Page:The poetical works of William Blake; a new and verbatim text from the manuscript engraved and letterpress originals (1905).djvu/391

 Rh From VISIONS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF ALBION

The Argument


 * I loved Theotormon,
 * And I was not ashamed ;
 * I trembled in my virgin fears,
 * And I hid in Leutha's vale!
 * I plucked Leutha's Flower,
 * And I rose up from the vale ;
 * But the terrible thunders tore
 * My virgin mantle in twain.

Visions, f. 2, above an illustration of a nude kneeling female figure, kissing a sprite who springs upwards from the petals of a flower.

The speaker here is Oothoon, a daughter of Los, whose story — references to which occur in several of the Prophetic Books — probably formed the subject of the lost engraved work Outhoon. See list of Prophetic Books, no. 17.

I See note to 'Poems from Letters,' iv, l. 33. 4 Leutha, one of the daughters of Beulah (cp. Milton, f. 9, 1. 28), is depicted as a bird of paradise in a vale of flowers : see Europe, f. 12, ll. 9-14, and the Prophetic Books, passim.

From THE FOUR ZOAS i

At the first Sound the Golden Sun arises from the Deep, And shakes his awful hair, The Eccho wakes the moon to unbind her silver locks, The golden Sun bears on my song, And nine bright spheres of harmony rise round the fiery king.

Four Zoas, Night ii. The song which Enitharmon 'sang O'er Los, reviving him to Life.' 3 to unbind] again to unbind EY, WBY.