Night the Ninth

And Los and Enitharmon builded Jerusalem, weeping
Over the sepulchre and over the crucified body,
Which, to their phantom eyes, appeared still in the sepulchre.
But Jesus stood beside them in the spirit, separating
Their spirit from their body. Terrified at Non-Existence —

For such they deemed the death of the body — Los his vegetable hands
Outstretched, his right hand branching out in fibrous strength,
Seized the sun. His left hand, like dark roots, covered the moon,
And tore them down, cracking the heavens across from immense to immense.

Then fell the fires of eternity with loud and shrill
Sound of loud trumpet thundering along from heaven to heaven.
A mighty sound articulate: Awake, ye dead, and come
To Judgment from the four winds; awake and come away.
Folding like scrolls of the enormous volume of heaven and earth,
With thund'rous noise and dreadful shakings, rocking to and fro,
The heavens are shaken, and the earth removed from its place,
The foundations of the eternal hills are all discovered,
The thrones of kings are shaken, they have lost their robes and crowns,
The poor smite their oppressors, they awake up to the harvest, —

The naked warriors rush together down to the sea-shore
Trembling before the multitude of slaves now set at liberty.
They become like wintry flocks, like forests stripped of leaves.
The oppressed pursue like the wind. There is no room for escape,
The spectre of Enitharmon let loose upon the troubled deep,
Wailed shrill in the confusion, and the spectre of Urthona
Received her in the darkening south. Their bodies lost, they stood
Trembling and weak, and faint embrace, a fierce desire as when
Two shadows mingle on a wall. They wail, and shadowy tears
Fell down, and shadowy forms of joy mixed with despair and grief —

Their bodies buried in the ruins of the universe,
Mingled with the confusion. Who shall call them from their graves?
Rahab and Tirzah wail aloud in the wild flames. They give up themselves to consummation.

The books of Urizen unroll with dreadful noise. The folding serpent
Of Orc began to consume in fierce raving fire. His fierce flame
Issued on all sides, gathering strength in animating volumes.
Roaming abroad on all the winds, raging intent, reddening
Into restless pillars of fire, rolling round and round, gathering
Strength from the earth's consumed, and heavens, and all hidden abysses,
Wherever the Eagle has explored, or Lion or Tiger trod,
Or where the comets of the night, or stars of asterial day
Have shot their arrows or long-beamed spears in wrath or fury.

And all the while the trumpet sounds, — Awake, ye dead, and come
To Judgment. From the clotted gore, and from the hollow den,
Start forth the trembling millions into flames of mental fire,
Bathing their limbs in the bright visions of Eternity.

Then, like the doves from pillars of smoke, the trembling families
Of women and children throughout every nation under heaven
Cling round the men in bands of twenties and of fifties, pale
As snow that falls around a leafless tree upon the green.

Their oppressors have fallen, they have stricken, they awake to life,
Yet pale. The just man stands erect, and looking up to heaven,
Trembling and stricken by the universal stroke. The trees uproot,
The rocks groan horrible and run about. The mountains and
The rivers cry with a dismal cry. The cattle gather together;

Lowing they kneel before the heavens. The wild beasts of the forests
Tremble. The Lion, shuddering, asks the Leopard: "Feelest thou
The dread I feel, unknown before? My voice refuses to roar,
And in weak moans I speak to thee This night,
Before the morning's dawn, the Eagle called to the Vulture,
The Raven called to the Hawk, — I heard from my forests black —
Saying: Let us go up, for soon I smell, upon the wind,
A terror coming from the south. The Eagle and Hawk fled away
At dawn, and ere the sun arose, the Raven and Vulture followed.
Let us flee also to the north." They fled. The Sons of Men
Saw them depart in dismal droves. The trumpets sounded loud,
And all the Sons of Eternity descended into Beulah.

In the fierce flames the limbs of Mystery lay consuming, with howling
And deep despair. Rattling go up the flames around the synagogue
Of Satan. Loud the serpent Orc raged through his writhing folds.
The tree of Mystery burned up in folding flames.
Blood issued out in rushing volumes, pouring in whirlpools fierce,
From out the flood-gates of the tree. The gates are burst, downpouring
The torrents black upon the earth. The blood pours down incessant.
Kings in their palaces lie drowned. Shepherds, their flocks and tents,
Roll down the mountains in black torrents. Cities, villages,
High spires and castles drowned in the black deluge; shoal on shoal
Float the dead carcases of men and beasts, driven to and fro on flames
Of foaming blood beneath the black incessant sky, till all
Mystery's tyrants are cut off, and not one left on earth.

And when all tyranny was cut off from the face of the earth,
Around the dragon form of Urizen, and round his strong form,
The flames rolling intense abroad through the wide universe,
Began to enter the Holy City. Entering the dismal clouds,
The furious lightnings break their way. The wild flames rushing up,
The bloody deluge, — living flames, winged with intellect
And reason. Round the earth they march in order, flame by flame.
Issuing from the clotted gore, and from the hollow den,
Start forth the trembling millions into flames of mental fire,
Bathing their limbs in the bright visions of Eternity.

Beyond this universal confusion, beyond the remotest pole,
Where their vortexes began to operate, there stands
A horrible rock far in the north. It was forsaken when
Urizen gave the horses of light into the hands of Luvah.
On this rock lay the faded head of the Eternal Man,
Enwrapt round with weeds of death, pale, cold in sorrow and woe,
He lifts the blue lamps of his eyes, and cries with heavenly voice.
Bowing his head over the consuming universe, he cries:

Oh, weakness! Oh, weariness! Oh, war within my members!
My sons exiled from my breast, pass to and fro before me.

My birds are silent in my hills, flocks die beneath my branches.
My tents are fallen, my trumpets and the sweet sound of my harps
Is silent on my clouded hills that belch forth storms and fires.
My milk of cows, and honey of bees, and fruit of golden harvest
Are gathered in the scorching heat and in the driving rain.

My robe is turned to confusion, and my bright gold to stone.
Where once I sat, I weary walk in misery and pain,
For from within my withered breast grown narrow with my woes
The corn is turned to thistles and the apples into poison;
The birds of song to murderous crows, my joys to bitter groans;

The voices of children in my tents to cries of helpless infants,
And all exiled from the face of light and shine of morning,
In this dark world, a narrow house, I wander up and down.
I hear Mystery breathing in the flames of consummation.
When shall the man of future times become as in days of old?

Oh, weary life! Why sit I here and give up all my powers
To indolence, to the night of death, when indolence and mourning
Sit hovering over my dark threshold? Though I arise, look out
And scorn the war within my members, yet my heart is weak
And my head faint. Yet I will look again into the morning.

Whence is this sound of rage of men drinking each other's blood;

Drunk with the smoking gore, and red, but not with nourishing wine?

The Eternal Man sat on the rock and cried with awful voice;

Oh, Prince of Light, where art thou? I behold thee not as once
In these eternal fields, in clouds of morning stepping forth
With harps and songs, when bright Ahania sang before thy face,
And all thy sons and daughters gathered round thy ample table.
See you not all this racking furious confusion?

Come forth from the slumbers of thy cold abstraction. Come forth,
Arise into eternal births. Shake off thy cold repose, —

Schoolmaster of our souls, — great opposer of change, arise,
That the eternal worlds may see thy face in peace and joy,
That thou, dread form of certainty, may'st sit in town and village,
While little children play around thy feet in gentle awe,
Fearing thy frown, loving thy smile. Oh! Urizen, Prince of Light,
He called. The deep buried his voice, and answer none returned.

Then wrath burst round. The Eternal Man was wrath again. He cried:

Arise, oh! thou strong form of Death, oh! Dragon of the deeps,
Lie down before my feet, oh! Dragon, let Urizen arise.
Oh! how could'st thou deform those beautiful proportions
Of life and person; for as the person, so is his life proportioned.
Let Luvah rage in the dark deep, even to consummation,
For if thou feedest not his rage it will subdue in peace.
But if thou darest, obstinate, refuse my stern behest,
Thy crown and sceptre I will seize, and regulate all thy members
In stern severity, and cast thee out into the indefinite
Where nothing lives, there to wander, and if thou returnest weary,
Weeping, at the threshold of existence, I will steel my heart
Against thee to Eternity, and never receive thee more.
Thy self-destroying, beast-formed science shall be thy eternal lot.

My anger against thee is greater than against this Luvah,
For war is energy enslaved, but thy religion,
First author of this war, and the destruction of honest mind
Into confused perturbation, and strife, and horror, and pride,
In a deceit so detestable, that I will cast thee out
If thou repentest not, and leave thee as a rotten branch to burn,
With Mystery the harlot, and with Satan for ever and ever.
Error can never be redeemed in all Eternity —
But sin, even Rahab, is redeemed in blood and fury, and jealousy,
That line of blood that stretches across the windows of the morning,
Redeemed from Error's power, — wake, thou Dragon of the Deep.

Urizen wept in the dark deep, anxious his scaly form
To re-assume the Human — and he wept in the dark deep,
Saying: — Oh! that I had never drank the wine or eat the bread
Of dark mortality, or cast my eyes into futurity, nor turned
My back, darkening the present, clouding with a cloud,
And building arches high, and cities, turrets, towers and domes,
Whose smoke destroyed the pleasant garden, and whose running kennels
Choked the bright rivers; burdening with my ships the angry deep;
Through chaos seeking for delight, and in spaces remote
Seeking the eternal, which is always present to the wise;

Seeking for pleasure, which, unsought, falls round the infant's path,
And on the fleeces of mild flocks who neither care nor labour;
But I, the labourer of ages, whose unwearied hands
Are thus deformed with hardness, with the sword and with the spear,
And with the chisel and the mallet — I, whose labours vast
Order the nations, separating family by family,
Alone enjoying not. I alone in misery supreme,
Ungratified, give all my joy unto this Luvah and Vala,
Then go to dark Futurity. I will cast thee out from these
Heavens of my brain, nor will I look on dark futurity more.
I cast futurity away, and turn my back upon that void,
Which I have made, for, lo! Futurity is in this moment.
Let Orc consume, let Tharmas rage, let dark Urthona give
All strength to Los and Enitharmon, and let Los's self, enraged,
Rend down this fabric, as a wall ruined, a family extinct.

Rage, Orc! rage, Tharmas! Urizen no longer curbs your rage.

So Urizen spoke, and shook his snows from off his shoulders, and arose
As on a pyramid of mist, his white robes scattering
The fleecy white renewed. He shook his aged mantle off
Into the fires, then, glorious, bright, exulting in his joy,
He sounding rose into the heavens in naked majesty,
In radiant youth, when, lo! like garlands in the eastern sky
When vocal May comes dancing from the East, Ahania came,
Exulting in her flight. As when a bubble rises up
On to the surface of a lake, Ahania rose in joy.

Excess of joy is worse than grief. Her heart beat high; her blood
Burst its bright vessels: she fell down dead at the feet of Urizen,
Outstretched, a smiling corse. They buried her in a silent cave.
Urizen dropped a tear. The Eternal Man darkened with sorrow.

The three daughters of Urizen guard Ahania's death-couch;
Raging from the confusion, in tears and howling and despair,
Calling upon their father's name, upon their father dark.

And the Eternal man said, — Hear my words, O Prince of Light.
Behold Jerusalem, in whose bosom the Lamb of God
Is seen; though slain before her gates, he self -renewed remains
Eternal, and I through him awake from death's dark vale.
The times revolve. The time is coming when all these delights
Shall be renewed, and all these elements that now consume
Shall re-flourish. Then bright Ahania shall awake from death,
A glorious vision to thine eyes, a self -renewing vision, —

The spring — the summer — to be thine. Then sleep the wintry days
In silken garments, spun by her own hands against her funeral.
The winter thou shalt plough and lay thy stores into thy barns,
Expecting to receive Ahania in the spring with joy.

Immortal thou, regenerate she, and all the lovely sex
From her shall learn obedience and prepare a wintry grave,
That spring may see them rise in tenfold joy and sweet delight.
Thus shall the female also live the life of Eternity
Because the Lamb of God creates himself a bride and wife,
That we his children evermore may live in Jerusalem,
Which now descendeth out of heaven, a city, yet a woman.
Mother of myriads redeemed and born in her spiritual palaces
By a new spiritual birth regenerated from death.
Urizen said: I have erred and my error remains with me.
What chain encompasses? In what rock is the river of light confined
That issues forth in the morning by measure and in the evening by carefulness?

Where shall we take our stand to view the infinite and unbounded?
And where our human feet, for, lo! our eyes are in the heavens.

He ceased, for, riven link from link, the bursting universe exploding,
All things revived flew from their centres, rattling bones
To bones join, shaking, convulsed, the shivering clay breathes.
Each speck of dust, to the Earth's centre, nestles round and round
In pangs of an Eternal Birth, in torment, awe, and fear.
All spirits deceased, let loose from reptile prisons, come in shoals.

Wild furies from the Tiger's brain and from the Lion's eyes,
And from the Ox and Ass come moping terrors. From the Eagle
And Raven, numerous as the leaves of autumn, — every species
Flock to the trumpet, fluttering over the sides of the grave and crying
In the fierce wind round the heavy rocks and mountains filled with groans.

On rifted rocks, suspended in the air by inward fires,
Many a woeful company; and many on clouds and waters,
Fathers, friends, and mothers, infants, kings, and warriors,
Priests and chained captives meet together in horrible fear,
And every one of the dead appears as he had lived before;

And all the marks remain of the slave's scourge and tyrant's crown,
And of the priest's overgorged abdomen, and of the merchant's thin
Sinewy deceptions, and of the warrior's all-braving thoughtlessness,
In lineaments too extended and in bones too straight and long.
They show their wounds: they accuse: they seize the oppressor; howlings began
On the golden Palace; — songs of joy on the desert. The cold babe
Stands in the furious air; he cries. The children of six thousand years
Who died in infancy rage furious, — a mighty multitude rage furious,
Naked and pale. Standing in the expecting air to be delivered,
Rend limb from limb the warrior, the tyrant, reuniting in pain.

The furious wind still rends around. They listen not to entreaty,
They view the flames red rolling on through the wide universe
From the dark jaws of death beneath and desolate shores remote,
These covering vaults of heaven and these breathing globes of earth.
One planet calls to another and one star inquires of another:

What flames are these, coming from the south? What noise, what dreadful rout
As of a battle in the heavens! Hark! Heard you not the trumpet
As of fierce battle? While they spoke, the flames come intense roaring.
They see him whom they have pierced, they wail because of him,
They magnify themselves no more against Jerusalem, nor
Against her little ones. The innocent accused before the judges
Shines with immortal glory. Trembling, the judge springs from his throne,
Hiding his face in the dust beneath the prisoner's feet and saying:
Brother of Jesus, what have I done? Entreat thy Lord for me:
Perhaps I may be forgiven. While he speaks the flames roll on
And after the flames appears the cloud of the Son of Man
Descending from Jerusalem with power and great glory.
All nations look up to the cloud and behold Him who was crucified.
The prisoner answers: You scourged my father to death before my face
When I stood bound with cords and heavy chains. Your hypocrisy
Shall now avail you nought. So saying he dashed him with his foot.

The cloud is Blood, dazzling upon the heavens, and in the cloud
Above, upon its volumes, is beheld a throne, as a pavement
Of precious stones, surrounded by twenty-four venerable patriarchs,
And these again surrounded by four Wonders of the Almighty
Incomprehensible, pervading all, within and round about
Fourfold, each in the other reflected. They are named Lifes in Eternity
Four starry universes, going forward from Eternity to Eternity.
And the Fallen Man who was arisen upon the Rock of Ages,
And Urizen, arose with him, walking through all the flames
To meet the Lord, coming to Judgment, but the flames repelled them.
Still to the Rock, in vain, they strove to enter the consummation
Together, for the redeemed Man could not enter the consummation.

Then seized the sons of Urizen the plough. They polished it
From rust of ages. All its ornaments of gold, silver and ivory,
Re-shone across the field immense when all the nations
Darkened, like mould, in the divided furrows where the weed
Triumphs in its own destruction. They took down the harness
From the blue walls of heaven, starry, jingling, ornamented
With beautiful art,— the study of Angels, the workmanship of Demons, —

When Heaven and Hell in emulation strove in the spirits of glory.
The noise of rural works resounded through the heavens of heavens,
The horse neighs from the battle, the wild bulls from the sultry waste,
The tigers from the forests, the lions from the sandy deserts.
They sing; they seize the instruments of harmony; they throw away
The spear, the bow, the gun, the mortar. They level the fortifications.
They beat the iron engines of destruction into wedges.
They give them to Urthona's sons. Ringing the hammers sound
In dens of death to forge the spade, the mattock, and the axe,
The heavy roller to break the clods, — to pass over the nations.

The Sons of Urizen shout: their father rose. The Eternal horses
Harnessed, they call to Urizen. The heavens move at their call.
The limbs of Urizen shone with ardour. He laid his hand on the plough,
Through dismal darkness drove the plough of ages over cities
And all their villages; over mountains, and all their valleys;
Over caves and caverns of the dead, over the planets,
And over the void spaces; over sun and moon, and star and constellation.

Then Urizen commanded and they brought the seed of Men.
The trembling souls of all the dead stood before Urizen,
Weak, wailing in the troubled air, East, West, and North and South.
He turned the horses loose and laid the plough in the northern corner
Of the wide universal field, then stepped forth into the immense.

Then he began to sow the seed. He girded round his loins
With a bright girdle, and his skirt, filled with immortal souls.

Howling and wailing fly the souls from Urizen's strong hand,
For from the hand of Urizen the myriads fall like stars
Into their own appointed places, driven back by the winds.

The naked warriors rush together down to the sea-shore.

They are become like wintry flocks, like forests stripped of leaves,
The kings and princes of the earth cry with a feeble cry,
Driven on the unproducing sands, and on the hardened rocks.

And all the while the flames of Orc follow the venturous feet
Of Urizen, and all the while the trump of Tharmas sounds.
Weeping and wailing fly the souls from Urizen's strong hands.
The daughters of Urizen stand with cups and measures of strong wine
Immense upon the heavens with bread and delicate repasts.
Then follows the golden harrow in the midst of mental fires,
To ravishing melody of flutes, and harps, and softest voice.
The seed is harrowed in while flames heal the black mould and cause
The human harvest to begin. Toward the south first sprang
The myriads, and in silent fear they look out of their graves.

Then Urizen sits down to rest, and all his wearied sons
Take their repose on beds. They drink, they sing, they view the flames
Of Orc. In joy they view the human harvest springing up.
A time they give to sweet repose, till all the harvest is ripe.

And lo! like harvest moon, Ahania cast off her dark clothes —
She folded them up in care, in silence, and her brightening limbs
Bathed in the clear spring of the rock. Then from her darksome cave
Issued in majesty divine. Urizen rose from his couch
On wings of tenfold joy, clapping his hands, his radiant wings
In the immense. As when the sun dances upon the mountains
A shout of jubilee in lovely notes responds from daughter to daughter,
From son to son, as if the stars beaming innumerable
Through night, should sing soft warbling, filling the earth and heaven,
And bright Ahania took her seat by Urizen in songs and joy.

The Eternal Man also sat down upon the couches of Beulah,
Sorrowful that he could not put off his newly risen body
In mental flames. The flames refused, they drove him back to Beulah.
His body was redeemed to be permanent through mercy Divine.

And now fierce Orc had quite consumed himself in mental flames,
Expending all his energy against the fuel of fire.

The Regenerate Man stooped his holy head over the universe, and in
His holy hands received the flaming demon and dimness of smoke
And gave him to Urizen's hands. The immortal frowned, saying,
Luvah and Vala, henceforth you are servants; obey and live.

You shall forget your former state. Return and love in peace,
Into your place, the place of seed, not in the brain or heart.
If Gods combine against Man setting their dominion above
The Human Form Divine, thrown down from their high station
In the eternal heavens of Human Imagination, buried beneath
In dark oblivion, with incessant pangs, ages on ages,
In enmity and war first weakened, then in stern repentance
They must renew their brightness, and their disorganized functions
Again reorganize till they resume the image of the human,
Co-operating in the bliss of Man, obeying his will,
Servants to the infinite and eternal of the human form.

Luvah and Vala descended and entered the gate of dark Urthona
And walked from the hands of Urizen in the shadow of Vala's garden,
Where the impressions of despair and hope for ever vegetate
In flowers and fruits, fishes and birds, and beasts and clouds and waters.
The land of doubts and shadows, sweet delusions, unformed hopes,
They saw no more, the terrible confusions of the wracking universe
They heard not, saw not, felt not the horrible confusion,
For in their orbed senses within closed up they wandered at will.
And those upon the couches viewed them in the dreams of Beulah,
As they reposed from the terrible wide universal harvest.
Invisible Luvah in bright clouds hovered over Vala's head,
And thus their ancient golden age renewed, for Luvah spoke
With voice mild from his golden cloud upon the breath of morning.

Come forth, oh! Vala, from the grass and from the silent dew;
Rise from the dews of death, for the Eternal Man is risen.

She rises among flowers and looks toward the eastern clearness,
She walks, yea runs, her feet are winged on the top of the bending grass,
Her garments rejoice in the vocal winds, and her hair glistens with dew.

She answers thus: Whose voice is this, the voice of the nourishing air
In the spirit of the morning, awaking the soul from its grassy bed?

Where dost thou dwell? For thee I seek, and were it not but for thee
I must have slept eternally, nor felt the dews of the morning.

Look how the opening dawn advances with local harmony.

Look how the beams foreshow the rising of the glorious power.
The sun is thine. He goeth forth in his majestic brightness.

Oh, thou awaking voice that callest! And who shall answer thee?

Where dost thou flee, oh! fair one? Where dost thou seek thy happy place
To yonder brightness? There I haste, for since I came from thence
I must have slept eternally nor have felt the dew of morning.

Eternally thou must have slept nor have felt the morning dew.
But for yon nourishing sun, 'tis that by which thou art arisen.
The birds adore the sun: the beasts rise up and play in his beams,
And every flower and every leaf rejoices in his light,
Then, oh! thou fair one, sit thee down, for thou art as the grass,
Thou risest in the dew of morning and at night art folded up.

Alas! I am but as a flower; then will I sit me down,
Then will I weep, then I'll complain, and sigh for immortality,
And chide my maker,— thee, oh! sun, that raisedst me to fall.
So saying she sat down and wept beneath the apple-trees.

Oh! be thou blotted out, oh! sun, that raisedst me to trouble,
That gavest me a heart to crave, that raisedst me, thy phantom,
To feel thy heart, and see thy light, and wander here alone,
Hopeless, if I am like the grass, and so shall pass away.

Rise, sluggish soul. Why sit'st thou here? Why dost thou sit and weep?

Yon sun shall wax old and decay, but thou shalt ever flourish.
The fruit shall ripen and fall down, the flowers consume away,
But thou shalt still survive. Arise and dry thy dewy tears.

Ah, shall I still survive? Whence came that sweet and comforting voice?

And whence that voice of sorrow? Oh! sun, thou'rt nothing now to me.
Go on thy course rejoicing and let us both rejoice together.

I walk among his flocks and hear the bleeting of his lambs.

Oh! that I could behold his face and follow his pure feet.

I walk by the footsteps of his flocks. Come hither, tender flocks.

Can you converse with a pure soul that seeketh for her maker?
You answer not. Then am I set your mistress in the garden.

I'll watch you and attend your footsteps. You are not like the birds
That sing and fly in the bright air: but you do lick my feet
And let me touch your woolly backs and follow me as I sing.

For in my bosom a new song arises to the Lord,
Rise up, oh! sun, most glorious minister of light and day.

Flow on, ye gentle airs, and bear the voice of my rejoicing.

Wave freshly yon clear water flowers around the tender grass.

Follow me, oh! my flocks, and hear me sing my rapturous song.

I will cause my voice to be heard on the clouds that gather in the sun.
I will call; and who shall answer me? I will sing; who shall reply?

For from my pleasant hills behold the living, living spring,
Running among my green pastures, delighting among my trees.

I am not here alone: my flocks, you are my brethren.

And you, oh! birds that sing and adorn the sky, you are my sisters.
I sing and you reply to my song; I rejoice, and you are glad.

Follow me, oh! my flocks; we will now descend into the valley.

Oh, how delicious are the grapes, flourishing in the sun!

How clear the spring of the rock, running among the golden sand!

How cool the breezes of the valley, and the arms of the branching trees!
Cover us from the sun. Come near and let us sit in the shade.

My Luvah here hath placed me in a green and pleasant land
And given me fruits and pleasant waters, and warm hills, and cool valleys.

Here will I build myself a house, and here call on his name.

Then I'll return when I am weary and take my pleasant rest.

So spoke the sinless soul and laid her head in the snowy fleece
Of a curled ram, who stretched himself, laid down in sleep beside,
And soft sleep fell upon her eyelids in the silent noon of day.

Then Luvah passed by, and looked, and saw the sinless soul,
And said: Let a pleasant house arise to be a dwelling-place
Of this immortal spirit growing in lower Paradise.

He spoke, and pillars were builded, and walls, as white as ivory.
The grass she slept upon was paved with pavement as of pearl.
Beneath her rose a downy bed, and a ceiling covered all.

Vala awoke. When in the pleasant gates of sleep I entered
I saw my Luvah like a spirit stand in the bright air.

Around him stood spirits like me, who reared me a bright house,
And here I see the house remain in my most pleasant world.
My Luvah smiled. I kneeled down. He laid his hand on my head,
And when he laid his hand upon me from the gates of sleep I came
Into this bodily house to tend my flocks in my pleasant garden.

So saying, she arose and walked around her beautiful house,
And then from her white door she looked to see her bleating lambs,
But her flocks were gone up from beneath the trees into the hills.
I see the hand that leadeth me doth also lead my flocks.
She went to her flocks, and turned oft to see her shining house.

She stooped to drink of the clear spring, and eat the grapes and apples.
She bore the fruits in her lap. She gathered flowers for her bosom.
She called to her flocks, saying often, Follow me, oh! my Flocks.
They followed her to the silent valley beneath the spreading trees,
And on the river's margin she ungirded her golden girdle.

She stood in the river and viewed herself within the wavy glass,
And her bright hair was met with waters. She rose from the river,
And as she rose her eyes were opened to the world of waters,
And saw Tharmas sitting upon the rocks beside the weary sea.

He stroked the water from his beard and mourned through the summer valley.

And Vala stood on the rocks of Tharmas and heard the mournful voice:
Oh! Enion, my weary head is in the bed of death,
For weeds of death have wrapped around my limbs in the hoary deeps.
I sit in the place of shells and mourn, and thou art closed in clouds.
When will the time of clouds be past, and the dismal night of Tharmas?
Arise, oh! Enion, arise and smile upon my head,
As thou dost smile upon the barren mountains, and they rejoice.
When wilt thou smile on Tharmas, oh! thou bringer of golden day?
Arise, oh! Enion, arise, for lo! I have calmed my seas.

So saying, his faint head he laid upon the oozy rock,
And darkness covered all the deep. The light of Enion faded,
Like a faint flame quivering upon the surface of the darkness.

Then Vala lifted up her hands to heaven to call on Enion.
She called, but none could answer her, and the echoes her voice returned.
Where is the voice of God that called me from the silent dew?
Where is the Lord of Vala? Dost thou hide in clefts of the rock?
Why should'st thou hide thyself from Vala, from the soul that wanders desolate?

She ceased, and light beamed round her like the glory of the morning.
And she arose out of the river and girded her golden girdle,
And now her feet step on the grassy bosom of the ground
Among her flocks. She turned her eyes toward her pleasant house.
She saw in the doorway beneath the trees two little children playing.
She drew near to her house, and her flocks followed in her footsteps.
The children clung around her knees. She embraced them and wept,
Thou, little boy, art Tharmas, and thou, bright girl, Enion.

How are ye thus renewed and brought into the garden of Vala?
She embraced them in tears, till the sun descended the western hills,
And then she entered her bright house, leading her mighty children.
And when night came, her flocks laid round the house beneath the trees.

She laid the children on the beds which she saw prepared in the house,
Then last, herself, laid down, and closed her eyelids in soft slumbers.
And in the morning, when the sun arose in the crystal sky,
Vala awoke, and called her children from their gentle slumbers:
Awake, oh! Enion, awake, and let thine immortal eyes
Enlighten all the crystal house of Vala! Awake! awake!
Awake, Tharmas! Awake, awake, thou child of many tears.
Open the orbs of thy blue eyes and smile upon my gardens.

The children awoke and smiled on Vala. She kneeled by the golden couch.

She pressed them to her bosom, and her pearly tears dropped down.
Oh, my sweet children! Enion, let Tharmas kiss thy cheek.
Why dost thou turn thyself away from his sweet watery eyes?
Tharmas, henceforth in Vala's bosom thou shalt find sweet peace.
Oh, bless the lovely eyes of Tharmas and the eyes of Enion!

They rose; they went out wandering, sometimes together, sometimes alone.

Why weep'st thou, Tharmas, child of tears, in the bright house of joy?
Doth Enion avoid the sight of thy blue heavenly eyes?
And dost thou wander with my lambs, and wet their innocent faces
With thy bright tears, because the steps of Enion are in the gardens?
Arise, sweet boy, and let us follow the path of Enion.

So saying, they went down into the garden among the fruits,
And Enion sang among the flowers that grew among the fruits,
And Vala said: Go, Tharmas; weep not, — go to Enion.

And he said: Oh! Vala, I am sick. All this garden of pleasure
Swims like a dream before my eyes. But the sweet smiling fruit
Revives me to new death. I fade, even as a water-lily
In the sun's heat, till in the night, on the couch of Enion,
I drink new life, and feel the breath of sleeping Enion.
But in the morning she arises to avoid my eyes,
Then my loins fade, and in the house I sit me down and weep.

Cheer up thy countenance, bright boy, and go to Enion.
Tell her that Vala waits her in the shadows of her garden.
He went with timid steps, and Enion, like the ruddy morn
When infant spring appears in swelling buds and opening flowers,
Behind her veil withdraws; so Enion turned her modest head.

But Tharmas spoke. Vala seeks thee, sweet Enion, in the shades.

Follow the steps of Tharmas, oh! though brightness of the garden.

He took her hand reluctant. She followed in infant doubts.

There in eternal childhood, straying among Vala's flocks,
In infant sorrow and joy alternate, Enion and Tharmas play'd
Bound Vala, in the garden of Vala, and by her river's margin.

They are the shadows of Tharmas and Enion in Vala's world.

And the sleepers who rested from their harvest work beheld these visions.

Then were the sleepers entertained upon the couches of Beulah,
When Luvah and Vala were closed up in their world of shadowy forms.
Darkness was all beneath the heaven: only a little light,
Such as glows out from sleeping spirits, awoke in the deeps beneath.

As when a wind sweeps over a cornfield the noise of souls
Through all the immense, borne down by clouds swagging in autumnal heat,
Muttering along from heaven to heaven, hoarse roll the human forms
Beneath thick clouds, the dreadful lightnings burst and thunders roll,
Down pour the torrent floods from heaven on all the human harvest.

Then Urizen, sitting at his repose on beds in the bright south,
Cried, "Times are ended." He exulted, he arose in joy.

He poured his light, and all his sons and daughters poured their light
To exhale the spirits of Luvah and Vala through the atmosphere.
And Luvah and Vala saw the light. Their spirits soon exhaled
In all their ancient innocence. The floods depart, the clouds
Dissipate, or sink into the sea of Tharmas. Luvah sat
Alone on the bright heavens in peace. The spirits of men beneath
Cried out to be delivered, and the spirit of Luvah wept
Over the human harvest, and over Vala, the sweet wanderer.
In pain the human harvest waved in horrible groans of woe.
The universal groan went up, the Eternal Man was darkened.

Then Urizen arose and took his sickle in his hand.

There is a brazen sickle, and a sceptre of iron hid
Deep in the south, guarded by a few solitary stars.
This sickle Urizen took; the scythe his sons embraced,
And went forth and began to reap, and all his joyful sons
Reaped the wide universe, and bound in sheaves a wondrous harvest.

They took them into the wide barn with loud rejoicings, and triumphs
Of flute and harp and drum and trumpet, horn and clarion.
The feast was spread in the bright south; and the Regenerated Man
Sat at the feast rejoicing, and the wine of Eternity
Was served round by the flames of Luvah all day and all the night.

And when morning began to dawn upon the distant hills,
A whirlwind rose up in the centre, and in the whirlwind a shriek.
And in the shriek a rattling of bones, and in the rattling of bones
A dolorous groan, and from the dolorous groan in tears,
Rose Enion like a gentle light, and Enion spoke, saying:

Oh! Dream of Death, the human form dissolving, compassed
By beasts and worms and creeping things, and darkness and despair.

The clouds fall off from my wet brow, the dust from my cold limbs,
Into the sea of Tharmas. Soon renewed, a golden Moth
I shall cast off my death-clothes and embrace Tharmas again.

For, lo! the winter melted away upon the distant hills,
And all the black mould sings. She spoke to her infant race; her milk
Descends down on the land, the thirsty land drinks and rejoices.
Wondering to behold the emmet, the grasshopper, the jointed worm.
The roots shoot thick through solid rock, bursting their fibrous way.

They cry out in the joys of existence, and the broad tree stems
Rear on the mountains stem by stem. The scaly newt creeps forth
From the stone, and from the rocky crevice springs the armed fly,
The spider and the bat burst from the hardened slime, crying
To one another: What are we? And whence is our delight?

Lo! the little moss begins to spring, and lo! the tender weed
Creeps round about our secret nest. Flocks brighten on the hills,
Herds throng up through the valley, and the wild beasts fill the woods.

Joy thrilled through all the furious forms of Tharmas, humanizing.
Mild he embraced her whom he sought. He raised her through the heavens,
Sounding his trumpet to awake the dead. On high he soared
O'er ruined worlds, the misty tomb of the Eternal Prophet.

Then the Eternal Man arose. He welcomed them to the feast.

The feast was spread in the bright south; and the Eternal Man
Sat at the feast rejoicing, and the wine of Eternity
Was served round by the flames of Luvah all day and all the night.

And many Eternal Men sat at the golden feast to see
The female form now separate. They shuddered at the horrible thing
Born for the sport and amusement of Man, soon to drink up his powers.

They wept to see the shadow. They said to one another: This is sin.
This is the vegetative world. They remember the days of old.

And one of the Eternals spoke; all was silent at the feast.

Man is a worm renewed with joy, he seeks the caves of sleep
Among the flowers of Beulah in his selfish cold repose,
Forsaking brotherhood and universal love in selfish clay,
Folding the pure wings of his mind, seeking the places dark,
Abstracted from the roots of Nature then enclosed anew
In walls of gold. We cast him like a seed into the earth
Till times and spaces have passed over him. Duly every morn
We visit him, covering with a veil the immortal seed.

With windows from the inclement sky we cover him, and with walls
And hearths protect the selfish terror, till divided all
In families we see our shadows born, and thence we know
That Man subsists by brotherhood and universal love.
We fall on one another's necks, more closely we embrace,
Not for ourselves, but for the Eternal Family we live.
Man liveth not by self alone, but in his brother's face
Each shall behold the Eternal Father and love and joy abound.

So spoke the Eternal at the Feast. They embraced the new-born Man,
Calling him Brother, image of the Eternal Father. They sat down
At the immortal tables, sounding loud their instruments of joy,
Calling the Morning into Beulah. The Eternal Man rejoiced.
When Morning dawned the Eternals rose to labour in the vintage
Beneath they saw their children, wondering inconceivably
At the dark myriads in shadows in the worlds beneath.

The Morning dawned. Urizen rose, and in his hand the flail
Sounds on the floor; heard terrible by all beneath the heavens.
Dismal, loud, redounding, the nether floor shakes with the sound,
And all the Nations were threshed out, and the stars threshed from their husks.

Then Tharmas took the winnowing fan. The winnowing wind furious
Above, veered round by violent whirlwind driven west and south,
Tossed the Nations like chaff into the sea of Tharmas.

Oh! Mystery, fierce Tharmas cried, behold thy end is come!
Art thou she that made the Nations drunk with the cup of Religion?

Go down, ye kings and counsellors and giant warriors,
Go down into the depths; go down and hide yourselves beneath.

Go down with horse and chariots and trumpets of hoarse war.

Lo! how the pomp of Mystery goes down into the caves.

Her great men howl and throw the dust, and rend their hoary hair.

Her delicate women and children shriek upon the bitter wind,
Spoiled of their beauty, their hair rent, their skin shrivelled up.

Lo! darkness covers the long pomp of banners on the wind,
And black horses, and armed men, and miserable bound captives.

Where shall the graves receive them all, and where shall be their place?

And who shall mourn for Mystery, who never loosed her captives?
Let the slave, grinding at the mill, run out into the field;

Let him look up into the heavens and laugh in the bright air.

Let the enchained soul shut up in darkness and in sighing,
Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years.

Rise and look out; his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open.
And let his wife and children return from the oppressor's scourge.

They look behind at every step and believe it is a dream.

Are these the slaves that groan along the streets of Mystery?

Where are your bonds and task-masters? Are these the prisoners?

Where are your chains? Where are your tears? Why do you look around?
If you are thirsty, there is the river; go, bathe your parched limbs,
And the good of all the land is before you, for Mystery is no more.

Then all the slaves from every earth in the wide Universe
Sing a new song, drowning confusion in its happy notes,
While the flail of Urizen sounded loud, and the winnowing wind of Tharmas
So loud and clear in the wide heavens, and the song that they sang, was this,
Composed by an African Black from the little earth of Sotha: —

Aha! Aha! How came I here, in my sweet native land?
How came I here? Methinks I am as I was in my youth,
When in my father's house, in joy, I heard his cheering voice.
Methinks I see his flocks and herds and feel my limbs renewed,
And lo! my brethren in their tents, and their little ones around them!

The song arose to the golden feast. The Eternal Man rejoiced.
The Eternal Man said: Luvah, the vintage is ripe. Arise!
The sons of Urizen shall gather the vintage with sharp hooks,
And all thy sons, oh! Luvah, bear away the families of earth.
I hear the flail of Urizen. His barns are full. No room
Remains, and in the vineyards stand the abounding sheaves beneath
The falling grapes that odorous burst upon the winds. Arise!
My flocks and herds trample the corn, my cattle browse upon
The ripe clusters. The shepherds shout for Luvah, Prince of Love.
Let the Bulls of Luvah tread the corn and draw the loaded waggon
Into the barn while children glean the ears around the door.
Then shall they lift their innocent hands and stroke his furious nose,
And he shall lick the little girl's white neck, and on her head
Scatter the perfumes of his breath, while from his mountains high
The lion of terror shall come down, and bending his bright mane,
And crouching at her side shall eat from the curly boy's white lap
His golden food, and in the evening sleep before the door.

Attempting to be more than man we become less, said Luvah,
As he arose from the bright feast, drunk with the wine of ages.
His crown of thorns fell from his head, he hung his living lyre
Behind the seat of the Eternal Man, and took his way,
Sounding the song of Los, descending to the vineyards bright.
His sons, arising from the feast with golden baskets, follow,
A fiery train, as when the Sun sings in the ripe vineyards.

Then Luvah stood before the wine-press. All his fiery sons
Brought up the loaded waggons with shoutings: ramping tigers play
In the jingling traces; furious lions sound the song of joy
To the golden wheels circling upon the pavement of heaven, and all
The villages of Luvah rising; the golden tiles of the villages
Reply to violins and tabors, to the pipe, flute, lyre, and cymbal.
These fill the legions of Mystery with maddening confusion.
Down, down, through the immense, with outcry, fury, and despair,
Into the wine-presses of Luvah, howling, fall the clusters
Of human families through the deep. The wine-presses are filled,
The blood of life flowed plentiful; odours of life arose
All round the heavenly arches, and the odours sang this song:

Terrible wine-presses of Luvah! Oh, caverns of the grave!
How lovely the delights of those risen again from death!
Oh, trembling joy! Excess of joy is like excess of grief.

So sang the human odours round the wine-presses of Luvah.
But in the wine-presses is wailing, terror and despair.
Forsaken of their elements they vanish and are no more —
No more but a desire of being, a ravening desire,
Desiring like the hungry worm, and like the gaping grave.

They plunge into the elements. The elements cast them forth,
Or else consume their shadowy semblance; but they, obstinate,
Though framed for destruction, cry — Oh, let us exist! for
This dreadful non-existence is worse than the pains of eternal birth:

Eternal death who can endure? Let us consume in fires,
In waters stifling, or in air corroding, or in earth shut up:
The pangs of eternal birth are better than the pangs of eternal death.

How red the sons and daughters of Luvah! How they tread the grapes,
Laughing and shouting, drunk with odours! Many fall overwearied:

Drowned in the wine is many a youth and maiden. Those around
Lay them on skins of tigers, or the leopard or wild ass,
Till they revive, or bury in cool grots with lamentation.
But in the wine-presses the human grapes sing not nor dance,
They howl and writhe in shoals of torment and fierce flames consuming,
In chains of iron and in dungeons circled with ceaseless fires,
In pits and dens and shades of death, and shapes of torment and woe;
The plates and the screws, and wracks, and saws, and cords, and fires, and floods;

The cruel joy of Luvah's daughters, lacerating with knives
And whips their victims, and the deadly sport of Luvah's sons.

Timbrels and violins sport round the wine-presses. The little seed,
The sportive root, the earthworm, the snake-beetle, the wise emmet,
Dance round the wine-presses of Luvah. The centipede is there,
The ground spider with many eyes, the mole clothed with velvet,
The earwig armed, the tender maggot, emblem of immortality;

The slow slug, the grasshopper that sings and laughs and drinks:
The winter comes; he folds his slender bones without a murmur.
There is the nettle, that can sting with her soft down; and there
The indignant thistle, whose bitterness is bred in his milk, who lives
On the contempt of his neighbours. There are all the idle weeds
That creep about the obscure places, showing their various limbs
Naked in all their beauty, dancing round the wine-presses.
They dance around the dying, and they drink the howls and groans;
They catch the shrieks in cups of gold; they hand them to one another.
These are the sports of love, the sweet delights of amorous play:

Tears of the grape, the death-sweat of the cluster, the last sigh
Of the mild youth who listens to the luring songs of Luvah.

The Eternal Man darkened with sorrow, and a wintry mantle
Covered the hills. He said — Oh, Tharmas, rise! and oh, Urthona!
Then Tharmas and Urthona rose from the golden feast, satiated
With mirth and joy: Urthona, limping from his fall, on Tharmas leaned,
In his right hand his hammer. Tharmas held his shepherd's crook
Beset with gold, the ornaments formed by sons of Urizen.

Then Enion, and Ahania, and Vala, and the wife of dark Urthona,
Rose from the feast, with joy ascending to their golden looms.
Then the winged shuttle sang, the spindle, the distaff and reel
Rang sweet the praise of industry through all the golden room.
Heaven rang with winged exultation. All beneath howled loud,
With tenfold rout and desolation roared the caverns beneath
When the wide woof flowed down and when the Nations were gathered together.

Tharmas went down to the wine-presses, and beheld the sons and daughters
Of Luvah quite exhausted with the labour and quite filled
With new wine, that they began to torment one another and tread
The weak. Luvah and Vala slept on the floor, o'erwearied.

Urthona called his sons around when Tharmas called his sons
Numerous. They took the wine, they separated the lees,
And Luvah was put for dying on the ground by the sons of Tharmas and Urthona.

They formed the heaven of sweetest wood, of gold and silver and ivory,
Of glass and precious stones. They loaded all the waggons of heaven
And took away the wine of ages, with solemn songs and joy.

Luvah and Vala awoke, and all the sons and daughters of Luvah
Awoke. They wept to one another. They re-ascended
To the Eternal Man. In woe he cast them wailing into
The world of shadows, through the air, till winter is come and gone.
But the human wine stood wondering in all these delightful expanses,
The elements subsided, the heavens rolled on with vocal harmony.

Then Los, who is Urthona, rose in all his regenerate power.
The sea that rolled and foamed with darkness and the shadow of death
Vomited out and gave up all. The floods lift up their hands,
Singing and shrieking to the Man. They bow their hoary heads,
And murmuring in their channels flow and circle round his feet.

Then dark Urthona took the corn out of the stores of Urizen;

He ground it in his rumbling mills, — terrible the distress
Of all the Nations of the Earth, ground in the mills of Urthona.

In his hand Tharmas takes the storms: he turns the whirlwinds loose
Upon the wheels. The starry seas roar at his dread command,
And, eddying fierce, rejoice in the fierce agitation of the wheels
Of dark Urthona. Thundering earthquakes, fierce water-floods,
Rejoice to one another. Loud their voices shake the abyss,
Their dread forms tending the dire mills. The grey hoar-frost was there,
And his pale wife the aged snow. They watch over the fires,
They build the ovens of Urthona. Nature in darkness groans,
And Men are bound to sullen contemplation all the night.
Restless they turn on beds of sorrow, in their inmost brain
Feeling the crushing wheels: they rise, they write the bitter words
Of stern Philosophy, and knead the bread of Knowledge with tears and groans.

Such are the works of dark Urthona. Tharmas sifts the corn.
Urthona made the bread of ages, and he placed it
In golden and in silver baskets, in heavens of precious stone,
And then took his repose in winter, in the night of time.

The sun has left his blackness and has found a fresher morning,
And the mild moon rejoices in the clear and cloudless night,
And Man walks forth from midst of fires: the evil is all consumed.
His eyes behold the angelic spheres among the night and day;
The stars consumed, like a lamp blown out, and in their stead, behold!

One earth — one sea beneath; nor erring globes wander, but stars
Of fire rise up nightly from the ocean; and one sun
Each morning, like a new-born May, issues with songs of joy,
Calling the ploughman to his labour, the shepherd to his rest.
He wakes upon the eternal mountains, raising his heavenly voice
Conversing with the animal forms of wisdom night and day,
That, risen from the sea of fire, renewed walk over the earth;
For Tharmas brought his flocks upon the hills, and in the vales
Around the Eternal Man's bright tent the little children play
Among the woolly flocks. The hammer of Urthona sounds
In the deep caves beneath, his limbs renewed; the lions roar
Around the furnaces, and in evening sport upon the plains.
They raise their faces from the earth, conversing with the Man:

How is it we have walked through fire and yet are not consumed?

How is it that all things are changed, even as in ancient times?
The sun arises from his dewy bed, and the fresh airs
Play in his smiling beams, giving the seeds of life to grow,
And the fresh earth beams forth ten thousand thousand springs of life.

Urthona is arisen in his strength: no longer now
Divided from Enitharmon — no longer the Spectre of Los.

Where is the Spectre of prophecy? where is the deluded phantom?
Departed: and Urthona issues from the ruinous walls,
In all his ancient strength, to form the golden armour of science
For intellectual war — the war of swords departed now,
In dark religions are departed — and sweet science reigns.