The Song of Los

AFRICA

I will sing you a song of Los. the Eternal Prophet: 
He sung it to four harps at the tables of Eternity. 
In heart-formed Africa. 
Urizen faded! Ariston shudderd! 
And thus the Song began 

Adam stood in the garden of Eden: 
And Noah on the mountains of Ararat; 
They saw Urizen give his Laws to the Nations 
By the hands of the children of Los. 

Adam shudderd! Noah faded! black grew the sunny African 
When Rintrah gave Abstract Philosophy to Brama in the East: 
(Night spoke to the Cloud! 
Lo these Human form'd spirits in smiling hipocrisy. War 
Against one another; so let them War on; slaves to the eternal Elements) 
Noah shrunk, beneath the waters; 
Abram fled in fires from Chaldea; 
Moses beheld upon Mount Sinai forms of dark delusion: 

To Trismegistus. Palamabron gave an abstract Law: 
To Pythagoras Socrates & Plato. 

Times rolled on o'er all the sons of Har, time after time 
Orc on Mount Atlas howld, chain'd down with the Chain of Jealousy 
Then Oothoon hoverd over Judah & Jerusalem 
And Jesus heard her voice (a man of sorrows) he recievd 
A Gospel from wretched Theotormon. 

The human race began to wither, for the healthy built 
Secluded places, fearing the joys of Love 
And the disease'd only propagated: 
So Antamon call'd up Leutha from her valleys of delight: 
And to Mahomet a loose Bible gave. 
But in the North, to Odin, Sotha gave a Code of War, 
Because of Diralada thinking to reclaim his joy. 

These were the Churches: Hospitals: Castles: Palaces: 
Like nets & gins & traps to catch the joys of Eternity 
And all the rest a desart; 
Till like a dream Eternity was obliterated & erased. 

Since that dread day when Har and Heva fled. 
Because their brethren & sisters liv'd in War & Lust; 
And as they fled they shrunk 
Into two narrow doleful forms: 
Creeping in reptile flesh upon 
The bosom of the ground: 
And all the vast of Nature shrunk 
Before their shrunken eyes. 

Thus the terrible race of Los & Enitharmon gave 
Laws & Religions to the sons of Har binding them more 
And more to Earth: closing and restraining: 
Till a Philosophy of Five Senses was complete 
Urizen wept & gave it into the hands of Newton & Locke 

Clouds roll heavy upon the Alps round Rousseau & Voltaire: 
And on the mountains of Lebanon round the deceased Gods 
Of Asia; & on the deserts of Africa round the Fallen Angels 
The Guardian Prince of Albion burns in his nightly tent 

ASIA

The Kings of Asia heard 
The howl rise up from Europe! 
And each ran out from his Web; 
From his ancient woven Den; 
For the darkness of Asia was startled 
At the thick-flaming, thought-creating fires of Orc. 

And the Kings of Asia stood 
And cried in bitterness of soul. 

Shall not the King call for Famine from the heath? 
Nor the Priest, for Pestilence from the fen? 
To restrain! to dismay! to thin! 
The inhabitants of mountain and plain; 
In the day, of full-feeding prosperity; 
And the night of delicious songs. 

Shall not the Councellor throw his curb 
Of Poverty on the laborious? 
To fix the price of labour; 
To invent allegoric riches: 

And the privy admonishers of men 
Call for fires in the City 
For heaps of smoking ruins, 
In the night of prosperity & wantonness 

To turn man from his path, 
To restrain the child from the womb, 

To cut off the bread from the city, 
That the remnant may learn to obey. 
That the pride of the heart may fail; 
That the lust of the eyes may be quench'd: 
That the delicate ear in its infancy 

May be dull'd; and the nostrils clos'd up; 
To teach mortal worms the path 
That leads from the gates of the Grave. 

Urizen heard them cry;
And his shudd'ring waving wings
Went enormous above the red flames
Drawing clouds of despair thro' the heavens
Of Europe as he went;
And his Books of brafs iron & gold
Melted over the land as he flew,
Heavy-waving, howling, weeping.

And he stood over Judea
And stay'd in his ancient place;
And stretch'd his clouds over Jerusalem

For Adam, a mouldering skeleton
Lay bleach'd on the garden of Eden
And Noah as white as snow
On the mountains of Ararat.

Then the thunders of Urizen bellow'd aloud
from his woven darkness above.

Orc raging in European darkness
Arose like a pillar of fire above the Alps
Like a serpent of fiery flame!
The sullen Earth Shrunk
The dead dust rattling bones to bones
shaking convuls'd the shivring clay breathes
And all flesh nakes stands
Mothers & Infants: Kings 

The Grave shrieks with delight & shakes
Her hollow womb & clasps the solid stem:
Her bosom swells with wild desire.
And milk & blood & glandous wine,
In rivers rush & shout & dance,
On mountain dale and plain
The Song of Los is ended
Urizan Wept.