Page:The prophetic books of William Blake, Milton.djvu/37

 His dictate; and his body was the Rock Sinai: that body,

Which was on earth born to corruption: & the six Females

Are Hor & Peor & Bashan & Abarim & Lebanon & Hermon,

Seven rocky masses terrible in the Desarts of Midian.

But Milton's Human Shadow continu'd journeying above

The rocky masses of The Mundane Shell; in the Lands

Of Edom & Aram & Moab & Midian & Amalek.

The Mundane Shell is a vast Concave Earth: an immense

Harden'd shadow of all things upon our Vegetated Earth,

Enlarg'd into dimension & deform'd into indefinite space,

In Twenty-seven Heavens and all their Hells; with Chaos

And Ancient Night; & Purgatory. It is a cavernous Earth

Of labyrinthine intricacy twenty-seven-folds of opakeness,

And finishes where the lark mounts; here Milton journeyed

In that Region call'd Midian, among the rocks of Horeb.

For travellers from Eternity, pass onward to Satan's seat,

But travellers to Eternity, pass inward to Golgonooza.

Los, the Vehicular terror, beheld him, & divine Enitharmon

Call'd all her daughters, Saying: Surely to unloose my bond

Is this Man come! Satan shall be unloos'd upon Albion!

Los heard in terror Enitharmon's words: in fibrous strength

His limbs shot forth like roots of trees against the forward path

Of Milton's journey. Urizen beheld the immortal Man.

P. 17 AND he also darken'd his brows: freezing dark rocks between

The footsteps, and infixing deep the feet in marble beds:

That Milton labour'd with his journey, & his feet bled sore

Upon the clay now chang'd to marble; also Urizen rose,

And met him on the shores of Albion, & by the streams of the brooks.

Silent they met, and silent strove among the streams of Arnon

Even to Mahanaim, when with cold hand Urizen stoop'd down

And took up water from the river Jordan: pouring on

To Milton's brain the icy fluid from his broad cold palm.

But Milton took of the red clay of Succoth, moulding it with care

Between his palms: and filling up the furrows of many years,

Beginning at the feet of Urizen, and on the bones

Creating new flesh on the Demon cold, and building him,

As with new clay, a Human form in the Valley of Beth Peor.

Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic. 13