The Complete Poems

by William Blake

  Bowen & Conwenna stood on Skiddaw cutting the Fibres

  Of Benjamin from Chesters River: loud the River; loud the Mersey

  And the Ribble, thunder into the Irish sea, as the Twelve Sons

  Of Albion drank & imbibed the Life & eternal Form of Luvah

  Cheshire & Lancashire & Westmoreland groan in anguish

  As they cut the fibres from the Rivers he sears them with hot

  Iron of his Forge & fixes them into Bones of chalk & Rock

  20 Conwenna sat above: with solemn cadences she drew

  Fibres of life out from the Bones into her golden Loom

  Hand had his Furnace on Highgate heights & it reachd

  To Brockley Hills across the Thames: he with double Boadicea

  In cruel pride cut Reuben apart from the Hills of Surrey

  Comingling with Luvah & with the Sepulcher of Luvah

  For the Male is a Furnace of beryll: the Female is a golden Loom

  Los cries: No Individual ought to appropriate to Himself

  Or to his Emanation, any of the Universal Characteristics

  30 Of David or of Eve, of the Woman, or of the Lord.

  Of Reuben or of Benjamin, of Joseph or Judah or Levi[.]

  Those who dare appropriate to themselves Universal Attributes

  Are the Blasphemous Selfhoods & must be broken asunder[.]

  A Vegetated Christ & a Virgin Eve, are the Hermaphroditic

  Blasphemy, by his Maternal Birth he is that Evil-One

  And his Maternal Humanity must be put off Eternally

  Lest the Sexual Generation swallow up Regeneration

  Come Lord Jesus take on thee the Satanic Body of Holiness

  So Los cried in the Valleys of Middlesex in the Spirit of Prophecy

  40 While in Selfhood Hand & Hyle & Bowen & Skofeld appropriate

  The Divine Names: seeking to Vegetate the Divine Vision

  In a corporeal & ever dying Vegetation & Corruption

  Mingling with Luvah in One, they become One Great Satan

  Loud scream the Daughters of Albion beneath the Tongs & Hammer

  Dolorous are their lamentations in the burning Forge

  They drink Reuben & Benjamin as the iron drinks the fire

  They are red hot with cruelty: raving along the Banks of Thames

  And on Tyburns Brook among the howling Victims in loveliness

  While Hand & Hyle condense the Little-ones & erect them into

  50 A mighty Temple even to the stars: but they Vegetate

  Beneath Los’s Hammer, that Life may not be blotted out.

  For Los said: When the Individual appropriates Universality

  He divides into Male & Female: & when the Male & Female,

  Appropriate Individuality, they become an Eternal Death.

  Hermaphroditic worshippers of a God of cruelty & law!

  Your Slaves & Captives; you compell to worship a God of Mercy.

  These are the Demonstrations of Los, & the blows of my mighty Hammer

  So Los spoke. And the Giants of Albion terrified & ashamed

  With Los’s thunderous Words, began to build trembling rocking Stones

  60 For his Words roll in thunders & lightnings among the Temples

  Terrified rocking to & fro upon the earth, & sometimes

  Resting in a Circle in Malden or in Strathness or Dura.

  Plotting to devour Albion & Los the friend of Albion

  Denying in private: mocking God & Eternal Life: & in Public

  Collusion, calling themselves Deists, Worshipping the Maternal

  Humanity; calling it Nature, and Natural Religion

  But still the thunder of Los peals loud & thus the thunder’s cry

  These beautiful Witchcrafts of Albion, are gratifyd by Cruelty

  PLATE 91

  It is easier to forgive an Enemy than to forgive a Friend:

  The man who permits you to injure him, deserves your vengeance:

  He also will recieve it; go Spectre! obey my most secret desire:

  Which thou knowest without my speaking: Go to these Fiends of Righteousness

  Tell them to obey their Humanities, & not pretend Holiness;

  When they are murderers: as far as my Hammer & Anvil permit

  Go, tell them that the Worship of God, is honouring his gifts

  In other men: & loving the greatest men best, each according

  To his Genius: which is the Holy Ghost in Man; there is no other

  10 God, than that God who is the intellectual fountain of Humanity;

  He who envies or calumniates: which is murder & cruelty,

  Murders the Holy-one: Go tell them this & overthrow their cup,

  Their bread, their altar-table, their incense & their oath:

  Their marriage & their baptism, their burial & consecration:

  I have tried to make friends by corporeal gifts but have only

  Made enemies: I never made friends but by spiritual gifts;

  By severe contentions of friendship & the burning fire of thought.

  He who would see the Divinity must see him in his Children

  One first, in friendship & love; then a Divine Family, & in the midst

  20 Jesus will appear; so he who wishes to see a Vision; a perfect Whole

  Must see it in its Minute Particulars; Organized & not as thou

  O Fiend of Righteousness pretendest; thine is a Disorganized

  And snowy cloud: brooder of tempests & destructive War.

  You smile with pomp & rigor: you talk of benevolence & virtue:

  I act with benevolence & Virtue & get murderd time after time:

  You accumulate Particulars, & murder by analyzing, that you

  May take the aggregate; & you call the aggregate Moral Law:

  And you call that Swelld & bloated Form; a Minute Particular.

  But General Forms have their vitality in Particulars: & every

  30 Particular is a Man; a Divine Member of the Divine Jesus.

  So Los cried at his Anvil in the horrible darkness weeping:

  The Spectre builded stupendous Works, taking the Starry Heavens

  Like to a curtain & folding them according to his will

  Repeating the Smaragdine Table of Hermes to draw Los down

  Into the Indefinite, refusing to believe without demonstration[.]

  Los reads the Stars of Albion! the Spectre reads the Voids

  Between the Stars: among the arches of Albions Tomb sublime

  Rolling the Sea in rocky paths: forming Leviathan

  And Behemoth: the War by Sea enormous & the War

  40 By Land astounding: erecting pillars in the deepest Hell,

  To reach the heavenly arches; Los beheld undaunted furious

  His heavd Hammer; he swung it round & at one blow,

  In unpitying ruin driving down the pyramids of pride

  Smiting the Spectre on his Anvil & the integuments of his Eye

  And Ear unbinding in dire pain, with many blows,

  Of strict severity self-subduing, & with many tears labouring.

  Then he sent forth the Spectre all his pyramids were grains

  Of sand & his pillars: dust on the flys wing: & his starry

  Heavens; a moth of gold & silver mocking his anxious grasp

  50 Thus Los alterd his Spectre & every Ratio of his Reason

  He alterd time after time, with dire pain & many tears

  Till he had completely divided him into a separate space.

  Terrified Los sat to behold trembling & weeping & howling

  I care not whether a Man is Good or Evil; all that I care

  Is whether he is a Wise Man or a Fool. Go! put off Holiness

  And put on Intellect: or my thundrous Hammer shall drive thee

  To wrath which thou condemnest: till thou obey my voice

  So Los terrified cries: trembling & weeping & howling! Beholding

  PLATE 92

  What do I see? The Briton Saxon Roman Norman amalgamat
ing

  In my Furnaces into One Nation the English: & taking refuge

  In the Loins of Albion. The Canaanite united with the fugitive

  Hebrew, whom she divided into Twelve, & sold into Egypt

  Then scatterd the Egyptian & Hebrew to the four Winds:

  This sinful Nation Created in our Furnaces & Looms is Albion

  So Los spoke. Enitharmon answerd in great terror in Lambeths Vale

  The Poets Song draws to its period & Enitharmon is no more.

  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:

  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,

  In the shadows of Possibility by Mutual Forgiveness forevermore

  And in the Vision & in the Prophecy, that we may Foresee & Avoid

  20 The terrors of Creation & Redemption & Judgment. Beholding them

  Displayd in the Emanative Visions of Canaan in Jerusalem & in Shiloh

  And in the Shadows of Remembrance, & in the Chaos of the Spectre

  Amalek, Edom, Egypt, Moab, Ammon, Ashur, Philistea, around Jerusalem

  Where the Druids reard their Rocky Circles to make permanent Remembrance

  Of Sin, & the Tree of Good & Evil sprang from the Rocky Circle & Snake

  Of the Druid, along the Valley of Rephaim from Camberwell to Golgotha

  And framed the Mundane Shell Cavernous in Length Bredth & Highth

  PLATE 93

  Enitharmon heard. She raisd her head like the mild Moon

  O Rintrah! O Palamabron! What are your dire & awful purposes

  Enitharmons name is nothing before you: you forget all my Love!

  The Mothers love of obedience is forgotten & you seek a Love

  Of the pride of dominion, that will Divorce Ocalythron & Elynittria

  Upon East Moor in Derbyshire & along the Valleys of Cheviot

  Could you Love me Rintrah, if you Pride not in my Love

  As Reuben found Mandrakes in the field & gave them to his Mother

  Pride meets with Pride upon the Mountains in the stormy day

  10 In that terrible Day of Rintrahs Plow & of Satans driving the Team.

  Ah! then I heard my little ones weeping along the Valley:

  Ah! then I saw my beloved ones fleeing from my Tent

  Merlin was like thee Rintrah among the Giants of Albion

  Judah was like Palamabron: O Simeon! O Levi! ye fled away

  How can I hear my little ones weeping along the Valley

  Or how upon the distant Hills see my beloveds Tents.

  Then Los again took up his speech as Enitharmon ceast

  Fear not my Sons this Waking Death, he is become One with me

  Behold him here! We shall not Die! we shall be united in Jesus.

  20 Will you suffer this Satan this Body of Doubt that Seems but Is Not

  To occupy the very threshold of Eternal Life, if Bacon, Newton, Locke,

  Deny a Conscience in Man & the Communion of Saints & Angels

  Contemning the Divine Vision & Fruition, Worshiping the Deus

  Of the Heathen, The God of This World, & the Goddess Nature

  Mystery Babylon the Great, The Druid Dragon & hidden Harlot[,]

  Is it not that Signal of the Morning which was told us in the Beginning

  Thus they converse upon Mam-Tor, the Graves thunder under their feet

  PLATE 94

  Albion cold lays on his Rock: storms & snows beat round him.

  Beneath the Furnaces & the starry Wheels & the Immortal Tomb

  Howling winds cover him: roaring seas dash furious against him

  In the deep darkness broad lightnings glare long thunders roll

  The weeds of Death inwrap his hands & feet blown incessant

  And washd incessant by the for-ever restless sea-waves foaming abroad

  Upon the white Rock. England a Female Shadow as deadly damps

  Of the Mines of Cornwall & Derbyshire lays upon his bosom heavy

  Moved by the wind in volumes of thick cloud returning folding round

  10 His loins & bosom unremovable by swelling storms & loud rending

  Of enraged thunders. Around them the Starry Wheels of their Giant Sons

  Revolve: & over them the Furnaces of Los & the Immortal Tomb around

  Erin sitting in the Tomb, to watch them unceasing night and day

  And the Body of Albion was closed apart from all Nations.

  Over them the famishd Eagle screams on boney Wings and around

  Them howls the Wolf of famine deep heaves the Ocean black thundering

  Around the wormy Garments of Albion: then pausing in deathlike silence

  Time was Finished! The Breath Divine Breathed over Albion

  Beneath the Furnaces & starry Wheels and in the Immortal Tomb

  20 And England who is Brittannia awoke, from Death on Albions bosom

  She awoke pale & cold she fainted seven times on the Body of Albion

  O pitious Sleep O pitious Dream! O God O God awake I have slain

  In Dreams of Chastity & Moral Law I have Murdered Albion! Ah!

  In Stone-henge & on London Stone & in the Oak Groves of Malden

  I have Slain him in my Sleep with the Knife of the Druid O England

  O all ye Nations of the Earth behold ye the Jealous Wife

  The Eagle & the Wolf & Monkey & Owl & the King & Priest were there

  PLATE 95

  Her voice pierc’d Albions clay cold ear. he moved upon the Rock.

  The Breath Divine went forth upon the morning hills, Albion mov’d

  Upon the Rock, he opend his eyelids in pain; in pain he mov’d

  His stony members, he saw England. Ah! shall the Dead live again

  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, in his burning hand

  He takes his Bow, then chooses out his arrows of flaming gold

  Murmuring the Bowstring breathes with ardor! clouds roll round the

  Horns of the wide Bow, loud sounding winds sport on the mountain brows

  Compelling Urizen to his Furrow; & Tharmas to his Sheepfold;

  And Luvah to his Loom: Urthona he beheld mighty labouring at

  His Anvil, in the Great Spectre Los unwearied labouring & weeping

  Therefore the Sons of Eden praise Urthonas Spectre in songs

  Because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble.

  20 As the Sun & Moon lead forward the Visions of Heaven & Earth

  England who is Brittannia enterd Albions bosom rejoicing,

  Rejoicing in his indignation! adoring his wrathful rebuke.

  She who adores not your frowns will only loathe your smiles

  PLATE 96

  As the Sun & Moon lead forward the Visions of Heaven & Earth

  England who is Brittannia entered Albions bosom rejoicing

  Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the Good Shepherd

  By the lost Sheep that he hath found & Albion kn
ew that it

  Was the Lord the Universal Humanity, & Albion saw his Form

  A Man, & they conversed as Man with Man, in Ages of Eternity

  And the Divine Appearance was the likeness & similitude of Los

  Albion said. O Lord what can I do! my Selfhood cruel

  Marches against thee deceitful from Sinai & from Edom

  10 Into the Wilderness of Judah to meet thee in his pride

  I behold the Visions of my deadly Sleep of Six Thousand Years

  Dazling around thy skirts like a Serpent of precious stones & gold

  I know it is my Self: O my Divine Creator & Redeemer

  Jesus replied Fear not Albion unless I die thou canst not live

  But if I die I shall arise again & thou with me

  This is Friendship & Brotherhood without it Man Is Not

  So Jesus spoke: the Covering Cherub coming on in darkness

  Overshadowd them & Jesus said Thus do Men in Eternity

  One for another to put off by forgiveness, every sin

  20 Albion replyd. Cannot Man exist without Mysterious

  Offering of Self for Another, is this Friendship & Brotherhood

  I see thee in the likeness & similitude of Los my Friend

  Jesus said. Wouldest thou love one who never died

  For thee or ever die for one who had not died for thee

  And if God dieth not for Man & giveth not himself

  Eternally for Man Man could not exist! for Man is Love:

  As God is Love: every kindness to another is a little Death

  In the Divine Image nor can Man exist but by Brotherhood

  So saying the Cloud overshadowing divided them asunder

  30 Albion stood in terror: not for himself but for his Friend

  Divine, & Self was lost in the contemplation of faith

  And wonder at the Divine Mercy & at Los’s sublime honour

  Do I sleep amidst danger to Friends! O my Cities & Counties

  Do you sleep! rouze up! rouze up. Eternal Death is abroad

  So Albion spoke & threw himself into the Furnaces of affliction

  All was a Vision, all a Dream: the Furnaces became

  Fountains of Living Waters flowing from the Humanity Divine

  And all the Cities of Albion rose from their Slumbers, and All

  The Sons & Daughters of Albion on soft clouds Waking from Sleep

  40 Soon all around remote the Heavens burnt with flaming fires

  And Urizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona arose into

  Albions Bosom: Then Albion stood before Jesus in the Clouds

  Of Heaven Fourfold among the Visions of God in Eternity

  PLATE 97

  Awake! Awake Jerusalem! O lovely Emanation of Albion