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| Wikipedia Commons America Plate 12 |
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“The creeping Urizen is supplied with a long soliloquy in a passage of Night Five of The Four Zoas which is worth taking up here for the light it casts back upon The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and A Song of Liberty and The Tyger. The fatal error of the jealous king is that his fixing of the horizon ultimately limits himself more than it does the energy of the people. Royalty can keep its crimson robes, Orleans warned, only if it stops trying to measure of each man 'the circle that he shall run'. (French Revolution, P 91) Soliloquizing as he crawls in the den or narrow circle of his own ideas, the fallen Urizen of Night Five laments too late his imperial mistakes: his choice of war instead of peace, his failure to accept the opportunity to be an enlightened despot when the "mild & holy voice" of divine freedom said, "O light, spring up & shine" and "gave to me a silver sceptre & crownd me with a golden crown" to 'Go forth & guide' the people. 'I went not forth,' he laments, 'I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath, I called the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark'. (FZ's) Thus George assembled his council in 1774; thus Louis the King of France, prepared his ‘starry hosts’ in 1789 and let the spark of humanity in his bosom be 'quench’d in clouds' by 'the Nobles of France, and dark mists.' Each time, in the event, at Yorktown and again at Valmy, ‘The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away'. We fell. Too late Urizen is sorry he refused to use his ‘Steeds of Light’.
The language of the soliloquy is doubly revealing. On the level of practice it is clear that ‘The stars threw down their spears’ means : the armies of counterrevolution were defeated. On the level of theory it is clear that Reason, when it refuses to assist but attempts to hinder Energy, is overthrown. Denied the peaceful accommodation of the Steeds of Light, the just man seizes the Tigers of Wrath. Vetoed by a stubborn monarch, the French people became, as the London Times of January 7, 1792, put it, 'loose from all restraints, and, in many instances, more ferocious than wolves and tigers'. As Blake put it in Fayette, the French grew bloodthirsty and would 'not submit to the gibbet & halter.'
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"But now my land is darkend & my wise men are departed
My songs are turned to cries of Lamentation
Heard on my Mountains & deep sighs under my palace roofs
Because the Steeds of Urizen once swifter than the light
Were kept back from my Lord & from his chariot of mercies
O did I keep the horses of the day in silver pastures
O I refusd the Lord of day the horses of his prince
O did I close my treasuries with roofs of solid stone
And darken all my Palace walls with envyings & hate
O Fool to think that I could hide from his all piercing eyes
The gold & silver & costly stones his holy workmanship
O Fool could I forget the light that filled my bright spheres
Was a reflection of his face who calld me from the deep
I well remember for I heard the mild & holy voice
Saying O light spring up & shine & I sprang up from the deep
He gave to me a silver scepter & crownd me with a golden crown
& said Go forth & guide my Son who wanders on the ocean
I went not forth. I hid myself in black clouds of my wrath
I calld the stars around my feet in the night of councils dark
The stars threw down their spears & fled naked away
We fell. I siezd thee dark Urthona In my left hand falling
I siezd thee beauteous Luvah thou art faded like a flower""Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire;
Round the terrific loins he siez'd the panting struggling womb;
It joy'd: she put aside her clouds & smiled her first-born smile;
As when a black cloud shews its lightnings to the silent deep.
Soon as she saw the terrible boy then burst the virgin cry.
I know thee, I have found thee, & I will not let thee go;
Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa;
And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions
Endur'd by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep:
I see a serpent in Canada, who courts me to his love;
In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru;
I see a Whale in the South-sea, drinking my soul away.
O what limb rending pains I feel. thy fire & my frost
Mingle in howling pains, in furrows by thy lightnings rent;
This is eternal death; and this the torment long foretold."
"Fear not dreams, fear not visions, nor be you dismay'd with sorrows which flee at the morning; Can the fires of Nobility ever be quench'd, or the stars by a stormy night? Is the body diseas'd when the members are healthful? can the man be bound in sorrow Whose ev'ry func,tion is fill'd with its fiery desire? can the soul whose brain and heart Cast their rivers in equal tides thro' the great Paradise, languish because the feet Hands, head, bosom, and parts of love, follow their high breathing joy? And can Nobles be bound when the people are free, or God weep when his children are happy? Have you never seen Fayette's forehead, or Mirabeau's eyes, or the shoulders of Target, Or Bailly the strong foot of France, or Clermont the terrible voice, and your robes Still retain their own crimson? mine never yet faded, for fire delights in its form. But go, merciless man! enter into the infinite labyrinth of another's brain Ere thou measure the circle that he shall run. Go, thou cold recluse,into the fires Of another's high flaming rich bosom, and return unconsum'd, and write laws. If thou canst not do this, doubt thy theories, learn to consider all men as thy equals, Thy brethren, and not as thy foot or thy hand, unless thou first fearest to hurt them."
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