From JERUSALEM

(1804-1820)

THE EMANATION OF THE GIANT ALBION

SHEEP TO THE PUBLIC GOATS

After my three years slumber on the banks of the Ocean, I again display my Giant forms to the Public. My former Giants & Fairies having reciev’d the highest reward possible, the love and friendship of those with whom to be connected is to be blessed. I cannot doubt that this more consolidated & extended work will be as kindly recieved.... I also hope the Reader will be with me, wholly One in Jesus our Lord, who is the God of Fire and Lord of Love to whom the Ancients look’d and saw his day afar off, with trembling & amazement.

The Spirit of Jesus is continual forgiveness of Sin: he who waits to be righteous before he enters into the Saviour’s kingdom, the Divine Body, will never enter there. I am perhaps the most sinful of men. I pretend not to holiness: yet I pretend to love, to see, to converse with daily as man with man, & the more to have an interest in the Friend of Sinners. Therefore, dear Reader, forgive what you do not approve, & love me for this energetic exertion of my talent.

Reader! lover of books! lover of heaven,

And of that God from whom all things are given,

Who in mysterious Sinai’s awful cave

To Man the wondrous art of writing gave:

Again he speaks in thunder and in fire!

Thunder of Thought, & flames of fierce desire:

Even from the depths of Hell his voice I hear

Within the unfathom’d caverns of my Ear.

Therefore I print; nor vain my types shall be:

Heaven, Earth & Hell henceforth shall live in harmony.

Of the Measure in which

the following Poem is written.

We who dwell on Earth can do nothing of ourselves; every thing is conducted by Spirits, no less than Digestion or Sleep.... When this Verse was first dictated to me, I consider’d a Monotonous Cadence, like that used by Milton & Shakespeare & all writers of English Blank Verse, derived from the modem bondage of Rhyming, to be a necessary and indispensible part of Verse. But I soon found that in the mouth of a true Orator such monotony was not only awkward, but as much a bondage as rhyme itself. I therefore have produced a variety in every line, both of cadences & number of syllables. Every word and every letter is studied and put into its fit place; the terrific numbers are reserved for the terrific parts, the mild & gentle for the mild & gentle parts, and the prosaic for inferior parts; all are necessary to each other. Poetry Fetter’d Fetters the Human Race. Nations are Destroy’d or Flourish in proportion as Their Poetry, Painting and Music are Destroy’d or Flourish! The Primeval State of Man was Wisdom, Art and Science.

TO THE JEWS

Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion! Can it be? Is it a Truth that the Learned have explored? Was Britain the Primitive Seat of the Patriarchal Religion? If it is true, my title-page is also True, that Jerusalem was & is the Emanation of the Giant Albion. It is True and cannot be controverted. Ye are united, 0 ye Inhabitants of Earth, in One Religion, The Religion of Jesus, the most Ancient, the Eternal & the Everlasting Gospel. The Wicked will turn it to Wickedness. the Righteous to Righteousness. Amen! Huzza! Selah! “All things Begin & End in Albion’s Ancient Druid

Rocky Shore.”

 

Your Ancestors derived their origin from Abraham, Heber, Shem and Noah, who were Druids, as the Druid Temples (which are the Patriarchal Pillars & Oak Groves) over the whole Earth witness to this day.

You have a tradition, that Man anciently contain’d in his mighty limbs all things in Heaven & Earth: this you recieved from the Druids. “But now the Starry Heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of Albion.”

 

Albion was the Parent of the Druids, & in his Chaotic State of Sleep, Satan & Adam & the whole World was Created by the Elohim.

The fields from Islington to Marybone,

To Primrose Hill and Saint John’s Wood,

Were builded over with pillars of gold,

And there Jerusalem’s pillars stood.

Her Little-ones ran on the fields,

The Lamb of God among them seen,

And fair Jerusalem his Bride,

Among the little meadows green.

 

Pancrass & Kentish-town repose

Among her golden pillars high,

Among her golden arches which

Shine upon the starry sky.

 

The Jew’s-harp-house & the Green Man,

The Ponds where Boys to bathe delight,

The fields of Cows by Willan’s farm,

Shine in Jerusalem’s pleasant sight.

 

She walks upon our meadows green,

The Lamb of God walks by her side,

And every English Child is seen

Children of Jesus & his Bride.

 

Forgiving trespasses and sins

Lest Babylon with cruel Og

With Moral & Self-righteous Law

Should Crucify in Satan’s Synagogue!

 

What are those golden Builders doing

Near mournful ever-weeping Paddington,

Standing above that mighty Ruin

Where Satan the first victory won,

 

Where Albion slept beneath the Fatal Tree,

And the Druids’ golden Knife

Rioted in human gore,

In Offerings of Human Life?

 

They groan’d aloud on London Stone,

They groan’d aloud on Tyburn’s Brook,

Albion gave his deadly groan,

And all the Atlantic Mountains shook.

 

Albion’s Spectre from his Loins

Tore forth in all the pomp of War:

Satan his name: in flames of fire

He stretch’d his Druid Pillars far.

 

Jerusalem fell from Lambeth’s Vale

Down thro’ Poplar & Old Bow,

Thro’ Malden & across the Sea,

In War & howling, death & woe.

 

The Rhine was red with human blood,

The Danube roll’d a purple tide,

On the Euphrates Satan stood,

And over Asia stretch’d his pride.

 

He wither’d up sweet Zion’s Hill

From every Nation of the Earth;

He wither’d up Jerusalem’s Gates,

And in a dark Land gave her birth.

 

He wither’d up the Human Form

By laws of sacrifice for sin,

Till it became a Mortal Worm,

But O! translucent all within.

 

The Divine Vision still was seen,

Still was the Human Form Divine,

Weeping in weak & mortal clay,

O Jesus, still the Form was thine.

 

And thine the Human Face, & thine

The Human Hands & Feet & Breath,

Entering thro’ the Gates of Birth

And passing thro’ the Gates of Death.

 

And 0 thou Lamb of God, whom I

Slew in my dark self-righteous pride,

Art thou return’d to Albion’s Land?

And is Jerusalem thy Bride?

 

Come to my arms & never more

Depart, but dwell for ever here:

Create my Spirit to thy Love:

Subdue my Spectre to thy Fear.

 

Spectre of Albion! warlike Fiend!

In clouds of blood & ruin roll’d,

I here reclaim thee as my own,

My Selfhood! Satan! arm’d in gold

 

Is this thy soft Family-Love,

Thy cruel Patriarchal pride,

Planting thy Family alone,

Destroying all the World beside?

 

A man’s worst enemies are those

Of his own house & family;

And he who makes his law a curse,

By his own law shall surely die.

 

In my Exchanges every Land

Shall walk, & mine in every Land,

Mutual shall build Jerusalem,

Both heart in heart & hand in hand.

If Humility is Christianity, you, O Jews, are the true Christians. If your tradition that Man contained in his Limbs all Animals is True, & they were separated from him by cruel Sacrifices, and when compulsory cruel Sacrifices had brought Humanity into a Feminine Tabernacle in the loins of Abraham & David, the Lamb of God, the Saviour became apparent on Earth as the Prophets had foretold, The Return of Israel is a Return to Mental Sacrifice & War. Take up the Cross, O Israel, & follow Jesus.

He never can be a Friend to the Human Race who is the Preacher of Natural Morality or Natural Religion; he is a flatterer who means to betray, to perpetuate Tyrant Pride & the Laws of that Babylon which he foresees shall shortly be destroyed, with the Spiritual and not the Natural Sword. He is in the State named Rahab, which State must be put off before he can be the Friend of Man.

You, 0 Deists, profess yourselves the Enemies of Christianity, and you are so: you are also the Enemies of the Human Race & of Universal Nature. Man is born a Spectre or Satan & is altogether an Evil, & requires a New Selfhood continually, & must continually be changed into his direct Contrary. But your Greek Philosophy (which is a remnant of Druidism) teaches that Man is Righteous in his Vegetated Spectre: an Opinion of fatal & accursed consequence to Man, as the Ancients saw plainly by Revelation, to the intire abrogation of Experimental Theory; and many believed what they saw and Prophecied of Jesus.

Man must & will have Some Religion: if he has not the Religion of Jesus, he will have the Religion of Satan & will erect the Synagogue of Satan, calling the Prince of this World, God, and destroying all who do not worship Satan under the Name of God. Will any one say, “Where are those who worship Satan under the Name of God?” Where are they? Listen! Every Religion that Preaches Vengeance for Sin is the Religion of the Enemy & Avenger and not of the Forgiver of Sin, and their God is Satan, Named by the Divine Name. Your Religion, O Deists! Deism, is the Worship of the God of this World by the means of what you call Natural Religion and Natural Philosophy, and of Natural Morality or Self-Righteousness, the Selfish Virtues of the Natural Heart. This was the Religion of the Pharisees who murder’ d Jesus. Deism is the same & ends in the same.

Voltaire, Rousseau, Gibbon, Hume, charge the Spiritually Religious with Hypocrisy; but how a Monk, or a Methodist either, can be a Hypocrite, I cannot concieve. We are Men of like passions with others & pretend not to be holier than others; therefore, when a Religious Man falls into Sin, he ought not to be call’d a Hypocrite; this title is more properly to be given to a Player who falls into Sin, whose profession is Virtue & Morality & the making Men Self-Righteous. Foote in calling Whitefield, Hypocrite, was himself one; for Whitefield pretended not to be holier than others, but confessed his Sins before all the World. Voltaire! Rousseau! You cannot escape my charge that you are Pharisees & Hypocrites, for you are constantly talking of the Virtues of the Human Heart and particularly of your own, that you may accuse others, & especially the Religious, whose errors you, by this display of pretended Virtue, chiefly design to expose. Rousseau thought Men Good by Nature: he found them Evil & found no friend. Friendship cannot exist without Forgiveness of Sins continually. The Book written by Rousseau call’d his Confessions, is an apology & cloke for his sin & not a confession.

But you also charge the poor Monks & Religious with being the causes of War, while you acquit & flatter the Alexanders & Caesars, the Lewis’s & Fredericks, who alone are its causes & its actors. But the Religion of Jesus, Forgiveness of Sin, can never be the cause of a War nor of a single Martyrdom.

Those who Martyr others or who cause War are Deists, but never can be Forgivers of Sin. The Glory of Christianity is To Conquer by Forgiveness. All the Destruction, therefore, in Christian Europe has arisen from Deism, which is Natural Religion.

I saw a Monk of Charlemaine

Arise before my sight:

I talk’d with the Grey Monk as we stood

In beams of infernal light.

 

Gibbon arose with a lash of steel,

And Voltaire with a wracking wheel:

The Schools, in clouds of learning roll’d,

Arose with War in iron & gold.

 

“Thou lazy Monk,” they sound afar,

“In vain condemning glorious War;

”And in your Cell you shall ever dwell:

“Rise, War, & bind him in his Cell!”

 

The blood red ran from the Grey Monk’s side,

His hands & feet were wounded wide,

His body bent, his arms & knees

Like to the roots of ancient trees.

 

When Satan first the black bow bent

And the Moral Law from the Gospel rent,

He forg’d the Law into a Sword

And spill’d the blood of mercy’s Lord.

 

Titus! Constantine! Charlemaine!

O Voltaire! Rousseau! Gibbon! Vain

Your Grecian Mocks & Roman Sword

Against this image of his Lord!

 

For a Tear is an Intellectual thing,

And a Sigh is the Sword of an Angel King,

And the bitter groan of a Martyr’s woe

Is an Arrow from the Almightie’s Bow.

TO THE CHRISTIANS

Devils are

False Religions.

“Saul, Saul,

”Why persecutest thou me?”

I give you the end of a

golden string,

Only wind it into a ball,

It will lead you in at Heaven’s gate

Built in Jerusalem’s wall.

We are told to abstain from fleshly desires that we may lose no time from the Work of the Lord: Every moment lost is a moment that cannot be redeemed; every pleasure that intermingles with the duty of our station is a folly unredeemable, & is planted like the seed of a wild flower among our wheat: All the tortures of repentance are tortures of self-reproach on account of our leaving the Divine Harvest to the Enemy, the struggles of intanglement with incoherent roots. I know of no other Christianity and of no other Gospel than the liberty both of body & mind to exercise the Divine Arts of Imagination, Imagination, the real & eternal World of which this Vegetable Universe is but a faint shadow, & in which we shall live in our Eternal or Imaginative Bodies when these Vegetable Mortal Bodies are no more. The Apostles knew of no other Gospel. What were all their spiritual gifts? What is the Divine Spirit? is the Holy Ghost any other than an Intellectual Fountain? What is the Harvest of the Gospel & its Labours? What is that Talent which it is a curse to hide? What are the Treasures of Heaven which we are to lay up for ourselves, are they any other than Mental Studies & Performances? What are all the Gifts of the Gospel, are they not all Mental Gifts? Is God a Spirit who must be worshipped in Spirit & in Truth, and are not the Gifts of the Spirit Every-thing to Man? O ye Religious, discountenance every one among you who shall pretend to despise Art & Science! I call upon you in the Name of Jesus! What is the Life of Man but Art & Science? is it Meat & Drink? is not the Body more than Raiment? What is Mortality but the things relating to the Body which Dies? What is Immortality but the things relating to the Spirit which Lives Eternally? What is the Joy of Heaven but Improvement in the things of the Spirit? What are the Pains of Hell but Ignorance, Bodily Lust, Idleness & devastation of the things of the Spirit? Answer this to yourselves, & expel from among you those who pretend to despise the labours of Art & Science, which alone are the labours of the Gospel. Is not this plain & manifest to the thought? Can you think at all & not pronounce heartily That to Labour in Knowledge is to Build up Jerusalem, and to Despise Knowledge is to Despise Jerusalem & her Builders. And remember: He who despises & mocks a Mental Gift in another, calling it pride & selfishness & sin, mocks Jesus the giver of every Mental Gift, which always appear to the ignorance-loving Hypocrite as Sins; but that which is a Sin in the sight of cruel Man is not so in the sight of our kind God. Let every Christian, as much as in him lies, engage himself openly & publicly before all the World in some Mental pursuit for the Building up of Jerusalem.

 

I stood among my valleys of the south

And saw a flame of fire, even as a Wheel

Of fire surrounding all the heavens: it went

From west to east, against the current of

Creation, and devour’d all things in its loud

Fury & thundering course round heaven & earth.

By it the Sun was roll’d into an orb,

By it the Moon faded into a globe

Travelling thro’ the night; for, from its dire

And restless fury, Man himself shrunk up

Into a little root a fathom long.

And I asked a Watcher & a Holy-One

Its Name; he answered: “It is the Wheel of Religion.”

I wept & said: “Is this the law of Jesus,

This terrible devouring sword turning every way?”

He answer’d: “Jesus died because he strove

Against the current of this Wheel; its Name

Is Caiaphas, the dark preacher of Death,

Of sin, of sorrow & of punishment:

Opposing Nature! It is Natural Religion;

But Jesus is the bright Preacher of Life

Creating Nature from this fiery Law

By self-denial & forgiveness of Sin.

Go therefore, cast out devils in Christ’s name,

Heal thou the sick of spiritual disease,

Pity the evil, for thou art not sent

To smite with terror & with punishments

Those that are sick, like to the Pharisees

Crucifying & encompassing sea & land

For proselytes to tyranny & wrath;

But to the Publicans & Harlots go,

Teach them True Happiness, but let no curse

Go forth out of thy mouth to blight their peace;

For Hell is open’d to Heaven: thine eyes beheld

The dungeons burst & the Prisoners set free.”

England! awake! awake! awake!

Jerusalem thy Sister callsl

Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death

And close her from thy ancient walk?

 

Thy hills & valleys felt her feet

Gently upon their bosoms move:

Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways:

Then was a time of joy and love.

 

And now the time returns again:

Our souls exult, & London’s towers

Recieve the Lamb of God to dwell

In England’s green & pleasant bowers.

[INTRODUCTION]

Of the Sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.

This theme calls me in sleep night after night, & ev’ry morn

 

Awakes me at sun-rise; then I see the Saviour over me

Spreading his beams of love & dictating the words of this mild song.

 

“Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!

I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:

Fibres of love from man to man thro’ Albion’s pleasant land.

In all the dark Atlantic vale down from the hills of Surrey

A black water accumulates; return Albion! return!

Thy brethren call thee, and thy fathers and thy sons,

Thy nurses and thy mothers, thy sisters and thy daughters

Weep at thy soul’s disease, and the Divine Vision is darken’d,

Thy Emanation that was wont to play before thy face,

Beaming forth with her daughters into the Divine bosom:

 

“Where hast thou hidden thy Emanation, lovely Jerusalem,

From the vision and fruition of the Holy-one?

I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend:

Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:

Lo! we are One, forgiving all Evil, Not seeking recompense.

Ye are my members, 0 ye sleepers of Beulah, land of shades!”

[BLAKE’S TASK]

Trembling I sit day and night, my friends are astonish’d at me,

Yet they forgive my wanderings. I rest not from my great task!

To open the Eternal Worlds, to open the immortal Eyes

Of Man inwards into the Worlds of Thought, into Eternity

Ever expanding in the Bosom of God, the Human Imagination.

O Saviour pour upon me thy Spirit of meekness & love!

Annihilate the Selfhood in me: be thou all my life!

Guide thou my hand, which trembles exceedingly upon the rock of ages,

While I write....

[THE FURNACE AND THE LOOM]

The Male is a Furnace of beryll; the Female is a golden Loom.

I behold them, and their rushing fires overwhelm my Soul

In London’s darkness, and my tears fall day and night

Upon the Emanations of Albion’s Sons, the Daughters of Albion,

Names anciently remember’d, but now contemn’d as fictions

Although in every bosom they controll our Vegetative powers.

[THE CONTRARIES]

And this is the manner of the Sons of Albion in their strength:

They take the Two Contraries which are call’d Qualities, with which

Every Substance is clothed: they name them Good & Evil

From them they make an Abstract, which is a Negation

Not only of the Substance from which it is derived,

A murderer of its own Body, but also a murderer

Of every Divine Member: it is the Reasoning Power,

An Abstract objecting power that Negatives everything.

This is the Spectre of Man, the Holy Reasoning Power,

And in its Holiness is closed the Abomination of Desolation.

[BLAKE’S MOTTO]

“I must Create a System or be enslav’d by another Man’s.

I will not Reason & Compare: my business is to Create.”

[THE EARTH]

The Vegetative Universe opens like a flower from the Earth’s center

In which is Eternity. It expands in Stars to the Mundane Shell

And there it meets Eternity again, both within and without,

And the abstract Voids between the Stars are the Satanic Wheels.

 

There is the Cave, the Rock, the Tree, the Lake of Udan Adan,

The Forest and the Marsh and the Pits of bitumen deadly,

The Rocks of solid fire, the Ice valleys, the Plains

Of burning sand, the rivers, cataract & Lakes of Fire,

The Islands of the fiery Lakes, the Trees of Malice, Revenge

And black Anxiety, and the Cities of the Salamandrine men,

(But whatever is visible to the Generated Man

Is a Creation of mercy & love from the Satanic Void).

The land of darkness flamed, but no light & no repose:

The land of snows of trembling & of iron hail incessant:

The land of earthquakes, and the land of woven labyrinths:

The land of snares & traps & wheels & pit-falls & dire mills:

The Voids, the Solids, & the land of clouds & regions of waters

With their inhabitants, in the Twenty-seven Heavens beneath Beulah:

Self-righteousness conglomerating against the Divine Vision:

A Concave Earth wondrous, Chasmal, Abyssal, Incoherent,

Forming the Mundane Shell: above, beneath, on all sides surrounding

Golgonooza. Los walks round the walls night and day.

[THE TWO GATES]

And Los beheld his Sons and he beheld his Daughters,

Every one a translucent Wonder, a Universe within,

Increasing inwards into length and breadth and heighth,

Starry & glorious; and they every one in their bright loins

Have a beautiful golden gate, which opens into the vegetative world;

And every one a gate of rubies & all sorts of precious stones

In their translucent hearts, which opens into the vegetative world;

And every one a gate of iron dreadful and wonderful

In their translucent heads, which opens into the vegetative world;

And every one has the three regions, Childhood, Manhood & Age;

But the gate of the tongue, the western gate, in them is clos’d,

Having a wall builded against it, and thereby the gates

Eastward & Southward & Northward are incircled with flaming fires.

And the North is Breadth, the South is Heighth & Depth,

The East is Inwards, & the West is Outwards every way.

[A VISION OF ALBION]

In every Nation of the Earth, till the Twelve Sons of Albion

Enrooted into every nation, a mighty Polypus growing

From Albion over the whole Earth: such is my awful Vision.

 

I see the Four-fold Man, The Humanity in deadly sleep

And its fallen Emanation, The Spectre & its cruel Shadow.

I see the Past, Present & Future existing all at once

Before me. O Divine Spirit, sustain me on thy wings,

That I may awake Albion from his long & cold repose;

For Bacon & Newton, sheath’d in dismal steel, their terrors hang

Like iron scourges over Albion: Reasonings like vast Serpents

Infold around my limbs, bruising my minute articulations.

 

I turn my eyes to the Schools & Universities of Europe

And there behold the Loom of Locke, whose Woof rages dire,

Wash’d by the Water-wheels of Newton: black the cloth

In heavy wreathes folds over every Nation: cruel Works

Of many Wheels I view, wheel without wheel, with cogs tyrannic

Moving by compulsion each other, not as those in Eden, which.

Wheel within Wheel, in freedom revolve in harmony & peace.

[THE GROANING CREATION]

Scotland pours out his Sons to labour at the Furnaces;

Wales gives his Daughters to the Looms; England, nursing Mothers

Gives to the Children of Albion & to the Children of Jerusalem.

From the blue Mundane Shell even to the Earth of Vegetation,

Throughout the whole Creation, which groans to be deliver’ d,

Albion groans in the deep slumbers of Death upon his Rock.

[MAN’S PILGRIMAGE]

All things acted on Earth are seen in the bright Sculptures of

Los’s Halls, & every Age renews its powers from these Works

With every pathetic story possible to happen from Hate or

Wayward Love; & every sorrow & distress is carved here,

Every Affinity of Parents, Marriages & Friendships are here

In all their various combinations wrought with wondrous Art,

All that can happen to Man is his pilgrimage of seventy years.

[NEGATIONS ARE NOT CONTRARIES]

“They know not why they love nor wherefore they sicken & die,

Calling that Holy Love which is Envy, Revenge & Cruelty,

Which separated the stars from the mountains, the mountains from Man

And left Man, a little grovelling Root outside of Himself.

Negations are not Contraries: Contraries mutually Exist; But Negations Exist Not. Exceptions & Objections & Unbeliefs

Exist not, nor shall they ever be Organized for ever & ever.

If thou separate from me, thou art a Negation, a meer

Reasoning & Derogation from me, an Objecting & Cruel Spite

And Malice & Envy; but my Emanation, Alas! will become

My Contrary. 0 thou Negation, I will continually compell

Thee to be invisible to any but whom I please, & when

And where & how I please, and never! never ! shalt thou be Organized

But as a distorted & reversed Reflexion in the Darkness

And in the Non Entity: nor shall that which is above

Ever descend into thee, but thou shalt be a Non Entity for ever;

And if any enter into thee, thou shalt be an Unquenchable Fire,

And he shall be a never dying Worm, mutually tormented by

Those that thou tormentest: a Hell & Despair for ever & ever.”

[THE OUTLINE OF IDENTITY]

From every-one of the Four Regions of Human Majesty

There is an Outside spread Without & an Outside spread Within,

Beyond the Outline of Identity both ways, which meet in One,

An orbed Void of doubt, despair, hunger & thirst & sorrow.

[THE SORROWS OF ALBION]

Hoarse turn’d the Starry Wheels rending a way in Albion’s Loins:

Beyond the Night of Beulah, In a dark & unknown Night:

Outstretch’d his Giant beauty on the ground in pain & tears:

His Children exil’d from his breast pass to and fro before him,

His birds are silent on his hills, flocks die beneath his branches,

His tents are fall’n, his trumpets and the sweet sound of his harp

Are silent on his clouded hills that belch forth storms & fire.

His milk of Cows & honey of Bees & fruit of golden harvest

Is gather’d in the scorching heat & in the driving rain.

Where once he sat, he weary walks in misery and pain,

His Giant beauty and perfection fallen into dust,

Till, from within his wither’d breast, grown narrow with his woes,

The corn is turn’d to thistles & the apples into poison,

The birds of song to murderous crows, his joys to bitter groans,

The voices of children in his tents to cries of helpless infants,

And self-exiled from the face of light & shine of morning.

In the dark world, a narrow house! he wanders up and down

Seeking for rest and finding none! and hidden far within,

His Eon weeping in the cold and desolated Earth.

[BABYLON AND JERUSALEM]

O what is Life & what is Man? O what is Death? Wherefore

Are you, my Children, natives in the Grave to where I go?

Or are you born to feed the hungry ravenings of Destruction,

To be the sport of Accident, to waste in Wrath & Love a weary

Life, in brooding cares & anxious labours that prove but chaff?

O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, I have forsaken thy Courts,

Thy Pillars of ivory & gold, thy Curtains of silk & fine

Linen, thy Pavements of precious stones, thy Walls of pearl

And gold, thy Gates of Thanksgiving, thy Windows of Praise,

Thy Clouds of Blessing, thy Cherubims of Tender-mercy

Stretching their Wings sublime over the Little-ones of Albion!

O Human Imagination, O Divine Body I have Crucified, I have turned my back upon thee into the Wastes of Moral Law.

There Babylon is builded in the Waste, founded in Human desolation.

O Babylon, thy Watchman stands over thee in the night,

Thy severe Judge all the day long proves thee, O Babylon,

With provings of destruction, with giving thee thy heart’s desire;

But Albion is cast forth to the Potter, his Children to the Builders

To build Babylon because they have forsaken Jerusalem.

The Walls of Babylon are Souls of Men, her Gates the Groans

Of Nations, her Towers are the Miseries of once happy Families,

Her Streets are paved with Destruction, her Houses built with Death,

Her Palaces with Hell & the Grave, her Synagogues with Torments

Of ever-hardening Despair, squar’d & polish’d with cruel skill.

Yet thou wast lovely as the summer cloud upon my hills

When Jerusalem was thy heart’s desire, in times of youth & love.

Thy Sons came to Jerusalem with gifts; she sent them away

With blessings on their hands & on their feet, blessings of gold

And pearl & diamond: thy Daughters sang in her Courts.

They came up to Jerusalem: they walked before Albion:

In the Exchanges of London every Nation walk’d,

And London walk’d in every Nation, mutual in love & harmony.

Albion cover’d the whole Earth, England encompass’d the Nations,

Mutual each within other’s bosom in Visions of Regeneration.

Jerusalem cover’d the Atlantic Mountains & the Erythrean

From bright Japan & China to Hesperia, France & England.

Mount Zion lifted his head in every Nation under heaven,

And the Mount of Olives was beheld over the whole Earth.

The footsteps of the Lamb of God were there; but now no more,

No more shall I behold him....

[THE PRAYER OF LOS]

And Los prayed and said, “0 Divine Saviour, arise

Upon the Mountains of Albion as in ancient time! Behold!

The Cities of Albion seek thy face: London groans in pain

From Hill to Hill, & the Thames laments along the Valleys:

The little Villages of Middlesex & Surrey hunger & thirst:

The Twenty-eight Cities of Albion stretch their hands to thee

Because of the Opressors of Albion in every City & Village.

They mock at the Labourer’s limbs: they mock at his starv’d Children:

They buy his Daughters that they may have power to sell his Sons:

They compell the Poor to live upon a crust of bread by soft mild arts:

They reduce the Man to want, then give with pomp & ceremony:

The praise of Jehovah is chaunted from lips of hunger & thirst....”

[THE MOCKERY OF MAN]

“I am your Rational Power, O Albion, & that Human Form

You call Divine is but a Worm seventy inches long

That creeps forth in a night & is dried in the morning sun,

In fortuitous concourse of memorys accumulated & lost.

It plows the Earth in its own conceit, it overwhelms the Hills

Beneath its winding labyrinths, till a stone of the brook

Stops it in midst of its pride among its hills & rivers.

[WOMAN AND MAN]

“I hear the screech of Childbirth loud pealing, & the groans

Of Death in Albion’s clouds dreadful utter’d over all the Earth.

What may Man be? who can tell! but what may Woman be

To have power over Man from Cradle to corruptible Grave?

There is a Throne in every Man, it is the Throne of God;

This, Woman has claim’d as her own, & Man is no more!

Albion is the Tabernacle of Vala & her Temple,

And not the Tabernacle & Temple of the Most High.

O Albion, why wilt thou Create a Female Will?

To hide the most evident God in a hidden covert, even

In the shadows of a Woman & a secluded Holy Place,

That we may pry after him as after a stolen treasure,

Hidden among the Dead & mured up from the paths of life....”

[THE PERCEPTIVE PATTERN]

If Perceptive Organs vary, Objects of Perception seem to vary^:

If the Perceptive Organs close, their Objects seem to close also.

[THE WARS OF LIFE]

“... Our wars are wars of life, & wounds of love

With intellectual spears, & long winged arrows of thought.

Mutual in one another’s love and wrath all renewing

We live as One Man; for contracting our infinite senses

We behold multitude, or expanding, we behold as one,

As One Man all the Universal Family, and that One Man.

We call Jesus the Christ; and he in us, and we in him

Live in perfect harmony in Eden, the land of life,

Giving, recieving, and forgiving each other’s trespasses.

He is the Good shepherd, he is the Lord and master,

He is the Shepherd of Albion, he is all in all,

In Eden, in the garden of God, and in heavenly Jerusalem.

If we have offended, forgive us; take not vengeance against us.”

O! how the torments of Eternal Death waited on Man,

And the loud-rending bars of the Creation ready tn burst,

That the wide world might fly from its hinges & the immortal mansion

Of Man for ever be possess’d by monsters of the deeps,

And Man himself become a Fiend, wrap’d in an endless curse,

Consuming and consum’d for-ever in flames of Moral Justice.

[THE ENGLISH NAMES]

I call them by their English names: English, the rough basement.

Los built the stubborn structure of the Language, acting against

Albion’s melancholy, who must else have been a Dumb despair.

[MAN’S SPECTRE]

Each Man is in his Spectre’s power

Until the arrival of that hour,

When his Humanity awake,

And cast his Spectre into the Lake.

[LOS’S FURY]

... Los grew furious, raging: “Why stand we here trembling around

Calling on God for help, and not ourselves, in whom God dwells,

Stretching a hand to save the falling Man? are we not Four

Beholding Albion upon the Precipice ready to fall into Non-Entity?

Seeing these Heavens & Hells conglobing in the Void, Heavens over Hells

Brooding in holy hypocritic lust, drinking the cries of pain

From howling victims of Law, building Heavens Twenty-seven-fold,

Swell’d & bloated General Forms repugnant to the Divine-

Humanity who is the Only General and Universal Form,

To which all Lineaments tend & seek with love & sympathy.

All broad & general principles belong to benevolence

Who protects minute particulars every one in their own identity;

But here the affectionate touch of the tongue is clos’d in by deadly teeth,

And the soft smile of friendship & the open dawn of benevolence

Become a net & a trap, & every energy render’d cruel,

Till the existence of friendship & benevolence is denied:

The wine of the Spirit & the vineyards of the Holy-One

Here turn into poisonous stupor & deadly intoxication.

That they may be condemn’d by Law & the Lamb of God be slain;

And the two Sources of Life in Eternity, Hunting and War,

Are become the Sources of dark & bitter Death & of corroding Hell.

The open heart is shut up in integuments of frozen silence

That the spear that lights it forth may shatter the ribs & bosom.

A pretence of Art to destroy Art; a pretence of Liberty

To destroy Liberty; a pretence of Religion to destroy Religion....”

[A MAN’S WORST ENEMIES]

Alas!—The time will come when a man’s worst enemies

Shall be those of his own house and family, in a Religion

Of Generation to destroy, by Sin and Atonement, happy Jerusalem,

The Bride and Wife of the Lamb. O God, thou art Not an Avenger!

[JERUSALEM! JERUSALEM!]

‘Jerusalem ! Jerusalem! why wilt thou turn away? ... “The Gigantic roots & twigs of the vegetating Sons of Albion,

Fill’d with the little-ones, are consumed in the Fires of their Altars.

The vegetating Cities are burned & consumed from the Earth,

And the Bodies in which all Animals & Vegetations, the Earth & Heaven

Were contain’d in the All Glorious Imagination, are wither’d & darken’d.

The golden Gate of Havilah and all the Garden of God

Was caught up with the Sun in one day of fury and war.

The Lungs, the Heart, the Liver, shrunk away far disstant from Man

And left a little slimy substance floating upon the tides.

In one night the Atlantic Continent was caught up with the Moon

And became an Opake Globe far distant, clad with moony beams.

The Visions of Eternity, by reason of narrowed perceptions,

Are become weak Visions of Time & Space, fix’d into furrows of death,

Till deep dissimulation is the only defence an honest man has left....”

[THE SHUT FORM]

“Ah! weak & wide astray! Ah! shut in narrow doleful form!

Creeping in reptile flesh upon the bosom of the ground!

The Eye of Man, a little narrow orb, clos’d up & dark,

Scarcely beholding the Great Light, conversing with the ground:

The Ear, a little shell, in small volutions shutting out

True Harmonies & comprehending great as very small:

The Nostrils, bent down to the earth & clos’d with senseless flesh

That odours cannot them expand, nor joy on them exult:

The Tongue, a little moisture fills, a little food it cloys,

A little sound it utters, & its cries are faintly heard....”

[A MURDEROUS PROVIDENCE]

“A murderous Providence! A Creation that groans, living on Death,

Where Fish & Bird & Beast & Man & Tree & Metal & Stone

Live by Devouring, going into Eternal Death continually!”

[COME, O LAMB OF GOD!]

“Come, O thou Lamb of God, and take away the remembrance of Sin.

To Sin & to hide the Sin in sweet deceit is lovely!

To Sin in the open face of day is cruel & pitiless! But

To record the Sin for a reproach, to let the Sun go down

In a remembrance of the Sin, is a Woe & a Horror,

A brooder of an Evil Day and a Sun rising in blood!

Come then, 0 Lamb of Cod, and take away the remembrance of Sin.”

[ALBION’S SPECTRE]

... The Spectre, like a hoar frost & a Mildew, rose over Albion,

Saying, “I am God, O Sons of Men! I am your Rational Power!

Am I not Bacon & Newton & Locke who teach Humility to Man,

Who teach Doubt & Experiment? & my two Wings, Voltaire, Rousseau?

Where is that Friend of Sinners? that Rebel against my Laws

Who teaches Belief to the Nations & an unknown Eternal Life?

Come hither into the Desart & turn these stones to bread.

Vain foolish Man! wilt thou believe without Experiment And build a World of Phantasy upon my Great Abyss,

A World of Shapes in craving lust & devouring appetite?”

[IT IS BETTER TO PREVENT MISERY]

Silence remain’d & every one resum’d his Human Majesty.

And many conversed on these things as they labour’d at the furrow,

Saying: “It is better to prevent misery than to release from misery:

It is better to prevent error than to forgive the criminal.

Labour well the Minute Particulars, attend to the Little-ones,

And those who are in misery cannot remain so long

If we do but our duty: labour well the teeming Earth.”

 

They Plow’d in tears, the trumpets sounded before the golden Plow,

And the voices of the Living Creatures were heard in the clouds of heaven,

Crying: “Compell the Reasoner to Demonstrate with un-hewn Demonstrations.

Let the Indefinite be explored, and let every Man be Judged

By his own Works. Let all Indefinites be thrown into Demonstrations,

To be pounded to dust & melted in the Furnaces of Affliction.

He who would do good to another must do it in Minute Particulars:

General Good is the plea of the scoundrel, hypocrite & flatterer,

For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized Particulars

And not in generalizing Demonstrations of the Rational Power.

The Infinite alone resides in Definite & Determinate Identity;

Establishment of Truth depends on destruction of Falshood continually,

On Circumcision, not on Virginity, 0 Reasoners of Albion!”

[THE DIVINE VISION]

“What is a Wife & what is a Harlot? What is a Church & What

Is a Theatre? are they Two & not One? can they Exist Separate?

Are not Religion & Politics the Same Thing? Brotherhood is Religion,

O Demonstrations of Reason Dividing Families in Cruelty & Pride!”

[THE DAUGHTERS OF LOS]

And in the North Gate, in the West of the North, toward Beulah,

Cathedron’s Looms are builded, and Los’s Furnaces in the South.

A wondrous golden Building immense with ornaments sublime

Is bright Cathedron’s golden Hall, its Courts, Towers & Pinnacles.

 

And one Daughter of Los sat at the fiery Reel, & another

Sat at the shining Loom with her Sisters attending round,

Terrible their distress, & their sorrow cannot be utter’d;

And another Daughter of Los sat at the Spinning Wheel,

Endless their labour, with bitter food, void of sleep;

Tho’ hungry, they labour: they rouze themselves anxious

Hour after hour labouring at the whirling Wheel,

Many Wheels & as many lovely Daughters sit weeping.

 

Yet the intoxicating delight that they take in their work

Obliterates every other evil; none pities their tears,

Yet they regard not pity & they expect no one to pity,

For they labour for life & love regardless of any one

But the poor Spectres that they work for always, incessantly.

 

They are mock’d by every one that passes by; they regard not,

They labour, & when their Wheels are broken by scorn & malice

They mend them sorrowing with many tears & afflictions.

 

Other Daughters Weave on the Cushion & Pillow Network fine

That Rahab & Tirzah may exist & live & breathe & love.

Ah, that it could be as the Daughters of Beulah wish !

 

Other Daughters of Los, labouring at Looms less fine,

Create the Silk-worm & the Spider & the Catterpiller

To assist in their most grievous work of pity & compassion;

And others Create the wooly Lamb & the downy Fowl

To assist in the work; the Lamb bleats, the Sea-fowl cries:

Men understand not the distress & the labour & sorrow

That in the Interior Worlds is carried on in fear & trembling,

Weaving the shudd’ring fears & loves of Albion’s Families.

Thunderous rage the Spindles of iron, & the iron Distaff

Maddens in the fury of their hands, weaving in bitter tears

The Veil of Goats-hair & Purple & Scarlet & fine twined Linen.

[A VISION OF MARY AND JOSEPH]

“... Behold, in the Visions of Elohim Jehovah, behold Joseph & Mary

And be comforted, O Jerusalem, in the Visions of Jehovah Elohim.”

 

She looked & saw Joseph the Carpenter in Nazareth & Mary

His espoused Wife. And Mary said, “If thou put me away from thee

Dost thou not murder me?” Joseph spoke in anger & fury, ”Should I

Marry a Harlot & an Adulteress?” Mary answer’d, ”Art thou more pure

Than thy Maker who forgiveth Sins & calls again Her that is Lost?

Tho’ She hates, he calls her again in love. I love my dear Joseph,

But he driveth me away from his presence; yet I hear the voice of God

In the voice of my Husband: tho’ he is angry for a moment, he will not

Utterly cast me away; if I were pure, never could I taste the sweets

Of the Forgiveness of Sins; if I were holy, I never could behold the tears

Of love of him who loves me in the midst of his anger in furnace of fire.”

 

“Ah my Mary!” said Joseph, weeping over & embracing her closely in

His arms: “Doth he forgive Jerusalem & not exact Purity from her who is

Polluted? I heard his voice in my sleep & his Angel in my dream,

Saying, ‘Doth Jehovah Forgive a Debt only on condition that it shall

Be Payed? Doth he Forgive Pollution only on conditions of Purity?

That Debt is not Forgiven! That Pollution is not Forgiven!

Such is the Forgiveness of the Gods, the Moral Virtues of the

Heathen whose tender Mercies are Cruelty. But Jehovah’s Salvation

Is without Money & without Price, in the Continual Forgiveness of Sins,

In the Perpetual Mutual Sacrifice in Great Eternity; for behold,

There is none that liveth & Sinneth notl And this is the Covenant

Of Jehovah: If you Forgive one-another, so shall Jehovah Forgive You,

That He Himself may Dwell among You. Fear not then to take

To thee Mary thy Wife, for she is with Child by the Holy Ghost.’ ”

Then Mary burst forth into a Song: she flowed like a River of

Many Streams in the arms of Joseph & gave forth her tears of joy

Like many waters, and Emanating into gardens & palaces upon

Euphrates, & to forests & floods & animals wild & tame from

Gihon to Hiddekel, & to corn fields & villages & inhabitants

Upon Pison & Arnon & Jordan. And I heard the voice among

The Reapers, Saying, “Am I Jerusalem the lost Adulteress ? or am I

Babylon come up to Jerusalem?” And another voice answer’ d, Saying,

 

“Does the voice of my Lord call me again? am I pure thro’ his Mercy

And Pity? Am I become lovely as a Virgin in his sight, who am

Indeed a Harlot drunken with the Sacrifice of Idols? does he

Call her pure as he did in the days of her Infancy when She

Was cast out to the loathing of her person? The Chaldean took

Me from my Cradle. The Amalekite stole me away upon his Camels

Before I had ever beheld with love the Face of Jehovah, or known

That there was a God of Mercy. O Mercy, O Divine Humanity!

O Forgiveness & Pity & Compassion! If I were Pure I should never

Have known Thee: If I were Unpolluted I should never have

Glorified thy Holiness or rejoiced in thy great Salvation.”

 

Mary leaned her side against Jerusalem: Jerusalem recieved

The Infant into her hands in the Visions of Jehovah. Times passed on.

Jerusalem fainted over the Cross & Sepulcher. She heard the voice:

“Wilt thou make Rome thy Patriarch Druid & the Kings of Europe his

Horsemen? Man in the Resurrection changes his Sexual Garments at Will.

Every Harlot was once a Virgin: every Criminal an Infant Love....

[THE DESOLATE WORLD ]

The inhabitants are sick to death: they labour to divide into Days

And Nights the uncertain Periods, and into Weeks & Months. In vain

They send the Dove & Raven & in vain the Serpent over the mountains

And in vain the Eagle & Lion over the four-fold wilderness:

They return not, but generate in rocky places desolate:

They return not, but build a habitation separate from Man.

The Sun forgets his course like a drunken man; he hesitates

Upon the Cheselden hills, thinking to sleep on the Severn.

In vain: he is hurried afar into an unknown Night:

He bleeds in torrents of blood as he rolls thro’ heaven above.

He chokes up the paths of the sky; the Moon is leprous as snow,

Trembling & descending down, seeking to rest on high Mona,

Scattering her leprous snows in flakes of disease over Albion.

The Stars flee remote; the heaven is iron, the earth is sulphur,

And all the mountains & hills shrink up like a withering gourd

As the Senses of Men shrink together under the Knife of flint

In the hands of Albion’s Daughters among the Druid Temples, ...

And the Twelve Daughters of Albion united in Rahab & Tirzah,

A Double Female; and they drew out from the Rocky Stones

Fibres of Life to Weave, for every Female is a Golden Loom,

The Rocks are opake hardnesses covering all Vegetated dungs;

And as they Wove & Cut from the Looms, in various divisions

Stretching over Europe & Asia from Ireland to Japan,

They divided into many lovely Daughters, to be counterparts

To those they Wove; for when they Wove a Male, they divided

Into a Female to the Woven Male: in opake hardness

They cut the Fibres from the Rocks: groaning in pain they Weave,

Calling the Rocks Atomic Origins of Existence, denying Eternity

By the Atheistical Epicurean Philosophy of Albion’s Tree.

Such are the Feminine & Masculine when separated from Man.

They call the Rocks Parents of Men, & adore the frowning Chaos,

Dancing around in howling pain, clothed in the bloody Veil,

Hiding Albion’s Sons within the Veil, closing Jerusalem’s Sons without, to feed with their Souls the Spectres of Albion,

Ashamed to give Love openly to the piteous & merciful Man,

Counting him an imbecile mockery, but the Warrior They adore & his revenge cherish with the blood of the Innocent.

[THE SPECTRE’S THREATS]

“0 thou poor Human Form!” said she. “0 thou poor child of woel

Why wilt thou wander away from Tirzah? why me compel to bind thee?

If thou dost go away from me I shall consume upon these Rocks.

These fibres of thine eyes that used to beam in distant heavens

Away from me, I have bound down with a hot iron.

These nostrils that expanded with delight in Morning skies

I have bent downward with lead melted in my roaring furnaces

Of affliction, of love, of sweet despair, of torment unendurable.

My soul is seven furnaces; incessant roars the bellows Upon my terribly flaming heart, the molten metal runs In channels thro’ my fiery limbs. O love, 0 pity, O fear, O pain! O the pangs, the bitter pangs of love forsaken!”

[THE WARRIOR’S LAMENT]

“.... Once Man was occupied in intellectual pleasures & energies,

But now my Soul is harrow’d with grief & fear & love & desire,

And now I hate & now I love, & Intellect is no more.

There is no time for any thing but the torments of love & desire....”

[ALL ARE MEN IN ETERNITY]

For all are Men in Eternity, Rivers, Mountains, Cities, Villages,

All are Human, & when you enter into their Bosoms you walk

In Heavens & Earths, as in your own Bosom you bear your Heaven

And Earth & all you behold; tho’ it appears Without, it is Within,

In your Imagination, of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow.

[MEN AND STATES]

As the Pilgrim passes while the Country permanent remains,

So Men pass on, but States remain permanent for ever.

[SPECTRE AND IMAGINATION]

The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man, & when separated

From Imagination and closing itself as in steel in a Ratio Of the Things of Memory, It thence frames Laws & Moralities

To destroy Imagination, the Divine Body, by Martyrdoms & Wars.

 

Teach me, O Holy Spirit, the Testimony of Jesus! let me Comprehend wonderous things out of the Divine Law!

I behold Babylon in the opening Streets of London. I behold

Jerusalem in ruins wandering about from house to house.

This I behold: the shudderings of death attend my steps.

I walk up and down in Six Thousand Years: their Events are present before me

To tell how Los in grief & anger, whirling round his Hammer on high,

Drave the Sons & Daughters of Albion from their ancient mountains.

[LOS’S HAMMER]

The blow of his Hammer is Justice, the swing of his Hammer Mercy,

The force of Los’s Hammer is eternal Forgiveness....

[THE ETERNAL CIRCLE]

And where Luther ends Adam begins the Eternal Circle

To awake Prisoners of Death, to bring Albion again

With Luvah into light eternal in his eternal day.

 

But now the Starry Heavens are fled from the mighty limbs of Albion.

[WHAT GOD IS]

“.... 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

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

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 murder’d 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 swell’d & bloated Form a Minute Particular;

But General Forms have their vitality in Particulars, & every

Particular is a Man, a Divine Member of the Divine Jesus....

 

“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 thund’rous Hammer shall drive thee

To wrath which thou condemnest, till thou obey my voice.”

[THE BREATH DIVINE]

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

Upon the Rock, he open’d 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 thund’ring, with broad flashes of flaming lightning & pillars

Of fire, speaking the Words of Eternity in Human Forms, in direful

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 Urthona’s Spectre in songs,

Because he kept the Divine Vision in time of trouble.

[JESUS AND ALBION]

Then Jesus appeared standing by Albion as the Good Shepherd

By the lost Sheep that he hath found, & Albion knew 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: “0 Lord, what can I do? my Selfhood cruel

Marches against thee, deceitful, from Sinai & from Edom

In to 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

Overshadow’d them, & Jesus said: “Thus do Men in Eternity

One for another to put off, by forgiveness, every sin.”

 

Albion reply’d: “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.

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.

Soon all around remote the Heavens burnt with flaming fires,

And Urizen & Luvah & Tharmas & Urthona arose into

Albion’s Bosom. Then Albion stood before Jesus in the Clouds

Of Heaven, Fourfold among the Visions of God in Eternity.