YCBA Collections Search

Inscribed in graphite, lower left: "12."

Lettered inside image, upper center: "1 Urizen C: V."; upper left: "Two Nostrils bent down to the deep, | And a fifth Age passed over; | And a state of dismal woe. | 11. In ghastly torment sick; | Within his ribs bloated round. | A craving Hungry Cavern: | Thence arose his channeld Throat. | And like a red flame a Tongue | Of thirst & of hunger appeard. | And a sixth Age passed over: | And a state of dismal woe. | 12. Enraged & stifled with torment | He threw his right Arm to the north | His left Arm to the south | Shooting out in anguish deep. | And his Feet stampd the nether Abyss"; upper right: "In trembling & howling & dismay. | And a seventh Age passed over: | And a state of dismal woe. | Chap: V. | 1. In terrors Los shrunk from his | task: | His great hammer fell from his hand: | His fires beheld, and sickening. | Hid their strong limbs in smoke. | For with noises ruinous loud; | With hurtlings & clashings & groans | The Immortal endur'd his chains, | Tho' bound in a deadly sleep. | 2. All the myriads of Eternity; | All the wisdom & joy of life; | Roll like a sea around him."; lower left: "Except what his little orbs | Of sight by degrees unfold. | 3. And now his eternal life | Like a dream was obliterated | 4. Shudd'ring, the Eternal Prophet smote | With a stroke, from his north to south | region | The bellows & hammer are silent now | A nerveless silence, his prophetic voice | Siez'd; a cold solitude & dark void | The Eternal Prophet & Urizen closd | 5. Ages on ages rolld over them | Cut off from life & light frozen | Into horrible forms of deformity | Los suffer'd his fires to decay"; lower right: "Then he look'd back with anxious desire | But the space undivided by existence | Struck horror into his soul. | 6. Los wept obscur'd with mourning: | His bosom earthquak'd with sighs. | He saw Urizen deadly black, | In his chains bound, & Pity began. | 7. In anguish dividing & dividing | For pity divides the soul | In pangs eternity on eternity | Life in cataracts pourd down his | cliffs | The void shrunk the lymph into Nerves | Wand'ring wide on the bosom of night | And left a round globe of blood | Trembling upon the Void"