Page:The prophetic books of William Blake, Milton.djvu/26

 Loud sounds the hammer of Los, & loud his Bellows is heard

Before London to Hampstead's breadths & Highgate's heights, To

Stratford & old Bow, & across to the Gardens of Kensington

On Tyburn's Brook: loud groans Thames beneath the iron Forge

Of Rintrah & Palamabron, of Theotorm & Bromion, to forge the instruments

Of Harvest: The Plow & Harrow to pass over the Nations.

The Surrey hills glow like the clinkers of the furnace: Lambeth's Vale

Where Jerusalem's foundations began; where they were laid in ruins,

Where they were laid in ruins from every Nation & Oak Groves rooted,

Dark gleams before the Furnace-mouth a heap of burning ashes.

When shall Jerusalem return & overspread all the Nations?

Return, return to Lambeth's Vale, O building of human souls!

Thence stony Druid Temples overspread the Island white,

And thence from Jerusalem's ruins, from her walls of salvation

And praise, thro' the whole Earth were rear'd from Ireland

To Mexico & Peru west, & east to China & Japan: till Babel

The Spectre of Albion frown'd over the Nations in glory & war.

All things begin & end in Albion's ancient Druid rocky shore:

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

Loud sounds the Hammer of Los, loud turn the Wheels of Enitharmon:

Her Looms vibrate with soft affections, weaving the Web of Life

Out from the ashes of the Dead; Los lifts his iron Ladles

With molten ore: he heaves the iron cliffs in his rattling chains

From Hyde Park to the Alms-houses of Mile-end & old Bow.

Here the Three Classes of Mortal Men take their fix'd destinations,

And hence they overspread the Nations of the whole Earth & hence

The Web of Life is woven, & the tender sinews of life created,

And the three Classes of Men regulated by Los's Hammer, and woven

P. 5 BY Enitharmon's Looms & Spun beneath the Spindle of Tirzah.

The first, The Elect from before the foundation of the World:

The second, The Redeem'd: The Third, The Reprobate & form'd

To destruction from the mothers womb:. . . . . . ..

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . follow with me my plow.

Of the first class was Satan: with incomparable mildness;

His primitive tyrannical attempts on Los; with most endearing love

He soft intreated Los to give to him Palamabron's station.

For Palamabron return'd with labour wearied every evening:

Palamabron oft refus'd: and as often Satan offer'd

His service, till by repeated offers and repeated intreaties 2