel wounds.

Thus was the Lamb of God condemned to death.
They nailed him upon the tree of Mystery, weeping over him,
And then mocking, and then worshipping, calling him Lord and King.
Sometimes as twelve daughters lovely, sometimes as five,
They stood in beaming beauty. Sometimes as one, even Rahab,
Who is Mystery, Babylon the great, mother of Harlots.

Jerusalem saw the body dead upon the Cross. She fled away,
Saying: — Is this Eternal death? Where shall I hide from death?

Pity me, Los! Pity me, Urizen! — and let us build
A Sepulchre, and worship Death in fear while yet we live —

Death! God of all! From whom we rise, to whom we all return, —

And let all nations of the Earth worship at the Sepulchre
With gifts and spices, and with lamps embossed, jewels and gold.

Los took the body from the Cross, Jerusalem weeping over,
They bore it to the Sepulchre, which Los had hewn in the rock
Of Eternity for himself: he heard it despairing of Life Eternal.

But when Rahab had cut off the Mantle of Luvah from
The Lamb of God, it rolled apart, revealing to all in heaven
And all in earth, the Temple, the Synagogue of Satan, and Mystery,
Even Rahab in all her turpitude. Rahab divided herself —

She stood before Los in her pride among the Furnaces,
Dividing and uniting in delusive feminine powers, questioning him.
He answered her with tenderness and love, not uninspired.

Los sat upon his anvil stock. They sat beside the forge.
Los wiped the sweat from his red brow, and thus began
To the delusive female forms shining among his furnaces:

I am that shadowy prophet who, six thousand years ago,
Fell from my station in the Eternal bosom. I divided
To multitude and my multitudes are children of care and labour.

Oh! Rahab, I behold thee. I was once like thee, a son
Of Pride, and I have pierced the Lamb of God in pride and wrath.

Hear me repeat my generations that thou may'st also repent.

And these are the generations of Los and Enitharmon, Rintrah, Palamabron,
Theotormon, Bromion, Antamon, Ananton, Ozoth, Ohana,
Sotha, Mydon, Ellayol, Natha, Gon, Hurlath, Satan,
Har, Ochim, Ijim, Adam, Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Dan, Naphali,
Gad, Asher, Issachar, Zebulun, Joseph, Benjamin, David, Solomon,
Paul, Constantine, Charlemagne, Luther, Milton.
These are our daughters: Ocalythron, Elynitria, Oothoon, Leutha,
Elythiria, Enanto, Manatha Varcyon, Ethinthus, Moab, Midian,
Aah, Tullah, Caina, Naamah, Tamar, Rahab, Tirzah, Mary.

And myriads more of sons and daughters to whom our loves increased,
To each according to the multiplication of their multitudes.
But Satan accused Palamabron before his brethren, also he maddened
The horses of Palamabron's harrow, wherefore Rintrah and Palamabron
Cut him off from Golgonooza. But Enitharmon, in tears,
Wept over him, and created him a space with a tender moon,
As he rolled down beneath the fires of Orc, a globe immense
Crested with snow in a dim void. Here, by the arts of Urizen,
He tempted many of the sons and daughters of Los to flee
Away from them. First Reuben fled, then Simeon, then Levi, then Judah,
Then Dan, then Naphali, then Gad, then Asher, then Issachar,
Then Zebulun, then Joseph, then Benjamin, — twelve sons of Los.
And this is the manner in which Satan became the tempter.
There is a state named Satan. Learn distinct to know, oh! Rahab
The difference between states and individuals of those states.

The state named Satan never can be redeemed to all Eternity.
But when Luvah in Orc became a Serpent, he descended into —
That state called Satan. Enitharmon breathed forth on the winds
Of Golgonooza her well beloved, knowing he was Orc's human remains.
She tenderly loved him above all his brethren. He grew up
In mother's tenderness. The enormous worlds rolling in Urizen's power
Must have given Satan, by these mild arts, dominion over all,
Wherefore Palamabron being accused by Satan to Los,
Called down a great solemn assembly. Rintrah, in fury and fear,
Defended Palamabron, and rage filled the universal tent.

Because Palamabron was good-natured, Satan supposed he feared him,
And Satan not having the science of wrath, but only of pity,
Was soon condemned, and wrath was left to wrath, and pity to pity.
Rintrah and Palamabron, cut sheer off from Golgonooza,
Enitharmon's moony space, and in it, Satan and his companions.

They rolled down a dim world, crushed with snow, deadly and dark.
Jerusalem, pitying them, wove them mantles of life and death,
Times after times, and those in Eden set Lucifer for their guard.
Lucifer refused to die for Satan. In pride he forsook his charge.
They sent Molech. Molech was impatient. They sent —

Molech impatient — they sent Elohim, who created Adam,
To die for Satan. Adam refused, but was compelled to die
By Satan's arts. Then the eternals sent Shaddai.
Shaddai was angry. Pahad descended. Pahad was terrified.
And then they sent Jehovah, who, leprous, stretched his hand to Eternity.

Then Jesus came, and died willing beneath Tirzah and Rahab.

Thou art that Rahab. To the tomb. What can we purpose more?
To Enitharmon, terrible and beautiful in eternal youth,
Bow down before her, you, her children. Set Jerusalem free.

Rahab, burning with pride and revenge, departed from Los.
Los dropped a tear at her departure, but he wiped it away in hope.
She went to Urizen in pride. The Prince of Light beheld
Revealed before the face of heaven his secret holiness.
Darkness and sorrow covered all flesh. Eternity was darkened.

Urizen sitting in his web of deceitful religion
Felt the female death, — a dull and numbing stupor, such as never
Before assaulted the bright human form. He felt his pores
Drink in the deadly dull delusion. Terrors of Eternal Death
Shot through him. Urizen sat stonied upon his rock.
Forgetful of his own laws, petrifying he began to embrace
The shadowy female. Since life cannot be quenched, life exuded,
His eyes shot forward, then his breathing nostrils drawn forth.
Scales covered over a cold forehead and a neck outstretched
Into the deep to seize the shadow. Scales his neck and bosom
Covered; scales his hands and feet. Upon his belly falling
Outstretched through the immense; his mouth wide open, tongueless,
His teeth a triple row, he strove to seize the shadow in vain,
And his immense tail lashed the abyss. His human form a stone.
A form of senseless stone remained in terrors on the rock,
Abominable to the eyes of mortals who explore his books.

His wisdom still remained, and all his memory stored with woe.
And still his stony form remained in the abyss immense,
Like the pale visage in its sheet of lead that cannot follow.
Incessant stern disdain his scaly form gnaws inwardly,
With deep repentance for the loss of that fair form of Man.

With envy he saw Los, with envy Tharmas and Urthona,
With envy and in vain he swam around his stony form.
No longer now erect, the king of light, outstretched in fury,
Lashes his tail in the wide deep. His eyelids, like the sun
Arising in his pride, enlightens all the grizzly deeps,
His scales transparent give forth light like windows of the morning,
His neck flames with wrath and majesty. He lashes the deeps,
Beating the deserts and the rocks; the deserts feel his power.
They shake their slumbers off, they wave in awful fear,
Calling the lion and the tiger, the horse and the wild stag,
The elephant, the wolf and bear, the llama and the satyr.

His eyelids give their light around. His foaming tail aspires
Among the stars. The earth and all the abysses feel his fury.
When, as the snow covers the mountains, oft petrific hardness
Covers the deeps at his vast fury, moving in his rock,
Hardens the lion and the bear, writhing in the solid mountain.

They view the light and wonder, crying out in terrible existence.
Up-bound the wild stag and the horse, behold the king of pride.
Oft doth his eye emerge from the abyss into the realms
Of his eternal day, and memory strives to augment his ruthfulness.

Then weeping he descends in wrath, drawing all things in his fury
Into obedience to his will, and now he finds in vain
That not of his own power he bore the human form erect,
Nor of his own will gave his laws in times of everlasting.

For now fierce Orc in wrath and fury risen into the heavens,
A king of wrath and fury, a dark enraged horror,
And Urizen, repentant, forgets his wisdom in the abyss
In forms of priesthood, in the dark delusions of repentance,
Repining in his heart and spirit that Orc reigned over all,
And that his wisdom served but to augment the indefinite lust.

Then Tharmas and Urthona felt the stony stupor rise
Into their limits. Urthona shot forth a vast fibrous form.
Tharmas like a pillar of sand rolled round by the whirlwind,
An animated pillar rolling round in incessant rage.

Los felt the stony stupor and his head rolled down beneath
Into the abysses of his bosom. The vessels of his blood
Dart forth upon the wind in pipes, writhing about in the abyss,
And Enitharmon, pale and cold, in milky juices flowed
Into a form of vegetation, living, having a voice,
Moving in root-like fibres, breathing in fear upon the earth.

And Tharmas gave his power to Los, Urithona gave his strength
Into the youthful prophet for the love of Enitharmon
And of the nameless shadowy female, into the nether deep,
And for the dread of the dark terror of Orc and Urizen.

Thus in a living death the nameless shadow all things bound,
All mortal things made permanent that they may be put off
Time after time by the Divine Lamb who died for all,
And all in him died and he put off all mortality.

Tharmas on high rode furious through the afflicted worlds,
Pursuing the vain shadow of hope, fleeing from identity
In abstract false essences that he may not hear the voice:
The voice incessant calls on all the children of Men,
For she spoke of all in heaven and all upon the earth, —
Saw not yet the Divine Vision. Her eyes are toward Urizen,
And thus Ahania cries aloud to the caverns of the grave:

Will you keep a flock of wolves and lead them? Will you take the wintry blast
For a covering to your limbs or the summer pestilence for a tent to abide in?

Will you erect a lasting habitation in the mouldering churchyard;
Or a pillar and palace of Eternity in the jaws of the hungry grave?
Will you scent pleasure from the festering wound, or marry for a wife
The ancient leprosy that the king and priest may feast on your decay?
And the grave mock and laugh at the ploughed field saying, —
I am the nourisher, thou the destroyer; in my bosom is milk and wine,
And a fountain from my breasts. To me come all multitudes
To my breasts. They obey, they worship me. I am goddess and queen.
But listen to Ahania, oh! ye sons of the murdered one,
Listen to her whose memory beholds your ancient days,
Listen to her whose eye beholds the dark body of corruptible death
Looking for Urizen in vain. In vain I seek for morning.
The Eternal Man sleeps in the earth, nor feels the glorious sun
Nor silent moon, nor all the hosts of heaven move in his body.
His fiery halls are dark, and round his limbs the serpent Orc
Fold without fold encompasses him, and his corrupting members
Do vomit out the scaly monsters of the restless deep.
They come up in the rivers and among the nether parts
Of Man who lays upon the shore, leaning his faded head
Upon the oozy rock enwrapt with the weeds of death.

His eyes sink hollow in his head. His flesh covered with slime
And shrunk up to the bones. Alas! that Man should come to this!
His strong bones beat with snows and hid within the caves of night,
Marrowless, bloodless, falling into dust, driven by the winds.
Oh! how the horrors of Eternal Death take hold on Man.
His faint groans shake the caves and issue through the desolate rocks,
And the strong eagle now with numbing cold, blighted of feathers,
Once like the pride of the sun now flagging on cold night,
Hovers with blasted wings aloft, watching with eagle eye
Till Man shall leave a corruptible body. He, famished, hears him groan,
And now he fixes his strong talons in the pointed rock,
And now he beats the heavy air with his enormous wings.
Beside him lies the lion dead, and in his belly worms
Feast on his death till universal death devours all,
And the pale horse seeks for the pool to lie him down and die,
But finds the pool filled with serpents devouring one another.
He droops his head and trembling stands, and his bright eyes decay.
These are the visions of my eyes, the visions of Ahania.

Thus cries Ahania. Enion replies from the caverns of the grave:
Fear not, oh poor forsaken one. Oh land of grass and thorns,
Where once the olive flourished and the cedar spread his wings.
Once I wailed desolate like thee; my fallow fields in fear
Cried to the churchyards and the earthworm came in dismal state.

I found him in my bosom, and I said the time of love
Appears upon the rocks and hills in silent shades, but soon
A voice came in the night, a midnight cry upon the mountains:
Awake! The Bridegroom cometh! I awoke to sleep no more.
But an eternal consummation is dark Enion.

The watery grave. Oh! thou cornfield. Oh! thou vegetative happy.
More happy is the dark consumer. Hope drowns all my torment,
For I am now surrounded by a shadowy vortex drawing
The spectre quite away from Enion that I die a death
Of bitter hope, although I consume in these raging waters,
The furrowed field replies to the grave, I hear her reply to me, —
Behold the time approaches fast that thou shalt be as a thing
Forgotten. When one speaks of thee he will not be believed.
When the man gently fades away in his immortality.
When the mortal disappears in improved knowledge, cast away
The former things; so shall the mortal gently fade away,
And so become invisible to those who still remain.
Listen. I will tell thee what is done in the caverns of the grave.
The Lamb of God has rent the veil of mystery, soon to return
In clouds and fires around the rock, and thy mysterious tree.

And as the seed waits eagerly watching for its flower and fruit,
Anxious its little soul looks out into the clear expanse
To see if hungry winds are abroad with their invisible array.
So Man looks out in tree, and herb, and fish, and bird, and beast,
Collecting up the scattered portions of his immortal body
Into the elemental forms of everything that grows.

He tries the sullen north wind, riding on its angry furrows,
The sultry south when the sun rises, and the angry east
When the sun sets and the clods harden and the cattle stand
Drooping, and the birds hide in their silent nests. He stores his thoughts
As in store-houses in his memory. He regulates the forms
Of all beneath and all above, and in the gentle west
Reposes where the sun's heat dwells. He rises to the sun
And to the planets of the night, and to the stars that gild
The Zodiacs, and the stars that sullen stand to north and south
He touches the remotest pole, and in the centre weeps
That Man should labour and sorrow, and learn and forget and return
To the dark valley whence he came, and begin his labours anew.
In pain he sighs, in pain he labours, and his universe
Sorrowing in birds over the deep, or howling in the wolf
Over the slain, and moaning in the cattle, and in the winds,
And weeping over Orc and Urizen in clouds and dismal fires,
And in the cries of birth and in the groans of death his voice
Is heard throughout the universe. Wherever a grass grows
Or a leaf buds, the Eternal Man is seen, is heard, is felt,
And all his sorrows, till he re-assumes his ancient bliss.

Such are the words of Ahania and Enion, and Los hears and weeps.
And Los and Enitharmon took the body of the Lamb
Down from the cross, and placed it in a sepulchre he had hewn
For himself in the rock of Eternity, trembling and in despair.
Jerusalem wept over the sepulchre two thousand years.