William Blake

“ Upon the sunny brooks & meadows: every one the dance
Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave:
5⁠Each 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
10⁠Of men: These are the Sons of Los: These the Visions of Eternity. ”

“ 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
45⁠With thunders loud and terrible: so Milton's shadow fell
Precipitant loud thund'ring into the Sea of Time & Space. ”

“ While the poor indigent is like the diamond which tho' cloth'd
In ragged covering in the mine, is open all within
And in his hallow'd center holds the heavens of bright eternity.
Ozoth here builds walls of rocks against the surging sea,
40⁠And timbers crampt with iron cramps bar in the joys of life
From fell destruction in the Spectrous cunning or rage. He Creates
The speckled Newt, the Spider & Beetle, the Rat & Mouse,
The Badger & Fox: they worship before his feet in trembling fear. ”

“ A self-devouring monstrous Human Death Twenty seven fold:
Within it sit Five Females & the nameless Shadowy Mother,
Spinning it from their bowels with songs of amorous delight
And melting cadences that lure the Sleepers of Beulah down
30⁠The River Storge (which is Arnon) into the Dead Sea:
Around this Polypus Los continual builds the Mundane Shell.
Four Universes round the Universe of Los remain Chaotic,
Four intersecting Globes, & the Egg form'd World of Los
In midst: stretching from Zenith to Nadir, in midst of Chaos. ”

“ And between every two Moments stands a Daughter of Beulah
To feed the Sleepers on their Couches with maternal care.
50⁠And every Minute has an azure Tent with silken Veils:
And every Hour has a bright golden Gate carved with skill:
And every Day & Night has Walls of brass & Gates of adamant,
Shining like precious Stones & ornamented with appropriate signs:
And every Month a silver paved Terrace builded high:
55⁠And every Year invulnerable Barriers with high Towers:
And every Age is Moated deep with Bridges of silver & gold:
And every Seven Ages is Incircled with a Flaming Fire. ”

“ To Natural Religion! to Tirzah, the Daughter of Rahab the Holy:
55⁠She ties the knot of nervous fibres into a white brain!
She ties the knot of bloody veins into a red hot heart!
Within her bosom Albion lies embalm'd, never to awake.
Hand is become a rock: Sinai & Horeb is Hyle & Coban:
Scofield is bound in iron armour before Reuben's Gate:
60⁠She ties the knot of milky seed into two lovely Heavens,
P. 18 TWO yet but one; each in the other sweet reflected: these
Are our Three Heavens beneath the shades of Beulah, land of rest:
Come then to Ephraim & Manasseh, O beloved-one! ”

“ MILTON
Contraries are Positives:
A Negation is not a Contrary.
BOOK THE SECOND
THERE is a place where Contraries are equally True:
This place is called Beulah. It is a pleasure lovely Shadow
Where no dispute can come, Because of those who Sleep.
Into this place the Sons & Daughters of Ololon descended
5⁠With solemn mourning, into Beulah's moony shades & hills
Weeping for Milton: mute wonder held the Daughters of Beulah,
Enraptur'd with affection sweet and mild benevolence.
Beulah is evermore created around Eternity; appearing
To the Inhabitants of Eden around them on all sides. ”

“ Satan: Ah me! is gone to his own place, said Los: their Gods
I will not worship in their Churches, nor King in their Theatres.
Elynittria! whence is this Jealousy running along the mountains?
15⁠British Women were not Jealous when Greek & Roman were Jealous.
Every thing in Eternity shines by its own Internal light: but thou
Darkenest every Internal light with the arrows of thy quiver,
Bound up in the horns of Jealousy to a deadly fading Moon.
And Ocalythron binds the Sun into a Jealous Globe,
20⁠That every thing is fix'd, Opake without Internal light. ”

“ When thou attemptest to put on the Human Form, my wrath
Burns to the top of heaven against thee in Jealousy & Fear.
Then I rend thee asunder, then I howl over thy clay & ashes.
When wilt thou put on the Female Form as in times of old,
35⁠With a Garment of Pity & Compassion like the Garment of God?
His Garments are long sufferings for the Children of Men,
Jerusalem is his Garment & not thy Covering Cherub, O lovely
Shadow of my delight, who wanderest seeking for the prey. ”

“ Driving the Harrow in Pity's paths: 'twas then, with our dark fires
Which now gird round us (O eternal torment) I form'd the Serpent
30⁠Of precious stones & gold, turn'd poisons on the sultry wastes.
The Gnomes in all that day spar'd not; they curs'd Satan bitterly.
To do unkind things in kindness: with power arm'd to say
The most irritating things in the midst of tears and love:
These are the stings of the Serpent! thus did we by them, till thus
35⁠They in return retaliated, and the Living Creatures madden'd.
The Gnomes labour'd. I weeping hid in Satan's inmost brain. ”

“ Thus the return of Milton was not only to effect the deliverance of Blake but the redemption of his own imagination from the state of bondage into which it had fallen during his lifetime owing to the detestable nature of his religion. He was to put off the "hypocritic holiness" and to embrace the forgiveness of sins; for "every religion that preaches vengeance for sin is the religion of the enemy or avenger." The doctrine of the forgiveness of sins and of "the mutual annihilation of each for another's good" is one of the principal themes of the poem. ”

“ To Mortals thy Mills seem every thing, & the Harrow of Shaddai
A Scheme of Human Conduct invisible & incomprehensible.
Get to thy Labours at the Mills & leave me to my wrath.
15⁠Satan was going to reply, but Los roll'd his loud thunders.
Anger me not! thou canst not drive the Harrow in pity's paths:
Thy Work is Eternal Death with Mills & Ovens & Cauldrons.
Trouble me no more, thou canst not have Eternal Life.
So Los spoke: Satan trembling obey'd, weeping along the way. ”

“ The dominion of this malignant spectre was daily increasing, and even Blake himself, who was in so little the child of his own age, was not able to escape entirely from its pernicious influence. For every man is born with the instincts of his time, which are ineradicable from his natural state, and if these instincts are altogether corrupt and worldly, it is only in the power of a supreme imaginative intelligence to eliminate their tendency. ”

“ 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 & con-
5⁠sciously & professedly Inspired Men will hold their proper rank & the
Daughters of Memory shall become the Daughters of Inspiration. ”

“ It was a time when the emanative portion of the universal manhood had fallen into a deep sleep, and before it could be awakened and resume its place in the fourfold harmony of human existence, it was necessary that the "selfish" spectre should be compelled to resign the power which it had usurped. ”

“ And comes forth in the majesty of beauty: every Flower,
The Pink, the Jessamine, the Wall-flower, the Carnation
60⁠The Jonquil, the mild Lilly opes her heavens; every Tree
And Flower & Herb soon fill the air with an innumerable Dance,
Yet all in order sweet & lovely, Men are sick with Love:
Such is a Vision of the Lamentation of Beulah over Ololon. ”

“ In The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Blake criticizes, it is true, Paradise Lost, because in it the restrainer of reason, (Urizen-Jehovah) who is by Milton called Messiah, is made to cast out desire or energy (Satan) , which "is the only life"; for, as he contemptuously observes, "those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained," and, as he further explains, in A Vision of the Last Judgment, "Men are admitted into heaven, not because they have curbed and governed their passions, or have no passions, but because they have cultivated their understandings. ”

“ Stamped the nether abyss in trembling and howling and dismay.
And a seventh age passed over, and a state of dismal woe.
Terrified, Los stood in the abyss, and his immortal limbs
Grew deadly pale. He became what he beheld, for a red
30⁠Round globe sunk down from his Bosom into the Deep. In pangs
He hovered, it trembling and weeping. Trembling it shook
The nether abyss in tremblings. He wept over it, he cherished it
In deadly, sickening pain, till separated into a female pale
As the cloud that brings the snow. ”

“ Why in a Great Solemn Assembly
The Innocent should be condemn'd for the Guilty? Then an Eternal rose,
Saying: If the Guilty should be condemn'd he must be an Eternal Death,
And one must die for another throughout all Eternity.
Satan is fall'n from his station & never can be redeem'd,
20⁠But must be new Created continually moment by moment.
And therefore the Class of Satan shall be call'd the Elect, & those
Of Rintrah the Reprobate, & those of Palamabron the Redeem'd:
For he is redeem'd from Satan's Law, the wrath falling on Rintrah. ”

“ It is the logic which abhors and contemns everything it cannot explain. It is, in art, the method pursued by those who believe that genius can be acquired by taking pains, who "turn that which is soul and life into a mill or machine." ”