The Greatest Works of William Blake (With Complete Original Illustrations). William Blake

Text

       Table of Contents

      The Argument

      Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air;

      Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

      Once meek, and in a perilous path,

      The just man kept his course along

      The vale of death.

      Roses are planted where thorns grow,

      And on the barren heath

      Sing the honey bees.

      Then the perilous path was planted:

      And a river and a spring

      On every cliff and tomb:

      And on the bleached bones

      Red clay brought forth.

      Till the villain left the paths of ease,

      To walk in perilous paths, and drive

      The just man into barren climes.

      Now the sneaking serpent walks

      In mild humility,

      And the just man rages in the wilds

      Where lions roam.

      Rintrah roars & shakes his fires in the burden'd air;

      Hungry clouds swag on the deep.

      As a new heaven is begun, and it is now thirty-three years since its advent: the Eternal Hell revives. And lo! Swedenborg is the Angel sitting at the tomb: his writings are the linen clothes folded up. Now is the dominion of Edom, & the return of Adam into Paradise: see Isaiah XXXIV & XXXV Chap:

      Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence.

      From these contraries spring what the religious call Good & Evil. Good is the passive that obeys Reason. Evil is the active springing from Energy.

      Good is Heaven. Evil is Hell

      The voice of the Devil

      All Bibles or sacred codes. have been the causes of the following Errors.

      1. That Man has two real existing principles Viz: a Body & a Soul.

      2 That Energy. calld Evil. is alone from the Body. & that Reason. calld Good. is alone from the Soul.

      3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his Energies.

      But the following Contraries to these are True

      1 Man has no Body distinct from his Soul for that calld Body is a portion of Soul discernd by the five Senses. the chief inlets of Soul in this age

      2. Energy is the only life and is from the Body and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

      3 Energy is Eternal Delight

      Marriage of Heaven and Hell Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place & governs the unwilling.

      And being restraind it by degrees becomes passive till it is only the shadow of desire.

      The history of this is written in Paradise Lost. & the Governor or Reason is call’d Messiah.

      And the original Archangel or possessor of the command of the heavenly host, is calld the Devil or Satan and his children are call’d Sin & Death

      But in the Book of Job Miltons Messiah is call’d Satan.

      For this history has been adopted by both parties

      It indeed appear’d to Reason as if Desire was cast out. but the

      Devils account is, that the Messiah fell. & formed a heaven of what he stole from the Abyss

      This is shewn in the Gospel, where he prays to the Father to send the comforter or Desire that Reason may have Ideas to build on, the Jehovah of the Bible being no other than he, who dwells in flaming fire.

      Know that after Christs death, he became Jehovah.

      But in Milton; the Father is Destiny, the Son, a Ratio of the five senses. & the Holy-ghost, Vacuum!

      Note.