New Albion

“ By the 4th century B.C. this section was already beginning to be pressed northwards and westwards by the kindred Britons (or Brythons) who followed on their heels; for Aristotle (or a disciple of his) knows our islands as "the Britannic [12] Isles." That the Britons were in his day but new comers may be argued from the fact that he speaks of Great Britain by the name of Albion, a Gaelic designation subsequently driven northwards along with those who used it. In its later form Albyn it long remained as loosely equivalent to North Britain, and as Albany it still survives in a like connection. ”

“ She is understood to have spent much labour in the study of a new part, which she is about to introduce to us of the modern Babylon. But Albion, it is whispered, possesses other attractions for her besides appreciative audiences. In brief, though she will of course appear under the old name, she will in reality have changed it for one of another nationality before presenting herself in the radiance of the footlights. The happy man is Mr. Hubert Eldon, late of Wanley Manor. ”

“ To find a stream in the hills of far-off Mexico that recalled a mountain torrent of New England, spanned by just such a bridge as artists love to draw across our foaming brooks, was something that drew us all into the valley after the fortunate discoverer. ”

“ There is a goodly Colledge of Jesuites, who only preach to the Indians of that country. Nova Albion lyeth on the West side towards Tartary, and is very little inhabited by the Spaniards, who have found no wealth or riches there. Our ever Renowned and Noble Captain Sir Francis Drake discovered it, entred upon it, and hee named it Nova Albion, because the King that then was, did willingly submit himself unto our Queen Elizabeth.
The Country abounds with fruits pleasing both the eye and the Palate. The people are given to hospitality, but withall to witchcraft and adoration of devils. ”

“ At the close of the war he married a lady of Boston, and established himself there as a physician. He began the Albion in New York, June 22, 1822, as an English organ of conservative politics and through its interesting variety of miscellaneous reading this journal gained a wide circulation. ”

“ In sight, perhaps, of these mute memorials of ages past, the Spaniards and Indians fought a terrible battle. The savages had lain in ambush, and pounced upon them without warning, with shouts and yells, and such a sounding of sea-shells, trumpets, and turtle-shells that the hills seemed to shake. The astonished Spaniards fought bravely; they seem to have been superior men, in point of morals, to other armies that had invaded New Spain, and more deserving of sympathy than any that had preceded them. ”

“ But what will they all say when there appears the apparition of the great warrior who made their feeble exercise of power a possibility? Will they not shrink before his terrible features, and allow him a hearing without interruption? Cortes, the conqueror, the chosen of the Lord, the fighter for the faith, the murderer of Indians of royal blood, the founder of Spanish dominion in New Spain,—all must bow before him, unless the Aztecs, whom he destroyed, be allowed to have a voice in the matter. ”

“ For ourselves it forms a vantage-ground from which we seem to look at one glance over almost the whole of that fair province which stretches nearly to the continent, and lifts the white cliffs of Albion above the surges of the British channel. We think of the day when the standard bearer of the tenth legion bore the eagle of Cæsar to the shore amid the cries of the opposing Britons ”

“ It may, indeed, be assumed that Albion, or Albany, was the original name of Britain among its Celtic population, and that it only became restricted to the northwest provinces of Scotland when the Celts had for the most part become confined to the same region. The modern use of the name Albany may be said to have taken its rise in an act of a Scottish council, held at Scone, in June, 1398, when the title of Duke of Albany was conferred on the brother of King Robert III., then acting as regent of the kingdom. ”

“ The time will come when men will perceive that it is as monstrous for a father to bequeath to his son a controlling interest in a factory or a railroad, as it would now appear for a President of the United States to offer his daughter the city of New York as a dowry. ”

“ She stands like a stuffed image and rolls the whites of her eyes at the water."
The Englishwoman gave a yawn, put a new worm on, and dropped the hook into the water.
"I wonder at her not a little," Gryabov went on, "the great stupid has been living in Russia for ten years and not a word of Russian! . . . Any little aristocrat among us goes to them and learns to babble away in their lingo, while they . . . there's no making them out. Just look at her nose, do look at her nose!"
"Come, drop it . . . it's uncomfortable. Why attack a woman?" ”

“ I feel the iron threads of love & jealousy & despair.
50Vala reply'd. Albion is mine! Luvah gave me to Albion
And now recieves reproach & hate. Was it not said of old
Set your Son before a man & he shall take you & your sons
For slaves: but set your Daughter before a man & She
Shall make him & his sons & daughters your slaves for ever!
55And is this Faith? Behold the strife of Albion, & Luvah
Is great in the east, their spears of blood rage in the eastern heaven
Urizen is the champion of Albion, they will slay my Luvah:
And thou O harlot daughter! ”

“ But Los himself against Albions Sons his fury bends, for he
Dare not approach the Daughters openly lest he be consumed
In the fires of their beauty & perfection & be Vegetated beneath
Their Looms, in a Generation of death & resurrection to forgetfulness
10 They wooe Los continually to subdue his strength: he continually
Shews them his Spectre: sending him abroad over the four points of heaven
In the fierce desires of beauty & in the tortures of repulse! He is
The Spectre of the Living pursuing the Emanations of the Dead. ”

“ His stony members, he saw England. Ah! shall the Dead live again
5 The Breath Divine went forth over the morning hills Albion rose
In anger: the wrath of God breaking bright flaming on all sides around
His awful limbs: into the Heavens he walked clothed in flames
Loud thundring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning & pillars
Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms, in direful
10 Revolutions of Action & Passion, thro the Four Elements on all sides
Surrounding his awful Members. Thou seest the Sun in heavy clouds
Struggling to rise above the Mountains. ”

“ A sweet entrancing self-delusion a watry vision of Albion
40Soft exulting in existence; all the Man absorbing!
Albion fell upon his face prostrate before the watry Shadow
Saying O Lord whence is this change! thou knowest I am nothing!
And Vala trembled & coverd her face! & her locks were spread on the pavement
We heard astonishd at the Vision & our heart trembled within us:
45We heard the voice of slumberous Albion, and thus he spake,
Idolatrous to his own Shadow words of eternity uttering:
O I am nothing when I enter into judgment with thee! ”

“ I cannot put off the human form I strive but strive in vain
30 When Albion rent thy beautiful net of gold and silver twine;
Thou hadst woven it with art, thou hadst caught me in the bands
Of love; thou refusedst to let me go: Albion beheld thy beauty
Beautiful thro' our Love's comeliness, beautiful thro' pity.
The Veil shone with thy brightness in the eyes of Albion,
35 Because it inclosd pity & love; because we lov'd one-another!
Albion lov'd thee! he rent thy Veil! he embrac'd thee! he lov'd thee! ”

“ When he pities he propagates, and in the North his progeny are always unimaginative demonstrations. But Albion's spirit of Obedience and Law, his Angel, compels the youth, as they curse the pained heavens, parental potencies of Urizen, to submit to his ideas. The serpent-temple shadows the island, until Albion's angel in the flames of the desire for a more complete tyranny of literal over spiritual law, howling with a yearning like Orc's fiery passion, seeks the trump, the arousing instrument of the last mood of man, and therefore of the last doom. ”

“ In a sweet moony night & silence that they had created
With a blue sky spread over with wings and a mild moon,
45 Dividing & uniting into many female forms: Jerusalem
Trembling! then in one comingling in eternal tears,
Sighing to melt his Giant beauty, on the moony river.
Four Albion's daughters dancing with knives.
Albion's fallen body mourned by his daughters. ”

“ For if he be that Albion I can never weave him in my Looms
10 But when he touches the first fibrous thread, like filmy dew
My Looms will be no more & I annihilate vanish for ever
Then thou wilt Create another Female according to thy Will.
Los answerd swift as the shuttle of gold. Sexes must vanish & cease
To be, when Albion arises from his dread repose O lovely Enitharmon:
15 When all their Crimes, their Punishments their Accusations of Sin:
All their Jealousies Revenges. Murders. hidings of Cruelty in Deceit
Appear only in the Outward Spheres of Visionary Space and Time. ”

“ From this journal it was that almost every one in our Upper Canadian York who had the least taste for reading, derived the principal portion of his or her acquaintance with the outside world of letters, as well as the minuter details of prominent political events. As its name implies, the Albion was intended to meet the requirements of a large number of persons of English birth and of English descent, whose lot is cast on this continent, but who nevertheless cannot discharge from their hearts their natural love for England, their natural pride in her unequalled civilization. ”

“ The settlement at Albion, must undoubtedly possess some peculiar attractions for an English emigrant, promising him, as it does, the society of his own countrymen, an actual or ideal advantage, to which he is seldom insensible. Generally speaking, however, it may ultimately be as well for him, as for the community to which he attached himself, that he should become speedily incorporated with the people of the soil: many emigrants bring with them prejudices and predilections which can only be rubbed away by a free intercourse with the natives of the country. ”

“ Alternate they watch in night: alternate labour in day
80 Before the Furnaces labouring, while Los all night watches
The stars rising & setting, & the meteors & terrors of night!
With him went down the Dogs of Leutha, at his feet
They lap the water of the trembling Thames then follow swift
And thus he heard the voice of Albions daughters on Euphrates,
85 Our Father Albions land: O it was a lovely land! & the Daughters of Beulah
Walked up and down in its green mountains: but Hand is fled
Away: & mighty Hyle: & after them Jerusalem is gone: Awake [...] ”

“ Me some comfort: why do you all stand silent? I alone
Remain in permanent strength. Or is all this goodness & pity, only
That you may take the greater vengeance in your Sepulcher.
80So Los spoke. Pale they stood around the House of Death:
In the midst of temptations & despair: among the rooted Oaks:
Among reared Rocks of Albions Sons, at length they rose
PLATE 39
[ PLATE 39 [44] ]
With one accord in love sublime, & as on Cherubs wings
They Albion surround with kindest violence to bear him back
Against his will thro Los's Gate to Eden: Four-fold; loud! ”

“ Incessant before the Furnaces, and his Emanation divided in pain,
Eastward toward the Starry Wheels. But Westward, a black Horror,
PLATE 6
His spectre driv'n by the Starry Wheels of Albions sons, black and
Opake divided from his back; he labours and he mourns!
For as his Emanation divided, his Spectre also divided
In terror of those starry wheels: and the Spectre stood over Los
5Howling in pain: a blackning Shadow, blackning dark & opake
Cursing the terrible Los: bitterly cursing him for his friendship
To Albion, suggesting murderous thoughts against Albion. ”

“ Jerusalem The Emanation of The Giant Albion, copy E, object 56 (Bentley 56, Erdman 56, Keynes 56) "Then Los heaved his thund'ring Bellows on the Valley of Middlesex..."
PLATE 56
Then Los heaved his thund'ring Bellows on the Valley of Middlesex
And thus he chaunted his Song: the Daughters of Albion reply.
What may Man be? who can tell! But what may Woman be?
To have power over Man from Cradle to corruptible Grave. ”

“ Revolve upon his mountains groaning in pain: beneath
The dark incessant sky, seeking for rest and finding none:
Raging against their Human natures, ravning to gormandize
The Human majesty and beauty of the Twentyfour.
25 Condensing them into solid rocks with cruelty and abborrence
Suspition & revenge, & the seven diseases of the Soul
Settled around Albion and around Luvah in his secret cloud [.]
Willing the Friends endur'd, for Albions sake, and for
Jerusalem his Emanation shut within his bosom ”

“ Their own Parent the Emanation of their murderd Enemy
70 Become their Emanation and their Temple and Tabernacle
They knew not. this Vala was their beloved Mother Vala Albions Wife.
Terrified at the sight of the Victim: at his distorted sinews!
The tremblings of Vala vibrate thro' the limbs of Albions Sons:
While they rejoice over Luvah in mockery & bitter scorn:
75 Sudden they become like what they behold in howlings & deadly pain.
Spasms smite their features, sinews & limbs: pale they look on one another. ”