# Milton (excerpts)/Book the Second

* Book the Second
* Thou hearest the Nightingale begin the Song of Spring.
* The Lark sitting upon his earthly bed, just as the morn
* Apears, listens silent; then springing from the waving Corn-field loud
* He leads the Choir of Day! trill, thrill, thrill, trill,
* Mounting upon the wings of light into the great Expanse,
* Reechoing against the lovely blue & shining heavenly Shell.
* His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather
* On throat & breast & wings vibrates with the effluence Divine.
* All Nature listens silent to him, & the awful Sun
* Stands still upon the Mountain looking on this little Bird
* With eyes of soft humility & wonder, love & awe.
* Then loud from their green covert all the Birds begin their Song:
* The Thrush, the Linnet & the Goldfinch, Robin & the Wren
* Awake the Sun from his sweet reverie upon the Mountain;
* The Nightingale again assays his song, & thro’ the day
* And thro’ the night warbles luxuriant, every Bird of Song
* Attending his loud harmony with admiration & love.
* This is a Vision of the lamentation of Beulah over Ololon.
* Thou perceivest the Flowers put forth their precious Odours,
* And none can tell how form so small a center comes such sweets,
* Forgetting that within that Center Eternity expends
* Its ever during doors that Og & Anak fiercely guard.
* First, e’er the morning breaks, joy opens in the flowery bosoms,
* Joy even to tears, which the
* Sun rising dries; first the Wild Thyme
* And Meadow-sweet, downy & soft, waving among the reeds,
* Light springing on the air, lead the sweet Dance: they wake
* The Honeysuckle sleeping on the Oak; the flaunting beauty
* Revels along upon the wind; the White-thorn, lovely May,
* Opens her many lovely eyes; listening the Rose still sleeps –
* None dare to wake her; soon she bursts her crimson curtain’d bed
* And comes forth in the majesty of beauty; every Flower,
* The Pink, the Jessamine, the Wall-flower, the Carnation,
* The Jonquil, the mild Lilly opes her heavens; every Tree
* And Flower & Herb soon fill the air with an innumberable Dance,
* Yet all in order sweet & lovely. Men are sick with Love.
* Such is a Vision of the Lamentation of Beulah over Ololon.
* And Milton oft sat upon the Couch of Death, & oft conversed
* In vision & dream beatific with the Seven Angels of the Presence:
* ‘I have turned my back upon these Heavens builded on cruelty.
* My Spectre still wandering thro’ them follows my Emanation;
* He hunts her footsteps thro’ the snow & the wintry hail & rain.
* The idiot Reasoner laughs at the Man of Imagination,
* And from laughter proceeds o murder by undervaluing calumny.’
* Then Hillel, who is Lucifer, replied over the Couch of Death,
* And thus the Seven angels instructed him, & thus they converse:
* ‘We are not Individuals but States, Combinations of Individuals.
* We were Angels of the Divine Presence, & were Druids in Annandale,
* Compell’d to combine into Form by Satan, the Spectre of Albion,
* Who make himself a God & destroyed the Human Form Divine.
* But the divine Humanity & Mercy gave us a Human Form
* Because we were combin’d in Freedom & holy Brotherhood;
* Whild those combin’d by Satan’s Tyranny, first in the blood of War
* And Sacrifice & next in Chains of imprisonment, are Shapeless Rocks
* Retaining only Satan’s Mathematic holiness, Length, Bredth & Highth,
* Calling the Human Imagination, which is the Divine Vision & Fruition
* In which Man liveth eternally, madness & blasphemy, against
* Its own Qualities, which are Servants of Humanity, not Gods or Lords.
* Distinguish therefore States from Individuals in those States.
* States change, but Individual Identities never change nor cease.
* You cannot go to Eternal Death in that which can never Die.
* Satan & Adam are States Created in Twenty-seven Churches,
* And thou, O Milton, are a State about to be Created
* Called Eternal Annihilation, that none but the Living shall
* Dare to enter; & they shall enter triumphant over Death
* And Hell & the Grave: States that are not, but ah! Seem to be.
* ‘Judge then of thy Own Self: thy Eternal Lineaments explore,
* What is Eternal & what Changeable, & what Annihilable?
* The Imagination is not a State: it is the Human Existence itself.
* Affection of Love becomes a State when divided from Imagination.
* The Memory is a State always, & the Reason is a State
* Created to be Annihilated & a new Ratio Created.
* Whatever can be Created can be Annihilated. Forms cannot.
* The Oak is cut down by the Ax, the Lamb falls by the Knife;
* But their Forms Eternal Exist For-ever. Amen. Hallelujah!’
* Thus they converse with the Dead, watching round the Couch of Death.
* For God himself enters Death’s door always with those that enter,
* And lays down in the grave with them, in Vision of Eternity,
* Till they awake & see Jesus, & the Linen Clothes lying
* That the Females had Woven for them, & the Gates of their Father’s House.
* There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find,
* Nor can his Watch Fiends find it; but the Industrious find
* This Moment & it multiply; & when it once is found
* It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed.
* In this Moment Ololon descended to Los & Enitharmon,
* Unseen beyond the Mundane Shell, Southward in Milton’s track.
* Just in this Moment when the morning odours rise abroads,
* And first from the Wild thyme, stands a Fountain in a rock
* Of crystal flowing into two Streams: one flow thro’ Golgonooza
* And thro’ Beulah to Eden, beneath Los’s western wall;
* The other flows thro’ the Aerial Void & all the Churches,
* Meeting again in Golgonooze beyond Satan’s Seat.
* The Wild thyme is Los’s Messenger to Eden, a mighty Demon,
* Terrible, deadly & poisonous his presence in Ulro dark;
* Therefore the appears only a small Root creeping in grass,
* Covering over the Rock of Odours his bright purple mantle
* Beside the Fount, above the Lark’s Nest in Golgonooza.
* Luvah slept here in death, & here is Luvah’s empty Tomb.
* Ololon sat beside this Fountain on the Rock of Odours.
* Just at the place to where the Lark mounts is a Crystal Gate:
* It is the entrance of the First Heaven, named Luther; for
* The Lark is Los’s Messenger thro’ the Twenty-seven Churches,
* That the Seven Eyes of god, who walk even to Satan’s Seat
* Thro’ all the Twenty-seven Heavens, may not slumber nor sleep.
* But the Lark’s Nest is at the gate of Los, at the eastern
* Gate of wide Golgonooza, & the Lark is Los’s Messenger.
* When on the highest lift of his light pinions he arrives
* At that bright Gate, another Lark meets him, & back to back
* They touch their pinions, tip tip, and each descend
* To their respective Earths, & there all night consult with Angels
* Of Providence & with the eyes of God all night in slumbers
* Inspired, & at the dawn of day send out another Lark
* Into another Heaven to carry news upon his wings.
* Thus are the Messengers dispatch’d till they reach the Earth again
* In the East Gate of Golgonooza; & the twenty-eighth bright
* Lark met the Female Ololon descending my Garden.
* Thus it appears to Mortal eyes & those of the Ulro Heavens,
* But not thus to Immortals; the Lark is a mighty Angel.
* For Ololon step’d into the Polypus within the Mundane Shell –
* They could not step into Vegetable Worlds without becoming
* The enemies of Humanity, except in a Female Form –
* And as One Female Ololon and all its mighty Hosts
* Appear’d, a Virgin of twelve years. Nor time nor space was
* To the perception of the Virgin Ololon; but as the
* Flash of lightning, but more quick, the virgin in my Garden
* Before my Cottage stood; for the Satanic space is delusion.
* For when Los join’d with me he took me in his fi’ry
* Whirlwind.
* My Vegetated portion was hurried from Lambeth’s shades;
* He set me down in Pelpham’s Vale & prepar’d a beautiful
* Cottage for me, that in three years I might write all these Visions
* To display Nature’s cruel holiness, the deceits of Natural Religion.
* Walking in my Cottage Garden sudden I beheld
* The Virgin Ololon & address’d her as a Daughter of Beulah:
* ‘Virgin of Providence fear not to enter into my Cottage.
* What is thy message to thy friend? What am I now to do?
* Is it again to plunge into deeper affliction? Behold me
* Ready to obey, but pity thou my Shadow of Delight.
* Enter my Cottage, comfort her, for she is sick with fatigue.’
* The Virgin answer’d: ‘Knowest thou of Milton who descended
* Driven form Eternity? Him I seek! terrified at my Act
* In Great Eternity which thou knowest, I come him to seek.’
* So Ololon utter’d in words distinct the anxious thought:
* Mild was the voice, but more distinct than any earthly.
* That Milton’s Shadow heard; & condensing all his Fibres
* Into a strength impregnable of majesty & beauty infinite,
* I saw he was the Covering Cherub, & within him Satan
* And Rahab, in an outside which is fallacious, within
* Beyond the outline of Identity, in the Selfhood deadly.
* And he appear’d the Wicker Man of Scandinavia, in whom
* Jerusalem’s children consume in flames among the Stars.
* Descending down into my Garden, a Human Wonder of God
* Reaching form heaven to earth, a Cloud & Human Form,
* I beheld Milton with astonishment, & in him beheld
* The Monstrous Churches of Beulah, the Gods of Ulro dark
* Twelve monstrous dishumaniz’d terrors, Synagogues of Satan,
* A Double Twelve & Thrice Nine: such their divisions.
* and Milton, collecting all his fibres into impregnable strength,
* Descended down a Paved work of all kinds of precious stones
* Out from the eastern sky; descending down into my Cottage
* Garden, clothed in black, severe & silent he descended.
* The Spectre of Satan stood upon the roaring sea & beheld
* Milton within his sleeping Humanity; trembling & shudd’ring
* He stood upon the waves, a Twenty-seven-fold mighty Demon,
* Gorgeous & beautiful; loud roll his thunders against Milton.
* Loud Satan thunder’d, loud & dark upon mild Felpham shore;
* Not daring to touch one fibre he howl’d round upon the Sea.
* I also stood in Satan’s bosom & beheld its desolatons:
* A ruin’d Man, a ruin’d building of God not made with hands;
* Its plains of burning sand, its mountains of marble terrible;
* Its pits & declivities flowing with molten ore & fountains
* Of pitch & nitre; its ruin’d palaces & cities & mighty works;
* Its furnaces of affliction, in which his Angels & Emanations
* Labour with blacken’d visages among its stupendous ruins,
* Arches & pyramids & porches, colonnades & domes,
* In which dwells Mystery, Babylon; here is her secret place;
* From hence she comes forth on the Churches in delight;
* Here is her Cup fill’d with its poisons, in these horrid vales,
* And here her scarlet Veil woven in pestilence & war;
* Here is Jerusalem bound in chains, in the Dens of Babylon.
* In the Eastern porch of Satan’s Universe Milton stood & said:
* ‘Satan! my Spectre! I know my power thee to annihilate
* And be a greater in thy place, & be thy Tabernacle,
* A covering for thee to do thy will, till one greater comes
* And smites me as I Smote thee & becomes my covering.
* Such are the laws of thy false Heav’ns; but Laws of eternity
* Are not such. Know thou, I come to Self Annihilation.
* Such are the Laws of Eternity, that each shall mutully
* Annighilate himself for other’s good, as I for thee.
* Thy purpose & the purpose of thy Priests & of thy Churches
* Is to impress on men the fear of death, to teach
* Trembling & fear, terror, constriction, abject selfishness.
* Mine is to teach Men to despise death & to go on
* In fearless majesty annihilating Self, laughing to scorn
* Thy Laws & terrors, shaking down thy Synagogues as webs.
* I come to discover before Heav’n & Hell the Self righteousness
* In all it Hypocritic turpitude, opening to every eye
* These wonders of Satan’s holiness, shewing to the Earth
* The Idol Virtues of the Natural Hearth, & Satan’s Seat
* Explore in all its Selfish Natural Virtue, & put off
* In Self annihilation all that is not of God alone,
* To put off Self & all I have, ever & ever. Amen.’
* Satan heard, Coming in a cloud with trumpets & flaming fire,
* Saying: ‘I am God the judge of all, the living & the dead.
* Fall therefore down& worship me; submit thy supreme
* Dictate to my eternal Will, & to my dictate bow.
* I hold the Balances of Right & just, & mine the Sword.
* Seven Angels bear my Name & in those Seven I appear;
* But I alone am God, & I alone in Heav’n & Earth
* Of all that live dare utter this; others tremble & bow,
* Till All Things become One Great Satan, in Holiness
* Oppos’d to Mercy, and the Divines Delusion, Jesus, be no more.’
* Suddenly around Milton on my Path the Starry Seven
* Burn’d terrible! My Path became a solid fire, as bright
* As the clear Sun, & Milton silent came down on my Path.
* And there went forth from the Starry limbs of the Seven, Forms
* Human, with Trumpets innumerable, sounding articulate
* As the Seven spake; and they stood in a mighty Column of Fire
* Surrounding Felpham’s Vale, reaching to the Mundane Shell, Saying:
* ‘Awake, Albion awake! reclaim thy Reasoning Spectre. Subdue
* Him to the Divine Mercy; Cast him down into the Lake
* Of Los that ever burneth with fire, ever & ever, Amen!
* Let the Four Zoas awake form Slumbers of Six Thousand Years.’
* Then loud the Furnaces of Los were heard, & seen as Seven Heavens
* Stretching from south to north over the mountains of Albion.
* Satan heard’ trembling round his Body, he incircled it;
* He trembled with exceeding great trembling & astonishment,
* Howling in his Spectre round his Body, hung’ring to devour
* But fearing for the pain; for if he touches a Vital
* His torment is unendurable. Therefore he cannot devour,
* But howls round it as a lion round his prey continually.
* Loud Satan thunder’d, loud& dark upon mild Felpham’s Shore,
* Coming in a Cloud with Trumpets & with Fiery Flame,
* An awful Form eastward, form midst of a bright Pavedwork
* Of Precious stones by Cherubim surrounded, so permitted
* (Lest he should fall apart in his Eternal Death) to imitate
* The Eternal Great Humanity Divine surrounded by
* His Cherubim & Seraphim in ever happy Eternity.
* Beneath sat Chaos: sin on his right hand, Death on his left;
* And Ancient Night spread over all the heav’n his Mantle of Laws.
* He trembled with exceeding great trembling & astonishment.
* Then Albion rose up in the Night of Beulah on his Couch
* Of dread repose seen by the visionary eye; his face is toward
* The east, toward Jerusalem’s Gates; groaning he sat above
* His rocks. London & Bath & Legions & Edinburgh
* Are the four pillars of his Throne; his left foot near London
* Covers the shades of Tyburn; his instep from Windsor
* To Primrose Hill stretching to Highgate & Holloway;
* London is between his knees, its basements fourfold;
* His right foot stretches to the sea on Dover cliffs, his heel
* On Canterbury’s ruins; his right hand covers lofty Wales,
* His left Scotland; his bosom girt with gold involves
* York, Edinburgh, Durham & Carlisle, & on the front
* Bath, Oxford, Cambridge, Norwich; his right elbow
* Leans on the Rocks of Erin’s Land, Ireland, ancient nation;
* His head bends over London. He sees his embodied Spectre
* Trembling before him with exceeding great trembling & fear.
* He views Jerusalem & Babylon, his tears flow down.
* He mov’d his right foot to Cornwall, his left to the rocks of Bognor;
* He strove to rise to walk into the Deep, but strength failing
* Forbad; & down with dreadful groans he sunk upon his Couch
* In moony Beulah. Los, his strong Guard, walks round beneath the Moon.
* Urizen faints in terror, striving among the Brooks of Arnon
* With Milton’s Spirit. As the Plowman of Artificer of Shepherd
* While in the labours of his Calling sends his thought abroad
* To labour in the ocean or in the starry heaven, So Milton
* Labour’d in Chasms of the Mundane Shell, tho’ here before
* My Cottage midst the Starry Seven, where the Virgin Ololon
* Stood rembling in the Porch. Loud Satan thunder’d on the stormy Sea,
* Circling Albion’s Cliffs in which the Four-fold World resides,
* Tho’s seen in fallacy outside, a fallacy of Satan’s Churches.
* Before Ololon Milton stood & perceiv’d the Eternal Form
* Of that mild Vision; wondrous were their acts by me unknown
* Except remotely; and I heard Ololon say to Milton:
* ‘I see thee strive upon the Brooks of Arnon. There a dread
* And awful Man I see, o’vercover’d with the mantle of years.
* I behold Los & Urizen, I behold Orc & Tharmas,
* The Four Zoas of Albion, & thy Spirit with them striving,
* In Self annihilation giving thy life to thy enemies.
* Are those who contemn Religion & seek to annihilate it
* Become in their Feminine portions the causes & promoters
* Of these Religions? How is this thing, this Newtonian Phantasm,
* This Voltaire & Rousseau, this Hume & Gibbon & Bolingbroke,
* This Natural Religion, this impossibleabsurdity?
* Is Ololon the cause of this? O where shall I hide my face?
* These tears fall for the little ones, the Children of Jerusalem,
* Lest they be annihilated in thy annihilation.’
* No sooner she had spoke but Rahab Babylon appear’d
* Eastward upon the Paved work across Europe & Asia,
* Glorious as the midday Sun, in Satan’s bosom glowing,
* A Female hidden in a Male, Religion hidden in War,
* Nam’d Moral Virtue, cruel two-fold Monster shining bright,
* A Dragon red & hidden Harlot which John in Patmos saw.
* And all beneath the Nations innumberable of Ulro
* Apear’d: the Seven Kingdoms of Canaan & Five Baalim
* Of Philistea into Twelve divided, call’d after the Names
* Of Israel, as they are in Eden – Mountain, River & Plain,
* City & sandy Desart intermingled beyond mortal ken.
* But turning toward Ololon in terrible majesty, Milton
* Replied: ‘Obey thou the Words of the Inspired Man.
* All that can be annihilated must be annihilated
* That the Children of Jerusalem may be saved form slavery.
* There is a Negation, & there is a Contrary;
* The Negation must be destroy’d to redeem the Contraries.
* The Negation is the Spectre, the reasoning Power in Man.
* This is a false body, an Incrustation over my Immortal
* Spirit, a Selfhood which must be put off & annihilated always.
* To cleanse the face of my Spirit by Self-examination,
* To bathe in the Waters of Life, to wash off the Not Human,
* I come in Self-annihilation & the grandeur of Inspiration;
* To cast off rational Demonstration by Faith in the Saviour,
* To cast off the rotten rags of Memory by Inspiration,
* To cast off Bacon, Locke & Newton form Albion’s covering,
* To take off his filthy garments, & clothe him with Imagination;
* To cast aside from Poetry all that is not Inspiration,
* That is no longer shall dare to mock with the aspersion of Madness
* Cast on the Inspired by the tame high finisher of paltry Blots
* Indefinite, or paltry Rhymes, or Paltry Harmonies,
* Who creeps into State Government like a catterpiller to destroy;
* To cast off the idiot Questioner who is always questioning
* But never capable of answering, who sits wit a sly grin
* Silent plotting when to question, like a thief in a cave;
* Who publishes doubt & calls it knowledge, whose Science is Despair,
* Whose pretence to knowledge is Envy, whose whole Science is
* To destroy the wisdom of ages to gratify ravenous Envy,
* That rages round him like a Wolf day & night without rest.
* He smiles with condescension, he talks of Benevolence & Virtue,
* And those who act with Benevolence & Virtue they murder time on time.
* These are the destroyers of Jerusalem, these are the murderers
* Of Jesus, who deny the Faith & mock at Eternal life;
* Who pretend to Poetry that they may destroy Imagination
* By imitation of Nature’s Images drawn from Remembrance.
* These are the Sexual Garments, the Abomination of Desolation,
* Hiding the Human Lineaments as with an Ark & Curtains,
* Which Jesus rent & now shall wholly purge away with Fire,
* Till Generation is swallow’d up in Regeneration.’
* Then trembled the Virgin Ololon & reply’d in clouds of despair:
* ‘Is this our Feminine Portion, the Six-fold Miltonic Female?
* Terrible this Portion trembles before thee, O awful Man!
* Altho’ our Human Power can sustain the severe contentions
* Of Friendship, our Sexual cannot, but flies into the Ulro.
* Hence arose all our terrors in Eternity; & now remembrance
* Returns upon us. Are we Contraries, O Milton, Thou & I?
* O Immortal! how were we led to War the Wars of Death?
* Is this the Void Outside of Existence, which if enter’d into
* Becomes a Womb? & is this the Death Couch of Albion?
* Thou goest to Eternal Death, & all must go with thee.’
* So saying, the Virgin divided Six-fold, & with a shriek
* Dolorous that ran thro’ all Creation, a Double-Six-fold Wonder,
* Away from Ololon she divided & fled into the depths
* Of Milton’s Shadow, as a Dove upon the stormy Sea.
* Then as a Moony Ark Ololon descended to Felpham’s Vale
* In clouds of blood, in streams of gore, with dreadful thunderings
* Into the Fires of Intellect that rejoic’d in Felpham’s Vale
* Around the Starry Eight. With one accord the Starry Eight became
* One Man, Jesus the Saviour, wonderful! Round his limbs
* The Clouds of Ololon folded as a Garment dipped in blood,
* Written within & without in woven letters; & the Writing
* Is the Divine Revelation in the Litteral expression,
* A Garment of War. I heard it nam’d the Woof of Six Thousand Years.
* And I beheld the Twenty-four Cities of Albion
* Arise upon their Thrones to Judge the Nations of the Earth;
* And the Immortal Four in whom the Twenty-four appear Four-fold
* Arose around Albion’s body. Jesus wept & walked forth
* From Felpham’s Vale clothed in Clouds of blood, to enter into
* Albion’s Bosom, the bosom of death, & the Four surrounded him
* In the Column of Fire in Felpham’s Vale. Then to their mouths the four
* Applied their Four Trumpets & them sounded to the Four winds.
* Terror struck in the Vale. I stood at that immortal sound;
* My bones trembles. I fell outstretch’d upon the path
* A moment, & my Soul return’d into its mortal state,
* To Resurrection & Judgment in the Vegetable body;
* And my sweet Shadow of Delight stood trembling by my side.
* Immediately the Lark mounted with a loud trill form Felpham’s Vale,
* And the Wild Thyme from Wimbleton’s green & impurpled Hills;
* And Los& Enitharmon rose over the Hills of Surrey.
* Their clouds roll over London with a south wind. Soft Oothoon
* Pants in the Vales of Lambeth, weeping o’er her Human Harvest.
* Los listens to the Cry of the Poor Man, his Cloud
* Over London in volume terrific, low bended in anger.
* Rintrah & Palamabron view the Human Harvest beneath.
* Their Wine-presses & Barns stand open; the Ovens are prepar’d,
* The Waggons ready; terrific, Lions & Tygers sport & play.
* All Animals upon the Earth are prepar’d in all their strength
* To go forth to the Great Harvest & Vintage of the Nations.
* Finis