Yale Center for British Art Book of Urizen Copy C, Plate 12 |
Urizen, Plate 3, (E 71)
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
Europe,
Plate 1, (E 60)"Preludium
The nameless shadowy female rose from out the breast of Orc: Her snaky hair brandishing in the winds of Enitharmon, And thus her voice arose. ... Plate 2 Unwilling I look up to heaven! unwilling count the stars! Sitting in fathomless abyss of my immortal shrine. I sieze their burning power And bring forth howling terrors, all devouring fiery kings. Devouring & devoured roaming on dark and desolate mountains In forests of eternal death, shrieking in hollow trees. Ah mother Enitharmon! Stamp not with solid form this vig'rous progeny of fires. I bring forth from my teeming bosom myriads of flames. And thou dost stamp them with a signet, then they roam abroad And leave me void as death: Ah! I am drown'd in shady woe, and visionary joy." Urizen, Plate 4, (E 71) "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?" Four Zoas, Night V, Page 57, (E 338) "Infected Mad he dancd on his mountains high & dark as heaven Now fixd into one stedfast bulk his features stonify From his mouth curses & from his eyes sparks of blighting Beside the anvil cold he dancd with the hammer of Urthona Terrific pale. Enitharmon stretchd on the dreary Earth Felt her immortal limbs freeze stiffning pale inflexible His feet shrink withring from the deep shrinking & withering And Enitharmon shrunk up all their fibres withring beneath As plants witherd by winter leaves & stems & roots decaying Melt into thin air while the seed drivn by the furious wind Rests on the distant Mountains top. So Los & Enitharmon Shrunk into fixed space stood trembling on a Rocky cliff Yet mighty bulk & majesty & beauty remaind but unexpansive As far as highest Zenith from the lowest Nadir. so far shrunk Los from the furnaces a Space immense & left the cold Prince of Light bound in chains of intellect among the furnaces But all the furnaces were out & the bellows had ceast to blow"
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