| [Pl. 4] | 1. The voice ended, they saw his pale visage Emerge from the darkness; his hand On the rock of eternity unclasping The Book of brass. Rage siez'd the strong | U4.41 | 2. Rage, fury, intense indignation In cataracts of fire blood & gall In whirlwinds of sulphurous smoke: And enormous forms of energy; All the seven deadly sins of the soul In living creations appear'd In the flames of eternal fury. | [Pl. 5] |
3. Sund'ring, dark'ning, thund'ring! Rent away with a terrible crash Eternity roll'd wide apart Wide asunder rolling Mountainous all around Departing; departing; departing: Leaving ruinous fragments of life Hanging frowning cliffs & all between An ocean of voidness unfathomable. | U5.10 |
4. The roaring fires ran o'er the heav'ns In whirlwinds & cataracts of blood And o'er the dark desarts of Urizen Fires pour thro' the void on all sides On Urizens self-begotten armies. | 5. But no light from the fires. all was darkness In the flames of Eternal fury | 6. In fierce anguish & quenchless flames To the desarts and rocks He ran raging To hide, but He could not: combining He dug mountains & hills in vast strength, He piled them in incessant labour, In howlings & pangs & fierce madness Long periods in burning fires labouring Till hoary, and age-broke, and aged, In despair and the shadows of death. | U5.20 |
7. And a roof, vast petrific around, On all sides He fram'd: like a womb; Where thousands of rivers in veins Of blood pour down the mountains to cool The eternal fires beating without From Eternals; & like a black globe View'd by sons of Eternity, standing On the shore of the infinite ocean Like a human heart strugling & beating The vast world of Urizen appear'd. | U5.30 |
8. And Los round the dark globe of Urizen, Kept watch for Eternals to confine, The obscure separation alone; For Eternity stood wide apart, As the stars are apart from the earth | U5.40 [Pl. 6] |
9. Los wept howling around the dark Demon: And cursing his lot; for in anguish, Urizen was rent from his side; And a fathomless void for his feet; And intense fires for his dwelling. | 10. But Urizen laid in a stony sleep Unorganiz'd, rent from Eternity | 11. The Eternals said: What is this? Death Urizen is a clod of clay. | U6.10 |
12: Los howld in a dismal stupor, Groaning! gnashing! groaning! Till the wrenching apart was healed | [Pl. 7] | 13: But the wrenching of Urizen heal'd not Cold, featureless, flesh or clay, Rifted with direful changes He lay in a dreamless night | 14: Till Los rouz'd his fires, affrighted At the formless unmeasurable death. |