British
Library Four Zoas Manuscript Page 95 |
Four Zoas, Night VII, PAGE 87 [95] (FIRST PORTION), (E 367)
"For far & wide she stretchd thro all the worlds of Urizens journey
And was Ajoind to Beulah as the Polypus to the Rock
Mo[u]rning the daughters of Beulah saw nor could they have sustaind
The horrid sight of death & torment But the Eternal Promise
They wrote on all their tombs & pillars & on every Urn
These words If ye will believe your B[r]other shall rise again
In golden letters ornamented with sweet labours of Love
Waiting with Patience for the fulfilment of the Promise Divine
And all the Songs of Beulah sounded comfortable notes
Not suffring doubt to rise up from the Clouds of the Shadowy Female
Then myriads of the Dead burst thro the bottoms of their tombs
Descending on the shadowy females clouds in Spectrous terror
Beyond the Limit of Translucence on the Lake of Udan Adan
These they namd Satans & in the Aggregate they namd them Satan"
Second part of text is on page 95 in David Erdman's The Complete Poetry & Prose of William Blake.
PAGE [95] (SECOND PORTION), (E 360)
"But in the deeps beneath the Roots of Mystery in darkest night
Where Urizen sat on his rock the Shadow brooded
Urizen saw & triumphd & he cried to his warriors
The time of Prophecy is now revolvd & all
This Universal Ornament is mine & in my hands
The ends of heaven like a Garment will I fold them round me
Consuming what must be consumd then in power & majesty
I will walk forth thro those wide fields of endless Eternity
A God & not a Man a Conqueror in triumphant glory
And all the Sons of Everlasting shall bow down at my feet
First Trades & Commerce ships & armed vessels he builded laborious
To swim the deep & on the Land children are sold to trades
Of dire necessity still laboring day & night till all
Their life extinct they took the spectre form in dark despair
And slaves in myriads in ship loads burden the hoarse sounding deep
Rattling with clanking chains the Universal Empire groans
And he commanded his Sons found a Center in the Deep
And Urizen laid the first Stone & all his myriads
Builded a temple in the image of the human heart."
Yale Center for British Art Illustrations to Young's Night thoughts |
But there is another level not visible in the picture but
described in the text at the lower part of the page. In the deeps
Urizen has created a world from his illusions in which he is not
subject to any reality other than which he created in his own
inflated fantasy of his power. In place of the human heart filled
with love and compassion, he proposes to construct a temple, made
with hands and in the shape of a heart. His structure for the
worship of his own system of war and empire enlists 'myrids' to
engage in the grand building project.
In Young's page of text that Blake illustrated for the published
book, he highlighted the line:
"Teaching, we learn; and,
giving, we retain."
Second Corinthians 5
[1] For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. .
Second Corinthians 5
[1] For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. .
.
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