The Book of Urizen



[Plate 2]



Of the primeval Priests assum'd power, When Eternals spurn'd back his religion; And gave him a place in the north, Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary. Eternals I hear your call gladly, Dictate swift winged words, & fear not To unfold your dark visions of torment.

[Plate 3]



1. Lo, a shadow of horror is risen In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific! Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon Hath form'd this abominable void This soul-shudd'ring vacuum? — Some said "It is Urizen", But unknown, abstracted Brooding secret, the dark power hid. 2. Times on times he divided, & measur'd Space by space in his ninefold darkness Unseen, unknown! changes appeard In his desolate mountains rifted furious By the black winds of perturbation 3. For he strove in battles dire In unseen conflictions with shapes Bred from his forsaken wilderness, Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud. 4. Dark revolving in silent activity: Unseen in tormenting passions; An activity unknown and horrible; A self-contemplating shadow, In enormous labours occupied 5. But Eternals beheld his vast forests Age on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid The petrific abominable chaos 6. His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen Prepar'd: his ten thousands of thunders Rang'd in gloom'd array stretch out across The dread world, & the rolling of wheels As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains Of hail & ice; voices of terror, Are heard, like thunders of autumn, When the cloud blazes over the harvests

1. Earth was not: nor globes of attraction The will of the Immortal expanded Or contracted his all flexible senses. Death was not, but eternal life sprung

2. The sound of a trumpet the heavens Awoke & vast clouds of blood roll'd Round the dim rocks of Urizen, so nam'd That solitary one in Immensity

3. Shrill the trumpet: & myriads of Eternity,

[Plate 4]



Muster around the bleak desarts Now fill'd with clouds, darkness & waters That roll'd perplex'd labring & utter'd Words articulate, bursting in thunders That roll'd on the tops of his mountains

4: From the depths of dark solitude. From The eternal abode in my holiness, Hidden set apart in my stern counsels Reserv'd for the days of futurity, I have sought for a joy without pain,

For a solid without fluctuation Why will you die O Eternals? Why live in unquenchable burnings?

5 First I fought with the fire; consum'd Inwards, into a deep world within: A void immense, wild dark & deep, Where nothing was: Natures wide womb

And self balanc'd stretch'd o'er the void I alone, even I! the winds merciless Bound; but condensing, in torrents They fall & fall; strong I repell'd The vast waves, & arose on the waters A wide world of solid obstruction

6. Here alone I in books formd of metals Have written the secrets of wisdom The secrets of dark contemplation By fightings and conflicts dire, With terrible monsters Sin-bred: Which the bosoms of all inhabit; Seven deadly Sins of the soul.

7. Lo! I unfold my darkness: and on This rock, place with strong hand the Book Of eternal brass, written in my solitude.

8. Laws of peace, of love, of unity: Of pity, compassion, forgiveness. Let each chuse one habitation: His ancient infinite mansion: One command, one joy one desire, One curse, one weight, one measure One King, one God, one Law.

1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage Emerge from the darkness; his hand On the rock of eternity unclasping The Book of brass. Rage siez'd the strong

2. Rage, fury, intense indignation In cataracts of fire blood & gall In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke: And enormous forms of energy; All the seven deadly sins of the soul

[Plate 5]



In living creations appear'd In the flames of eternal fury.

3. Sund'ring, dark'ning, thund'ring! Rent away with a terrible crash Eternity roll'd wide apart

Wide asunder rolling Mountainous all around Departing; departing; departing: Leaving ruinous fragments of life Hanging frowning cliffs & all between An ocean of voidness unfathomable.

4. The roaring fires ran o'er the heav'ns In whirlwinds & cataracts of blood And o'er the dark desarts of Urizen Fires pour thro' the void on all sides On Urizens self-begotten armies.

5. But no light from the fires. all was darkness In the flames of Eternal fury

6. In fierce anguish & quenchless flames To the desarts and rocks He ran raging To hide, but He could not: combining He dug mountains & hills in vast strength, He piled them in incessant labour, In howlings & pangs & fierce madness Long periods in burning fires labouring Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged, In despair and the shadows of death.

7. And a roof, vast petrific around, On all sides He fram'd: like a womb; Where thousands of rivers in veins Of blood pour down the mountains to cool The eternal fires beating without From Eternals; & like a black globe View'd by sons of Eternity, standing On the shore of the infinite ocean Like a human heart strugling & beating The vast world of Urizen appear'd.

8. And Los round the dark globe of Urizen, Kept watch for Eternals to confine, The obscure separation alone; For Eternity stood wide apart,

[Plate 6]



As the stars are apart from the earth

9. Los wept howling around the dark Demon: And cursing his lot; for in anguish,

Urizen was rent from his side; And a fathomless void for his feet; And intense fires for his dwelling.

10. But Urizen laid in a stony sleep Unorganiz'd, rent from Eternity

11. The Eternals said: What is this? Death Urizen is a clod of clay.

[Plate 7]



12: Los howld in a dismal stupor, Groaning! gnashing! groaning! Till the wrenching apart was healed



13: But the wrenching of Urizen heal'd not Cold, featureless, flesh or clay, Rifted with direful changes He lay in a dreamless night

14: Till Los rouz'd his fires, affrighted At the formless unmeasurable death.

[Plate 8]

1: Los smitten with astonishment Frightend at the hurtling bones

2: And at the surging sulphureous Perturbed Immortal mad raging

3: In whirlwinds & pitch & nitre Round the furious limbs of Los

4: And Los formed nets & gins And threw the nets round about

5: He watch'd in shuddring fear The dark changes & bound every change With rivets of iron & brass;

6. And these were the changes of Urizen.

[Plate 10]

1. Ages on ages roll'd over him! In stony sleep ages roll'd over him! Like a dark waste stretching chang'able By earthquakes riv'n, belching sullen fires On ages roll'd ages in ghastly

Sick torment; around him in whirlwinds Of darkness the eternal Prophet howl'd Beating still on his rivets of iron Pouring sodor of iron; dividing The horrible night into watches.

2. And Urizen (so his eternal name) His prolific delight obscurd more & more In dark secresy hiding in surgeing Sulphureous fluid his phantasies. The Eternal Prophet heavd the dark bellows, And turn'd restless the tongs; and the hammer Incessant beat; forging chains new & new Numb'ring with links. hours, days & years

3. The eternal mind bounded began to roll Eddies of wrath ceaseless round & round, And the sulphureous foam surgeing thick Settled, a lake, bright, & shining clear: White as the snow on the mountains cold.

4. Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity! In chains of the mind locked up, Like fetters of ice shrinking together Disorganiz'd, rent from Eternity, Los beat on his fetters of iron; And heated his furnaces & pour'd Iron sodor and sodor of brass

5. Restless turnd the immortal inchain'd Heaving dolorous! anguish'd! unbearable Till a roof shaggy wild inclos'd In an orb, his fountain of thought.

6. In a horrible dreamful slumber; Like the linked infernal chain; A vast Spine writh'd in torment Upon the winds; shooting pain'd Ribs, like a bending cavern And bones of solidness, froze Over all his nerves of joy. And a first Age passed over, And a state of dismal woe.

[Plate 11]

7. From the caverns of his jointed Spine, Down sunk with fright a red Round globe hot burning deep Deep down into the Abyss:

Panting: Conglobing, Trembling Shooting out ten thousand branches Around his solid bones. And a second Age passed over, And a state of dismal woe.

8. In harrowing fear rolling round; His nervous brain shot branches Round the branches of his heart. On high into two little orbs And fixed in two little caves Hiding carefully from the wind, His Eyes beheld the deep, And a third Age passed over: And a state of dismal woe.

9. The pangs of hope began, In heavy pain striving, struggling. Two Ears in close volutions. From beneath his orbs of vision Shot spiring out and petrified As they grew. And a fourth Age passed And a state of dismal woe.

10. In ghastly torment sick; Hanging upon the wind;

[Plate 13]

Two Nostrils bent down to the deep. And a fifth Age passed over; And a state of dismal woe.

11. In ghastly torment sick; Within his ribs bloated round, A craving Hungry Cavern; Thence arose his channeld Throat, And like a red flame a Tongue Of thirst & of hunger appeard. And a sixth Age passed over: And a state of dismal woe.

12. Enraged & stifled with torment He threw his right Arm to the north His left Arm to the south Shooting out in anguish deep, And his Feet stampd the nether Abyss In trembling & howling & dismay. And a seventh Age passed over: And a state of dismal woe.

I. In terrors Los shrunk from his task: His great hammer fell from his hand: His fires beheld, and sickening, Hid their strong limbs in smoke. For with noises ruinous loud; With hurtlings & clashings & groans The Immortal endur'd his chains, Tho' bound in a deadly sleep.

2. All the myriads of Eternity: All the wisdom & joy of life: Roll like a sea around him, Except what his little orbs Of sight by degrees unfold.

3. And now his eternal life Like a dream was obliterated

4. Shudd'ring, the Eternal Prophet smote With a stroke, from his north to south region The bellows & hammer are silent now A nerveless silence, his prophetic voice Siez'd; a cold solitude & dark void The Eternal Prophet & Urizen clos'd

5. Ages on ages rolld over them Cut off from life & light frozen Into horrible forms of deformity Los suffer'd his fires to decay Then he look'd back with anxious desire But the space undivided by existence Struck horror into his soul.

6. Los wept obscur'd with mourning: His bosom earthquak'd with sighs; He saw Urizen deadly black, In his chains bound, & Pity began,

7. In anguish dividing & dividing For pity divides the soul In pangs eternity on eternity Life in cataracts pourd down his cliffs The void shrunk the lymph into Nerves Wand'ring wide on the bosom of night And left a round globe of blood Trembling upon the Void



[Plate 15]

Thus the Eternal Prophet was divided Before the death-image of Urizen For in changeable clouds and darkness In a winterly night beneath, The Abyss of Los stretch'd immense: And now seen, now obscur'd, to the eyes Of Eternals, the visions remote Of the dark seperation appear'd. As glasses discover Worlds In the endless Abyss of space, So the expanding eyes of Immortals Beheld the dark visions of Los, And the globe of life blood trembling.

[plate 18]



8. The globe of life blood trembled Branching out into roots; Fib'rous, writhing upon the winds; Fibres of blood, milk and tears; In pangs, eternity on eternity. At length in tears & cries imbodied A female form trembling and pale Waves before his deathy face

9. All Eternity shudderd at sight Of the first female now separate Pale as a cloud of snow Waving before the face of Los

10. Wonder, awe, fear, astonishment, Petrify the eternal myriads; At the first female form now separate

[Plate 19]

They call'd her Pity, and fled

11. "Spread a Tent, with strong curtains around them "Let cords & stakes bind in the Void That Eternals may no more behold them" 12. They began to weave curtains of darkness They erected large pillars round the Void With golden hooks fastend in the pillars With infinite labour the Eternals A woof wove, and called it Science

1. But Los saw the Female & pitied He embrac'd her, she wept, she refus'd In perverse and cruel delight She fled from his arms, yet he followd

2. Eternity shudder'd when they saw, Man begetting his likeness, On his own divided image.

3. A time passed over, the Eternals Began to erect the tent; When Enitharmon sick, Felt a Worm within her womb.

4. Yet helpless it lay like a Worm In the trembling womb To be moulded into existence 5. All day the worm lay on her bosom All night within her womb The worm lay till it grew to a serpent With dolorous hissings & poisons Round Enitharmons loins folding,

6. Coild within Enitharmons womb The serpent grew casting its scales, With sharp pangs the hissings began To change to a grating cry, Many sorrows and dismal throes, Many forms of fish, bird & beast, Brought forth an Infant form Where was a worm before.

7. The Eternals their tent finished Alarm'd with these gloomy visions When Enitharmon groaning Produc'd a man Child to the light. 8. A shriek ran thro' Eternity: And a paralytic stroke; At the birth of the Human shadow. 9. Delving earth in his resistless way; Howling, the Child with fierce flames Issu'd from Enitharmon.

10. The Eternals, closed the tent They beat down the stakes the cords

Stretch'd for a work of eternity; No more Los beheld Eternity.

11. In his hands he siez'd the infant He bathed him in springs of sorrow He gave him to Enitharmon.

1. They named the child Orc, he grew Fed with milk of Enitharmon

2. Los awoke her; O sorrow & pain! A tight'ning girdle grew, Around his bosom. In sobbings He burst the girdle in twain, But still another girdle Opressd his bosom, In sobbings Again he burst it. Again Another girdle succeeds The girdle was form'd by day; By night was burst in twain.

3. These falling down on the rock Into an iron Chain In each other link by link lock'd

4. They took Orc to the top of a mountain. O how Enitharmon wept! They chain'd his young limbs to the rock With the Chain of Jealousy Beneath Urizens deathful shadow

5. The dead heard the voice of the child And began to awake from sleep All things. heard the voice of the child And began to awake to life.

6. And Urizen craving with hunger Stung with the odours of Nature Explor'd his dens around

7. He form'd a line & a plummet To divide the Abyss beneath. He form'd a dividing rule: 8. He formed scales to weigh; He formed massy weights; He formed a brazen quadrant;

He formed golden compasses And began to explore the Abyss And he planted a garden of fruits

9. But Los encircled Enitharmon With fires of Prophecy From the sight of Urizen & Orc.

10. And she bore an enormous race

1. Urizen explor'd his dens Mountain, moor, & wilderness, With a globe of fire lighting his journey A fearful journey, annoy'd By cruel enormities: forms

Of life on his forsaken mountains

2. And his world teemd vast enormities Frightning; faithless; fawning Portions of life; similitudes Of a foot, or a hand, or a head Or a heart, or an eye, they swam mischevous Dread terrors! delighting in blood 3. Most Urizen sicken'd to see His eternal creations appear Sons & daughters of sorrow on mountains Weeping! wailing! first Thiriel appear'd Astonish'd at his own existence Like a man from a cloud born, & Utha From the waters emerging, laments! Grodna rent the deep earth howling Amaz'd! his heavens immense cracks Like the ground parch'd with heat; then Fuzon Flam'd out! first begotten, last born. All his eternal sons in like manner His daughters from green herbs & cattle From monsters, & worms of the pit.

4. He in darkness clos'd, view'd all his race, And his soul sicken'd! he curs'd Both sons & daughters; for he saw That no flesh nor spirit could keep His iron laws one moment.

5. For he saw that life liv'd upon death

The Ox in the slaughter house moans The Dog at the wintry door And he wept, & he called it Pity And his tears flowed down on the winds

6. Cold he wander'd on high, over their cities In weeping & pain & woe! And where-ever he wanderd in sorrows Upon the aged heavens A cold shadow follow'd behind him Like a spiders web, moist, cold, & dim Drawing out from his sorrowing soul The dungeon-like heaven dividing. Where ever the footsteps of Urizen Walk'd over the cities in sorrow.

7. Till a Web dark & cold, throughout all The tormented element stretch'd From the sorrows of Urizens soul And the Web is a Female in embrio None could break the Web, no wings of fire.

8. So twisted the cords, & so knotted The meshes: twisted like to the human brain

9. And all calld it, The Net of Religion

1. Then the Inhabitants of those Cities: Felt their Nerves change into Marrow And hardening Bones began In swift diseases and torments, In throbbings & shootings & grindings Thro' all the coasts; till weaken'd The Senses inward rush'd shrinking, Beneath the dark net of infection.

2. Till the shrunken eyes clouded over Discernd not the woven hipocrisy But the streaky slime in their heavens Brought together by narrowing perceptions Appeard transparent air; for their eyes Grew small like the eyes of a man And in reptile forms shrinking together Of seven feet stature they remaind

3. Six days they shrunk up from existence And on the seventh day they rested And they bless'd the seventh day, in sick hope: And forgot their eternal life

4. And their thirty cities divided In form of a human heart No more could they rise at will In the infinite void, but bound down To earth by their narrowing perceptions

[Plate 28]



They lived a period of years Then left a noisom body To the jaws of devouring darkness

5. And their children wept, & built Tombs in the desolate places, And form'd laws of prudence, and call'd them The eternal laws of God

6. And the thirty cities remaind Surrounded by salt floods, now call'd Africa: its name was then Egypt.

7. The remaining sons of Urizen Beheld their brethren shrink together Beneath the Net of Urizen; Perswasion was in vain; For the ears of the inhabitants, Were wither'd, & deafen'd, & cold: And their eyes could not discern, Their brethren of other cities.

8. So Fuzon call'd all together The remaining children of Urizen: And they left the pendulous earth: They called it Egypt, & left it.

9. And the salt ocean rolled englob'd

The End of the [first] book of Urizen