110
LETTERS OF WILLIAM BLAKE.
And Los[1] the terrible thus hath sworn,
Because thou backward dost return,
Poverty, Envy, old age, and fear,
Shall bring thy Wife upon a bier;
And Butts shall give what Fuseli gave,
A dark black Rock, and a gloomy Cave."[2]
I struck the Thistle with my foot,
And broke him up from his delving root.
"Must the duties of life each other cross?
Must every joy be dung and dross?
Must my dear Butts feel cold neglect
Because I give Hayley his due respect?
Must Flaxman look upon me as wild.
And all my friends be with doubts beguil'd?
Must my Wife live in my Sister's bane,
Or my Sister survive on my Love's pain?
The curses of Los, the terrible shade.
And his dismal terrors make me afraid."
- ↑ Los, the Spirit of Prophecy (Jerusalem, p. 44, l. 31) is symbolised in the natural world by the Sun (the name itself being a transposition of the word Sol); and just as the Sun, as light, is the vehicle, and so in a certain sense the creator of phenomenal life: so Los is the vehicle and creator of inspiration, in the human brain, cp. Milton, p. 23, ll. 68-76: "Los is nam'd Time, Enitharmon is nam'd Space: | But they depict him bald & aged, who is in eternal youth, | All powerful, and his looks flourish like the brows of morning: | He is the Spirit of Prophecy, the ever apparent Elias. I Time is the mercy of Eternity; without Time's swiftness, | which is the swiftest of all things, all were eternal torment. | All the Gods of the Kingdoms of Earth labour in Los's Halls: | Every one is a fallen son of the Spirit of Prophecy: | He is the Fourth Zoa that stood around the Throne Divine" (cp. also Milton, p. 20, ll. 6-25).
- ↑ The Cave and the Rock are always, v/ith Blake, evil and gloomy symbols: they represent the dark, hard, and contracted life of Reason—"For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things through the narrow chinks of his cavern" (Marriage of Heaven and Hell), (cp. Jerusalem, p. 31, l. 6: "Caves of solitude and dark despair"; p. 43, l. 60: "I see a Cave, a Rock, a Tree deadly and poisonous, unimaginative.
