Page:The prophetic books of William Blake, Milton.djvu/75

 And moved the fast foundations of the Earth to wake the Dead.

Urizen emerged from his Rocky Form & from his Snows.

P. 32* AND Milton oft sat up on the Couch of Death & oft conversed

In vision & dream beatific with the Seven Angels of the Presence:

I have turned my back upon these Heavens builded on cruelty.

My Spectre still wandering thro' them follows my Emanation,

He hunts her footsteps thro' the snow & the wintry hail & rain.

The idiot Reasoner laughs at the Man of Imagination,

And from laughter proceeds to murder by undervaluing calumny.

Then Hillel, who is Lucifer, replied over the Couch of Death,

And thus the Seven Angels instructed him & thus they converse:

We are not Individuals but States: Combinations of Individuals.

We were Angels of the Divine Presence: & were Druids in Annandale,

Compell'd to combine into Form by Satan, the Spectre of Albion,

Who made himself a God & destroyed the Human Form Divine.

But the Divine Humanity & Mercy gave us a Human Form,

Because we were combin'd in Freedom & holy Brotherhood:

While those combined by Satan's Tyranny, first in the blood of War

And Sacrifice, & next in Chains of imprisonment, are Shapeless Rocks

Retaining only Satan's Mathematic Holiness, Length, Bredth & Highth.

Calling the Human Imagination: which is the Divine Vision & Fruition

In which Man liveth eternally: madness & blasphemy, against

Its own Qualities, which are Servants of Humanity, not Gods or Lords.

Distinguish therefore States from Individuals in those States.

States Change: but Individual Identities never change nor cease.

You cannot go to Eternal Death in that which can never Die.

Satan & Adam are States Created into Twenty-seven Churches:

And thou, O Milton, art a State about to be Created,

Called Eternal Annihilation, that none but the Living shall

Dare to enter: & they shall enter triumphant over Death

And Hell and the Grave: States that are not, but ah! Seem to be.

Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore.

What is Eternal & what Changeable? & what Annihilable?

The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself.

Affection or Love becomes a State when divided from Imagination.

The Memory is a State always, & the Reason is a State

Created to be Annihilated, & a new Ratio Created. 51