 Part 1 of the First Book of Urizen. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Dennis Sayers. The First Book of Urizen by William Blake. Preludium to the First Book of Urizen. Of the primeval priests assumed power when Eternals spurned back his religion and gave him a place in the north, obscure, shadowy, void, solitary. Eternals, I hear your call gladly. Dictate swift winged words and fear not to unfold your dark visions of torment. Chapter 1 1. Low, a shadow of horror is risen in eternity. Unknown, unprolific, self-closed, all repelling what demon has formed this abominable void, this soul-shuddering vacuum. Some said it is Urizen, but unknown, abstracted, brooding secret. The dark power hid. 2. Times on times he divided and measured space by space in his ninefold darkness, unseen, unknown. Changes appeared in his desolate mountains, rifted furious by the black winds of perturbation. 3. For he strove in battle's dire in unseen conflictions with shapes bred from his forsaken wilderness of beast, bird, fish, serpent, and element, combustion, blast, vapor, and cloud. 4. Dark, revolving in silent activity, unseen in tormenting passions and activity unknown and horrible, a self-contemplating shadow of enormous labors occupied. 5. But eternals beheld his vast forests age on ages he lay, closed, unknown, brooding, shut in the deep, all avoid the patrific, abominable chaos. 6. His cold horrors silent, dark horizon prepared. 7. His ten thousands of thunders, ranged in gloomed array, stretch out across the dread world, and the rolling of wheels as of swelling seas, sound in his clouds, in his hills, of stored snows, in his mountains of hail and ice. Voices of terror are heard like thunders of autumn, when the cloud blazes over the harvests. 2. Earth was not, nor globes of attraction, the will of the immortal expanded or contracted his all-flexible senses. Death was not, but eternal life sprung. 2. The sound of a trumpet with heavens awoke and vast clouds of blood rolled round the dim rocks of the horizon, so named that solitary one in immensity. 3. Shrill the trumpet and myriads of eternity muster around the bleak deserts, now filled with clouds, darkness and waters, that rolled perplexed, laboring, and uttered words articulate, bursting in thunders, that rolled on the tops of his mountains. 4. From the depths of dark solitude, from the eternal abode in my holiness, hidden apart in my stern counsels, reserved for the days of futurity, I have sought for a joy without pain, for a solid without fluctuation. Why will you die, O Eternals? Why live in unquenchable burnings? 5. I fought with the fire, consumed inwards, into a deep world within. Avoid immense, wild, dark and deep, where nothing was, nature's wide womb and self-balanced stretched over the void, I alone even I. The winds merciless bound, but condensing in torrents, they fall and fall. Strong I repelled the vast waves, and arose on the waters a wide world of solid obstruction. 6. Here alone I, in books formed of metals, have written the secrets of wisdom, the secrets of dark contemplation, by fightings and conflicts dire, with terrible monsters, sin-bred, which the bosoms of all inhabit. 7. Deadly sins of the soul. 7. Low I unfold my darkness, and on this rock, placed with strong hand, the book of eternal brass, written in my solitude. 8. Laws of peace, of love, of unity, of pity, compassion, forgiveness, let each choose one habitation, his ancient infinite mansion, one command, one joy, one desire, one curse, one weight, one measure, one king, one god, one law. Chapter 3. 1. The voice ended. He saw his pale visage emerge from the darkness, his hand on the rock of eternity, unclasping the book of brass. Rage seized the strong. 2. Rage, fury, intense indignation, in cataracts of fire, blood, and gall, in whirlwinds of sulfurous smoke, and enormous forms of energy. All the seven deadly sins of the soul in living creations appeared in the flames of eternal fury. 3. Sundering, darkening, thundering, rent away with a terrible crash, eternity rolled wide apart. Wide, a sunder-rolling mountainous all around, departing, departing, departing, leaving ruinous fragments of life-hanging frowning cliffs and all between an ocean of voidness unfathomable. 4. The roaring fires ran o'er the heavens in whirlwinds and cataracts of blood, and o'er the dark deserts of Euryzen, fires pour through the void on all sides, on Euryzen's self-begotten armies. 5. But no light from the fires all was darkness in the flames of eternal fury. 6. In fierce anguish and quenchless flames to the deserts and rocks he ran, raging to hide, but he could not. Combining, he dug mountains and hills in vast strength. He piled them in incessant labor in howlings and pangs and fierce madness, long periods in burning fires, laboring till horny and age-broke and aged, in despair and the shadows of death. 7. And a roof, vast, patrific around, on all sides he framed, like a womb, where thousands of rivers in veins of blood pour down the mountains to cool the eternal fires beading without from eternals. 8. And like a black globe viewed by suns of eternity, standing on the shore of the infinite ocean like a human heart, struggling and beading, the vast world of Euryzen appeared. 8. And loce round the dark globe of Euryzen kept watch for eternals to confine, the obscure separation alone, for eternity stood wide apart, as the stars are apart from the earth. 9. Loce wept howling around the dark demon and cursing his lot, for in anguish Euryzen was rent from his side a fathomless void for his feet and intense fires for his dwelling. 10. But Euryzen laid in a stony sleep, unorganized, rent from eternity. 11. The eternal said, What is this? Death. Euryzen is a clod of clay. 12. Loce howled in a dismal stupor, groaning, gnashing, groaning, till the wrenching apart was healed. 13. But the wrenching of Euryzen healed not. Cold, featureless, flesh or clay, rifted with direful changes, he lay in a dreamless night. 14. Till Loce roused his fires, affrighted at the formless, unmeasurable death. Chapter 4, A. 1. Loce smitten with astonishment, frightened at the hurling bones. 2. And at the surging, sulphurious, perturbed immortal mad, raging. 3. In whirlwinds and pitch and nitra, round furious limbs of Loce. 4. And Loce formed nets and gins and threw the nets round about. 5. He watched in shuddering fear, the dark changes, and bound every change with rivets of iron and brass. 6. And these were the changes of Euryzen. Chapter 4, B. 1. Ages on ages rolled over him in stony sleep. Ages rolled over him. Like a dark waste stretching changeable by earthquakes riven, belching sullen fires on ages rolled, ages in ghastly sick torment. Around him, in whirlwinds of darkness, the eternal prophet howled, beating still on his rivets of iron, pouring solder of iron, dividing the horrible night into watches. 2. And Euryzen, so his eternal name, his prolific delight obscured more and more in dark secrecy, hiding and surging so furious fluid his fantasies. The eternal prophet heaved the dark bellows and turned restless the tongs and the hammer incessant beat, forging chains new and new, numbering with lengths, hours, days and years. 3. The eternal mind bounded, began to roll eddies of wrath, ceaseless round and round, and the so furious foam surging thick settled a lake, bright and shining clear, white as the snow on the mountains cold. 4. Forgetfulness, dumbness, necessity in chains of the mind locked up, like fetters of ice shrinking together, disorganized rent from eternity. Los beat on his fetters of iron and heeded his furnaces and poured iron solder and solder of brass. 5. Restless turned the immortal in chained heaving Dolores anguished unbearable till a roof shaggy wild enclosed in an orb his fountain of thought. 6. In a horrible, dreamful slumber, like the linked infernal chain, a vast spine writhed in torment upon the winds, shooting pained ribs like a bending cavern bones of solidness froze over all his nerves of joy and a first age passed over and a state of dismal will. 7. From the caverns of his jointed spine down sunk with fright a red round globe hot, burning deep, deep down through the abyss, panting, conglobing, trembling, shooting out ten thousand branches around his solid bones and a second age passed over and a state of dismal will. 8. In the harrowing fear rolling round his nervous brain shot branches of his heart on high into two little orbs and fixed in two little caves hiding carefully from the wind his eyes beheld the deep and a third age passed over and a state of dismal will. 9. The pangs of hope began in heavy pain, striving, struggling two ears in close volutions from beneath his orbs of vision shot, spiring out and petrified as they grew and a fourth age passed in a state of dismal will. 10. In ghastly torment, sick hanging upon the wind two nostrils bent down to the deep and a fifth age passed over and a state of dismal will. 11. In ghastly torment, sick within his ribs bloated round a craving, hungry cavern thence arose his channeled throat and like a red flame a tongue of thirst and of hunger appeared and a sixth age passed over and a state of dismal will. 12. Enraged and stifled with torment he threw his right arm to the north and his left arm to the south shooting out in anguish deep and his feet stamped the nether abyss in trembling and howling and dismay and a seventh age passed over and a state of dismal will. End of Part One of the First Book of Euryzen The First Book of Euryzen by William Blake Read by David Andres This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to find out how you can volunteer please visit LibriVox.org This is Part Two of the Two-Part Recording Chapter Five In terrors, loss shrunk from this 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 and clashings and groans the immortal endured his chains though bound in a deadly sleep All the myriads of eternity all the wisdom and joy of life roll like a sea around him except what his little orbs of sight degrees unfold and now his eternal life like a dream was obliterated Shuddering, the eternal prophet smote with a stroke from his north to south region the bellows and hammer are silent now a nerveless silence his prophetic voice seized the cold solitude and dark void the eternal prophet and mirrors enclosed ages on ages rolled over them cut off from life and light frozen into horrible forms of deformity loss suffered his fires to decay then he looked back with anxious desire but the space undivided by existence struck horror into his soul loss wept, obscured with mourning his bosom earthquakeed with sighs he saw yours and deadly black in his chains bound and pity began in anguish dividing and dividing for pity divides the soul in tangs eternity on eternity life in cataracts poured down his cliffs the void shrunk the lymph into nerves wandering wide on the bosom of night and left a round globe of blood trembling upon the void thus the eternal prophet was divided before the death image of Eurism for intangible clouds and darkness in a winterly night beneath the abyss of loss stretched immense and now seen, now obscured to the eyes of Eternals the visions remote of the dark separation appeared as glasses discover worlds the endless abyss of space so the expanding eyes of immortals beheld the dark visions of loss and the globe of lifeblood trembling the globe of lifeblood trembled branching out into roots fibers writhing upon the winds fibers of blood, milk and tears in tangs eternity on eternity at length in tears and cries embodied a female form trembling and pale waves before his deadly face all eternity shuttered at sight of the first female now separate pale as a cloud of snow waving the fourth's face of loss wonder, awe, fear, astonishment petrify the eternal myriads at the first female form now separate they called her pity and fled spread a tent with strong curtains around them let cords and stakes bind in the void that Eternals may no more behold them they began to weave curtains of darkness they erected large pillars around the void with golden hooks bassined in the pillars with infinite labor the Eternals a wolf wove and called it science Chapter 6 but Los saw the female and pity he embraced her she wept she refused in perverse and cruel delight she fled from his arms yet he followed eternity shuttered when they saw man begetting his likeness on his own divided image a time passed over the Eternals began to erect the tent when any tharnan, sick felt a worm within her womb yet hopeless it lay like a worm in the trembling womb to be molded into existence all day the worm lay on her bosom all night within her womb a worm lay till it grew to a serpent with dolerous hissings and poisons round anatharman's loins folding coiled within anatharman's womb the serpent grew casting its scales with sharp pangs that hissings began to change to a grating cry many sorrows and dismal throes many forms of fish, bird and beast brought forth an infant form where was a worm before the Eternals their tent finished alarmed with these gloomy visions when anatharman groaning produced a man child to the white a shriek ran through eternity and a paralytic stroke at the birth of the human shadow delving earth in his resistless way howling the child with fierce flames issued from anatharman the Eternals closed the tent they beat down the stakes the cords stretched for a work of eternity no more loose beheld eternity in his hands he seized the infant he bathed him in springs of sorrow he gave him to anatharman chapter 7 they named the child orc he grew fed with milk of anatharman loose awoke her full sorrow and pain a tightening girdle grew around his bosom in sobbing he burst the girdle in twain but still another girdle oppressed his bosom in sobbing again he burst it again another girdle succeeds the girdle was formed by day by night was burst in twain these falling down on the rock into an iron chain each other link by link locked they took orc to the top of the mountain oh how anatharman wept they chained his young limbs to the rock with the chain of jealousy beneath Eurasian's dreadful shadow the dead heard the voice of the child and began to awake from sleep all things heard the voice of the child and began to awake to life and Eurasian, craving with hunger stung with the odours of nature explored his dens around he formed a line and a plummet to divide the abyss beneath he formed a dividing rule he formed scales to weigh he formed massy weights he formed a braze and quadrant he formed golden compasses and began to explore the abyss planted a garden of fruits but loce encircled anatharman with fires of prophecy from the sight of Eurasian an orc and she bore an enormous race chapter 8 Eurasian explored his dens mountain, moor and wilderness with a globe of fire lighting his journey a fearful journey led by cruel enormities forms of life on his forsaken mountains and his world teamed vast enormities frightening, faithless thawning portions of life similitudes of a foot or a hand or a head or a heart or an eye they swam mischievous dread terrors delighting in blood most Eurasian sickened to see his eternal creations appear sons and daughters of sorrow on mountains weeping, wailing first Theriel appeared astonished at his own existence like a man from a cloud born and Utha from the waters emerging laments Grodna rent the deep earth howling amazed his heavens immense cracks like the ground parched with heat then Fuzan flamed out first begotten, last born all his eternal sons in like manner his daughters from green herbs and cattle from monsters and worms of the pit he in darkness closed viewed all his race and his soul sickened he cursed both sons and daughters for he saw that no flesh nor spirit could keep his iron laws one moment for he saw that life lived upon death the ox in the slaughterhouse moans the dog at the wintry door and he wept and he called it pity and his tears flowed down on the winds cold he wandered on high over their cities in weeping and pain and woe and wherever he wandered in sorrows upon the aged heavens a cold shadow followed behind him like a spider's web moist cold and dim a drawing out from his sorrowing soul a dungeon-like heaven dividing wherever the footsteps of Eurasian walked over the cities in sorrow to the web dark and cold throughout all the tormented element stretched from the sorrows of Eurasian soul and the web was a female in embryo none could break the web no wings of fire so twisted the cords and so knotted the meshes twisted like to the human brain and all called it the net of religion Chapter 9 then the inhabitants of those cities felt their nerves change into marrow and hardening bones began in swift diseases and torments in throbbing and shootings and grindings through all the coasts till weakened the senses inward rushed shrinking beneath the dark net of infection till the shrunken eyes clouded over discerned not the woven hypocrisy but the streaky slime in their heavens wrought together by narrowing perceptions appeared transparent air for their eyes grew small like the eyes of a man and in reptile forms shrinking together of seven feet stature they remain six days lay shrunk up from existence and on the seventh day they rested and they blessed the seventh day in sick hope and forgot their eternal life and their thirty cities divided in form of a human heart no more could they rise at will in the infinite void but bound down to earth by their narrowing perceptions they lived a period of years then left a noisome body to the jaws of devouring darkness and their children wept and built tools in the desolate places and formed laws of prudence and called them the eternal laws of God and the thirty cities remained surrounded by salt floods now called Africa its name was then Egypt the remaining sons of Eurasian beheld their brethren shrink together beneath the net of Eurasian persuasion was in vain for the years of the inhabitants were withered and deafened and cold and their eyes could not discern their brethren of other cities so fusing called all together the remaining children of Eurasian and they left the pendulous earth they called it Egypt and left it and the salt ocean rolled and glowed end of the book of Eurasian