THE BOOK OF LOS

William Blake

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  • CHAPTER I
  • CHAPTER II
  • CHAPTER III
  • CHAPTER IV






  • CHAPTER I



    1. Eno, aged Mother,
    Who the chariot of Leutha guides,
    Since the day of thunders in old time,

    2. Sitting beneath the eternal Oak,
    Trembled and shook the steadfast Earth,
    And thus her speech broke forth:—

    3. `O Times remote!
    When Love and Joy were adoration,
    And none impure were deem'd,
    Not eyeless Covet,
    Nor thin-lipp'd Envy,
    Nor bristled Wrath,
    Nor Curled Wantonness;

    4. `But Covet was poured full,
    Envy fed with fat of lambs,
    Wrath with lion's gore,
    Wantonness lull'd to sleep
    With the virgin's lute,
    Or sated with her love;

    5. `Till Covet broke his locks and bars,
    And slept with open doors;
    Envy sung at the rich man's feast;
    Wrath was follow'd up and down
    By a little ewe lamb;
    And Wantonness on his own true love
    Begot a giant race.

    6. Raging furious, the flames of desire
    Ran thro' heaven and earth, living flames,
    Intelligent, organiz'd, arm'd
    With destruction and plagues. In the midst
    The Eternal Prophet, bound in a chain,
    Compell'd to watch Urizen's shadow,

    7. Rag'd with curses and sparkles of fury:
    Round the flames roll, as Los hurls his chains,
    Mounting up from his fury, condens'd,
    Rolling round and round, mounting on high
    Into Vacuum, into nonentity,
    Where nothing was; dash'd wide apart,
    His feet stamp the eternal fierce-raging
    Rivers of wide flame; they roll round
    And round on all sides, making their way
    Into darkness and shadowy obscurity.

    8. Wide apart stood the fires: Los remain'd
    In the Void between fire and fire:
    In trembling and horror they beheld him;
    They stood wide apart, driv'n by his hands
    And his feet, which the nether Abyss
    Stamp'd in fury and hot indignation.

    9. But no light from the fires! all was
    Darkness round Los: heat was not; for bound up
    Into fiery spheres from his fury,
    The gigantic flames trembled and hid.

    10. Coldness, darkness, obstruction, a Solid
    Without fluctuation, hard as adamant,
    Black as marble of Egypt, impenetrable,
    Bound in the fierce raging Immortal;
    And the separated fires, froze in
    A vast Solid, without fluctuation,
    Bound in his expanding clear senses.

    CHAPTER II



    1. The Immortal stood frozen amidst
    The vast Rock of Eternity, times
    And times, a night of vast durance,
    Impatient, stifled, stiffen'd, hard'ned;

    2. Till impatience no longer could bear
    The hard bondage: rent, rent, the vast Solid,
    With a crash from Immense to Immense,

    3. Crack'd across into numberless fragments.
    The Prophetic wrath, struggling for vent,
    Hurls apart, stamping furious to dust,
    And crumbling with bursting sobs, heaves
    The black marble on high into fragments.

    4. Hurl'd apart on all sides as a falling
    Rock, the innumerable fragments away
    Fell asunder; and horrible Vacuum
    Beneath him, and on all sides round,

    5. `Falling! falling! Los fell and fell,
    Sunk precipitant, heavy, down! down!
    Times on times, night on night, day on day —
    Truth has bounds, Error none — falling, falling,
    Years on years, and ages on ages;
    Still he fell thro' the Void, still a Void
    Found for falling, day and night without end;
    For tho' day or night was not, their spaces
    Were measur'd by his incessant whirls
    In the horrid Vacuity bottomless.

    6. The Immortal revolving, indignant,
    First in wrath threw his limbs, like the babe
    New-born into our world: wrath subsided,
    And contemplative thoughts first arose;
    Then aloft his head rear'd in the Abyss,
    And his downward-borne fall chang'd oblique.

    7. Many ages of groans! till there grew
    Branchy forms, organizing the Human
    Into finite inflexible organs;

    8. Till in process from falling he bore
    Sidelong on the purple air, wafting
    The weak breeze in efforts o'erwearied:

    9. Incessant the falling Mind labour'd,
    Organizing itself, till the Vacuum
    Became Element, pliant to rise,
    Or to fall, or to swim, or to fly,
    With ease searching the dire Vacuity.

    CHAPTER III



    1. The Lungs heave incessant, dull, and heavy;
    For as yet were all other parts formless,
    Shiv'ring, clinging around like a cloud,
    Dim and glutinous as the white Polypus,
    Driv'n by waves and englob'd on the tide.

    2. And the unformed part crav'd repose;
    Sleep began; the Lungs heave on the wave:
    Weary, overweigh'd, sinking beneath
    In a stifling black fluid, he woke.

    3. He arose on the waters; but soon
    Heavy falling, his organs like roots
    Shooting out from the seed, shot beneath,
    And a vast World of Waters around him
    In furious torrents began.

    4. Then he sunk, and around his spent Lungs
    Began intricate pipes that drew in
    The spawn of the waters, outbranching
    An immense Fibrous Form, stretching out
    Thro' the bottoms of Immensity: raging.

    5. He rose on the floods; then he smote
    The wild deep with his terrible wrath,
    Separating the heavy and thin.

    6. Down the heavy sunk, cleaving around
    To the fragments of Solid: uprose
    The thin, flowing round the fierce fires
    That glow'd furious in the Expanse.

    CHAPTER IV



    1. Then Light first began: from the fires,
    Beams, conducted by fluid so pure,
    Flow'd around the Immense. Los beheld
    Forthwith, writhing upon the dark Void,
    The Backbone of Urizen appear,
    Hurtling upon the wind,
    Like a serpent, like an iron chain,
    Whirling about in the Deep.

    2. Upfolding his Fibres together
    To a Form of impregnable strength,
    Los, astonish'd and terrified, built
    Furnaces; he formed an Anvil,
    A Hammer of adamant: then began
    The binding of Urizen day and night.

    3. Circling round the dark Demon with howlings,
    Dismay, and sharp blightings, the Prophet
    Of Eternity beat on his iron links.

    4. And first from those Infinite fires,
    The light that flow'd down on the winds
    He seiz'd, beating incessant, condensing
    The subtil particles in an Orb.

    5. Roaring indignant, the bright sparks
    Endur'd the vast Hammer; but unwearied
    Los beat on the Anvil, till glorious
    An immense Orb of fire he fram'd.

    6. Oft he quench'd it beneath in the Deeps;
    Then survey'd the all-bright mass. Again
    Seizing fires from the terrific Orbs,
    He heated the round Globe, then beat;
    While, roaring, his Furnaces endur'd
    The chain'd Orb in their infinite wombs.

    7. Nine ages completed their circles,
    When Los heated the glowing mass, casting
    It down into the Deeps: the Deeps fled
    Away in redounding smoke: the Sun
    Stood self-balanc'd. And Los smil'd with joy
    He the vast Spine of Urizen seiz'd,
    And bound down to the glowing Illusion.

    8. But no light! for the Deep fled away
    On all sides, and left an unform'd
    Dark Vacuity: here Urizen lay
    In fierce torments on his glowing bed;

    9. Till his Brain in a rock, and his Heart
    In a fleshy slough, formed four rivers,
    Obscuring the immense Orb of fire,
    Flowing down into night; till a Form
    Was completed, a Human Illusion,
    In darkness and deep clouds involv'd.