Plate 2

Preludium to the First Book of Urizen

Of the primeval Priest’s assum’d power,
When Eternals spurn’d back his Religion,
And gave him a place in the North,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.

Eternals! I hear your call gladly.
Dictate swift wingèd words, and fear not
To unfold your dark visions of torment.

Plate 3

CHAP. I

1. LO, a Shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! unknown, unprolific,
Self-clos’d, all-repelling. What Demon
Hath form’d this abominable Void,
This soul-shudd’ring Vacuum? Some said
It is Urizen. But unknown, abstracted,
Brooding, secret, the dark Power hid.

2. Times on times he divided, and measur’d
Space by space in his ninefold darkness,
Unseen, unknown; changes appear’d
Like desolate mountains, rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation.

3. For he strove in battles dire,
In unseen conflictions with Shapes,
Bred from his forsaken wilderness,
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent, and element,
Combustion, blast, vapour, and cloud.

4. Dark, revolving in silent activity,
Unseen in tormenting passions,
An Activity unknown and horrible,
A self-contemplating Shadow,
In enormous labours occupied.

5. But Eternals beheld his vast forests;
Ages on ages he lay, clos’d, unknown,
Brooding, shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific, abominable Chaos.

6. His cold horrors, silent, dark Urizen
Prepar’d; his ten thousands of thunders,
Rang’d in gloom’d array, stretch out across
The dread world; and the rolling of wheels,
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds,
In his hills of stor’d snows, in his mountains
Of hail and ice; voices of terror
Are heard, like thunders of autumn,
When the cloud blazes over the harvests.

CHAP. II

1. Earth was not, nor globes of attraction;
The will of the Immortal expanded
Or contracted his all-flexible senses;
Death was not, but Eternal life sprung.

2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens
Awoke, and vast clouds of blood roll’d
Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam’d
That solitary one in Immensity.

3. Shrill the trumpet! and myriads of Eternity

Plate 4

Muster around the bleak deserts,
Now fill’d with clouds, darkness, and waters,
That roll’d perplex’d, lab’ring; and utter’d
Words articulate, bursting in thunders,
That roll’d on the tops of his mountains:—

4. From the depths of dark solitude,
From The Eternal abode in my Holiness,
Hidden, set apart, in my stern counsels,
Reserv’d for the days of futurity,
I have sought for a joy without pain,
For a solid without fluctuation.
Why will you die, O Eternals?
Why live in unquenchable burnings?

5. First I fought with the fire, consum’d
Inwards into a deep world within,
A Void immense, wild, dark and deep,
Where nothing was—Nature’s wide womb;
And self-balanc’d, stretch’d o’er the void,
I alone, even I! the winds merciless
Bound; but condensing in torrents
They fall and fall; strong I repell’d
The vast waves, and arose on the waters
A wide World of solid obstruction.

6. Here alone I, in books form’d of metals,
Have written the secrets of Wisdom,
The secrets of dark Contemplation,
By fightings and conflicts dire
With terrible monsters sin-bred,
Which the bosoms of all inhabit—
Seven deadly Sins of the Soul.

7. Lo! I unfold my darkness, and on
This rock place, with strong hand, the Book
Of Eternal brass, written in my solitude:

8. Laws of peace, of love, of unity,
Of pity, compassion, forgiveness;
Let each choose one habitation,
His ancient infinite mansion,
One command, one joy, one desire,
One curse, one weight, one measure,
One King, one God, one Law.’

CHAP. III

1. The voice ended: they saw his pale visage
Emerge from the darkness, his hand
On the rock of Eternity unclasping
The Book of brass. Rage seiz’d the strong—

2. Rage, fury, intense indignation,
In cataracts of fire, blood, and gall,
In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke,
And enormous forms of energy,
All the seven deadly sins of the soul

Plate 6

In living creations appear’d,
In the flames of eternal fury.

3. Sund’ring, dark’ning, thund’ring,
Rent away with a terrible crash,
Eternity roll’d wide apart,
Wide asunder rolling;
Mountainous, all around
Departing, departing, departing,
Leaving ruinous fragments of life,
Hanging, frowning cliffs, and, all between,
An Ocean of voidness unfathomable.

4. The roaring fires ran o’er the heav’ns
In whirlwinds and cataracts of blood,
And o’er the dark deserts of Urizen
Fires pour thro’ the void, on all sides,
On Urizen’s self-begotten armies.

5. But no light from the fires, all was darkness
In the flames of Eternal fury.

6. In fierce anguish and quenchless flames
To the deserts and rocks he ran raging,
To hide; but he could not. Combining,
He dug mountains and hills in vast strength,
He piled them in incessant labour,
In howlings and pangs and fierce madness,
Long periods in burning fires labouring;
Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged,
In despair and the shadows of death.

7. And a roof vast, petrific, around
On all sides he fram’d, like a womb,
Where thousands of rivers, in veins
Of blood, pour down the mountains to cool
The eternal fires, beating without
From Eternals; and like a black Globe,
View’d by sons of Eternity, standing
On the shore of the infinite ocean,
Like a human heart, struggling and beating,
The vast world of Urizen appear’d.

8. And Los, round the dark globe of Urizen,
Kept watch for Eternals to confine
The obscure separation alone;
For Eternity stood wide apart,

Plate 7

As the stars are apart from the earth.

9. Los wept, howling around the dark Demon,
And cursing his lot; for in anguish
Urizen was rent from his side,
And a fathomless Void for his feet,
And intense fires for his dwelling.

10. But Urizen, laid in a stony sleep,
Unorganiz’d, rent from Eternity.

11. The Eternals said: What is this? Death?
Urizen is a clod of clay!

Plate 8

12. Los howl’d in a dismal stupor,
Groaning, gnashing, groaning,
Till the wrenching apart was hearèd.

13. But the wrenching of Urizen heal’d not.
Cold, featureless, flesh or clay,
Rifted with direful changes,
He lay in a dreamless night,

14. Till Los rous’d his fires, affrighted
At the formless, unmeasurable Death.

Plate 9

CHAP. IV (a)

Ages on ages roll’d over him!
In stony sleep ages roll’d over him!
Like a dark waste stretching chang’able
By earthquakes riv’n, belching sullen fires
On ages roll’d ages in ghastly
Sick torment; around him in whirlwinds
Of darkness the eternal Prophet howl’d
Beating still on his rivets of iron
Pouring sodor of iron; dividing
The horrible night into watches.

2. And Urizen (so his eternal name)
His prolific delight obscurd more & more
In dark secresy hiding in surgeing
Sulphureous fluid his phantasies.
The Eternal Prophet heavd the dark bellows,
And turn’d restless the tongs; and the hammer
Incessant beat; forging chains new & new
Numb’ring with links. hours, days & years

3. The eternal mind bounded began to roll
Eddies of wrath ceaseless round & round,
And the sulphureous foam surgeing thick
Settled, a lake, bright, & shining clear:
White as the snow on the mountains cold.

4. Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity!
In chains of the mind locked up,
Like fetters of ice shrinking together
Disorganiz’d, rent from Eternity,
Los beat on his fetters of iron;
And heated his furnaces & pour’d
Iron sodor and sodor of brass

5. Restless turnd the immortal inchain’d
Heaving dolorous! anguish’d! unbearable
Till a roof shaggy wild inclos’d
In an orb, his fountain of thought.

6. In a horrible dreamful slumber;
Like the linked infernal chain;
A vast Spine writh’d in torment
Upon the winds; shooting pain’d
Ribs, like a bending cavern
And bones of solidness, froze
Over all his nerves of joy.
And a first Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.

Plate 11

CHAP. IV (b)

1: Los smitten with astonishment
Frightend at the hurtling bones

2: And at the surging sulphureous
Perturbed Immortal mad raging

3: In whirlwinds & pitch & nitre
Round the furious limbs of Los

4: And Los formed nets & gins
And threw the nets round about

5: He watch’d in shuddring fear
The dark changes & bound every change
With rivets of iron & brass;

6. And these were the changes of Urizen.

Plate 12

7. From the caverns of his jointed Spine,
Down sunk with fright a red
Round globe hot burning deep
Deep down into the Abyss:
Panting: Conglobing, Trembling
Shooting out ten thousand branches
Around his solid bones.
And a second Age passed over,
And a state of dismal woe.

8. In harrowing fear rolling round;
His nervous brain shot branches
Round the branches of his heart.
On high into two little orbs
And fixed in two little eaves
Hiding carefully from the wind,
His Eyes beheld the deep,
And a third Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.

9. The pangs of hope began,
In heavy pain striving, struggling.
Two Ears in close volutions.
From beneath his orbs of vision
Shot spiring out and petrified
As they grew. And a fourth Age passed
And a state of dismal woe.

10. In ghastly torment sick;
Hanging upon the wind;

Plate 14

Two Nostrils bent down to the deep.
And a fifth Age passed over;
And a state of dismal woe.

11. In ghastly torment sick;
Within his ribs bloated round,
A craving Hungry Cavern;
Thence arose his channel’d Throat,
And like a red flame a Tongue
Of thirst & of hunger appear’d.
And a sixth Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.

12. Enraged & stifled with torment
He threw his right Arm to the north
His left Arm to the south
Shooting out in anguish deep,
And his Feet stampd the nether Abyss
In trembling & howling & dismay.
And a seventh Age passed over:
And a state of dismal woe.

CHAP. V

I. In terrors Los shrunk from his task:
His great hammer fell from his hand:
His fires beheld, and sickening,
Hid their strong limbs in smoke.
For with noises ruinous loud;
With hurtlings & clashings & groans
The Immortal endur’d his chains,
Tho’ bound in a deadly sleep.

2. All the myriads of Eternity:
All the wisdom & joy of life:
Roll like a sea around him,
Except what his little orbs
Of sight by degrees unfold.

3. And now his eternal life
Like a dream was obliterated

4. Shudd’ring, the Eternal Prophet smote
With a stroke, from his north to south region
The bellows & hammer are silent now
A nerveless silence, his prophetic voice
Siez’d; a cold solitude & dark void
The Eternal Prophet & Urizen clos’d

5. Ages on ages rolld over them
Cut off from life & light frozen
Into horrible forms of deformity
Los suffer’d his fires to decay
Then he look’d back with anxious desire
But the space undivided by existence
Struck horror into his soul.

6. Los wept obscur’d with mourning:
His bosom earthquak’d with sighs;
He saw Urizen deadly black,
In his chains bound, & Pity began,

7. In anguish dividing & dividing
For pity divides the soul
In pangs eternity on eternity
Life in cataracts pourd down his cliffs
The void shrunk the lymph into Nerves
Wand’ring wide on the bosom of night
And left a round globe of blood
Trembling upon the Void

Plate 16

Thus the Eternal Prophet was divided
Before the death-image of Urizen
For in changeable clouds and darkness
In a winterly night beneath,
The Abyss of Los stretch’d immense:
And now seen, now obscur’d, to the eyes
Of Eternals, the visions remote
Of the dark seperation appear’d.
As glasses discover Worlds
In the endless Abyss of space,
So the expanding eyes of Immortals
Beheld the dark visions of Los,
And the globe of life blood trembling

Plate 17

8. The globe of life blood trembled
Branching out into roots;
Fib’rous, writhing upon the winds;
Fibres of blood, milk and tears;
In pangs, eternity on eternity.
At length in tears & cries imbodied
A female form trembling and pale
Waves before his deathy face

9. All Eternity shudderd at sight
Of the first female now separate
Pale as a cloud of snow
Waving before the face of Los

10. Wonder, awe, fear, astonishment,
Petrify the eternal myriads;
At the first female form now separate

Plate 19

They call’d her Pity, and fled

11. “Spread a Tent, with strong curtains around them

“Let cords & stakes bind in the Void

That Eternals may no more behold them”

12. They began to weave curtains of darkness5

They erected large pillars round the Void

With golden hooks fastend in the pillars

With infinite labour the Eternals

A woof wove, and called it Science

CHAP: VI

1. But Los saw the Female & pitied
He embrac’d her, she wept, she refus’d
In perverse and cruel delight
She fled from his arms, yet he followd

2. Eternity shudder’d when they saw,
Man begetting his likeness,
On his own divided image.

3. A time passed over, the Eternals
Began to erect the tent;
When Enitharmon sick,
Felt a Worm within her womb.

4. Yet helpless it lay like a Worm
In the trembling womb
To be moulded into existence

5. All day the worm lay on her bosom
All night within her womb
The worm lay till it grew to a serpent
With dolorous hissings & poisons
Round Enitharmons loins folding,

6. Coild within Enitharmons womb
The serpent grew casting its scales,
With sharp pangs the hissings began
To change to a grating cry,
Many sorrows and dismal throes,
Many forms of fish, bird & beast,
Brought forth an Infant form
Where was a worm before.

7. The Eternals their tent finished
Alarm’d with these gloomy visions
When Enitharmon groaning
Produc’d a man Child to the light.

8. A shriek ran thro’ Eternity:
And a paralytic stroke;
At the birth of the Human shadow.

9. Delving earth in his resistless way;
Howling, the Child with fierce flames
Issu’d from Enitharmon.

10. The Eternals, closed the tent
They beat down the stakes the cords

Plate 21

Plate 23

Plate 24

Plate 24