Book the First
Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poet’s Song,
Record the journey of immortal Milton thro’ you Realms
Of terror & mild moony luster, in soft sexual delusions
Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer and repose
His burning thirst & descending down the Nerves of my right arm
From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine planted his Paradise,
And in it caus’d the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms
In likeness of himself. Tell also of the False Tongue! vegetated
Beneath your land of shadows, of its sacrifices and
Its offerings, even till Jesus, the image of the Invisible God,
Became its prey – a curse, an offering and an atonement
For Death Eternal in the heavens of Albion, & before the Gates
Of Jerusalem his Emanation, in the heavens beneath Beulah.
Say first! what mov’d Milton, who walk’d about in Eternity
One hundred years, pond’ring the intricate mazes of Providence,
Unhappy tho’ in heav’n – he obey’d, he murmur’d not, he was silent
Viewing his Sixfold Emanation scatter’d thro’ the deep
In torment – To go into the deep, her to redeem & himself perish?
What cause at length mov’d Milton to this unexampled deed?
A Bard’s prophetic Song! for sitting at eternal tables,
Terrific among the Sons of Albion in chorus solemn & loud,
A Bard broke forth! all sat attentive to the awful man.
* * *
Then Milton rose up form the heavens of Albion ardorous.
The whole Assembly wept prophetic, seeing in Milton’s face
And in his lineaments divine the shades of Death & Ulro.
He took off the robe of the promise, & ungirded himself from the oath of God.
And Milton said: ‘I go to Eternal Death! The Nations still
Follow after the detestable Gods of Priam, in pomp
Of warlike selfhood, contradicting and blaspheming.
When will the Resurrection come to deliver the sleeping body
From corruptibility? O when, Lord Jesus, wilt thou come?
Tarry no longer, for my soul lies at the gates of death.
I will arise and look forth for the morning of the grave;
I will go down to the sepulcher to see if morning breaks;
I will go down to self annihilation and eternal death,
Lest the Last Judgment come & find me unannihilate,
And I be seiz’d & giv’n into the hands of my own Selfhood.
The Lamb of God is seen thro’ mists & shadows, hov’ring
Over the sepulchers in clouds of Jehovah & winds of Elohim,
A disk of blood, distant; & heav’ns & earths roll dark between.
What do I here before the Judgment? without my Emanation?
With the daughters of memory & not with the daughters of inspiration?
I in my Selfhood am that Satan; I am that Evil One!
He is my Spectre! In my obedience to loose him from my Hells,
To claim the Hells, my Furnaces, I go to Eternal Death.’
[...] Read more
poem by William Blake from Milton (1810)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!
