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Night the First

'If you account it Wisdom when you are angry to be silent and
Not shew it: I do not account that Wisdom but folly.
Every Man's Wisdom is peculiar ro his own Individuality.
Lo Satan, my youngest born, art thou not Prince of the Starry Hosts
And of the Wheels of Heaven, to turn the Mills day & night?
Art thou not Newton's Pantocrator weaving the the woof of Locke?
To Mortals the Mills seem every thing & the Harrow of Shaddai
A scheme of Human conduct invisible & incomprehensible.
Get to thy Labours at the Mills & leave me to my wrath.'

. . .

Ah weak & wide astray: Ah shut in narrow doleful form
Creeping in reptile flesh upon the bosom of the ground:
The Eye of Man a little narrow orb closd up & dark
Scarcely beholding the great light, conversing with the Void:
The Ear a little shell in small volutions shutting out
All melodies & comprehending only Discord & Harmony;
The Tongue a little moisture Fills, a little food it cloys,
A little sound it utters & its cries are fa;sely heard,
Then brings forth Moral Virtue the cruel Virgin Babylon.

'Can such an Eye judge of the stars? & looking thro its tubes
Measure the sunny rays that point their spears in Udanadan?
Can such an Ear filld with the vapours of the yawning pit
Judge of the pure melodious harp struck by a hand divine:
Can such closed Nostrils feel a joy? or tell of autumn fruits
When grapes & figs burst their covering to the joyful air?
Can such a Tongue boast of the living waters? or take in
Ought but the Vegetable Ratio & loathe the faint delight?
Can such gross Lips percieve? alas, folded within themselves
They touch not ought but pallid turn & tremble at every wind.'

For Satan flaming with Rintrah's fury hidden beneath his own mildness
Accus'd Palamabron before the Assembly of ingratitude: of malice:
He created Seven deadly Sins drawing out his infernal scroll
Of Moral laws and cruel punishments upon the clouds of Jehovah
To pervert the Divine voice in its entrance to the earth
With thunder of war & trumpets' sound, with armies of disease,
Punishments & deaths musterd & number'd; 'Saying I am God alone;
There is no other: let all obey my principles of moral individuality.
I have brough them from the uppermost innermost recesses
Of my Eternal Mind, transgressors I will rend off for ever,
As now I rend this accursed Family from my covering.'

Thus Satan rag'd amidst the Assembly: and his bosom grew
Opake against the Divine Vision, the paved terraces of
His bosom inwards shone with fires, but the stones becoming opake
Hid him from sight, in an extreme blackness and darkness,
And there a World of deeper Ulrio was opend, in the midst
Of the Assembly. In Satan's bosom a vast unfathomable Abyss.

Astonishment held the Assembly in an awful silence: and tears
Fell down as dews of night, & a loud solemn universal groan
Was utter'd from the east & from the west & from the south
And from the north; and Satan stood opake immeasurable
Covering the east with solid blackness, round his hidden heart
With thunders utterd from his hidden wheels: accusing loud
The Divine Mercy for protecting Palamabron in his tent.

Rintrah rear'd up walls of rocks and pourd rovers & moats
Of fire round the walls: columns of fire guard around
Between Satan and Palmabron in the terrible darkness.

And Satan not having the Science of Wrath, but only of Pity
Rent them asunder, and wrath was left to wrath, & pity to pity.
He sunk down a dreadful Death, unlike the slumbers of Beulah.

The Sparation was terrible: the Dead was repos'd on his Couch
Beneath the Couch of Albion, on the seven mountains of Rome
In the whole place of the Covering Cherub, Rome, Babylon & Tyre.
His Spectre raging furious descended into its Space.

. . .

'Let the Bard himself witness. Where hadst thou this terrible Song?'

The Bard replied: 'I am Inspired! I know it his Truth! for I Sing
According to the inspiration of Poetic Genius
Whos is the eternal all-protecting Divine Humanity
To whom he Glory & Power & Dominion Evermore Amen.'

. . .

Then Milton rose up from the heavens of Albion ardorous!
The whole Assembly wept propgetic, seeing in Milton's face
And in his lineaments divine the Shades of Death & Ulro.
He took off the robe of the promise, & ungirded himself from the oath of God.

And Milton said, 'I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still
Follow after the destestable Gods of Priam; in pomp
Of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come; ro deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility; O when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come?
Tarry no longer; for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave.
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks!
Lest the Last Judgement come & find me unannihilate
And I siez'd & giv'n into the hands of my own Selfhood.
The Lamb of God is seen thro' mists & shadows, hov'ring
Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim,
A disk of blood distant, distant; & heav'ns & earths will roll dark between.
What do I here before the Judgement? without my Emanation?
With the daufgters of memory, & not with the daughters of inspiration?
I in my Selfhood am that Satan: I am that Evil One!
He is my Spectre! in my obedience to loose him from my Hells,
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.'

. . .

Four Universes round the Mundane Egg remain Chaotic,
One to the North, named Urthona: One to the South, named Urizen:
One to the East, named Luvah: One to the West, named Tharmas.
They are the Four Zoa's that stood around the Throne Divine:
But when Luvah assum;d the World of Urizen to the South:
And Albion was slain upon his mountains, & in his tent:
All fell towards the Center in dire ruiin, sinking down.
And in the South remains a burning fire; in the East a void;
In the West, a world of raging waters; in the North a solid,
Unfathomable: without end. But in the midst of these
In built eternally the Universe of Los and Enitharmon:

. . .

poem by William Blake from Vala or The Four Zoas‎: Night the First
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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