by William Blake

The Book of Los

Chapter I

1: Eno aged Mother,

Who the chariot of Leutha guides,

Since the day of thunders in old time

2: Sitting beneath the eternal Oak

Trembled and shook the stedfast Earth

And thus her speech broke forth.

3: O Times remote!

When Love & joy were adoration:

And none impure were deem’d.

Not Eyeless Covet

Nor Thin-lip’d Envy

Nor Bristled Wrath

Nor Curled Wantonness

4: But Covet was poured full:

Envy fed with fat of lambs:

Wrath with lions gore:

Wantonness lulld to sleep

With the virgins lute,

Or sated with her love.

5: Till Covet broke his locks & bars,

And slept with open doors:

Envy sung at the rich mans feast:

Wrath was follow’d up and down

By a little ewe lamb

And Wantoness on his own true love

Begot a giant race:

6: Raging furious the flames of desire

Ran thro' heaven & earth, living flames

Intelligent, organiz’d: arm’d

With destruction & plagues. In the midst

The Eternal Prophet bound in a chain

Compell'd to watch Urizens shadow

7: Rag'd with curses & sparkles of fury

Round the flames roll as Los hurls his chains

Mounting up from his fury, condens’d

Rolling round & round, mounting on high

Into vacuum: into non-entity.

Where nothing was! dash'd wide apart

His feet stamp the eternal fierce-raging

Rivers of wide flame; they roll round

And round on all sides making their way

Into darkness and shadowy obscurity

8: Wide apart stood the fires: Los remain’d

In the void between fire and fire.

In trembling and horror they beheld him

They stood wide apart, driv’n by his hands

And his feet which the nether abyss

Stamp’d in fury and hot indignation

9: But no light from the fires all was

Darkness round Los: heat was not; for bound up

Into fiery spheres from his fury

The gigantic flames trembled and hid

10: Coldness, darkness, obstruction, a Solid

Without fluctuation, hard as adamant

Black as marble of Egypt; impenetrable

Bound in the fierce raging Immortal.

And the seperated fires froze in

A vast solid without fluctuation,

Bound in his expanding clear senses

1: The Immortal stood frozen amidst

The vast rock of eternity; times

And times; a night of vast durance:

Impatient, stifled, stiffend, hardned.

2: Till impatience no longer could bear

The hard bondage, rent: rent, the vast solid

With a crash from immense to immense

3: Crack’d across into numberless fragments

The Prophetic wrath, strug’ling for vent

Hurls apart, stamping furious to dust

And crumbling with bursting sobs; heaves

The black marble on high into fragments

4: Hurl’d apart on all sides, as a falling

Rock: the innumerable fragments away

Fell asunder; and horrible vacuum

Beneath him & on all sides round.

5: Falling, falling! Los fell & fell

Sunk precipitant heavy down down

Times on times, night on night, day on day

Truth has bounds. Error none: falling, falling:

Years on years, and ages on ages

Still he fell thro' the void, still a void

Found for falling day & night without end.

For tho’ day or night was not; their spaces

Were measur’d by his incessant whirls

In the horrid vacuity bottomless.

6: The Immortal revolving; indignant

First in wrath threw his limbs, like the babe

New born into our world: wrath subsided

And contemplative thoughts first arose

Then aloft his head rear’d in the Abyss

And his downward-borne fall. Chang’d oblique

7: Many ages of groans: till there grew

Branchy forms. organizing the Human

Into finite inflexible organs.

8: Till in process from falling he bore

Sidelong on the purple air, wafting

The weak breeze in efforts o’erwearied

9: Incessant the falling Mind labour’d

Organizing itself: till the Vacuum

Became element, pliant to rise,

Or to fall, or to swim, or to fly:

With ease searching the dire vacuity

1: The Lungs heave incessant, dull and heavy

For as yet were all other parts formless

Shiv’ring: clinging around like a cloud

Dim & glutinous as the white Polypus

Driv’n by waves & englob’d on the tide.

2: And the unformed part crav’d repose

Sleep began: the Lungs heave on the wave

Weary overweigh’d, sinking beneath

In a stifling black fluid he woke

3: He arose on the waters, but soon

Heavy falling his organs like roots

Shooting out from the seed, shot beneath,

And a vast world of waters around him

In furious torrents began.

4: Then he sunk, & around his spent Lungs

Began intricate pipes that drew in

The spawn of the waters. Outbranching

An immense Fibrous form, stretching out

Thro' the bottoms of immensity raging.

5: He rose on the floods: then he smote

The wild deep with his terrible wrath,

Seperating the heavy and thin.

6: Down the heavy sunk; cleaving around

To the fragments of solid: up rose

The thin, flowing round the fierce fires

That glow’d furious in the expanse.

1: Then Light first began; from the fires

Beams, conducted by fluid so pure.

Flow’d around the Immense: Los beheld

Forthwith writhing upon the dark void

The Back bone of Urizen appear

Hurtling upon the wind

Like a serpent! like an iron chain

Whirling about in the Deep.

2: Upfolding his Fibres together

To a Form of impregnable strength

Los astonish’d and terrified, built

Furnaces; he formed an Anvil

A Hammer of adamant then began

The binding of Urizen day and night

3: Circling round the dark Demon, with howlings

Dismay & sharp blightings; the Prophet

Of Eternity beat on his iron links

4: And first from those infinite fires

The light that flow’d down on the winds

He siez’d; beating incessant, condensing

The subtil particles in an Orb.

5: Roaring indignant the bright sparks

Endur’d the vast Hammer; but unwearied

Los beat on the Anvil; till glorious

An immense Orb of fire he fram’d

6: Oft he quench’d it beneath in the Deeps

Then survey’d the all bright mass. Again

Siezing fires from the terrific Orbs

He heated the round Globe, then beat,

While roaring his Furnaces endur’d

The chain’d Orb in their infinite wombs

7: Nine ages completed their circles

When Los heated the glowing mass, casting

It down into the Deeps: the Deeps fled

Away in redounding smoke; the Sun

Stood self-balanc’d. And Los smild with joy.

He the vast Spine of Urizen siez’d

And bound down to the glowing illusion

8: But no light, for the Deep fled away

On all sides, and left an unform’d

Dark vacuity: here Urizen lay

In fierce torments on his glowing bed

9: Till his Brain in a rock, & his Heart

In a fleshy slough formed four rivers

Obscuring the immense Orb of fire

Flowing down into night: till a Form

Was completed, a Human Illusion

In darkness and deep clouds involvd.

The End of The Book of Los

Colophon

This archival text follows the English Wikisource page The_Book_of_Los, rendered or exported on June 2, 2026. The underlying text is William Blake's public-domain work; the Wikisource transcription layer is preserved here as an archival public source witness.

Source URL: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Los

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