'The Visions of Eternity, by reason of narrowed perceptions,
Are become weak visions of Time and Space, fix'd into furrows of death.'
He sees everywhere 'the indefinite Spectre, who is the Rational Power,' crying out:
'I am God, O Sons of Men! I am your Eational Power!
Am I not Bacon and Newton and Locke who teach Humility to Man?
Who teach Doubt and Experiment: and my two kings, Voltaire, Rousseau.'
He sees this threefold spirit of doubt and negation overspreading the earth, 'brooding Abstract Philosophy,' destroying Imagination; and, as he looked about him,
'Every Universal Form was become barren mountains of Moral
Virtue: and every Minute Particular harden'd into grains of sand:
And all the tenderness of the soul cast forth as filth and mire.'
It is against this spiritual deadness that he brings his protest, which is to awaken Albion out of the sleep of death, 'his long and cold repose.' 'Therefore Los,' the spirit of prophecy, and thus Blake, who 'kept the
