Versos English William Blake Plate 17

English poem

Plate 17

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His Spectre divides & Los in fury compells it to divide: To labour in the fire, in the water, in the earth, in the air, To follow the Daughters of Albion as the hound follows the scent Of the wild inhabitant of the forest, to drive them from his own: To make a way for the Children of Los to come from the Furnaces But Los himself against Albions Sons his fury bends, for he Dare not approach the Daughters openly lest he be consumed In the fires of their beauty & perfection & be Vegetated beneath Their Looms, in a Generation of death & resurrection to forgetfulness They wooe Los continually to subdue his strength: he continually Shews them his Spectre: sending him abroad over the four points of heaven In the fierce desires of beauty & in the tortures of repulse! He is The Spectre of the Living pursuing the Emanations of the Dead. Shuddring they flee: they hide in the Druid Temples in cold chastity: Subdued by the Spectre of the Living & terrified by undisguisd desire.

For Los said: Tho my Spectre is divided: as I am a Living Man I must compell him to obey me wholly: that Enitharmon may not Be lost: & lest he should devour Enitharmon: Ah me! Piteous image of my soft desires & loves: O Enitharmon! I will compell my Spectre to obey: I will restore to thee thy Children. No one bruises or starves himself to make himself fit for labour!

Tormented with sweet desire for these beauties of Albion They would never love my power if they did not seek to destroy Enitharmon: Vala would never have sought & loved Albion If she had not sought to destroy Jerusalem; such is that false And Generating Love: a pretence of love to destroy love: Cruel hipocrisy unlike the lovely delusions of Beulah: And cruel forms, unlike the merciful forms of Beulahs Night

They know not why they love nor wherefore they sicken & die Calling that Holy Love: which is Envy Revenge & Cruelty Which separated the stars from the mountains: the mountains from Man And left Man, a little grovelling Root, outside of Himself. Negations are not Contraries: Contraries mutually Exist: But Negations Exist Not: Exceptions & Objections & Unbeliefs Exist not: nor shall they ever be Organized for ever & ever: If thou separate from me, thou art a Negation: a meer Reasoning & Derogation from Me, an Objecting & cruel Spite And Malice & Envy: but my Emanation, Alas! will become My Contrary: O thou Negation, I will continually compell Thee to be invisible to any but whom I please, & when And where & how I please, and never! never! shalt thou be Organized But as a distorted & reversed Reflexion in the Darkness And in the Non Entity: nor shall that which is above Ever descend into thee: but thou shalt be a Non Entity for ever And if any enter into thee, thou shalt be an Unquenchable Fire And he shall be a never dying Worm, mutually tormented by Those that thou tormentest, a Hell & Despair for ever & ever.

So Los in secret with himself communed & Enitharmon heard In her darkness & was comforted: yet still she divided away In gnawing pain from Los's bosom in the deadly Night; First as a red Globe of blood trembling beneath his bosom[.] Suspended over her he hung: he infolded her in his garments Of wool: he hid her from the Spectre, in shame & confusion of Face; in terrors & pains of Hell & Eternal Death, the Trembling Globe shot forth Self-living & Los howld over it: Feeding it with his groans & tears day & night without ceasing: And the Spectrous Darkness from his back divided in temptations, And in grinding agonies in threats! stiflings! & direful strugglings.

Go thou to Skofield: ask him if he is Bath or if he is Canterbury Tell him to be no more dubious: demand explicit words Tell him: I will dash him into shivers, where & at what time I please: tell Hand & Skofield they are my ministers of evil To those I hate: for I can hate also as well as they!