The Complete Poems

by William Blake

  For when Los joind with me he took me in his firy whirlwind

  My Vegetated portion was hurried from Lambeths shades

  He set me down in Felphams Vale & prepard a beautiful

  Cottage for me that in three years I might write all these Visions

  To display Natures cruel holiness: the deceits of Natural Religion[.]

  Walking in my Cottage Garden, sudden I beheld

  The Virgin Ololon & address’d her as a Daughter of Beulah

  Virgin of Providence fear not to enter into my Cottage

  What is thy message to thy friend? What am I now to do

  30 Is it again to plunge into deeper affliction? behold me

  Ready to obey, but pity thou my Shadow of Delight

  Enter my Cottage, comfort her, for she is sick with fatigue

  PLATE 37

  The Virgin answerd. Knowest thou of Milton who descended

  Driven from Eternity; him I seek! terrified at my Act

  In Great Eternity which thou knowest! I come him to seek

  So Ololon utterd in words distinct the anxious thought

  Mild was the voice, but more distinct than any earthly

  That Miltons Shadow heard & condensing all his Fibres

  Into a strength impregnable of majesty & beauty infinite

  I saw he was the Covering Cherub and within him Satan

  And Raha[b], in an outside which is fallacious! within

  10 Beyond the outline of Identity, in the Selfhood deadly

  And he appeard the Wicker Man of Scandinavia in whom

  Jerusalems children consume in flames among the Stars

  Descending down into my Garden, a Human Wonder of God

  Reaching from heaven to earth a Cloud & Human Form

  I beheld Milton with astonishment & in him beheld

  The Monstrous Churches of Beulah, the Gods of Ulro dark

  Twelve monstrous dishumanizd terrors Synagogues of Satan.

  A Double Twelve & Thrice Nine: such their divisions.

  And these their Names & their Places within the Mundane Shell

  20 In Tyre & Sidon I saw Baal & Ashtaroth. In Moab Chemosh

  In Ammon, Molech: loud his Furnaces rage among the Wheels

  Of Og, & pealing loud the cries of the Victims of Fire:

  And pale his Priestesses infolded in Veils of Pestilence, border’d

  With War; Woven in Looms of Tyre & Sidon by beautiful Ashtaroth.

  In Palestine Dagon, Sea Monster! worshipd o’er the Sea.

  Thammuz in Lebanon & Rimmon in Damascus curtaind

  Osiris: Isis: Orus: in Egypt: dark their Tabernacles on Nile

  Floating with solemn songs, & on the Lakes of Egypt nightly

  With pomp, even till morning break & Osiris appear in the sky

  30 But Belial of Sodom & Gomorrha, obscure Demon of Bribes

  And secret Assasinations, not worshipd nor adord; but

  With the finger on the lips & the back turnd to the light

  And Saturn Jove & Rhea of the Isles of the Sea remote

  These Twelve Gods, are the Twelve Spectre Sons of the Druid Albion

  And these the names of the Twenty-seven Heavens & their Churches

  Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch,

  Methuselah, Lamech: these are Giants mighty Hermaphroditic

  Noah, Shem, Arphaxad, Cainan the second, Salah, Heber,

  Peleg, Reu, Serug, Nahor, Terah, these are the Female-Males

  40 A Male within a Female hid as in an Ark & Curtains,

  Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Paul, Constantine, Charlemaine

  Luther, these seven are the Male-Females, the Dragon Forms

  Religion hid in War, a Dragon red & hidden Harlot

  All these are seen in Miltons Shadow who is the Covering Cherub

  The Spectre of Albion in which the Spectre of Luvah inhabits

  In the Newtonian Voids between the Substances of Creation

  For the Chaotic Voids outside of the Stars are measured by

  The Stars, which are the boundaries of Kingdoms, Provinces

  And Empires of Chaos invisible in the Vegetable Man

  50 The Kingdom of Og, is in Orion: Sihon is in Ophiucus

  Og has Twenty-seven Districts; Sihons Districts Twenty-one

  From Star to Star, Mountains & Valleys, terrible dimension

  Stretchd out, compose the Mundane Shell, a mighty Incrustation

  Of Forty-eight deformed Human Wonders of the Almighty

  With Caverns whose remotest bottoms meet again beyond

  The Mundane Shell in Golgonooza, but the Fires of Los, rage

  In the remotest bottoms of the Caves, that none can pass

  Into Eternity that way, but all descend to Los

  To Bowlahoola & Allamanda & to Entuthon Benython

  60 The Heavens are the Cherub, the Twelve Gods are Satan

  PLATE 38

  And the Forty-eight Starry Regions are Cities of the Levites

  The Heads of the Great Polypus, Four-fold twelve enormity

  In mighty & mysterious comingling enemy with enemy

  Woven by Urizen into Sexes from his mantle of years

  And Milton collecting all his fibres into impregnable strength

  Descended down a Paved work of all kinds of precious stones

  Out from the eastern sky; descending down into my Cottage

  Garden: clothed in black, severe & silent he descended.

  The Spectre of Satan stood upon the roaring sea & beheld

  10 Milton within his sleeping Humanity: trembling & sbuddring

  He stood upon the waves a Twenty-seven-fold mighty Demon

  Gorgeous & beautiful: loud roll his thunders against Milton

  Loud Satan thunderd, loud & dark upon mild Felpham shore

  Not daring to touch one fibre he howld round upon the Sea.

  I also stood in Satans bosom & beheld its desolations!

  A ruind Man: a ruind building of God not made with hands;

  Its plains of burning sand, its mountains of marble terrible:

  Its pits & declivities flowing with molten orc & fountains

  Of pitch & nitre: its ruind palaces & cities & mighty works;

  20 Its furnaces of affliction in which his Angels & Emanations

  Labour with blackend visages among its stupendous ruins

  Arches & pyramids & porches colonades & domes:

  In which dwells Mystery Babylon, here is her secret place

  From hence she comes forth on the Churches in delight

  Here is her Cup filld with its poisons, in these horrid vales

  And here her scarlet Veil woven in pestilence & war:

  Here is Jerusalem bound in chains, in the Dens of Babylon

  In the Eastern porch of Satans Universe Milton stood &said

  Satan! my Spectre! I know my power thee to annihilate

  30 And be a greater in thy place, & be thy Tabernacle

  A covering for thee to do thy will, till one greater comes

  And smites me as I smote thee & becomes my covering.

  Such are the Laws of thy false Heavns! but Laws of Eternity

  Are not such: know thou: I come to Self Annihilation

  Such are the Laws of Eternity that each shall mutually

  Annihilate himself for others good, as I for thee[.]

  Thy purpose & the purpose of thy Priests & of thy Churches

  Is to impress on men the fear of death; to teach

  Trembling & fear, terror, constriction; abject selfishness

  40 Mine is to teach Men to despise death & to go on

  In fearless majesty annihilating Self, laughing to scorn

  Thy Laws & terrors, shaking down thy Synagogues as webs

  I come to discover before Heavn & Hell the Self righteousness

  In all its Hypocritic turpitude, opening to every eye

  These wonders of Satans holiness shewing to the Earth

  The Idol Virtues of the Natural Heart
, & Satans Seat

  Explore in all its Selfish Natural Virtue & put off

  In Self annihilation all that is not of God alone:

  To put off Self & all I have ever & ever Amen

  50 Satan heard! Coming in a cloud, with trumpets & flaming fire,

  Saying I am God the judge of all, the living & the dead

  Fall therefore down & worship me. submit thy supreme

  Dictate, to my eternal Will & to my dictate bow

  I hold the Balances of Right & Just & mine the Sword

  Seven Angels bear my Name & in those Seven I appear

  But I alone am God & I alone in Heavn & Earth

  Of all that live dare utter this, others tremble & bow

  PLATE 39

  Till All Things become One Great Satan, in Holiness

  Oppos’d to Mercy, and the Divine Delusion Jesus be no more

  Suddenly around Milton on my Path, the Starry Seven

  Burnd terrible! my Path became a solid fire, as bright

  As the clear Sun & Milton silent came down on my Path.

  And there went forth from the Starry limbs of the Seven: Forms

  Human; with Trumpets innumerable, sounding articulate

  As the Seven spake; and they stood in a mighty Column of Fire

  Surrounding Felphams Vale, reaching to the Mundane Shell, Saying

  10 Awake Albion awake! reclaim thy Reasoning Spectre. Subdue

  Him to the Divine Mercy, Cast him down into the Lake

  Of Los, that ever burneth with fire, ever & ever Amen!

  Let the Four Zoa’s awake from Slumbers of Six Thousand Years

  Then loud the Furnaces of Los were heard! & seen as Seven Heavens

  Stretching from south to north over the mountains of Albion

  Satan heard; trembling round his Body, he incircled it

  He trembled with exceeding great trembling & astonishment

  Howling in his Spectre round his Body hungring to devour

  But fearing for the pain for if he touches a Vital,

  20 His torment is unendurable: therefore he cannot devour:

  But howls round it as a lion round his prey continually.

  Loud Satan thunderd, loud & dark upon mild Felphams Shore

  Coming in a Cloud with Trumpets & with Fiery Flame

  An awful Form eastward from midst of a bright Paved-work

  Of precious stones by Cherubim surrounded: so permitted

  (Lest he should fall apart in his Eternal Death) to imitate

  The Eternal Great Humanity Divine surrounded by

  His Cherubim & Seraphim in every happy Eternity

  Beneath sat Chaos: Sin on his right hand Death on his left

  30 And Ancient Night spread over all the heavn his Mantle of Laws

  He trembled with exceeding great trembling & astonishment

  Then Albion rose up in the Night of Beulah on his Couch

  Of dread repose seen by the visionary eye; his face is toward

  The east, toward Jerusalems Gates: groaning he sat above

  His rocks. London & Bath & Legions & Edinburgh

  Are the four pillars of his Throne; his left foot near London

  Covers the shades of Tyburn: his instep from Windsor

  To Primrose Hill stretching to Highgate & Holloway

  London is between his knees: its basements fourfold

  40 His right foot stretches to the sea on Dover cliffs, his heel

  On Canterbutys ruins; his right hand covers lofty Wales

  His left Scotland; his bosom girt with gold involves

  York, Edinburgh, Durham & Carlisle & on the front

  Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich; his right elbow

  Leans on the Rocks of Erins Land, Ireland ancient nation[.]

  His head bends over London: he sees his embodied Spectre

  Trembling before him with exceeding great trembling & fear

  He views Jerusalem & Babylon, his tears flow down

  He movd his right foot to Cornwall, his left to the Rocks of Bognor

  50 He strove to rise to walk into the Deep. but strength failing

  Forbad & down with dreadful groans he sunk upon his Couch

  In moony Beulah. Los his strong Guard walks round beneath the Moon

  Urizen faints in terror striving among the Brooks of Arnon

  With Miltons Spirit: as the Plowman or Artificer or Shepherd

  While in the labours of his Calling sends his Thought abroad

  To labour in the ocean or in the starry heaven, So Milton

  Labourd in Chasms of the Mundane Shell, tho here before

  My Cottage midst the Starry Seven, where the Virgin Ololon

  Stood trembling in the Porch: loud Satan thunder’d on the stormy Sea

  60 Circling Albions Cliffs in which the Four-fold World resides

  Tho seen in fallacy outside: a fallacy of Satans Churches

  PLATE 40

  Before Ololon Milton stood & percievd the Eternal Form

  Of that mild Vision; wondrous were their acts by me unknown

  Except remotely; and I heard Ololon say to Milton

  I see thee strive upon the Brooks of Arnon. there a dread

  And awful Man I see, oercoverd with the mantle of years.

  I behold Los & Urizen. I behold Orc & Tharmas!

  The Four Zoa’s of Albion & thy Spirit with them striving

  In Self annihilation giving thy life to thy enemies

  Are those who contemn Religion & seek to annihilate it

  10 Become in their Femin[in]e portions the causes & promoters

  Of these Religions, how is this thing? this Newtonian Phantasm

  This Voltaire & Rousseau: this Hume & Gibbon & Bolingbroke

  This Natural Religion! this impossible absurdity

  Is Ololon the cause of this? O where shall I hide my face

  These tears fall for the little-ones: the Children of Jerusalem

  Lest they be annihilated in thy annihilation.

  No sooner she had spoke but Rahab Babylon appeard

  Eastward upon the Paved work across Europe & Asia

  Glorious as the midday Sun in Satans bosom glowing

  20 A Female hidden in a Male, Religion hidden in War

  Namd Moral Virtue; cruel two-fold Monster shining bright

  A Dragon red & hidden Harlot which John in Patmos saw

  And all beneath the Nations innumerable of Ulro

  Appeard, the Seven Kingdoms of Canaan & Five Baalim

  Of Philistea, into Twelve divided, calld after the Names

  Of Israel: as they are in Eden, Mountain, River & Plain

  City & sandy Desart intermingled beyond mortal ken

  But turning toward Ololon in terrible majesty Milton

  Replied. Obey thou the Words of the Inspired Man

  30 All that can be annihilated must be annihilated

  That the Children of Jerusalem may be saved from slavery

  There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary

  The Negation must be destroyd to redeem the Contraries

  The Negation is the Spectre; the Reasoning Power in Man

  This is a false Body: an Incrustation over my Immortal

  Spirit; a Selfhood, which must be put off & annihilated alway

  To cleanse the Face of my Spirit by Self-examination.

  PLATE 41

  To bathe in the Waters of Life; to wash off the Not Human

  I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration

  To cast off Rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour

  To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration

  To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton from Albions covering

  To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination

  To cast aside from Poetry, all that is not Inspiration

  That it no longer shall dare to mock with the aspersion of Madness

  Cast on the Inspired, by the tame high finisher of paltry Blots,

 
10 Indefinite, or paltry Rhymes; or paltry Harmonies,

  Who creeps into State Government like a catterpiller to destroy

  To cast off the idiot Questioner who is always questioning,

  But never capable of answering; who sits with a sly grin

  Silent plotting when to question, like a thief in a cave;

  Who publishes doubt & calls it knowledge; whose Science is Despair,

  Whose pretence to knowledge is Envy, whose whole Science is

  To destroy the wisdom of ages to gratify ravenous Envy

  That rages round him like a Wolf day & night without rest

  He smiles with condescension; he talks of Benevolence & Virtue

  20 And those who act with Benevolence & Virtue, they murder time on time

  These are the destroyers of Jerusalem, these are the murderers

  Of Jesus, who deny the Faith & mock at Eternal Life:

  Who pretend to Poetry that they may destroy Imagination;

  By imitation of Natures Images drawn from Remembrance

  These are the Sexual Garments, the Abomination of Desolation

  Hiding the Human Lineaments as with an Ark & Curtains

  Which Jesus rent: & now shall wholly purge away with Fire

  Till Generation is swallowd up in Regeneration.

  Then trembled the Virgin Ololon & replyd in clouds of despair

  30 Is this our Femin[in]e Portion the Six-fold Miltonic Female

  Terribly this Portion trembles before thee O awful Man

  Altho’ our Human Power can sustain the severe contentions

  Of Friendship, our Sexual cannot: but flies into the Ulro.

  Hence arose all our terrors in Eternity! & now remembrance

  Returns upon us! are we Contraries O Milton, Thou & I

  O Immortal: how were we led to War the Wars of Death

  Is this the Void Outside of Existence, which if enter’d into

  PLATE 42

  Becomes a Womb? & is this the Death Couch of Albion

  Thou goest to Eternal Death & all must go with thee

  So saying, the Virgin divided Six-fold & with a shriek

  Dolorous that ran thro all Creation a Double Six-fold Wonder:

  Away from Ololon she divided & fled into the depths

  Of Miltons Shadow as a Dove upon the stormy Sea.

  Then as a Moony Ark Ololon descended to Felphams Vale

  In clouds of blood, in streams of gore, with dreadful thunderings

  Into the Fires of Intellect that rejoic’d in Felphams Vale

  10 Around the Starry Eight: with one accord the Starry Eight became

  One Man Jesus the Saviour. wonderful! round his limbs

  The Clouds of Ololon folded as a Garment dipped in blood