The Portable William Blake (41 page)

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Authors: William Blake

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I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate
And I be siez’d & giv’n into the hands of my own Selfhood.
The Lamb of Cod is seen thro’ mists & shadows, hov’ring
Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim,
A disk of blood distant, & heav’ns & earths roll dark between.
What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation?
With the daughters of memory & not with the daughters of inspiration?
I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One!
He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells,
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.”
 
And Milton said: “I go to Eternal Deathl” Eternity shudder’d,
For he took the outside course among the graves of the dead,
A mournful shade. Eternity shudder’d at the image of eternal death.
[THE NATURE OF INFINITY]
The nature of infinity is this: That every thing has its
Own Vortex, and when once a traveller thro’ Eternity
Has pass’d that Vortex, he percieves it roll backward behind
His path, into a globe itself infolding like a sun,
Or like a moon, or like a universe of starry majesty,
While he keeps onwards in his wondrous journey on the earth,
Or like a human form, a friend with whom he liv’d benevolent.
As the eye of man views both the east & west encompassing
Its vortex, and the north & south with all their starry host,
Also the rising sun & setting moon he views surrounding
His corn-fields and his valleys of five hundred acres square,
Thus is the earth one infinite plane, and not as apparent To the weak traveller confin’d beneath the moony shade.
Thus is the heaven a vortex pass’d already, and the earth
A vortex not yet pass’d by the traveller thro’ Eternity.
 
First Milton saw Albion upon the Rock of Ages,
Deadly pale outstretch’d and snowy cold, storm cover’d,
A Giant form of perfect beauty outstretch’d on the rock
In solemn death: the Sea of Time & Space thunder’d aloud
Against the rock, which was inwrapped with the weeds of death.
Hovering over the cold bosom in its vortex Milton bent down
To the bosom of death: what was underneath soon seem’d above:
A cloudy heaven mingled with stormy seas in loudest ruin;
But as a wintry globe descends precipitant thro’ Beulah bursting
With thunders loud and terrible, so Milton’s shadow fell
Precipitant, loud thund’ring into the Sea of Time & Space.
[THE MUNDANE SHELL]
The Mundane Shell is a vast Concave Earth, an immense
Harden’d shadow of all things upon our Vegetated Earth,
Enlarg’d into dimension & deform’d into indefinite space,
In Twenty-seven Heavens and all their Hells, with Chaos
And Ancient Night & Purgatory. It is a cavernous Earth
Of labyrinthine intricacy, twenty-seven-folds of opake-ness,
And finishes where the lark mounts.
[OPEN YOUR HUMAN GATES]
Now Albion’s sleeping Humanity began to turn upon his Couch,
Feeling the electric flame of Milton’s awful precipitate descent.
Seest thou the little winged fly, smaller than a grain of sand?
It has a heart like thee, a brain open to heaven & hell,
Withinside wondrous & expansive: its gates are not clos’d:
I hope thine are not: hence it clothes itself in rich array:
Hence thou art cloth’d with human beauty, O thou mortal man.
Seek not thy heavenly father then beyond the skies,
There Chaos dwells & ancient Night & Og & Anak old.
For every human heart has gates of brass & bars of adamant
Which few dare unbar, because dread Og & Anak guard the gates
Terrific: and each mortal brain is wall’d and moated round
Within, and Og & Anak watch here: here is the Seat
Of Satan in its Webs: for in brain and heart and loins
Gates open behind Satan’s Seat to the City of Colgonooza,
Which is the spiritual fourfold London in the loins of Albion.
[BLAKE AND MILTON]
... Milton entering my Foot, I saw in the nether
Regions of the Imagination—also all men on Earth
And all in Heaven saw in the nether regions of the Imagination
In Ulro beneath Beulah—the vast breach of Milton’s descent.
But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
Reveal the secrets of Eternity: for more extensive
Than any other earthly things are Man’s earthly lineaments.
And all this Vegetable World appear’d on my left Foot
As a bright sandal form’d immortal of precious stones & gold.
I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro’ Eternity.
[THE PROPHET]
“I am that Shadowy Prophet who Six Thousand Years ago
Fell from my station in the Eternal bosom. Six Thousand Years
Are finish’d. I return! both Time & Space obey my will.
I in Six Thousand Years walk up and down; for not one Moment
Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent,
But all remain: every fabric of Six Thousand Years
Remains permanent, tho’ on the Earth where Satan
Fell and was cut off, all things vanish & are seen no more,
They vanish not from me & mine, we guard them first & last.
The generations of men run on in the tide of Time,
But leave their destin’d lineaments permanent for ever & ever.”
[AWAKE, ALBION, AWAKE!]
“Milton’s. Religion is the cause: there is no end to destruction.
Seeing the Churches at their Period in terror & despair,
Rahab created Voltaire, Tirzah created Rousseau,
Asserting the Self-righteousness against the Universal Saviour,
Mocking the Confessors & Martyrs, claiming Self-righteousness,
With cruel Virtue making War upon the Lamb’s Redeemed
To perpetuate War & Glory, to perpetuate the Laws of Sin.
They perverted Swedenborg’s Visions in Beulah & in Ulro
To destroy Jerusalem as a Harlot & her Sons as Reprobates,
To raise up Mystery the Virgin Harlot, Mother of War,
Babylon the Great, the Abomination of Desolation.
O Swedenborg! strongest of men, the Samson shorn by the Churches,
Shewing the Transgressors in Hell, the proud Warriors in Heaven,
Heaven as a Punisher, & Hell as One under Punishment,
With Laws from Plato & his Greeks to renew the Trojan Gods
In Albion, & to deny the value of the Saviour’s blood.
But then I rais’d up Whitefield, Palamabron rais’d up Westley,
And these are the cries of the Churches before the two Witnesses.
Faith in God the dear Saviour who took on the likeness of men,
Becoming obedient to death, even the death of the Cross.
The Witnesses lie dead in the Street of the Great City:
No Faith is in all the Earth: the Book of God is trodden under Foot.
He sent his two Servants, Whitefield & Westley: were they Prophets,
Or were they Idiots or Madmen? shew us Miracles!
 
“Can you have greater Miracles than these? Men who devote
Their life’s whole comfort to intire scorn & injury & death?
Awake, thou sleeper on the Rock of Eternity! Albion awakel
The trumpet of Judgment hath twice sounded: all Nations are awake,
But thou art still heavy and dull. Awake, Albion awake!”
[O GO NOT FORTH IN MARTYRDOMS & WARS!]
... Los thus spoke: “0 noble Sons, be patient yet a little!
I have embrac’d the falling Death, he is become One with me:
O Sons, we live not by wrath, by mercy alone we live!
I recollect an old Prophecy in Eden recorded in gold and oft
Sung to the harp, That Milton of the land of Albion
Should up ascend forward from Felpham’s Vale & break the Chain
Of Jealousy from all its roots; be patient therefore, 0 my Sons!
These lovely Females form sweet night and silence and secret
Obscurities to hide from Satan’s Watch-Fiends Human loves
And graces, lest they write them in their Books & in the Scroll
Of mortal life to condemn the accused, who at Satan’s Bar
Tremble in Spectrous Bodies continually day and night,
While on the Earth they live in sorrowful Vegetations.
O when shall we tread our Wine-presses in heaven and Reap
Our wheat with shoutings of joy, and leave the Earth in peace?
Remember how Calvin and Luther in fury premature
Sow’d War and stem division between Papists & Protestants.
Let it not be so now! O go not forth in Martyrdoms & Wars!
We were plac’d here by the Universal Brotherhood & Mercy
With powers fitted to circumscribe this dark Satanic death,
And that the Seven Eyes of God may have space for Redemption.
But how this is as yet we know not, and we cannot know
Till Albion is arisen; then patient wait a little while.
Six Thousand years are pass’d away, the end approaches fast:
This mighty one is come from Eden, he is of the Elect
Who died from Earth & he is return’d before the Judgment. This thing
Was never known, that one of the holy dead should willing return.
Then patient wait a little while till the Last Vintage is over....”
[THE SPIRIT OF PROPHECY]
Los is by mortals nam’d Time, Enitharmon is nam’d Space:
But they depict him bald & aged who is in eternal youth
All powerful and his lodes flourish like the brows of morning:
He is the Spirit of Prophecy, the ever apparent Elias.
Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time’s swiftness,
Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment.
All the Gods of the Kingdoms of Earth labour in Los’s Halls:
Every one is a fallen Son of the Spirit of Prophecy.
[THE GREAT VINTAGE AND HARVEST],
And Los stood & cried to the Labourers of the Vintage in voice of awe:
 
“Fellow Labourers ! The Great Vintage & Harvest is now upon Earth.
The whole extent of the Globe is explored. Every scatter’d Atom
Of Human Intellect now is flocking to the sound of the Trumpet.
All the Wisdom which was hidden in caves & dens from ancient
Time is now sought out from Animal & Vegetable & Mineral.
The Awakener is come outstretch’d over Europe: the Vision of God is fulfilled:
The Ancient Man upon the Rock of Albion Awakes,
He listens to the sounds of War astonish’d & ashamed,
He sees his Children mock at Faith and deny Providence.
Therefore you must bind the Sheaves not by Nations or Families,
You shall bind them in Three Classes, according to their Classes
So shall you bind them, Separating What has been Mixed
Since Men began to be Wove into Nations by Rahab & Tirzah,
Since Albion’s Death & Satan’s Cutting off from our awful Fields,
When under pretence to benevolence the Elect Subdu’d All
From the Foundation of the World. The Elect is one Class: You
Shall bind them separate: they cannot Believe in Eternal Life
Except by Miracle & a New Birth. The other two Classes,
The Reprobate who never cease to Believe, and the Redeem’d
Who live in doubts & fears perpetually tormented by the Elect,
These you shall bind in a twin-bundle for the Consummation :
But the Elect must be saved from fires of Eternal Death,
To be formed into the Churches of Beulah that they, destroy not the Earth.
For in every Nation & every Family the Three Classes are born,
And in every Species of Earth, Metal, Tree, Fish, Bird & Beast.
We form the Mundane Egg, that Spectres coming by fury or amity,
All is the same, & every one remains in his own energy.
Go forth Reapers with rejoicing; you sowed in tears,
But the time of your refreshing cometh: only a little moment
Still abstain from pleasure & rest in the labours of eternity,
And you shall Reap the whole Earth from Pole to Pole, from Sea to Sea,
Beginning at Jerusalem’s Inner Court, Lambeth ...”
[THE VISIONS OF ETERNITY]
These are the Sons of Los, & these the Labourers of the Vintage.
Thou seest the gorgeous clothed Flies that dance & sport in summer
Upon the sunny brooks & meadows: every one the dance
Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave:
Each one to sound his instruments of music in the dance,
To touch each other & recede, to cross & change & return:
These are the Children of Los; thou seest the Trees on mountains,
The wind blows heavy, loud they thunder thro’ the darksom sky,
Uttering prophecies & speaking instructive words to the sons
Of men: These are the Sons of Los: These the Visions of Eternity,
But we see only as it were the hem of their garments
When with our vegetable eyes we view these wondrous Visions.
[THE WINE-PRESS OF LIFE]
... The Wine-press of Los is eastward of Golgonooza before the Seat
Of Satan: Luvah laid the foundation & Urizen finish’d it in howling woe.

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