The Portable William Blake (40 page)

Naked & pale standing in the expecting air, to be deliver’ d.

Rend limb from limb the warrior & the tyrant, reuniting in pain.”

 

The furious wind still rends around; they flee in sluggish effort;

They beg, they intreat in vain now; they listened not to intreaty;

They view the flames red rolling on thro’ the wide universe

From the dark jaws of death beneath & desolate shores remote,

These covering vaults of heaven & these trembling globes of earth.

One Planet calls to another & one star enquires 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 on intense roaring.

They see him whom they have pierc’d, 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 & saying:

“Brother of Jesus, what have I done? intreat 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 & behold him who was crucified.

The morning dawn’d. Urizen rose, & 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 Nations were threshed out, & the stars thresh’d from their husks.

 

Then Tharmas took the Winnowing fan; the winnowing wind furious

Above, veer’d round by violent whirlwind, driven west & south,

Tossed the Nations like chaff into the seas of Tharmas.

 

“O Mystery,” Fieree Tharmas cries, “Behold thy end is come !

Art thou she that made the nations drunk with the cup of Religion?

Go down, ye Kings & Councellors & Giant Warriors,

Go down into the depths, go down & hide yourselves beneath,

Go down with horse & Chariots & Trumpets of hoarse war.

 

“Lo, how the Pomp of Mystery goes down into the Caves!

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

Her delicate women & children shriek upon the bitter wind,

Spoil’d of their beauty, their hair rent & their skin shrivel’ d up.

 

“Lo, darkness covers the long pomp of banners on the wind,

And black horses & armed men & miserable bound captives.

Where shall the graves recieve them all, & where shall be their place?

And who shall mourn for Mystery who never loos’d her Captives?

 

“Let the slave, grinding at the mill, run out into the field;

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

Let the inchained soul, shut up in darkness & in sighing,

Whose face has never seen a smile in thirty weary years,

Rise & look out: his chains are loose, his dungeon doors are open;

And let his wife & children return from the opressor’s scourge.

 

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

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

Where are your bonds & 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,

The good of all the Land is before you, for Mystery is no more.”

The Sun has left his blackness & has found a fresher morning,

And the mild moon rejoices in the clear & cloudless night,

And Man walks forth from midst of the fires: the evil is all consum’d.

His eyes behold the Angelic spheres arising night & day;

The stars consum’d like a lamp blown out, & in their stead, behold

The Expanding Eyes of Man behold the depths of wondrous worlds!

One Earth, one sea beneath; nor Erring Globes wander, but Stars

Of fire rise up nightly from the Ocean; & one Sun

Each morning, like a New born Man, issues with songs & joy

Calling the Plowman to his Labour & the Shepherd to his rest.

He walks upon the Eternal Mountains, raising his heavenly voice,

Conversing with the Animal forms of wisdom night & day,

That, risen from the Sea of fire, renew’d walk o’er the Earth;

For Tharmas brought his flocks upon the hills, & in the Vales

Around the Eternal Man’s bright tent, the little Children play

Among the wooly flocks. The hammer of Urthona sounds

In the deep caves beneath; his limbs renew’d, his Lions roar

Around the Furnaces & in Evening sport upon the plains.

They raise their faces from the Earth, conversing with the Man:

 

“How is it we have walk’d thro’ fires & yet are not con-sum’ d?

How is it that all things are chang’d, even as in ancient times?”

 

The Sun arises from his dewy bed, & 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 Los.

Where is the Spectre of Prophecy? where is the delusive Phantom?

Departed: & Urthona rises 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,

The dark Religions are departed & sweet Science reigns.

 

The Christian Religion teaches that No Man is Indifferent to you, but that every one is Either your friend or your enemy; he must necessarily be either the one or the other, And that he will be equally profitable both ways if you treat him as he deserves.

 

Innocence dwells with Wisdom, but never with Ignorance.

From
MILTON

(1804-1808)

A POEM IN 2 BOOKS

 

To Justify the Ways of God to Men

The Stolen and Perverted Writings of Homer & Ovid, of Plato & Cicero, which all men ought to contemn, are set up by artifice against the Sublime of the Bible; but when the New Age is at leisure to Pronounce, all will be set right, & those Grand Works of the more ancient & consciously & professedly Inspired Men will hold their proper rank, & the Daughters of Memory shall become the Daughters of Inspiration. Shakspeare & Milton were both curb’d by the general malady & infection from the silly Greek & Latin slaves of the Sword.

Rouze up, 0 Young Men of the New Age! set your foreheads against the ignorant Hirelingsl For we have Hirelings in the Camp, the Court & the University, who would, if they could, for ever depress Mental & prolong Corporeal War. Painters! on you I call. Sculptors! Architects! Suffer not the fashonable Fools to depress your powers by the prices they pretend to give for contemptible works, or the expensive advertizing boasts that they make of such works; believe Christ & his Apostles that there is a Class of Men whose whole delight is in Destroying. We do not want either Greek or Roman Models if we are but just & true to our own Imaginations, those Worlds of Eternity in which we shall live for ever in JESUS OUR LORD.

“Would to God that all the Lord’s people were Prophets.”

Daughters of Beulahl Muses who inspire the Poet’s Song,

Record the journey of immortal Milton thro’ your Realms

Of terror & mild moony lustre in soft sexual delusions

Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer and repose

His burning thirst & freezing hungerl Come into my hand,

By your mild power descending down the Nerves of my right arm

From out the portals of my Brain, where by your ministry

The Eternal Great Humanity Divine planted his Paradise

And in it caus’d the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms

In likeness of himself. Tell also of the False Tonguel vegetated

Beneath your land of shadows, of its sacrifices and

Its offerings: even till Jesus, the image of the Invisible God,

Became its prey, a curse, an offering and an atonement

For Death Eternal in the heavens of Albion & before the Gates

Of Jerusalem his Emanation, in the heavens beneath Beulah.

 

Say first! what mov’d Milton, who walk’d about in Eternity

One hundred years, pond’ring the intricate mazes of Providence,

Unhappy tho’ in heav‘n-he obey’d, he murmur’d not, he was silent

Viewing his Sixfold Emanation scatter’d thro’ the deep

In torment—To go into the deep her to redeem & himself perish?

“If you account it Wisdom when you are angry to be silent and

Not to shew it, I do not account that Wisdom, but Folly.

Every Man’s Wisdom is peculiar to his own Individuality.”

Loud sounds the Hammer of Los & loud his BeHows is heard

Before London to Hampstead’s breadths & Highgate’s heights, To

Stratford & old Bow & across to the Gardens of Kensington

On Tyburn’s Brook: loud groans Thames beneath the iron Forge

Of Rintrah & Palamabron, of Theotorm & Bromion, to forge the instruments

Of Harvest, the Plow & Harrow to pass over the Nations.

 

The Surrey hills glow like the clinkers of the furnace; Lambeth’s Vale

Where Jerusalem’s foundations began, where they were laid in ruins,

Where they were laid in ruins from every Nation, & Oak Groves rooted,

Dark gleams before the Furnace-mouth a heap of burning ashes.

When shall Jerusalem return & overspread all the Nations?

Return, return to Lambeth’s Vale, O building of human souls!

Thence stony Druid Temples overspread the Island white,

And thence from Jerusalem’s ruins, from her walls of salvation

And praise, thro’ the whole Earth were rear’d from Ireland

To Mexico & Peru west, & east to China & Japan, till Babel

The Spectre of Albion frown’d over the Nations in glory & war.

All things begin & end in Albion’s ancient Druid rocky shore:

But now the Starry Heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of Albion.

 

Loud sounds the Hammer of Los, loud turn the Wheels of Enitharmon:

Her Looms vibrate with soft affections, weaving the Web of Life,

Out from the ashes of the Dead; Los lifts his iron Ladles

With molten ore: he heaves the iron cliffs in his rattling chains

From Hyde Park to the Alms-houses of Mile-end & old Bow.

Here the Three Classes of Mortal Men take their fix’d destinations,

And hence they overspread the Nations of the whole Earth, & hence

The Web of Life is woven & the tender sinews of life created ...

Los in his wrath curs’d heaven & earth; he rent up Nations,

Standing on Albion’s rocks among high-rear’d Druid temples

Which reach the stars of heaven & stretch from pole to pole.

He displaced continents, the oceans fled before his face:

He alter’d the poles of the world, east, west & north & south,

But he clos’d up Enitharmon from the sight of all these things.

Then Milton rose up from the heavens of Albion ardorous.

 

The whole Assembly wept prophetic, seeing in Milton’s face

And in his lineaments divine the shades of Death & Ulro:

He took off the robe of the promise & ungirded himself from the oath of Cod.

 

And Milton said: “I go to Eternal Deathl The Nations still

Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam, in pomp

Of warlike selfhood contradicting and blaspheming.

When will the Resurrection come to deliver the sleeping body

From corruptibility? 0 when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come?

Tarry no longer, for my soul lies at the gates of death.

I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave:

I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks: