# The Book of Los
## The Book of Los

* CHAP I
* 1: Eno aged Mother,
* Who the chariot of Leutha guides,
* Since the day of thunders in old time
* 2: Sitting beneath the eternal Oak
* Trembled and shook the stedfast Earth
* And thus her speech broke forth.
* 3: O Times remote!
* When Love & joy were adoration:
* And none impure were deem’d.
* Not Eyeless Covet
* Nor Thin-lip’d Envy
* Nor Bristled Wrath
* Nor Curled Wantonness
* 4: But Covet was poured full:
* Envy fed with fat of lambs:
* Wrath with lions gore:
* Wantonness lulld to sleep
* With the virgins lute,
* Or sated with her love.
* 5: Till Covet broke his locks & bars,
* And slept with open doors:
* Envy sung at the rich mans feast:
* Wrath was follow’d up and down
* By a little ewe lamb
* And Wantoness on his own true love
* Begot a giant race:
* 6: Raging furious the flames of desire
* Ran thro' heaven & earth, living flames
* Intelligent, organiz’d: arm’d
* With destruction & plagues. In the midst
* The Eternal Prophet bound in a chain
* Compell'd to watch Urizens shadow
* 7: Rag'd with curses & sparkles of fury
* Round the flames roll as Los hurls his chains
* Mounting up from his fury, condens’d
* Rolling round & round, mounting on high
* Into vacuum: into non-entity.
* Where nothing was! dash'd wide apart
* His feet stamp the eternal fierce-raging
* Rivers of wide flame; they roll round
* And round on all sides making their way
* Into darkness and shadowy obscurity
* 8: Wide apart stood the fires: Los remain’d
* In the void between fire and fire.
* In trembling and horror they beheld him
* They stood wide apart, driv’n by his hands
* And his feet which the nether abyss
* Stamp’d in fury and hot indignation
* 9: But no light from the fires all was
* Darkness round Los: heat was not; for bound up
* Into fiery spheres from his fury
* The gigantic flames trembled and hid
* 10: Coldness, darkness, obstruction, a Solid
* Without fluctuation, hard as adamant
* Black as marble of Egypt; impenetrable
* Bound in the fierce raging Immortal.
* And the seperated fires froze in
* A vast solid without fluctuation,
* Bound in his expanding clear senses
* CHAP II
* 1: The Immortal stood frozen amidst
* The vast rock of eternity; times
* And times; a night of vast durance:
* Impatient, stifled, stiffend, hardned.
* 2: Till impatience no longer could bear
* The hard bondage, rent: rent, the vast solid
* With a crash from immense to immense
* 3: Crack’d across into numberless fragments
* The Prophetic wrath, strug’ling for vent
* Hurls apart, stamping furious to dust
* And crumbling with bursting sobs; heaves
* The black marble on high into fragments
* 4: Hurl’d apart on all sides, as a falling
* Rock: the innumerable fragments away
* Fell asunder; and horrible vacuum
* Beneath him & on all sides round.
* 5: Falling, falling! Los fell & fell
* Sunk precipitant heavy down down
* Times on times, night on night, day on day
* Truth has bounds. Error none: falling, falling:
* Years on years, and ages on ages
* Still he fell thro' the void, still a void
* Found for falling day & night without end.
* For tho’ day or night was not; their spaces
* Were measur’d by his incessant whirls
* In the horrid vacuity bottomless.
* 6: The Immortal revolving; indignant
* First in wrath threw his limbs, like the babe
* New born into our world: wrath subsided
* And contemplative thoughts first arose
* Then aloft his head rear’d in the Abyss
* And his downward-borne fall. Chang’d oblique
* 7: Many ages of groans: till there grew
* Branchy forms. organizing the Human
* Into finite inflexible organs.
* 8: Till in process from falling he bore
* Sidelong on the purple air, wafting
* The weak breeze in efforts o’erwearied
* 9: Incessant the falling Mind labour’d
* Organizing itself: till the Vacuum
* Became element, pliant to rise,
* Or to fall, or to swim, or to fly:
* With ease searching the dire vacuity
* CHAP III
* 1: The Lungs heave incessant, dull and heavy
* For as yet were all other parts formless
* Shiv’ring: clinging around like a cloud
* Dim & glutinous as the white Polypus
* Driv’n by waves & englob’d on the tide.
* 2: And the unformed part crav’d repose
* Sleep began: the Lungs heave on the wave
* Weary overweigh’d, sinking beneath
* In a stifling black fluid he woke
* 3: He arose on the waters, but soon
* Heavy falling his organs like roots
* Shooting out from the seed, shot beneath,
* And a vast world of waters around him
* In furious torrents began.
* 4: Then he sunk, & around his spent Lungs
* Began intricate pipes that drew in
* The spawn of the waters. Outbranching
* An immense Fibrous form, stretching out
* Thro' the bottoms of immensity raging.
* 5: He rose on the floods: then he smote
* The wild deep with his terrible wrath,
* Seperating the heavy and thin.
* 6: Down the heavy sunk; cleaving around
* To the fragments of solid: up rose
* The thin, flowing round the fierce fires
* That glow’d furious in the expanse.
* CHAP IV
* 1: Then Light first began; from the fires
* Beams, conducted by fluid so pure.
* Flow’d around the Immense: Los beheld
* Forthwith writhing upon the dark void
* The Back bone of Urizen appear
* Hurtling upon the wind
* Like a serpent! like an iron chain
* Whirling about in the Deep.
* 2: Upfolding his Fibres together
* To a Form of impregnable strength
* Los astonish’d and terrified, built
* Furnaces; he formed an Anvil
* A Hammer of adamant then began
* The binding of Urizen day and night
* 3: Circling round the dark Demon, with howlings
* Dismay & sharp blightings; the Prophet
* Of Eternity beat on his iron links
* 4: And first from those infinite fires
* The light that flow’d down on the winds
* He siez’d; beating incessant, condensing
* The subtil particles in an Orb.
* 5: Roaring indignant the bright sparks
* Endur’d the vast Hammer; but unwearied
* Los beat on the Anvil; till glorious
* An immense Orb of fire he fram’d
* 6: Oft he quench’d it beneath in the Deeps
* Then survey’d the all bright mass. Again
* Siezing fires from the terrific Orbs
* He heated the round Globe, then beat,
* While roaring his Furnaces endur’d
* The chain’d Orb in their infinite wombs
* 7: Nine ages completed their circles
* When Los heated the glowing mass, casting
* It down into the Deeps: the Deeps fled
* Away in redounding smoke; the Sun
* Stood self-balanc’d. And Los smild with joy.
* He the vast Spine of Urizen siez’d
* And bound down to the glowing illusion
* 8: But no light, for the Deep fled away
* On all sides, and left an unform’d
* Dark vacuity: here Urizen lay
* In fierce torments on his glowing bed
* 9: Till his Brain in a rock, & his Heart
* In a fleshy slough formed four rivers
* Obscuring the immense Orb of fire
* Flowing down into night: till a Form
* Was completed, a Human Illusion
* In darkness and deep clouds involvd.
* The End of The Book of Los