The Complete Poems

by William Blake

  10–15 the five senses whelm’d… infinite B. interprets the biblical Flood as a flood of materialism. With limited material senses, man can no longer behold ‘the infinite’, and so his world too becomes finite.

  21–3 Druid religion was the outcome and image of Man’s fallen and limited world after the Flood.

  26–30 the Stone of Night… attractive north Man’s mind, once free and open to light and warmth (south), is now enclosed in a cave-like skull and sunk in wintry rationality (north). We are cosmically inverted, like Nature in the Preludium, mistakenly thinking that ‘north’ is ‘up’ and ‘south’ is ‘down’.

  P1. 12.4 For Urizen unclaspd his Book! As in VDA and America, URIZEN is the tyrant-god of Reason, ultimately responsible for all earthly repression.

  5–13 The young are taught repressive doctrines, but they know the old order is failing.

  15 The Guardian of the secret codes Chancellor Thurlow, dismissed 17 June 1792 (Erdman).

  23–4 Palambron shot… Rintrah hung Enitharmon’s sons have become Burke and Pitt, defending the old order (Erdman).

  P1. 13.1 The red limb’d Angel Albion’s Angel, now desperate.

  5 Newton… enormous blast! Newtonian rationalism is the true philosophical basis for anti-radical policy.

  6–8 A surprise ending. The radicals are not suppressed. Instead, the counter-revolutionary forces are revealed to be dead leaves awaiting extinction. These lines ironically parallel the rout of the pagan gods in Milton’s ‘Nativity Ode’.

  Pl. 13.9-Pl. 14.32 Then Enitharmon woke… She ceas’d Enitharmon is unaware of the approaching apocalypse. Her song invokes, in her children, sexual attributes intended to maintain the dominion of‘lovely Woman’ (6.3).

  P1. 14. 32 for All were forth at sport] Mended in the copper from ‘and all went forth to sport’.

  35–6 The advent of dawn ends Enitharmon’s dominion.

  35 the eastern gate] Variant proof sheet adds: ‘and the angel trumpet blew!’

  P1. 14.37-Pl. 15.2 Orc is released from Enitharmon’s power. The French Revolution begins.

  P1. 15.1 of Enitharmon] Variant proof sheet adds: ‘before the Trumpet blew’.

  9 Then Los arose Los as sun-god and prophet resumes his rightful role.

  The Song of Los

  Date of publication: 1795, but probably composed before The Book of Urizen (dated 1794). An illuminated book known in five copies.

  The poem is in two parts, ‘Africa’ and ‘Asia’. America and Europe should be understood as coming between them, in historical sequence.

  ‘Africa’ outlines religious and intellectual history from Adam and Noah to Rousseau and Voltaire, and concludes with a world ripe for revolution. ‘Asia’ presents the cynical self-justification of kings, describes a retreating URIZEN (Tyranny) and an advancing ORC (Revolution), and concludes with a resurrection of the dead. ‘Africa’ is in free verse, ‘Asia’ primarily in a rough trimeter.

  AFRICA

  P1. 3.2 four harps The four continents Africa, Asia, Europe, America.

  8–9 LOS is the ‘Spirit of Prophecy’. His children embody the evolution of that spirit through history. The tyrant-god URIZEN imposes his will through their means, as they shape men’s thoughts. In the following passage, Rintrah, Palamabron, Oothoon and Leutha, Sotha and Diralada are the children of Los. See Dictionary of Proper Names for their individual characters.

  11 Abstract Philosophy to Brama In Sir William Jones’s Asiatic Researches (1788), Brahma is abstract and logical (Raine).

  18–19 Trismegistus… Pythagoras Socrates & Plato Hermes Trismegistus, supposed divine author of the Hermetic Books (treating magic, astrology and alchemy), is grouped with the major mystic or idealist Greek philosophers.

  20 the sons of Har All Mankind. See Tiriel.

  20–21 time after time… chain’d down ORC is the Promethean rebel and sufferer. The ‘Orc cycle’ (Frye’s term), in which revolutionary energy is thwarted and punished, repeats time after time in history.

  22–4 Jesus hears the cry of liberty and love, but accepts a gospel of passive suffering (see VDA).

  29 a loose Bible The Koran.

  30 Odin… a Code of War This completes the catalogue of repressive philosophies and religions given to the nations – the East, the Hebrews, the Greeks, Christian Europe, the Mohammedans and the Germanic tribes.

  P1. 4.21] This line opens America which should sequentially follow.

  ASIA

  P1. 6.1–2 This takes up where Europe leaves off. The revolutionary impulse is spreading from Europe to Asia.

  3–4 Web… Den The Web of Religion; the Den of Materialism.

  9 Shall not the King call Hereafter follows a catalogue of English devices, some publicly discussed, some actually enforced, for quelling dissent and the ambitions of the poor. (See Erdman, 284–5.)

  P1. 7.9–23 Urizen retreats to his stronghold, Hebrew Religion, but finds it dead. Books of brass, iron and gold are texts of Law, War and Economics.

  27–8 pillar of fire… serpent of fiery flame Symbols of escape from tyranny (Exodus 13:21–2) and healing of plague (Numbers 21:5–9).

  29 sullen Earth ‘Like to the lark at break of day arising/From sullen earth,’ Shakespeare, Sonnet 29.

  31–2 rattling bones to bones/join From the resurrection of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37.

  35–6 As life is renewed, the grave becomes sexually procreative.

  42 Urizen Wept ‘Jesus wept’ (John 11:35, shortest verse in the Bible) before the raising of Lazarus. Cf. ‘A Song of Liberty’, MHH 25.8.

  The (First) Book of Urizen

  Date of publication: 1794. This illuminated book is known in seven copies containing from twenty-four to twenty-eight plates, with some variation in the order. Copies [a] and [g] delete ‘First’ from the poem’s title. Copy [a] has several significant deletions and emendations.

  The Book of Urizen is B.’s ironic version of the biblical Book of Genesis. It is also the locus for his mythology in ‘A Song of Liberty’, VDA, America, Europe, The Song of Los, The Book of Ahania and The Book of Los, all of which rest on the ideas presented in this poem. The story is as follows: URIZEN – a god of Reason who separates himself from the other Eternals, demands obedience to his self-proclaimed principles, and falls into Chaos – is an abstract, vain and punitive deity. A body is created for him by LOS, ‘the Eternal Prophet’ or Divine Imagination. But Los, exhausted, divides into male (Los) and female (ENIT HARMON). Their child ORC (Rebellious Energy) is born but immediately chained to a rock. Urizen then explores his deadly world, and mankind shrinks up from Eternity. Finally, some of Urizen’s children begin an exodus.

  It is important to note that the Creation and the Fall are, for B., one event. This event occurs in stages, each of which shows unity lapsing into duality and spiritual energy lapsing into material passivity. Humanity as we know it appears only at the very end of a long cataclysmic process, and is – from the point of view of Eternity – almost wholly pathetic.

  Many of the ideas in this poem also occur in neo-Platonic, gnostic and alchemic teachings, and in the work of Jacob Boehme. There are numerous verbal echoes of Milton’s Paradise Lost, mostly ironic in intent.

  The metre of this and the following two poems is a rough anapestic trimeter.

  CHAPTER 1

  The Fall of Urizen; his formation of Chaos.

  P1. 3.1–20 Unknown, unprolific, repelling, void, vacuum, unseen, secret, etc. The character of Urizen is defined by abstractions and negations for two reasons: (1) From the point of view of Eternity, Urizen is unreal; (2) only an isolated ‘Reason’ can invent abstract and negative terms. In a full reality, such terms would have no meaning. Note that Milton’s God is praised by the angels for being ‘invisible’ and ‘thron’d inaccessible’ (Paradise Lost 111.375–7). B. condemns such qualities in a deity, and mocks them by exaggeration.

  11 In his] Changed from ‘Like’ in copy [g],

  27–8 His cold horrors… Urizen/Prepar’d Urizen is a
lways seen by B. as a winter god, like the Winter of PS, p. 23.

  CHAPTER II

  Eternity before the Fall; its initial disruption by Urizen’s announcement of his principles.

  36 In Eternity there are no spheres (such as planets, moons, stars, etc.) subject to the law of gravity.

  37–8 Eternity is non-Newtonian. Expansion and contraction are by will, not by the law of gravity.

  40–41 Details from the mustering of angelic armies in Paradise Lost VI.55–60.

  44 myriads of Eternity Myriads of Eternals. Line deleted in copy [a].

  P1. 4] This plate is lacking in four copies.

  10–13 This speech gives Urizen’s motivation. It is intended to sound reasonable, as Urizen is Reason. Why will you die O Eternals? is from ‘Why will ye die, O house of Israel?’ (Ezekiel 18:31, 33:11). But he does not see that joy and pain are necessary contraries for a living existence, that ‘a solid without fluctuation’ is dead, and that the burning fires of’the enjoyments of Genius’ only appear like ‘torment and insanity’ to those who do not understand them (MHH, p. 182).

  14 I fought with the fire Urizen fights the fire of passion within himself.

  18 self balanc’d stretch’d o’er the void ‘And the earth was without form and void’ (Genesis 1:2); ‘And Earth self-balanc’d on her Center hung’ Paradise Lost VII.242.

  19 I alone, even I! The egotism of Urizen echoes at once the biblical Jehovah (‘I am the Lord thy God,’ Exodus 20:2) and the Miltonic Satan.

  30 Seven deadly Sins Urizen’s own invention. Line deleted in copy [c].

  34–5 A Law of peace, or of love, etc., is a contradiction.

  40 ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’ (Exodus 20:3). Milton’s God promises, after ‘long obedience… One Kingdom’ (Paradise Lost VII.159–61).

  CHAPTER III

  Urizen is rejected by Eternity and confined in a black globe (Chaos).

  49 All the seven deadly sins] Line deleted in copy [a].

  P1. 5.1–2] Lines deleted in copy [a].

  3–4 Sund’ring… Rent away The Fall (of God or Man) is always understood by B. as a division. The division of Urizen from the hosts of Eternity has ironically resulted from his attempts to enforce a fixed and static unity.

  16 Line erased in copy [a].

  17 no light from the fires Detail from Milton’s Hell, Paradise Lost 1.61–3.

  20 he] Changed from‘they’, here and in 11. 21, 22, 23, 29, all copies. Capitalized only in copy [a]. The alteration gives Urizen sole responsibility.

  21 combining Re-uniting with the‘self-begotten armies’, 1.16 above.

  22 He dug mountains Detail from Milton’s war in Heaven, Paradise Lost VI. 630–69.

  28–37 a roof… like a womb… like a black globe… like a human heart… world of Urizen The images are confused because Urizen’s world is ‘unorganiz’d’ (6.8) and ‘formless’ (7.9).

  Pl. 6.2–4 Los wept… Urizen was rent Los is the power of poetic imagination. If Imagination is separated from Reason, both are drastically wounded. Los is in anguish because he has lost his Mind.

  CHAPTER IV [A]

  P1. 8 Composed after Pl. 10, probably originally intended to replace it.

  1–2 Los… Frightend Los took fright.

  2–4 hurtling bones… surging… raging Urizen is asleep or dead from the point of view of Eternity. This means he has become a chaos of disorganized motion. His elements (sulphur, pitch, nitre) suggest that he has become a hell; his mind is ‘sulphureous’ (8.3, 10.14, 10.21) because sulphur is a primal formative element in alchemical theory.

  CHAPTER IV [B]

  Los creates a body for Urizen. This is a parody of the seven days of creation in Genesis. Though necessary to save Urizen from Chaos, it constricts and shrinks his original powers.

  P1. 10.15 Los is now for the first time called ‘the Eternal Prophet’. In Eternity there is no need for Prophecy because there is no Time. Time belongs to the fallen world, and is a necessity for it. Hence Los divides the night into ‘watches’ and creates ‘hours, days and years’ by the repeated beat of his blacksmith’s hammer – which is a metaphor for the metre of poetry.

  19–23 The eternal mind… White as the snow An allusion to the tabula rasa of Lockean psychology, a ‘blank slate’ empty of intrinsic ideas, capable only of receiving and combining external impressions. Urizen’s mind should not be blank, but is becoming so.

  33 a roof shaggy wild The skull covered with hair.

  P1. 11.2–6 a red/Round globe… ten thousand branches The heart and blood vessels.

  11 brain shot branches The nervous system.

  P1. 13.6 A craving Hungry Cavern The digestive system.

  CHAPTER V

  The division into male and female.

  40 Los falls into exhaustion and despair with Urizen.

  51–2 Pity began… dividing As Urizen divided himself from the other Eternals, so now Los will divide into male (strong, active) and female (weak, passive). This division does not exist in Eternity. Here it indicates passive helplessness in the face of disaster.

  P1. 18.1 The globe of life blood The female is created from a fluid, rather than a solid rib.

  CHAPTER VI

  The world of Generation and the birth of Orc.

  P1. 19.13 She fled Eve at first flees Adam in Paradise Lost IV.477–82.

  20 a Worm An embryo.

  44 Delving earth… resistless Digging through the mother’s body… irresistible.

  CHAPTER VII

  The binding of Orc; the rousing of Urizen.

  P1. 20.9 A tight’ning girdle Los feels heart-constricting jealousy.

  23 The infant Oedipus was abandoned on a mountainside because of an oracle that he would kill his father and marry his mother. B.’s version of the Oedipus myth combines the theme of incest-threat with the idea of adult authority restricting youthful energy.

  CHAPTER VIII

  Urizen explores his dens, curses his children, and establishes Religion.

  Urizen’s dens signify the world of Materialism. His exploration parallels the journey of Satan through Chaos, Paradise Lost 11. The Web of Religion he leaves trailing behind him parallels the highway built by Sin and Death in Satan’s track, Paradise Lost 11.1024–9. The episode is greatly expanded in FZ Night the Sixth.

  Pl. 23.11–17 Thiriel… Utha… Grodna… Fuzon Urizen’s four sons are the four elements air, water, earth, fire.

  27 life liv’d upon death In a fallen world, everything lives on something else (the Ox is food) and what one appropriates, another lacks (the Dog goes hungry). Laws of unity are impossible in such a world.

  P1. 25.18 the Web is a Female in embrio That is, a nascent Church? B. consistently makes Churches female. The line is deleted in copy [a].

  22 The Net of Religion A second enclosure for mankind, like the Tent of Science (Pl. 19).

  CHAPTER IX

  Human history begins.

  23–39 the Inhabitants… shrunk up Primitive mankind recapitulates the constriction and shrinking of Urizen’s divine senses.

  32–3 woven hipocrisy… streaky slime The‘Net of Religion’.

  38 seven feet stature ‘There were giants in the earth in those days’ (Genesis 6:4).

  43–4 thirty cities… human heart ‘Heart-form’d Africa’ (SL 3.3) is the cradle of civilization.

  P1. 28.19–22 Fuzon is Moses leading the Exodus from Egypt.

  The Book of Ahania

  Date of publication: 1795. Only, one copy of this book (printed in intaglio rather than B.’s usual relief etching) and some scattered prints of individual plates are known.

  Ahania is Blake’s version of the biblical Book of Exodus. This ironic and bitter narrative, which tells the failure of Man’s first attempt to rebel against the god of Reason, follows directly from The Book of Urizen. Fuzon (Moses) attacks God, is slain by a rock which then becomes Mt Sinai, and is crucified on a Tree of Mystery. His corpse, seemingly alive, sheds pestilence throughout the forty years’ wande
ring in the wilderness, until the Israelites reach the Promised Land (here called Asia, 4.41). The impulse to liberty has been thwarted successfully, and the poem concludes with the lament of Urizen’s female ‘soul’, the once-beloved, now-deserted Ahania.

  CHAPTER I

  The rebellion of Fuzon (Exodus).

  P1. 2.1 Fuzon URIZEN’S fiery rebel-son (BU 23.17–18) is Moses in the historical allegory. He also recalls Prometheus; Christ; David attacking Goliath; David’s own rebellious son Absalom; and Blake’s contemporary, the revolutionary Robespierre, whose policy of violence against the enemies of freedom was ultimately turned against himself.

  30–34 As Urizen is wounded in the loins, his female aspect, Ahania, divides from him (cf. the division of Los and Enitharmon, BU v). Instantly lustful and jealous, but also anguished by this revelation of his own sexuality, he calls her Sin. In Paradise Lost Sin springs from Satan’s brow and he afterwards copulates with her.

  45 a pillar of fire Orc is a pillar of fire in SL 7.27; see note.

  CHAPTER II

  The revenge of Urizen (foundation of Mt Sinai).

  P1. 3.16 Oak Associated with the Druids and their cult of human sacrifice.

  38 lam God. said he As in ‘The Grey Monk’, Pickering MS., p. 505: ‘The iron hand [i.e., of rebellion] crushd the Tyrants head/And became a Tyrant in his stead.’

  CHAPTER III

  Crucifixion of Fuzon on the Tree of Mystery.

  54–62 A Tree… Mystery The first appearance in B.’s prophetic books of the TREE OF MYSTERY.

  64 book of iron A code of war.

  CHAPTER IV

  The wandering in the wilderness.

  P1. 4.9–10 Forth flew the arrows… tree Fuzon is dead, but the pestilence-emitting parasites that live on his body, as on an originally vital religion, are ‘alive’. Their origin is explained (in ll. 11–35, which re-tell the story of the binding of Urizen, from BU IV): they are ‘effluvia’ of Urizen’s brain.