Urizen lay in darkness and solitude in chains of the mind locked up.
Los seized his hammer and tongs; he laboured at his resolute anvil
Among indefinite Druid rocks, and snows of doubt and reasoning.
Refusing all definite form the Abstract Horror roofed, stony hard;
10And a first age passed over, and a state of dismal woe.
Down sunk with fright a red hot globe, round, burning, deep,
Deep down into the abyss, panting, conglobing, trembling;
And a second age passed over, and a state of dismal woe.
Rolling round into two little orbs, and closed in two little caves,
15The ages beheld the Abyss, lest bones of solitude freeze all over;
And a third age passed over, and a state of dismal woe.
From beneath his orbs of vision two ears in close volutions
Shot spiring out in the deep darkness and petrified as they grew;
And a fourth age passed over, and a state of dismal woe.
20Hanging upon the wind two nostrils bent down into the deep,
And a fifth age passed over, and a state of dismal woe.
In ghastly torment sick, a tongue of hunger and thirst flamed out,
And a sixth age passed over, and a state of dismal woe.
Enraged and stifled without and within, in terror and woe he threw his
25Right arm to the north, his left arm to the south, and his feet
Stamped the nether abyss in trembling and howling and dismay.
And a seventh age passed over, and a state of dismal woe.
Terrified, Los stood in the abyss, and his immortal limbs
Grew deadly pale. He became what he beheld, for a red
30Round globe sunk down from his Bosom into the Deep. In pangs
He hovered, it trembling and weeping. Trembling it shook
The nether abyss in tremblings. He wept over it, he cherished it
In deadly, sickening pain, till separated into a female pale
As the cloud that brings the snow. All the while from his Back
35A blue fluid exuded in sinews, hardening in the abyss,
Till it separated into a male form howling in jealousy,
Within, labouring; beholding without,—from particulars to generals
Subduing his Spectre. They builded the Looms of Generation;
They builded great Golgonooga, Time on Times, ages on ages.
40First Orc was born, then the Shadowy Female, then all Los's family.
At last Enitharmon brought forth Satan, refusing Form. In vain
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