YCBA Collections Search

Inscribed in graphite upper right: "11"

Lettered inside image, left: "Chap: IV. | 1. Ages on ages roll'd over him! | In stony sleep ages roll'd over him! | Like a dark waste stretching chang'able | By earthquakes riv'n, belching sullen | fires | On ages roll'd ages in ghastly | Sick torment; around him in whirlwinds | Of darkness the eternal Prophet howl'd | Beating still on his rivets of iron | Pouring sodor of iron; dividing | The horrible night into watches. | 2 And Urizen (so his eternal name) | His prolific delight obscurd more & more | In dark secresy hiding in surgeing | Sulphureous fluid his phantasies | The Eternal Prophet heavd the dark | bellows. | And turn'd restless the tongs; and the | hammer | Incessant beat; forging chains new & new | Numb'ring with links, hours days & years | 3 The eternal mind bounded began to roll | Eddies of wrath ceaseless round & round | And the sulphureous foam surgeing thick"; right: "Settled, a lake, bright. & shining clear | White as the snow on the mountains cold | 4 Forgetfulness. dumbness, necessity! | In chains of the mind locked up, | Like fetters of ice shrinking together | Disorganiz'd. rent from Eternity. | Los beat on his fetters of iron: | And heated his furnaces & pour'd | Iron sodor and sodor of brass | 5. Restless turnd the immortal inchain'd | Heaving dolorous! anguish'd! unbearable | Till a roof shaggy wild inclos'd | In an orb, his fountain of thought. | 6. In a horrible dreamful slumber; | Like the linked infernal chain: | A vast Spine writh'd in torment | Upon the winds; shooting pain'd | Ribs, like a bending cavern | And bones of solidness, froze, | Over all his nerves of joy. | And a first Age passed over, | And a state of dismal woe."