Page:The prophetic books of William Blake, Milton.djvu/67

 And Ancient Night spread over all the heav'n his Mantle of Laws.

He trembled with exceeding great trembling & astonishment.

Then Albion rose up in the Night of Beulah on his Couch

Of dread repose seen by the visionary eye: his face is toward

The east, toward Jerusalem's Gates: groaning he sat above

His rocks, London & Bath & Legions & Edinburgh

Are the four pillars of his Throne: his left foot near London

Covers the shades of Tyburn: his instep from Windsor

To Primrose Hill stretching to Highgate & Holloway.

London is between his knees: its basements fourfold:

His right foot stretches to the sea on Dover cliffs, his heel

On Canterbury's ruins; his right hand covers lofty Wales:

His left Scotland; his bosom girt with gold involves

York, Edinburgh, Durham & Carlisle, & on the front

Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich: his right elbow

Leans on the Rocks of Erin's Land, Ireland, ancient nation.

His head bends over London: he sees his embodied Spectre

Trembling before him with exceeding great trembling & fear.

He views Jerusalem & Babylon, his tears flow down:

He mov'd his right foot to Cornwall, his left to the Rocks of Bognor:

He strove to rise to walk into the Deep, but strength failing

Forbad, & down with dreadful groans he sunk upon his Couch

In moony Beulah. Los his strong Guard Walks round beneath the Moon.

Urizen faints in terror striving among the Brooks of Arnon

With Milton's Spirit: as the Plowman or Artificer or Shepherd

While in the labours of his Calling sends his Thought abroad

To labour in the ocean or in the starry heaven. So Milton

Labour'd in Chasms of the Mundane Shell tho' here before

My Cottage midst the Starry Seven, where the Virgin Ololon

Stood trembling in the Porch: loud Satan thunder'd on the stormy Sea,

Circling Albion's Chffs, in which the Four-fold World resides

Tho' seen in fallacy outside: a fallacy of Satan's Churches.

P. 42 BEFORE Ololon Milton stood & perciev'd the Eternal Form

Of that mild Vision: wondrous were their acts by me unknown

Except remotely: and I heard Ololon say to Milton:

I see thee strive upon the Brooks of Arnon, there a dread

And awful Man I see, o'ercover'd with the mantle of years.

I behold Los & Urizen, I behold Orc & Tharmas,

The Four Zoas of Albion, & thy Spirit with them striving, 43