- By those who drink their blood & the blood of their Covenant
And the Twelve Daughters of Albion united in Rahab & Tirzah
A Double Female: and they drew out from the Rocky Stones
Fibres of Life to Weave[,] for every Female is a Golden Loom
The Rocks are opake hardnesses covering all Vegetated things
And as they Wove & Cut from the Looms in various divisions
Stretching over Europe & Asia from Ireland to Japan
They divided into many lovely Daughters to be counterparts
To those they Wove, for when they Wove a Male, they divided
Into a Female to the Woven Male. in opake hardness
They cut the Fibres from the Rocks groaning in pain they Weave;
Calling the Rocks Atomic Origins of Existence; denying Eternity
By the Atheistical Epicurean Philosophy of Albions Tree
Such are the Feminine & Masculine when separated from Man
They call the Rocks Parents of Men, & adore the frowning Chaos
Dancing around in howling pain clothed in the bloody Veil.
Hiding Albions Sons within the Veil, closing Jerusalems
Sons without; to feed with their Souls the Spectres of Albion
Ashamed to give Love openly to the piteous & merciful Man
Counting him an imbecile mockery: but the Warrior
They adore: & his revenge cherish with the blood of the Innocent
They drink up Dan & Gad, to feed with milk Skofeld & Kotope
They strip off Josephs Coat & dip it in the blood of battle
Tirzah sits weeping to hear the shrieks of the dying: her Knife
Of flint is in her hand: she passes it over the howling Victim
The Daughters Weave their Work in loud cries over the Rock
Of Horeb! still eyeing Albions Cliffs eagerly siezing & twisting
The threads of Vala & Jerusalem running from mountain to mountain
Over the whole Earth: loud the Warriors rage in Beth Peor
Beneath the iron whips of their Captains & consecrated banners
Loud the Sun & Moon rage in the conflict: loud the Stars
Shout in the night of battle & their spears grow to their hands
With blood, weaving the deaths of the Mighty into a Tabernacle
For Rahab & Tirzah; till the Great Polypus of Generation covered
the Earth
In Verulam the Polypus's Head, winding around his bulk
Thro Rochester, and Chichester, & Exeter & Salisbury,
To Bristol: & his Heart beat strong on Salisbury Plain
Shooting out Fibres round the Earth, thro Gaul & Italy
And Greece, & along the Sea of Rephaim into Judea
 |
| Plate 67 |
To Sodom & Gomorrha: thence to India, China & Japan The Twelve Daughters in Rahab & Tirzah have circumscribd the Braain Beneath & pierced it thro the midst with a golden pin. Blood hath staind her fair side beneath her bosom. O thou poor Human Form! said she. O thou poor child of woe! Why wilt thou wander away from Tirzah: why me compel to bind thee[!] If thou dost go away from me I shall consume upon these Rocks These fibres of thine eyes that used to beam in distant heavens Away from me: I have bound down with a hot iron. These nostrils that expanded with delight in morning skiesI have bent downward with lead melted in my roaring furnaces Of affliction; of love; of sweet despair; of torment unendurable My soul is seven furnaces, incessant roars the bellows Upon my terribly flaming heart, the molten metal runs In channels thro my fiery limbs: O love! O pity! O fear! O pain! O the pangs, the bitter pangs of love forsaken Ephraim was a wilderness of joy where all my wild beasts ran
Notes:
In this Plate Blake attempted to explain the mythical mechanism by which immortals undergoing ‘mortalization’ are provided with 'garments’ (Garments is Blake’s word [one of them] for the mortal body.)
“The Twelve Daughters of Albion” (they’re listed a few Plates back, starting with Gwendelon.) They represent the various facets of the ‘Female Will’.
The Immortal One becomes a polarized Two contraries: male and female.
Here’s another naming of the two contraries:
For questions, comments, corrections write to Larry Clayton.
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