YCBA Collections Search

Inscribed in orange ink, upper right: "80"

Lettered inside image: "Encompass'd by the frozen Net and by the rooted Tree | I walk weeping in pangs of a Mother's torment for her Children. | I walk in affliction: I am a worm, and no living soul! | A worm going to eternal torment: rais'd up in a night | To an eternal night of pain, lost! lost! lost! forever! | Beside her Vala howl'd upon the winds in pride of beauty, | Lamenting among the timbrels of the Warriors, among the Captives | In cruel holiness: and her lamenting songs were from Arnon | And Jordan to Euphrates. Jerusalem follow'd trembling | Her children in captivity, listening to Vala's lamentation | In the thick cloud & darkness, & the voice went forth from | The cloud. O rent in sunder from Jerusalem the Harlot daughter! | In an eternal condemnation, in fierce burning flames | Of torment unendurable: and if once a Delusion be found | Woman must perish & the Heavens of Heavens remain no more. | My Father gave to me command to murder Albion | In unreviving Death: my Love, my Luvah order'd me in night | To murder Albion, the King of Men: he fought in battles fierce, | He conquer'd Luvah my beloved: he took me and my Father, | He slew them: I revived them to life in my warm bosom. | He saw them issue from my bosom, dark in Jealousy | He burn'd before me; Luvah fram'd the Knife & Luvah gave | The Knife into his daughter's hand ; such thing was never known | Before in Albion's land, that one should die a death never to be reviv'd ! | For in our battles we the Slain men view with pity and love, | We soon revive them in the secret of our tabernacles. | But I Vala, Luvah's daughter, keep his body embalm'd in moral laws, | With spices of sweet odours of lovely jealous stupefaction, | Within my bosom, lest he arise to life & slay my Luvah. | Pity me then O Lamb of God! O Jesus pity me! | Come into Luvah's Tents and seek not to revive the Dead! | So sang she: and the Spindle turn'd furious as she sang: | The Children of Jerusalem, the Souls of those who sleep, | Were caught into the flax of her DistafF, & in her Cloud, | To weave Jerusalem a body according to her will, | A Dragon form on Zion Hill's most ancient promontory. | The Spindle turn'd in blood & fire : loud sound the trumpets | Of war: the cymbals play loud before the Captains, | With Cambel & Gwendolen in dance and solemn song. | The Cloud of Rahab vibrating with the Daughters of Albion, | Los saw terrified, melted with pity & divided in wrath: | He sent them over the narrow seas in pity and love | Among the Four Forests of Albion which overspread all the Earth. | They go forth & return swift as a flash of lightning, | Among the tribes of warriors, among the Stones of power: | Against Jerusalem they rage thro all the Nations of Europe, | Thro Italy & Grecia, to Lebanon & Persia & India. | The Serpent Temples thro' the Earth, from the wide Plain, of Salisbury, | Resound with cries of Victims, shouts & songs & dying groans | And flames of dusky fire, to Amalelc, Canaan and Moab. | And Rahab like a dismal and indefinite hovering Cloud | Refus'd to take a definite form, she hover'd over all the Earth | Calling the definite, sin, defacing every definite form: | Invisible or Visible, stretch'd out in length or spread in breadth | Over the Temples, drinking groans of victims weeping in pity, | And joying in the pity, howling over Jerusalem's walls. | Hand slept on Skiddaw's tops, drawn by the love of beautiful | Cambel: his bright beaming Counterpart, divided from him. | And her delusive light beam'd fierce above the Mountain, | Soft, invisible, drinking his sighs in sweet intoxication: | Drawing out fibre by fibre, returning to Albion's Tree | At night, and in the morning to Skiddaw: she sent him over | Mountainous Wales into the Loom of Cathedron fibre by fibre : | He ran in tender nerves across Europe to Jerusalem's Shade, | To weave Jerusalem a Body repugnant to the Lamb. | Hyle on East Moor, in rocky Derbyshire, rav'd to the Moon | For Gwendolen: she took up in bitter tears his anguish'd heart, | That apparent to all in Eternity glows like the Sun in the breast: | She hid it in his ribs & back: she hid his tongue with teeth | In terrible convulsions, pitying & gratified, drunk with pity, | Glowing with loveliness before him, becoming apparent | According to his changes: she roll'd his kidneys round | Into two irregular forms: and looking on Albion's dread Tree, | She wove two vessels of seed, beautiful as Skiddaw's snow, | Giving them bends of self interest & selfish natural virtue: | She hid them in his loins; raving he ran among the rocks, | Compell'd into a shape of Moral Virtue against the Lamb, | The invisible lovely one giving him a form according to | His Law, a form against the Lamb of God, oppos'd to Mercy, | And playing in the thunderous Loom in sweet intoxication: | Filling cups of silver & crystal with shrieks & cries, with groans | And dolorous sobs: the wine of lovers in the Wine-press of Luvah. | O sister Cambel, said Gwendolen, as their long beaming light | Mingled above the Mountain, what shall we do to keep | These awful forms in our soft bands: distracted with trembling"