The Portable William Blake

by Blake, William

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]

  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.

  [NOTES WRITTEN ON THE PAGES OF THE FOUR ZOAS]

  Christ’s Crucifix shall be made an excuse for Executing Criminals.

  Till thou dost injure the distrest

  Thou shalt never have peace within thy breast.

  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.

  Unorganiz’d Innocence: An Impossibility.

  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

  PREFACE

  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.

  And did those feet in ancient time

  Walk upon England’s mountains green?

  And was the holy Lamb of God

  On England’s pleasant pastures seen?

  And did the Countenance Divine

  Shine forth upon our clouded hills?

  And was Jerusalem builded here

  Among these dark Satanic Mills?

  Bring me my Bow of burning gold:

  Bring me my Arrows of desire:

  Bring me my Spear: 0 clouds unfold!

  Bring me my Chariot of fire.

  I will not cease from Mental Fight,

  Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand

  Till we have built Jerusalem

  In England’s green & pleasant Land.

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

  Numbers, xi. ch., 29 v.

  [THE INVOCATION]

  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?

  [WISDOM AND SILENCE]

  “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.”

  [THE HAMMER OF LOS]

  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]

  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.

  [MILTON ROSE UP]

  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:

  I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,

  Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate

  And I be siez’d & giv’n into the hands of my own Selfhood.

  The Lamb of Cod is seen thro’ mists & shadows, hov’ring

  Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim,

  A disk of blood distant, & heav’ns & earths roll dark between.

  What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation?

  With the daughters of memory & not with the daughters of inspiration?

  I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One!

  He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells,

  To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.”

  And Milton said: “I go to Eternal Deathl” Eternity shudder’d,

  For he took the outside course among the graves of the dead,

  A mournful shade. Eternity shudder’d at the image of eternal death.

  [THE NATURE OF INFINITY]

  The nature of infinity is this: That every thing has its

  Own Vortex, and when once a traveller thro’ Eternity

  Has pass’d that Vortex, he percieves it roll backward behind

  His path, into a globe itself infolding like a sun,

  Or like a moon, or like a universe of starry majesty,

  While he keeps onwards in his wondrous journey on the earth,

  Or like a human form, a friend with whom he liv’d benevolent.

  As the eye of man views both the east & west encompassing

  Its vortex, and the north & south with all their starry host,

  Also the rising sun & setting moon he views surrounding

  His corn-fields and his valleys of five hundred acres square,

  Thus is the earth one infinite plane, and not as apparent To the weak traveller confin’d beneath the moony shade.

  Thus is the heaven a vortex pass’d already, and the earth

  A vortex not yet pass’d by the traveller thro’ Eternity.

  First Milton saw Albion upon the Rock of Ages,

  Deadly pale outstretch’d and snowy cold, storm cover’d,

  A Giant form of perfect beauty outstretch’d on the rock

  In solemn death: the Sea of Time & Space thunder’d aloud

  Against the rock, which was inwrapped with the weeds of death.

  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

  With thunders loud and terrible, so Milton’s shadow fell

  Precipitant, loud thund’ring into the Sea of Time & Space.

  [THE MUNDANE SHELL]

  The Mundane Shell is a vast Concave Earth, an immense

  Harden’d shadow of all things upon our Vegetated Earth,

  Enlarg’d into dimension & deform’d into indefinite space,

  In Twenty-seven Heavens and all their Hells, with Chaos

  And Ancient Night & Purgatory. It is a cavernous Earth

  Of labyrinthine intricacy, twenty-seven-folds of opake-ness,

  And finishes where the lark mounts.

  [OPEN YOUR HUMAN GATES]

  Now Albion’s sleeping Humanity began to turn upon his Couch,

  Feeling the electric flame of Milton’s awful precipitate descent.

  Seest thou the little winged fly, smaller than a grain of sand?

  It has a heart like thee, a brain open to heaven & hell,

  Withinside wondrous & expansive: its gates are not clos’d:

  I hope thine are not: hence it clothes itself in rich array:

  Hence thou art cloth’d with human beauty, O thou mortal man.

  Seek not thy heavenly father then beyond the skies,

&n
bsp; There Chaos dwells & ancient Night & Og & Anak old.

  For every human heart has gates of brass & bars of adamant

  Which few dare unbar, because dread Og & Anak guard the gates

  Terrific: and each mortal brain is wall’d and moated round

  Within, and Og & Anak watch here: here is the Seat

  Of Satan in its Webs: for in brain and heart and loins

  Gates open behind Satan’s Seat to the City of Colgonooza,

  Which is the spiritual fourfold London in the loins of Albion.

  [BLAKE AND MILTON]

  ... Milton entering my Foot, I saw in the nether

  Regions of the Imagination—also all men on Earth

  And all in Heaven saw in the nether regions of the Imagination

  In Ulro beneath Beulah—the vast breach of Milton’s descent.

  But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know

  What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time

  Reveal the secrets of Eternity: for more extensive

  Than any other earthly things are Man’s earthly lineaments.

  And all this Vegetable World appear’d on my left Foot

  As a bright sandal form’d immortal of precious stones & gold.

  I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro’ Eternity.

  [THE PROPHET]

  “I am that Shadowy Prophet who Six Thousand Years ago

  Fell from my station in the Eternal bosom. Six Thousand Years

  Are finish’d. I return! both Time & Space obey my will.