The Portable Blake by William Blake
And the Leprosy London’s Spirit, sickening all their bands:
The millions sent up a howl of anguish and threw off their hammer’d mail,
And cast their swords & spears to earth, & stood, a naked multitude:
Albion’s Guardian writhed in torment on the eastern sky,
Pale, quiv’ring toward the brain his glimmering eyes, teeth chattering,
Howling & shuddering, his legs quivering, convuls’d each muscle & sinew:
Sick’ning lay London’s Guardian, and the ancient miterd York,
Their heads on snowy hills, their ensigns sick’ning in the sky.
The plagues creep on the burning winds driven by flames of Orc,
And by the fierce Americans rushing together in the night,
Driven o’er the Guardians of Ireland, and Scotland and Wales.
They, spotted with plagues, forsook the frontiers; & their banners, sear’d
With fires of hell, deform their ancient heavens with shame & woe.
Hid in his caves the Bard of Albion felt the enormous plagues,
And a cowl of flesh grew o’er his head, & scales on his back & ribs;
And, rough with black scales, all his Angels fright their ancient heavens.
The doors of marriage are open, and the Priests in rustling scales
Rush into reptile coverts, hiding from the fires of Ore,
That play around the golden roofs in wreaths of fierce desire,
Leaving the females naked and glowing with the lusts of youth.
For the female spirits of the dead, pining in bonds of religion,
Run from their fetters reddening, & in long drawn arches sitting,
They feel the nerves of youth renew, and desires of ancient times
Over their pale limbs, as a vine when the tender grape appears.
Over the hills, the vales, the cities, rage the red flames fierce:
The Heavens melted from north to south; and Urizen, who sat
Above all heavens, in thunders wrap’d, emerg’d his leprous head
From out his holy shrine, his tears in deluge piteous
Falling into the deep sublime; flag’d with grey-brow’d snows
And thunderous visages, his jealous wings wav’d over the deep;
Weeping in dismal howling woe, he dark descended, howling
Around the smitten bands, clothed in tears & trembling, shudd’ring cold.
His stored snows he poured forth, and his icy magazines
He open’d on the deep, and on the Atlantic sea white shiv’ring
Leprous his limbs, all over white, and hoary was his visage,
Weeping in dismal howlings before the stern Americans,
Hiding the Demon red with clouds & cold mists from the earth;
Till Angels & weak men twelve years should govern o’er the strong;
And then their end should come, when France receiv’d the Demon’s light.
Stiff shudderings shook the heav’nly thrones! France, Spain, & Italy
In terror view’d the bands of Albion, and the ancient Guardians,
Fainting upon the elements, smitten with their own plagues.
They slow advance to shut the five gates of their law-built heaven,
Filled with blasting fancies and with mildews of despair,
With fierce disease and lust, unable to stem the fires of Ore.
But the five gates were consum’d, & their bolts and hinges melted;
And the fierce flames burnt round the heavens & round the abodes of men.
FINIS
EUROPE
(1794)
A PROPHECY
“Five windows light the cavern’d Man: thro’ one he breathes the air;
Thro’ one hears music of the spheres; thro’ one the eternal vine
Flourishes, that he may recieve the grapes; thro’ one can look
And see small portions of the eternal world that ever groweth;
Thro’ one himself pass out what time he please; but he will not,
For stolen joys are sweet & bread eaten in secret pleasant.”
So sang a Fairy, mocking, as he sat on a streak’d Tulip,
Thinking none saw him: when he ceas’d I started from the trees
And caught him in my hat, as boys knock down a butterfly.
“How know you this,” said I, “small Sir? where did you learn this song?”
Seeing himself in my possession, thus he answer’d me:
“My master, I am yours! command me, for I must obey.”
“Then tell me, what is the material world, and is it dead?”
He, laughing, answer’d: “I will write a book on leaves of flowers,
If you will feed me on love-thoughts & give me now and then
A cup of sparkling poetic fancies; so, when I am tipsie,
I’ll sing to you to this soft lute, and shew you all alive
The world, where every particle of dust breathes forth its joy.”
I took him home in my warm bosom: as we went along
Wild flowers I gather’d, & he shew’d me each eternal flower:
He laugh’d aloud to see them whimper because they were pluck’d.
They hover’d round me like a cloud of incense: when I came
Into my parlour and sat down and took my pen to write.
My Fairy sat upon the table and dictated EUROPE.
PRELUDIUM
The nameless shadowy female rose from out the breast of Orc,
Her snaky hair brandishing in the winds of Enitharmon;
And thus her voice arose:
“0 mother Enitharmon, wilt thou bring forth other sons?
To cause my name to vanish, that my place may not be found,
For I am faint with travail,
Like the dark cloud disburden’d in the day of dismal thunder.
“My roots are brandish’d in the heavens, my fruits in earth beneath
Surge, foam and labour into life, first bom & first con-sum’ d!
Consumed and consuming!
Then why shouldst thou, accursed mother, bring me into life?
“I wrap my turban of thick clouds around my lab’ring head,
And fold the sheety waters as a mantle round my limbs;
Yet the red sun and moon
And all the overflowing stars rain down prolific pains.
“Unwilling I look up to heaven, unwilling count the stars:
Sitting in fathomless abyss of my immortal shrine
I sieze their burning power
And bring forth howling terrors, all devouring fiery kings,
“Devouring & devoured, roaming on dark and desolate mountains,
In forests of eternal death, shrieking in hollow trees.
Ah mother Enitharmon!
Stamp not with solid form this vig’rous progeny of fires.
“I bring forth from my teeming bosom myriads of flames,
And thou dost stamp them with a signet; then they roam abroad
And leave me void as death.
Ah! I am drown’d in shady woe and visionary joy.
“And who shall bind the infinite with an eternal band?
To compass it with swaddling bands? and who shall cherish it
With milk and honey?
I see it smile, & I roll inward, & my voice is past.”
She ceast, & roll’d her shady clouds
Into the secret place.
A PROPHECY
The deep of winter came,
What time the secret child
Descended thro’ the orient gates of the eternal day:
War ceas’d, & all the troops like shadows fled to their abodes.
Then Enitharmon saw her sons & daughters rise around;
Like pearly clouds they meet together in the crystal house;
And Los, possessor of the moon, joy’d in the peaceful night,
Thus speaking, while his num’rous sons shook their bright fiery wings:
“Again the night is come
And Urizen, unloos’d from chains,
Glows like a meteor in the distant north.
Stretch forth your hands and strike the elemental strings!
Awake the thunders of the deep!
“The shrill winds wake,
Till all the sons of Urizen look out and envy Los.
Sieze all the spirits of life, and bind
Their warbling joys to our loud strings!
Bind all the nourishing sweets of earth
To give us bliss, that we may drink the sparkling wine of Los!
And let us laugh at war,
Despising toil and care,
Because the days and nights of joy in lucky hours renew.
“Arise, O Orc, from thy deep den!
First born of Enitharmon, rise!
And we will crown thy head with garlands of the ruddy vine;
For now thou art bound, And I may see thee in the hour of bliss, my eldest born.”
The horrent Demon rose surrounded with red stars of fire
Whirling about in furious circles round the immortal fiend.
Then Enitharmon down descended into his red light,
And thus her voice rose to her children: the distant heavens reply:
“Now comes the night of Enitharmon’s joy!
Who shall I call? Who shall I send,
That Woman, lovely Woman, may have dominion?
Arise, O Rintrah, thee I call! & Palamabron, thee!
Go! tell the Human race that Woman’s love is Sin;
That an Eternal life awaits the worms of sixty winters
In an allegorical abode where existence hath never come.
Forbid all Joy, & from her childhood shall the little female
Spread nets in every secret path.
“My weary eyelids draw towards the evening; my bliss is yet but new.
“Arise, O Rintrah, eldest born, second to none but Ore!
O lion Rintrah, raise thy fury from thy forests black!
Bring Palamabron, homed priest, skipping upon the mountains,
And silent Elynittria, the silver bowed queen.
Rintrah, where hast thou hid thy bride?
Weeps she in desart shades?
Alas! my Rintrah, bring the lovely jealous Ocalythron.
“Arise, my son! bring all thy brethren, O thou king of fire!
Prince of the sun! I see thee with thy innumerable race,
Thick as the summer stars;
But each, ramping, his golden mane shakes,
And thine eyes rejoice because of strength, O Rintrah, furious king!”
Enitharmon slept Eighteen hundred years. Man was a Dream!
The night of Nature and their harps unstrung!
She slept in middle of her nightly song
Eighteen hundred years, a female dream.
Shadows of men in fleeting bands upon the winds
Divide the heavens of Europe
Till Albion’s Angel, smitten with his own plagues, fled with his bands.
The cloud bears hard on Albion’s shore,
Fill’d with immortal demons of futurity:
In council gather the smitten Angels of Albion;
The cloud bears hard upon the council house, down rushing
On the heads of Albion’s Angels.
One hour they lay buried beneath the ruins of that hall;
But as the stars rise from the salt lake, they arise in pain,
In troubled mists, o’erclouded by the terrors of strugling times.
In thoughts perturb’d they rose from the bright ruins, silent following
The fiery King, who sought his ancient temple, serpent-form’ d,
That stretches out its shady length along the Island white.
Round him roll’d his clouds of war; silent the Angel went
Along the infinite shores of Thames to golden Verulam. There stand the venerable porches that high-towering rear
Their oak-surrounded pillars, form’d of massy stones, uncut
With tool, stones precious, such eternal in the heavens, Of colours twelve, few known on earth, give light in the opake,
Plac’d in the order of the stars, when the five senses whelm’d
In deluge o’er the earth-born man; then turn’d the fluxile eyes
Into two stationary orbs, concentrating all things:
The ever-varying spiral ascents to the heavens of heavens
Were bended downward, and the nostrils’ golden gates shut,
Turn’d outward, barr’d and petrify’d against the infinite.
Thought chang’d the infinite to a serpent, that which pitieth
To a devouring flame; and man fled from its face and hid
In forests of night: then all the eternal forests were divided
Into earths rolling in circles of space, that like an ocean rush’d
And overwhelmed all except this finite wall of flesh.
Then was the serpent temple form’d, image of infinite
Shut up in finite revolutions, and man became an Angel,
Heaven a mighty circle turning, God a tyrant crown’d.
Now arriv’d the ancient Guardian at the southern porch
That planted thick with trees of blackest leaf & in a vale
Obscure enclos’d the Stone of Night; oblique it stood, o’erhung
With purple flowers and berries red, image of that sweet south
Once open to the heavens, and elevated on the human neck,
Now overgrown with hair and cover’d with a stony roof.
Downward ’tis sunk beneath th’ attractive north, that round the feet,
A raging whirlpool, draws the dizzy enquirer to his grave.
Albion’s Angel rose upon the Stone of Night.
He saw Urizen on the Atlantic;
And his brazen Book
That Kings & Priests had copied on Earth,
Expanded from North to South.
And the clouds & fires pale roll’d round in the night of Enitharmon,
Round Albion’s cliffs & London’s walls: still Enitharmon slept.
Rolling volumes of grey mist involve Churches, Palaces, Towers;
For Urizen unclasp’d his Book, feeding his soul with pity.
The youth of England, hid in gloom, curse the pain’d heavens, compell’d
Into the deadly night to see the form of Albion’s Angel.
Their parents brought them forth, & aged ignorance preaches, canting,
On a vast rock, perciev’d by those senses that are clos’d from thought:
Bleak, dark, abrupt it stands & overshadows London city.
They saw his boney feet on the rock, the flesh consum’d in flames;
They saw the Serpent temple lifted above, shadowing the Island white;
They heard the voice of Albion’s Angel howling in flames of Orc,
Seeking the trump of the last doom.
Above the rest the howl was heard from Westminster louder & louder:
The Guardian of the secret codes forsook his ancient mansion,
Driven out by the flames of Ore; his furr’d robes & false locks
Adhered and grew one with his flesh, and nerves & veins shot thro’ them.
With dismal torment sick, hanging upon the wind, he fled
Groveling along Great George Street thro’ the Park gate: all the soldiers
Fled from his sight: he drag’d his torments to the wilderness.
Thus was the howl thro’ Europe!
For Orc rejoic’d to hear the howling shadows;
But Palamabron shot his lightnings, trenching down his wide back;
And Rintrah hung with all his legions in the nether deep.
Enitharmon laugh’d in her sleep to see (O woman’s triumph!)
Every house a den, every man bound: the shadows are fill’d
With spectres, and the windows wove over with curses of iron:
Over the doors “Thou shalt not,” & over the chimney
With bands of iron round their necks fasten’d into the walls
The citizens, in leaden gyves the inhabitants of suburbs Walk heavy; soft and bent are the bones of villagers.
Between the clouds of Urizen the flames of Orc roll heavy
Around the limbs of Albion’s Guardian, his flesh consuming :
Howlings & hissings, shrieks & groans, & voices of despair
Arise around him in the cloudy heavens of Albion. Furious,
The red limb’d Angel siez’d in horror and torment
The Trump of the last doom; but he could not blow the iron tube!
Thrice he assay’d presumptuous to awake the dead to judgment.
A mighty Spirit leap’d from the land of Albion,
Nam’d Newton: he siez’d the trump & blow’d the enormous blast!
Yellow as leaves of Autumn, the myriads of Angelic hosts
Fell thro’ the wintry skies seeking their graves, Rattling their hollow bones in howling and lamentation.
Then Enitharmon woke, nor knew that she had slept;
And eighteen hundred years were fled
As if they had not been.
She call’d her sons & daughters
To the sports of night
Within her crystal house,
And thus her song proceeds:
“Arise, Ethinthus! tho’ the earth-worm call,
Let him call in vain,
Till the night of holy shadows
And human solitude is past!
“Ethinthus, queen of waters, how thou shinest in the sky!