THE [FIRST] BOOK OF URIZEN
PLATE 2
PRELUDIUM TO THE [FIRST] BOOK OF URIZEN
Of the primeval Priests assum’d power,
When Eternals spurn’d back his religion;
And gave him place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals I hear your call gladly,
Dictate swift winged words, & fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.
PLATE 3
CHAP: I
1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!
Self-closed, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form’d this abominable void
This soul-shudd’ring vacuum? – Some said
’It is Urizen’, But unknown, abstracted
Brooding secret, the dark power hid.
2. Times on times he divided, & measur’d
Space by space in his ninefold darkness
10 Unseen, unknown! changes appeard
In his desolate mountains rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation
3. For he strove in battles dire
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness,
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.
4. Dark revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions;
20 An activity unknown and horrible;
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied
5. But Eternals beheld his vast forests
Age on ages he lay, clos’d, unknown,
Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific abominable chaos
6. His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
Prepar’d: his ten thousands of thunders
Rang’d in gloom’d array stretch out across
30 The dread world, & the rolling of wheels
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds
In his hills of stor’d snows, in his mountains
Of hail & ice; voices of terror,
Are heard, like thunders of autumn,
When the cloud blazes over the harvests
CHAP: II
1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all flexible senses.
Death was not, but eternal life sprung
40 2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll’d
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam’d
That solitary one in Immensity
3. Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity,
PLATE 4
Muster around the bleak desarts
Now fill’d with clouds, darkness & waters
That roll’d perplex’d labring & utter’d
Words articulate, bursting in thunders
That roll’d on the tops of his mountains
4: From the depths of dark solitude, From
The eternal abode in my holiness,
Hidden set apart in my stern counsels
Reserv’d for the days of futurity,
10 I have sought for a joy without pain,
For a solid without fluctuation
Why will you die O Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?
5 First I fought with the fire; consum’d
Inwards, into a deep world within:
A void immense, wild dark & deep,
Where nothing was; Natures wide womb
And self balanc’d stretch’d o’er the void
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
20 Bound; but condensing, in torrents
They fall & fall; strong I repell’d
The vast waves, & arose on the waters
A wide world of solid obstruction
6. Here alone I in books formd of metals
Have written the secrets of wisdom
The secrets of dark contemplation
By fightings and conflicts dire,
With terrible monsters Sin-bred:
Which the bosoms of all inhabit;
30 Seven deadly Sins of the soul.
7. Lo! I unfold my darkness: and on
This rock, place with strong hand the Book
Of eternal brass, written in my solitude.
8. Laws of peace, of love, of unity:
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness.
Let each chuse one habitation:
His ancient infinite mansion:
One command, one joy, one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure
40 One King, one God, one Law.
CHAP: III
1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness; his hand
On the rock of eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage siez’d the strong
In cataracts of fire blood & gall
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke:
And enormous forms of energy;
All the seven deadly sins of the soul
PLATE 5
In living creations appear’d
In the flames of eternal fury.
3. Sund’ring, dark’ning, thund’ring!
Rent away with a terrible crash
Eternity roll’d wide apart
Wide asunder rolling
Mountainous all around
Departing; departing; departing:
Leaving ruinous fragments of life
10 Hanging frowning cliffs & all between
An ocean of voidness unfathomable.
4. The roaring fires ran o’er the heav’ns
In whirlwinds & cataracts of blood
And o’er the dark desarts of Urizen
Fires pour thro’ the void on all sides
On Urizens self-begotten armies.
5. But no light from the fires. all was darkness
In the flames of Eternal fury
6. In fierce anguish & quenchless flames
20 To the desarts and rocks he ran raging
To hide, but he could not: combining
He dug mountains & hills in vast strength,
He piled them in incessant labour,
In howlings & pangs & fierce madness
Long periods in burning fires labouring
Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged,
In despair and the shadows of death.
7. And a roof, vast petrific around,
On all sides he fram’d: like a womb;
30 Where thousands of rivers in veins
Of blood pour down the mountains to cool
The eternal fires beating without
From Eternals; & like a black globe
View’d by sons of Eternity, standing
On the shore of the infinite ocean
Like a human heart strugling & beating
The vast world of Urizen appear’d.
8. And Los round the dark globe of Urizen,
Kept watch for Eternals to confine,
40 The obscure separation alone;
For Eternity stood wide apart,
PLATE 6
As the stars are apart from the earth
9. Los wept howling around the dark Demon:
And cursing his lot; for in anguish,
Urizen was rent from his side;
And a fathomless void for his feet;
And intense fires for his dwelling.
10. But Urizen laid in a stony sleep
Unorganiz’d, rent from Eternity
11. The Eternals said: What is this? Death[.]
10 Urizen is a clod of clay.
PLATE 7
12: Los howld in a dismal stupor,
Groaning! gnashing! groaning!
Till the wrenching apart was healed
13: But the wrenching of Urizen heal’d not
Cold, featureless, flesh or clay,
Rifted with direful changes
He lay in a dreamless night
14: Till Los rouz’d his fires, affrighted
At the formless unmeasurable death.
PLATE 8
CHAP: IV[a]
1: Los smitten with astonishment
Frightend at the hurtling bones
2: And at the surging sulphureous
Perturbed Immortal mad raging
3: In whirlwinds & pitch & nitre
Round the furious limbs of Los
4: And Los formed nets & gins
And threw the nets round about
5: He watch’d in shuddring fear
10 The dark changes & bound every change
With rivets of iron & brass;
6. And these were the changes of Urizen.
PLATE 10
CHAP: IV[b]
1. Ages on ages roll’d over him!
In stony sleep ages roll’d over him!
Like a dark waste stretching chang’able
By earthquakes riv’n, belching sullen fires
On ages roll’d ages in ghastly
Sick torment; around him in whirlwinds
Of darkness the eternal Prophet howl’d
Beating still on his rivets of iron
Pouring sodor of iron; dividing
10 The horrible night into watches.
2. And Urizen (so his eternal name)
His prolific delight obscurd more & more
In dark secresy hiding in surgeing
Sulphureous fluid his phantasies.
The Eternal Prophet heavd the dark bellows,
And turn’d restless the tongs; and the hammer
Incessant beat; forging chains new & new
Numb’ring with links. hours, days & years
3 The eternal mind bounded began to roll
20 Eddies of wrath ceaseless round & round,
And the sulphureous foam surgeing thick
Settled, a lake, bright, & shining clear:
White as the snow on the mountains cold.
4. Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity!
In chains of the mind locked up,
Like fetters of ice shrinking together
Disorganiz’d, rent from Eternity,
Los beat on his fetters of iron;
And heated his furnaces & pour’d
30 Iron sodor and sodor of brass
5. Restless turnd the immortal inchain’d
Heaving dolorous! anguish’d! unbearable
Till a roof shaggy wild inclos’d
In an orb, his fountain of thought.
6. In a horrible dreamful slumber;
Like the linked infernal chain;
A vast Spine writh’d in torment
Upon the winds; shooting pain’d
Ribs, like a bending cavern
And bones of solidness, froze
40 Over all his nerves of joy.
And a first Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
PLATE II
7. From the caverns of his jointed Spine,
Down sunk with fright a red
Round globe hot burning deep
Deep down into the Abyss:
Panting: Conglobing, Trembling
Shooting out ten thousand branches
Around his solid bones.
And a second Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.
10 8. In harrowing fear rolling round;
His nervous brain shot branches
Round the branches of his heart.
On high into two little orbs
And fixed in two little caves
Hiding carefully from the wind,
His Eyes beheld the deep,
And a third Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.
9. The pangs of hope began,
20 In heavy pain striving, struggling.
Two Ears in close volutions.
From beneath his orbs of vision
Shot spiring out and petrified
As they grew. And a fourth Age passed
And a state of dismal woe.
10. In ghastly torment sick;
Hanging upon the wind;
PLATE 13
Two Nostrils bent down to the deep.
And a fifth Age passed over;
And a state of dismal woe.
11. In ghastly torment sick;
Within his ribs bloated round,
A craving Hungry Cavern;
Thence arose his channeld Throat,
And like a red flame a Tongue
Of thirst & of hunger appeard.
10 And a sixth Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.
12. Enraged & stifled with torment
He threw his right Arm to the north
His left Arm to the south
Shooting out in anguish deep,
And his Feet stampd the nether Abyss
In trembling & howling & dismay.
And a seventh Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.
CHAP: V
20 1. In terrors Los shrunk from his task:
His great hammer fell from his hand:
His fires beheld, and sickening,
Hid their strong limbs in smoke.
For with noises ruinous loud;
With hurtlings & clashings & groans
The Immortal endur’d his chains,
Tho’ bound in a deadly sleep.
2. All the myriads of Eternity:
All the wisdom & joy of life:
30 Roll like a sea around him,
Except what his little orbs
Of sight by degrees unfold.
3. And now his eternal life
Like a dream was obliterated
4. Shudd’ring, the Eternal Prophet smote
With a stroke, from his north to south region
The bellows & hammer are silent now
A nerveless silence, his prophetic voice
Siez’d; a cold solitude & dark void
40 The Eternal Prophet & Urizen clos’d
5. Ages on ages rolld over them
Cut off from life & light frozen
Into horrible forms of deformity
Los suffer’d his fires to decay
Then he look’d back with anxious desire
But the space undivided by existence
Struck horror into his soul.
6. Los wept obscur’d with mourning:
His bosom earthquak’d with sighs;
50 He saw Urizen deadly black,
In his chains bound, & Pity began,
7. In anguish dividing & dividing
For pity divides the soul
In pangs eternity on eternity
Life in cataracts pourd down his cliffs
The void shrunk the lymph into Nerves
Wand’ring wide on the bosom of night
And left a round globe of blood
Trembling upon the Void
PLATE 15
Thus the Eternal Prophet was divided
Before the death-image of Urizen
For in changeable clouds and darkness
In a winterly night beneath,
The Abyss of Los stretch’d immense:
And now seen now obscur’d to the eyes
Of Eternals, the visions remote
Of the dark seperation appear’d.
As glasses discover Worlds
10 In the endless Abyss of space,
So the expanding eyes of Immortals
Beheld the dark visions of Los,
And the globe of life blood trembling.
PLATE 18
8. The globe of life blood trembled
Branching out into roots;
Fibrous, writhing upon the winds;
Fibres of blood, milk and tears;
In pangs, eternity on eternity.
At leng
th in tears & cries imbodied
A female form trembling and pale
Waves before his deathly face
9. All Eternity shudderd at sight
10 Of the first female now separate
Pale as a cloud of snow
Waving before the face of Los
10. Wonder, awe, fear, astonishment,
Petrify the eternal myriads;
At the first female form now separate
PLATE 19
They call’d her Pity, and fled
11. ‘Spread a Tent, with strong curtains around them
‘Let cords & stakes bind in the Void
That Eternals may no more behold them’
12. They began to weave curtains of darkness
They erected large pillars round the Void
With golden hooks fastend in the pillars
With infinite labour the Eternals
A woof wove, and called it Science
CHAP: VI
10 1. But Los saw the Female & pitied
He embrac’d her, she wept, she refus’d
In perverse and cruel delight
She fled from his arms, yet he followd
2. Eternity shudder’d when they saw,
Man begetting his likeness,
On his own divided image.
3. A time passed over, the Eternals
Began to erect a tent;
When Enitharmon, sick,
20 Felt a Worm within her womb.
4. Yet helpless it lay like a Worm
In the trembling womb
To be moulded into existence
5. All day the worm lay on her bosom
All night within her womb
The worm lay till it grew to a serpent
With dolorous hissings & poisons
Round Enitharmons loins folding,
6. Coild within Enitharmons womb
30 The serpent grew casting its scales,
With sharp pangs the hissings began
To change to a grating cry,
Many sorrows and dismal throes
Many forms of fish, bird & beast,
Brought forth an Infant form
Where was a worm before.
7. The Eternals their tent finished
Alarm’d with these gloomy visions
When Enitharmon groaning
40 Produc’d a man Child to the light.
8. A shriek ran thro’ Eternity:
And a paralytic stroke;
At the birth of the Human shadow.
9. Delving earth in his resistless way;
Howling, the Child with fierce flames
Issu’d from Enitharmon.
10. The Eternals, closed the tent:
They beat down the stakes the cords
PLATE 20
Stretch’d for a work of eternity;
No more Los beheld Eternity.
11. In his hands he siez’d the infant
He bathed him in springs of sorrow
He gave him to Enitharmon.
CHAP: VII
1. They named the child Orc, he grew
Fed with milk of Enitharmon
2. Los awoke her; O sorrow & pain!