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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Visions of the Daughters of Albion</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Eye sees more than the heart knows.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Argument</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I loved Theotormon<br>And I was not ashamed<br>I trembled in my virgin fears<br>And I hid in Leutha's Vale!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I plucked Leutha's flower,<br>And I rose up from the vale;<br>But the terrible thunders tore<br>My virgin mantle in twain.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Visions</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Enslav'd, the Daughters of Albion weep; a trembling lamentation<br>Upon their mountains; in their valleys, sighs towards America.<br>For the soft soul of America, Oothoon wanderd in woe,<br>Along the vales of Leutha seeking flowers to comfort her;<br>And thus she spoke to the bright Marygold of Leutha's vale</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Art thou a flower! art though a nymph! I see thee now a flower;<br>Now a nymph! I dare not pluck thee from thy dewy bed!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Golden nymph replied; pluck thou my flower Oothoon the mild<br>Another flower shall spring. because the soul of sweet delight<br>Can never pass away, she ceas'd & closed her golden shrine.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then Oothoon pluck'd the flower saying, I pluck thee from thy bed<br>Sweet flower. and put thee here to glow between my breasts<br>And thus I turn to where my whole soul seeks.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Over the waves she went in wing'd exulting swift delight;<br>And over Theotormon's reign, took her impetuous course.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Bromion rent her with his thunders. on his stormy bed<br>Lay the faint maid, and soon her woes apalld his thunders hoarse</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Bromion spoke. behold this harlot here on Bromions bed.<br>And let the jealous dolphins sport around the lovely maid:<br>Thy soft American plains are mine, and mine thy north & south:<br>Stampt with my signet are the swarthy children of the sun;<br>They are obedient, they resist not, they obey the scourge:<br>Their daughters worship terrors and obey the violent:<br>Now thou maist marry Bromions harlot, and protect the child<br>Of Bromions rage, that Oothoon shall put forth in nine moons time<br>Then storms rent Theotormons limbs; he rolld his waves around.<br>And folded his black jealous waters round the adulterate pair<br>Bound back to back in Bromions caves terror & meekness dwell</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">At entrance Theotormon sits wearing the threshold hard<br>With secret tears; beneath him sound like waves on a desart shore<br>The voice of slaves beneath the sun, and children bought with money,<br>That shiver in religious caves beneath the burning fores<br>Of lust, that belch incessant from the summits of the earth</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Oothoon weeps not. she cannot weep! her tears are locked up;<br>But she can howl incessant writhing her soft snowy limbs.<br>And calling Theotormons Eagles to prey upon her flesh.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I call with holy voice! kings of the sounding air,<br>Rend away this defiled bosom that I may reflect,<br>The image of Theotormon on my pure transparent breast.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Eagles at her call desced & rend their bleeding prey;<br>Theotormon severely smiles. Her soul reflects the smile;<br>As the clear spring muddled with feet of beasts grows pure & smiles</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, & eccho back her sighs.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Why does Theotormon sit weeping upon the threshold:<br>And Oothoon hovers by his side, perswading him in vain:<br>I cry arise O Theotormon for the village dog<br>Barks at the breaking day. the nightingale has done lamenting<br>The lark does rustle in the ripe corn, and the Eagle returns<br>From nightly prey, and lifts his golden beak to the pure east;<br>Shaking the dust from his immortal points to awake<br>The sun that sleeps too long. Arise my Theotormon I am pure.<br>Because the night is gone that closed me in its deadly black.<br>They told me that the night & day were all that I could see;<br>They told me that I had five senses to inclose me up.<br>And they inclos'd my infinite brain into a narrow circle,<br>And sunk my heart into the Abyss, a red round globe hot burning<br>Till all from life I was obliterated and erased.<br>Instead of morn arises a bright shadow, like an eye<br>In the eastern cloud: instead of night a sickly charnel house;<br>That Theotormon hears me not! to him the night and morn<br>Are both alike: A night of sighs, a morning of fresh tears;<br>And none but Bromion can hear my lamentations.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">With what sense is it that the chicken shuns the ravenous hawk?<br>With what sense does the tame pigeon measure out the expanse?<br>With what sense does the bee form cells? have not the mouse & frog<br>Eyes and ears and sense of touch? yet are their habitations.<br>And their pursuits, as different as their forms and as their joys:<br>Ask the wild ass why he refuses burdens: and the meek camel<br>Why he loves man: is it because of eye ear mouth or skin<br>Or breathing nostrils? No, for these the wolf and tyger have.<br>Ask the blind worm the secrets of the grave, and why her spires<br>Love to curl round the bones of death! and ask the rav'nous snake<br>Where she gets poison: & the wing'd eagle why he loves the sun<br>And then tell me the thoughts of man, which have been hid of old.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Silent I hover all the night, and all day could be silent,<br>If Theotormon once would turn his loved eyes upon me;<br>How can I be defild when I reflect my image pure?<br>Sweetest the fruit that the worms feeds on. & the soul prey'd on by woe<br>By the red earth of our immortal river: I bathe my wings,<br>And I am white and pure to hover round Theotormons breast.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then Theotormon broke his silence, and he answered.<br>Tell me what is the night or day to one o'erflowd with woe?<br>Tell me what is a thought? & of what substance is it made?<br>Tell me what is a joy? & in what gardens do joys grow?<br>And in what rivers swim the sorrows? and upon what mountains<br>Wave shadows of discontent? and in what houses dwell the wretched<br>Drunken with a woe forgotten. and shut up from cold despair,</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Tell me where dwell the thoughts forgotten till thou call them forth<br>Tell me where dwell the joys of old! & where the ancient loves?<br>And when will they renew again & the night of oblivion past?<br>That I might traverse times and spaces far remote and bring<br>Comforts into a pre[s]ent sorrow and a night of pain<br>Where goest thou O thought! to what remote land is thy flight?<br>If thou returnest to the present moment of affliction<br>Wilt thou bring comforts on thy wings, and dews and honey and balm;<br>Or poison from the desart wilds, from the eyes of the envier.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then Bromion said: and shook the cavern with his lamentation</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thou knowest that the ancient trees seen by thy eyes have fruit;<br>But knowest thou that trees and fruit flourish upon the earth<br>To gratify senses unknown? trees beasts and birds unknown:<br>Unknown, not unperceived, spread in the infinite microscope,<br>In places yet unvisited by the voyager. and in worlds<br>Over another kind of seas, and in atmospheres unknown.<br>Ah! are there other wars, beside the wars of sword and fire!<br>And are there other sorrows, beside the sorrows of poverty?<br>And are there other joys, beside the joys of riches and ease?<br>And is there not one law for both the lion and the ox?<br>And is there not eternal fire, and eternal chains?<br>To bind the phantoms of existence from eternal life?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Then Oothoon waited silent all the day, and all the night,<br>But when the morn arose, her lamentation renewd,<br>The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, & eccho back her sighs.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">O Urizen! Creator of men! mistaken Demon of heaven;<br>Thy joys are tears! thy labour vain, to form men to thine image.<br>How can one absorb another? are not different joys<br>Holy, eternal, infinite! and each joy is a Love.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Does not the great mouth laugh at a gift? & the narrow eyelids mock<br>At the labour that is above payment, and wilt thou take the ape<br>For thy councellor? or the dog. for a schoolmaster to thy children?<br>Does he who contemns poverty, and he who turns with abhorrence<br>From usury: feel the same passion or are they moved alike?<br>How can the giver of gifts experience the delights of the merchant?<br>How the industrious citizen the pains of the husbandman.<br>How different far the fat fed hireling with hollow drum;<br>Who buys whole corn fields into wastes, and sings upon the heath:<br>How different their eye and ear! how different the world to them!<br>With what sense does the person claim the labour of the farmer?<br>What are his nets & gins & traps, & how does he surround him<br>With cold floods of abstraction, and with forests of solitude,<br>To build him castles and high spires, where kings & priests may dwell.<br>Till she who burns with youth, and knows no fixed lot; is bound<br>In spells of law to one she loaths: and must she drag the chain<br>Of life, in weary lust! must chilling murderous thoughts, obscure<br>The clear heaven of her eternal spring! to bear the wintry rage<br>Of a harsh terror driv'n to madness, bound to hold a rod<br>Over her shrinking shoulders all the day; and all the night<br>To turn the wheel of false desire: and longings that wake her womb<br>To the abhorred birth of cherubs in the human form<br>That live a pestilence & die a meteor & are no more.<br>Till the child dwell with one he hates, and do all the deeds he loaths<br>And the impure scourge force his seed into its unripe birth<br>E'er yet his eyelids can behold the arrows of the day.<br>Does the whale worship at thy footsteps as the hungry dog?<br>Or does he scent the mountain prey, because his nostrils wide<br>Draw in the ocean? does his eye discern the flying cloud<br>As the ravens eye? or does he measure the expanse like the vulture?<br>Does the still spider view the cliffs where eagles hide their young?<br>Or does the fly rejoice, because the harvest is brought in?<br>Does not the eagle scorn the earth & despise the treasures beneath?<br>But the mole knoweth what is there, & the worm shall tell it thee.<br>Does not the worm erect a pillar in the mouldering church yard?<br>And a palace of eternity in the jaws of the hungry grave<br>Over his porch these words are written. Take thy bliss O Man!<br>And sweet shall be thy taste & sweet thy infant joys renew!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Infancy, fearless, lustful, happy! nestling for delight<br>In laps of pleasure; Innocence! honest, open, seeking<br>The vigorous joys of morning light; open to virgin bliss.<br>Who taught thee modesty, subtil modesty! child of night & sleep<br>When thou awakest. wilt thou dissemble all thy secret joys<br>Or wert thou not awake when all this mystery was disclos'd!<br>Then com'st thou forth a modest virgin knowing to dissemble<br>With nets found under thy night pillow, to catch virgin joy,<br>And brand it with the name of whore: & sell it in the night,<br>In silence, ev'n without a whisper, and in seeming sleep,<br>Religious dream and holy vespers, light thy smoky fires:<br>Once were thy fires lighted by the eyes of honest morn<br>And does my Theotormon seek this hypocrite modesty!<br>This knowing, artful, secret. fearful, cautious, trembling hypocrite.<br>Then is Oothoon a whore indeed! and all the virgin joys<br>Of life are harlots: and Theotormon is a sick mans dream<br>And Oothoon is the crafty slave of selfish holiness.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But Oothoon is not so, a virgin fill'd with virgin fancies<br>Open to joy and to delight where ever beauty appears<br>If in the morning sun I find it; there my eyes are fix'd<br>In happy copulation; if in evening mild, wearied with work;<br>Sit on a bank and draw the pleasures of this free born joy.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The moment of desire! the moment of desire! The virgin<br>That pines for man; shall awaken her womb to enormous joys<br>In the secret shadows of her chamber; the yout shut up from<br>The lustful joy, shall forget to generate, & create an amorous image<br>In the shadows of his curtains and in the folds of his silent pillow.<br>Are not these the places of religion? the rewards of continence!<br>The self enjoyings of self denial? Why dost thou seek religion?<br>Is it because acts are not lovely, that thou seekest solitude,<br>Where the horrible darkness is impressed with reflections of desire.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Father of Jealousy, be thou accursed from the earth!<br>Why hast thou toaught my Theotormon this accursed thing?<br>Till beauty fades from off my shoulders darken'd and cast out,<br>A solitary shadow wailing on the margin of non-entity.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I cry, Love! Love! Love! happy happy Love! free as the mountain wind!<br>Can that be Love, that drinks another as a sponge drinks water?<br>That clouds with jealousy his nights, with weepings all the day:<br>To spin a web of age around him, grey and hoary! dark!<br>Till his eyes sicken at the fruit that hangs before his sight.<br>Such is self-love that envies all! a creeping skeleton<br>With lamplike eyes watching around the frozen marriage bed.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But silken nets and traps of adamant will Oothoon spread,<br>And catch for the girls of mild silver, or of furious gold;<br>I'll lie beside thee on a bank & view their wanton play<br>In lovely copulation bliss on bliss with Theotormon;<br>Red as the rosy morning, lustful as the first born beam,<br>Oothoon shall view his dear delight, nor e'er with jealous cloud<br>Come in the heavens of generous love; nor selfish blightings bring.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Does the sun walk in glorious raiment, on the secret floor<br>Where the cold miser spreads his gold? or does the bright cloud drop<br>On his stone threshold? does his eye behold the beam that brings<br>Expansion to the eye of pity? or will he bind himself<br>Beside the ox to thy hard furrow? does not that mild beam blot<br>The bat, the owl, the glowing tyger, and the king of night.<br>The sea fowl takes the wintry blast. for a cov'ring to her limbs:<br>And the wild snake, the pestilence to adorn him with gems & gold.<br>And trees. & birds. & beasts, & men. behold their eternal joy.<br>Arise you little glancing wings, and sing your infant joy!<br>Arise and drink your bliss. For everything that lives is holy!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Thus every morning wails Oothoon. but Theotormon sits<br>Upon the margind ocean conversing with shadows dire,</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The Daughters of Albion hear her woes, & eccho back her sighs.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=38298" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">The End</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=William+Blake">William Blake</a></strong></div>

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