# Milton (excerpts)/Book the First
## Book the First

* 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.’
* But Milton entering my Foot, I saw in the nether
* Regions of the Imagination – also all men on Earth
* And all in Heaven saw in the nether region of the Imagination
* In Ulro beneath Beulah – the vast breach of Milton’s descent.
* But I knew not that it was Milton, for man cannot know
* What passes in his members till periods of Space & Time
* Reveal the secrets of Eternity; for more extensive
* Than any other earthly things are Man’s earthly lineaments.
* And all this Vegetable World appear’d on my left Foot,
* As a bright sandal from’d immortal of precious stones & gold:
* I stooped down & bound it on to walk forward thro’ Eternity.
* …what time I bound my sandals
* On to walk forward thro’ Eternity, Los descended to me;
* And Los behind me stood, a terrible flaming Sun, just close
* Behind my back. I turned round in terror, and behold!
* Los stood in that fierce glowing fire, & he also stoop’d down
* And bound my sandals on in Udan-Adan. Trembling I stood
* Exceedingly with fear & terror, standing in the Vale
* Of Lambeth; but he kissed me, and wish’d me health,
* And I became One Man with him arising in my strength.
* ‘Twas too late now to recede. Los had enter’d into my soul;
* his terrors now posses’d me whole! I arose in fury & strength.
* ‘I am that Shadowy Prophet who Six Thousand Years ago
* Fell from my station in the Eternal bosom. Six Thousand Years
* Are finish’d. I return! both Time & Space obey my will.
* I in Six Thousand Years walk up and down; for not one Moment
* Of Time is lost, nor one Event of Space unpermanent,
* But all remain; every fabric of Six Thousand Years
* Remains permanent. Tho’ on the Earth where Satan
* Fell and was cut off all things vanish & are seen no more,
* They vanish not from me & mine; we guard them first & last.
* The generations of men run on in the tide of Time,
* But leave their destin’d lineaments permanent for ever & ever.’
* Los is by mortals nam’d Time; Enitharmon is nam’d Space.
* But they depict him bald & aged who is in eternal youth,
* All powerful, and his locks flourish like the brows of morning.
* He is the Spirit of Prophecy, the ever apparent Elias.
* Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time’s swiftness,
* Which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment.
* All the Gods of the Kingdoms of Earth labour in Los’s Halls:
* Every one is a fallen Son of the Spirit of Prophecy;
* He is the Fourth Zoa, that stood around the Throne Divine.
* Thou seest the Constellations in the deep & wondrous Night;
* They rise in order and countinue their immortal courses
* Upon the mountains & in vales, with harp & heavenly song,
* With flute & clarion, with cups & measures fill’d with foaming wine.
* Glitt’ring the streams reflect the Vision of beatitude,
* And the calm Ocean joys beneath & smooths his awful waves.
* These are the Sons of Los, & these the Labourers of the Vintage.
* Thou seest the gorgeous clothed Flies that dance & sport in summer
* Upon the sunny brooks & meadows; every one the dance
* Knows in its intricate mazes of delight artful to weave,
* Each one to sound his instruments of music in the dace,
* To touch each other & recede, to cross & change & return.
* These are the Children of Los. Thou seest the Trees on mountains;
* The wind blows heavy, loud they thunder thro’ the darksome sky,
* Uttering prophecies & speaking instructive words to the sons
* Of men. These are the Sons of Los, these the Visions of Eternity;
* But we see only as it were the hem of their garments
* When with our vegetable eyes we view these wondrous Visions.
* And every Generated Body in its inward form
* Is a garden of delight & a building of magnificence,
* Built by the Sons of Los in Bowlahoola & Allamanda;
* And the herbs & flowers & furniture & beds &chambers
* Continually woven in the Looms of Enitharmon’s Daughters,
* In bright Cathedron’s golden Dome with care & love & tears.
* For the various Classes of Men are all mark’d out determinate
* In Bowlahoola, & as the Spectures choose their affinities
* So they are born on Earth, & every Class is determinate;
* But not by Natural, but by Spiritual power alone, because
* The Natural power continually seeks & tends to Destruction,
* Ending in Death, which would of itself be Eternal Death.
* And all are Class’d by Spiritual & not by Natural power,
* And every Neutral Effect has a Spiritual Cause, and Not
* A Natural; for a natural Cause only seems: it is a Delusion
* Of Ulro, & a ratio of the perishing Vegetable Memory.
* But others of the Sons of Los build Moments & Minutes & Hours
* And Days & Months & Years & Ages & Periods, wondrous buildings;
* And every Moment has a Couch of gold for soft repose,
* (A Moment equals a pulsation of the artery),
* And between every two Moments stands a Daughter of Beulah
* To feed the Sleepers on their Couches with maternal care.
* And Every Minute has an azure Tent with silken Veils;
* And Every Hour has a bright golden Gate carved with skill;
* And every Day & Night has Walls of brass & Gates of adamant,
* Shining like precious stones & ornamented with appropriate signs;
* And every Month a silver paved Terrace builded high;
* And every Year invulnerable Barriers wit high Towers;
* And every Age is Moated deep with Bridges of silver & gold;
* And every Seven Ages is Incircled with a Flaming Fire.
* Now Seven Ages is amounting to Two Hundred Years:
* Each has its Guard, each Moment, Minute, Hour, Day, Month & Year.
* All are the work of Fairy hands of the Four Elements.
* The Guard are Angels of Providence on duty evermore.
* Every Time less than a pulsation of the artery
* Is equal in its period & value to Six Thousand Years;
* For in this Period the Poet’s work is Done, and all the Great
* Events of Time start forth & are conciev’d in such a Period,
* Within a Moment, a Pulsation of the Artery.
* The Sky is an immortal Tent built by the Sons of Los;
* And every Space that a Man views around his dwelling-place,
* Standing on his own roof or in his garden on a mount
* Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his Universe;
* And on its verge to Sun rises & sets, the Clouds bow
* To meet the flat Earth & the Sea I such an order’d Space.
* The Starry heavens reach no further, but here bend and set
* On all sides, & the two Poles turn on their valves of gold;
* And if he move his dwelling-place, his heavens also move
* Where’er he goes, & all his neighbourhood bewail his loss.
* Such are the Spaces called Earth, &such its dimension.
* As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner,
* As of a Globe rolling thro’ Voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro.
* The Microscope knows not of this, nor the Telescope; they alter
* The ration of the Spectator’s Organs, but leave Objects untouch’d.
* For every Space larger than a red globule of Man’s blood
* Is visionary, and is created by the Hammer of Los;
* And every Space smaller than a Globule of Man’s blood opens
* Into Eternity, of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow.
* The red Globule is the unwearied Sun by Los created
* To measure Time and Space to mortal Men every morning.
* Bowlahoola & Allamanda are placed on each side
* Of that Pulsation & that Globule, terrible their power.