Delphi Poetry Anthology: The World's Greatest Poems (Delphi Poets Series Book 50) (157 page)

Striving with Systems to deliver Individuals from those Systems;

That whenever any Spectre began to devour the Dead,

He might feel the pain as if a man gnawd his own tender nerves.

Then Erin came forth from the Furnaces, & all the Daughters of Beulah

Came from the Furnaces, by Los’s mighty power for Jerusalems

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Sake: walking up and down among the Spaces of Erin:

And the Sons and Daughters of Los came forth in perfection lovely!

And the Spaces of Erin reach’d from the starry heighth, to the starry depth.

Los wept with exceeding joy & all wept with joy together!

They feard they never more should see their Father, who

Was built in from Eternity, in the Cliffs of Albion.

But when the joy of meeting was exhausted in loving embrace;

Again they lament. O what shall we do for lovely Jerusalem?

To protect the Emanations of Albions mighty ones from cruelty?

Sabrina & Ignoge begin to sharpen their beamy spears

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Of light and love: their little children stand with arrows of gold:

Ragan is wholly cruel Scofield is bound in iron armour!

He is like a mandrake in the earth before Reubens gate:

He shoots beneath Jerusalems walls to undermine her foundations:

Vala is but thy Shadow, O thou loveliest among women!

A shadow animated by thy tears O mournful Jerusalem!

PLATE 12

Why wilt thou give to her a Body whose life is but a Shade?

Her joy and love, a shade: a shade of sweet repose:

But animated and vegetated, she is a devouring worm:

What shall we do for thee O lovely mild Jerusalem?

And Los said. I behold the finger of God in terrors!

Albion is dead! his Emanation is divided from him!

But I am living! yet I feel my Emanation also dividing

Such thing was never known! O pity me, thou all-piteous-one!

What shall I do! or how exist, divided from Enitharmon?

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Yet why despair! I saw the finger of God go forth

Upon my Furnaces, from within the Wheels of Albions Sons:

Fixing their Systems, permanent: by mathematic power

Giving a body to Falshood that it may be cast off for ever.

With Demonstrative Science piercing Apollyon with his own bow!

God is within, & without! he is even in the depths of Hell!

Such were the lamentations of the Labourers in the Furnaces!

And they appeard within & without incircling on both sides

The Starry Wheels of Albions Sons, with Spaces for Jerusalem:

And for Vala the shadow of Jerusalem: the ever mourning shade:

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On both sides, within & without beaming gloriously!

Terrified at the sublime Wonder, Los stood before his Furnaces.

And they stood around, terrified with admiration at Erins Spaces

For the Spaces reachd from the starry heighth, to the starry depth;

And they builded Golgonooza: terrible eternal labour!

What are those golden builders doing? where was the burying-place

Of soft Ethinthus? near Tyburns fatal Tree? is that

Mild Zions hills most ancient promontory; near mournful

Ever weeping Paddington? is that Calvary and Golgotha?

Becoming a building of pity and compassion? Lo!

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The stones are pity and the bricks, well wrought affections:

Enameld with love & kindness, & the tiles engraven gold

Labour of merciful hands: the beams & rafters are forgiveness:

The mortar & cement of the work, tears of honesty: the nails,

And the screws & iron braces, are well wrought blandishments,

And well contrived words, firm fixing, never forgotten,

Always comforting the remembrance: the floors, humility,

The cielings, devotion: the hearths, thanksgiving:

Prepare the furniture O Lambeth in thy pitying looms!

The curtains, woven tears & sighs, wrought into lovely forms

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For comfort, there the secret furniture of Jerusalems chamber

Is wrought: Lambeth! the Bride the Lambs Wife loveth thee:

Thou art one with her & knowest not of self in thy supreme joy.

Go on, builders in hope: tho Jerusalem wanders far away,

Without the gate of Los: among the dark Satanic wheels.

Fourfold the Sons of Los in their divisions: and fourfold,

The great City of Golgonooza: fourfold toward the north

And toward the south fourfold, & fourfold toward the east & west

Each within other toward the four points: that toward

Eden, and that toward the World of Generation,

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And that toward Beulah, and that toward Ulro:

Ulro is the space of the terrible starry wheels of Albions sons:

But that toward Eden is walled up, till time of renovation:

Yet it is perfect in its building, ornaments & perfection.

And the Four Points are thus beheld in Great Eternity

West, the Circumference: South, the Zenith: North,

The Nadir: East, the Center, unapproachable for ever.

These are the four Faces towards the Four Worlds of Humanity

In every Man. Ezekiel saw them by Chebars flood.

And the Eyes are the South, and the Nostrils are the East.

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And the Tongue is the West, and the Ear is the North.

And the North Gate of Golgonooza toward Generation

Has four sculpturd Bulls terrible before the Gate of iron.

And iron, the Bulls: and that which looks toward Ulro,

Clay bak’d & enamel’d, eternal glowing as four furnaces:

Turning upon the Wheels of Albions sons with enormous power.

And that toward Beulah four, gold, silver, brass, & iron:

PLATE 13

And that toward Eden, four, form’d of gold, silver, brass, & iron.

The South, a golden Gate, has four Lions terrible, living!

That toward Generation, four, of iron carv’d wondrous:

That toward Ulro, four, clay bak’d, laborious workmanship

That toward Eden, four; immortal gold, silver, brass & iron.

The Western Gate fourfold, is closd: having four Cherubim

Its guards, living, the work of elemental hands, laborious task!

Like Men, hermaphroditic, each winged with eight wings

That towards Generation, iron; that toward Beulah, stone;

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That toward Ulro, clay: that toward Eden, metals.

But all clos’d up till the last day, when the graves shall yield their dead

The Eastern Gate, fourfold: terrible & deadly its ornaments:

Taking their forms from the Wheels of Albions sons; as cogs

Are formd in a wheel, to fit the cogs of the adverse wheel.

That toward Eden, eternal ice, frozen in seven folds

Of forms of death: and that toward Beulah, stone:

The seven diseases of the earth are carved terrible.

And that toward Ulro, forms of war: seven enormities:

And that toward Generation, seven generative forms.

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And every part of the City is fourfold; & every inhabitant, fourfold.

And every pot & vessel & garment & utensil of the houses,

And every house, fourfold; but the third Gate in every one

Is closd as with a threefold curtain of ivory & fine linen & ermine.

And Luban stands in middle of the City, a moat of fire,

Surrounds Luban, Los’s Palace & the golden Looms of Cathedron.

And sixty-four thousand Genii, guard the Eastern Gate:

And sixty-four thousand Gnomes, guard the Northern Gate:

And sixty-four thousand Nymphs, guard the Western Gate:

And sixty-four thousand Fairies, guard the Southern Gate:

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Around Golgonooza lies the land of death eternal; a Land

Of pain and misery and despair and ever brooding melancholy:

In all the Twenty-seven Heavens, numberd from Adam to Luther;

From the blue Mundane Shell, reaching to the Vegetative Earth.

The Vegetative Universe, opens like a flower from the Earths 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:

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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:

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

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

Self-righteousnesses 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.

He views the City of Golgonooza, & its smaller Cities:

The Looms & Mills & Prisons & Work-houses of Og & Anak:

The Amalekite: the Canaanite: the Moabite: the Egyptian:

And all that has existed in the space of six thousand years:

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Permanent, & not lost not lost nor vanishd, & every little act,

Word, work, & wish, that has existed, all remaining still

In those Churches ever consuming & ever building by the Spectres

Of all the inhabitants of Earth wailing to be Created:

Shadowy to those who dwell not in them, meer possibilities:

But to those who enter into them they seem the only substances

For every thing exists & not one sigh nor smile nor tear,

PLATE 14

One hair nor particle of dust, not one can pass away.

He views the Cherub at the Tree of Life, also the Serpent,

Orc the first born coild in the south: the Dragon Urizen:

Tharmas the Vegetated Tongue even the Devouring Tongue:

A threefold region, a false brain: a false heart:

And false bowels: altogether composing the False Tongue,

Beneath Beulah: as a watry flame revolving every way

And as dark roots and stems: a Forest of affliction, growing

In seas of sorrow. Los also views the Four Females:

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Ahania, and Enion, and Vala, and Enitharmon lovely.

And from them all the lovely beaming Daughters of Albion,

Ahania & Enion & Vala, are three evanescent shades:

Enitharmon is a vegetated mortal Wife of Los:

His Emanation, yet his Wife till the sleep of Death is past.

Such are the Buildings of Los: & such are the Woofs of Enitharmon:

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: