Plate 66

In awful pomp & gold, in all the precious unhewn stones of Eden They build a stupendous Building on the Plain of Salisbury; with chains Of rocks round London Stone: of Reasonings: of unhewn Demonstrations In labyrinthine arches. (Mighty Urizen the Architect.) thro which The Heavens might revolve & Eternity be bound in their chain. Labour unparallelld! a wondrous rocky World of cruel destiny Rocks piled on rocks reaching the stars: stretching from pole to pole. The Building is Natural Religion & its Altars Natural Morality A building of eternal death: whose proportions are eternal despair Here Vala stood turning the iron Spindle of destruction From heaven to earth: howling! invisible! but not invisible Her Two Covering Cherubs afterwards named Voltaire & Rousseau: Two frowning Rocks: on each side of the Cove & Stone of Torture: Frozen Sons of the feminine Tabernacle of Bacon, Newton & Locke. For Luvah is France: the Victim of the Spectres of Albion.

Los beheld in terror: he pour 'd his loud storms on the Furnaces: The Daughters of Albion clothed in garments of needle work Strip them off from their shoulders and bosoms, they lay aside Their garments; they sit naked upon the Stone of trial. The Knife of flint passes over the howling Victim: his blood Gushes & stains the fair side of the fair Daug[h]ters of Albion. They put aside his curls; they divide his seven locks upon His forehead: they bind his forehead with thorns of iron They put into his hand a reed, they mock: Saying: Behold The King of Canaan whose are seven hundred chariots of iron! They take off his vesture whole with their Knives of flint: But they cut asunder his inner garments: searching with Their cruel fingers for his heart, & there they enter in pomp, In many tears; & there they erect a temple & an altar: They pour cold water on his brain in front, to cause. Lids to grow over his eyes in veils of tears: and caverns To freeze over his nostrils, while they feed his tongue from cups And dishes of painted clay. Glowing with beauty & cruelty: They obscure the sun & the moon; no eye can look upon them.

Ah! alas! at the sight of the Victim, & at sight of those who are smitten, All who see. become what they behold. their eyes are coverd With veils of tears and their nostrils & tongues shrunk up Their ear bent outwards. as their Victim, so are they in the pangs Of unconquerable fear! amidst delights of revenge Earth-shaking! And as their eye & ear shrunk, the heavens shrunk away The Divine Vision became First a burning flame, then a column Of fire, then an awful fiery wheel surrounding earth & heaven: And then a globe of blood wandering distant in all unknown night: Afar into the unknown night the mountains fled away: Six months of mortality; a summer: & six months of mortality; a winter: The Human form began to be alterd by the Daughters of Albion And the perceptions to be dissipated into the Indefinite. Becoming A mighty Polypus nam'd Albions Tree: they tie the Veins And Nerves into two knots: & the Seed into a double knot: They look forth: the Sun is shrunk: the Heavens are shrunk Away into the far remote: and the Trees & Mountains witherd Into indefinite cloudy shadows in darkness & separation. By Invisible hatreds adjoind, they seem remote and separate From each other; and yet are a Mighty Polypus in the Deep! As the Misletoe grows on the Oak, so Albions Tree on Eternity: Lo! He who will not comingle in Love, must be adjoind by Hate

They look forth from Stone-henge! from the Cove round London Stone They look on one another: the mountain calls out to the mountain: Plinlimmon shrunk away: Snowdon trembled: the mountains Of Wales & Scotland beheld the descending War: the routed flying: Red run the streams of Albion: Thames is drunk with blood: As Gwendolen cast the shuttle of war: as Cambel returnd the beam. The Humber & the Severn: are drunk with the blood of the slain: London feels his brain cut round: Edinburghs heart is circumscribed! York & Lincoln hide among the flocks, because of the griding Knife. Worcester & Hereford: Oxford & Cambridge reel & stagger, Overwearied with howling: Wales & Scotland alone sustain the fight! The inhabitants are sick to death: they labour to divide into Days And Nights, the uncertain Periods: and into Weeks & Months. In vain They send the Dove & Raven: & in vain the Serpent over the mountains. And in vain the Eagle & Lion over the four-fold wilderness. They return not: but generate in rocky places desolate. They return not; but build a habitation separate from Man. The Sun forgets his course like a drunken man; he hesitates, Upon the Cheselden hills, thinking to sleep on the Severn In vain: he is hurried afar into an unknown Night He bleeds in torrents of blood as he rolls thro heaven above He chokes up the paths of the sky; the Moon is leprous as snow: Trembling & descending down seeking to rest upon high Mona: Scattering her leprous snows in flakes of disease over Albion. The Stars flee remote: the heaven is iron, the earth is sulphur, And all the mountains & hills shrink up like a withering gourd, As the Senses of Men shrink together under the Knife of flint, In the hands of Albions Daughters, among the Druid Temples.