The Portable William Blake (33 page)

1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos‘d, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form’d this abominable void,
This soul-shudd’ring vacuum? Some said
“It is Urizen.” But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark power hid.’

 

2. Times on times he divided & measur’d
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear’d
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation.

 

3. For he strove in battles dire,
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element,
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.

 

4. Dark, revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions:
An activity unknown and horrible,
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied.

 

5. But Eternals beheld his vast forests;
Age on ages he lay, clos’d, unknown,
Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific, abominable chaos.

 

6. His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
Prepar’d; his ten thousands of thunders,
Rang’d in gloom’d array, stretch out across
The dread world; & the rolling of wheels,
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds,
In his hills of stor’d snows, in his mountains
Of hail & ice; voices of terror
Are heard, like thunders of autumn
When the cloud blazes over the harvests.

1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction;
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses;
Death was not, but eternal life sprung.

 

2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke, & vast clouds of blood roll’d
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam’d
That solitary one in Immensity.

 

3. Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity
Muster around the bleak desarts,
Now fill’d with clouds, darkness, & waters,
That roll’d perplex’d, lab’ring; & utter’d
Words articulate bursting in thunders
That roll’d on the tops of his mountains:

 

4. “From the depths of dark solitude, From
The eternal abode in my holiness,
Hidden, set apart, in my stem counsels,
Reserv’d for the days of futurity,
I have sought for a joy without pain,
For a solid without fluctuation.
Why will you die, 0 Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?

 

5. “First I fought with the fire, consum’d
Inwards into a deep world within:
A void immense, wild, dark & deep,
Where nothing was: Nature’s wide womb;
And self balanc‘d, stretch’d o’er the void,
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
Bound; but condensing in torrents
They fall & fall; strong I repell’d
The vast waves, & arose on the waters
A wide world of solid obstruction.

 

6. “Here alone I, in books form’d of metals,
Have written the secrets of wisdom,
The secrets of dark contemplation,
By fightings and conflicts dire
With terrible monsters Sin-bred
Which the bosoms of all inhabit,
Seven deadly Sins of the soul.

 

7. “Lo! I unfold my darkness, and on
This rock place with strong hand the Book
Of eternal brass, written in my solitude:

 

8. “Laws of peace, of love, of unity,
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness;
Let each chuse one habitation,
His ancient infinite mansion,
One command, one joy, one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure,
One King, one God, one Law.”

1.The voice ended: they saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness, his hand
On the rock of eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage siez’d the strong,

 

2. Rage, fury, intense indignation,
In cataracts of fire, blood, & gall,
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke,
And enormous forms of energy,
All the seven deadly sins of the soul
In living creations appear’d,
In the flames of eternal fury.

 

3. Sund‘ring, dark’ning, thund’ring,
Rent away with a terrible crash,
Eternity roll’d wide apart,
Wide asunder rolling;
Mountainous all around
Departing, departing, departing,
Leaving ruinous fragments of life
Hanging, frowning cliffs & all between,
An ocean of voidness unfathomable.

 

4. The roaring fires ran o‘er the heav’ns
In whirlwinds & cataracts of blood,
And o’er the dark desarts of Urizen
Fires pour thro’ the void on all sides
On Urizen’s self-begotten armies.

 

5. But no light from the fires: all was darkness
In the flames of Eternal fury.

 

6. In fierce anguish & quenchless flames
To the desarts and rocks he ran raging
To hide; but he could not: combining,
He dug mountains & hills in vast strength,
He piled them in incessant labour,
In howlings & pangs & fierce madness,
Long periods in burning fires labouring
Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged,
In despair and the shadows of death.

 

7. And a roof vast, petrific around
On all sides he fram’d, like a womb,
Where thousands of rivers in veins
Of blood pour down the mountains to cool
The eternal fires, beating without
From Eternals; & like a black globe,
View’d by sons of Eternity standing
On the shore of the infinite ocean,
Like a human heart, strugling & beating,
The vast world of Urizen appear’d.

 

8. And Los, round the dark globe of Urizen,
Kept watch for Eternals to confine
The obscure separation alone;
For Eternity stood wide apart,
As the stars are apart from the earth.

 

9. Los wept, howling around the dark Demon,
And cursing his lot; for in anguish
Urizen was rent from his side,
And a fathomless void for his feet,
And intense fires for his dwelling.

 

10. But Urizen laid in a stony sleep,
Unorganiz’d, rent from Eternity.

 

11. The Eternals said: “What is this? Death.
Urizen is a clod of clay.”

 

12. Los howl’d in a dismal stupor,
Groaning, gnashing, groaning,
Till the wrenching apart was healed.

 

13. But the wrenching of Urizen heal’d not.
Cold, featureless, flesh or clay,
Rifted with direful changes,
He lay in a dreamless night,

 

14. Till Los rouz’d his fires, affrighted
At the formless, unmeasurable death.