THE VEIL OF NATURE.

Why should punishment weave the veil with iron wheels of

war,

When forgiveness might weave it with wings of cherubim?

LOVE AND ITS NEGATIONS.

They know not why they love, nor wherefore they sicken and die,

Calling that holy love which is envy, revenge, and cruelty, Which separated the stars from the mountains, the mountains

from man,

And left man a little grovelling root outside of himself.

VENGEANCE.

What shall I do? What could I do if I could find these criminals?

I could not dare to take vengeance, for all things are so constructed

And builded by the Divine Hand that the sinner shall always

escape;

And he who takes vengeance is alone the criminal of Provid

ence.

If I should dare to lift my finger on a grain of sand,

In way of vengeance, I punish the already punished. Of

whom

Should I pity if I pity not the sinner who is gone astray?

O Albion, if thou takest vengeance, if thou revengest thy

wrongs,

Thou art for ever lost. What can I do to hinder the sons

Of Albion from taking vengeance, or how shall I them persuade ?

TRUTH AND Falsehood.

I labour day and night: I behold the soft affections
Condense beneath my hammer into forms of cruelty,

But still I labour in hope, though still my tears flow down,

That he who will not defend Truth may be compelled to defend A Lie, that he may be snared and caught, and snared and

taken,

That enthusiasm and life may not cease.

CREATION.

I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man's
I will not reason compare. My business is to create.

REASON.

And this is the manner of the sons of Albion in their strength: They take the two contraries which are called qualities, with which

Every substance is clothed. They name them good and evil
From them they make an abstract, which is a negation
Not only of the substance from which it is derived,
A murderer of its own body, but also a murderer
Of every Divine Member. It is the reasoning power,
An abstract objecting power that negatives everything.
This is the spectre of man, the holy reasoning power,
And in its holiness is closed the Abomination of Desolation.

ANALYSIS.

Why wilt thou number every little fibre of my soul,
Spreading them out before the sun like stalks of flax to dry?
The infant joy is beautiful, but its anatomy

Horrible, ghast, and deadly. Nought shalt thou find in it
But dark despair and everlasting brooding melancholy.

SEXUAL LOVE

O that I could abstain from wrath! O that the Lamb
Of God would look upon me and pity me in my fury.
In anguish of regeneration, in terrors of self-annihilation,
Pity must join together what wrath has torn in sunder,
And the religion of generation which was meant for the
destruction

Of Jerusalem become her covering till the time of the end.

O holy generation, image of regeneration!

O point of mutual forgiveness between enemies!

Birthplace of the Lamb of God, incomprehensible,

The dead despise thee, and scorn thee, and cast thee out as

accursed,

Seeing the Lamb of God in thy gardens and palaces.

THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

Jesus said, 'Would'st thou love one who had never died
For thee, or ever die for one who had not died for thee?
And if God dieth not for man, and giveth not Himself
Eternally for man, man could not exist, for man is love,
As God is love. Every kindness to another is a little Death
In the Divine Image, nor can man exist but by brotherhood.

FROM 'MILTON.'

AND did those feet in ancient time

Walk upon England's mountain green?

And was the holy Lamb of God

On England's pleasant pastures seen?

And did the Countenance Divine

Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among these dark Satanic mills?

Bring me my bow of burning gold!
Bring me my arrows of desire!
Bring me my spear: O clouds, unfold!
Bring me my chariot of fire!

I will not cease from mental fight,
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand,
Till we have built Jerusalem

In England's green and pleasant land.

THE FLAT WORLD OF IMAGINATION.

The sky is an immortal tent built by the sons of Los,
And every space that a man views around his dwelling-place,
Standing on his own roof, or in his garden on a mount
Of twenty-five cubits in height, such space is his universe,
And on its verse the sun rises and sets, the clouds bow
To meet the flat earth and the sea in such an ordered space :
The starry heavens reach no farther, but here bend and set
On all sides, and the two poles turn on their valves of gold;

And if he move his dwelling-place, his heavens also move
Where'er he goes, and all his neighbourhood bewails his loss.
Such are the spaces called earth, and such its dimension.
As to that false appearance which appears to the reasoner
As of a globe rolling through voidness, it is a delusion of Ulro.

TIME.

Every time less than a pulsation of the artery

Is equal in its period and value to six thousand years.
For in this period the poet's work is done, and all the great
Events of time start forth and are conceived in such a period,
Within a moment: a pulsation of the artery.

SPACE.

Every space larger than a red globule of man's blood

Is visionary, and is created by the hammer of Los.

And every space smaller than a globule of man's blood opens Into eternity, of which the vegetable earth is but a shadow.

THE MORNING SONG OF THE BIRDS.

THE lark sitting upon his earthy bed, just as the morn
Appears, listens silent, then springing from the waving corn-

field,

Loud he leads the choir of Day: thrill! thrill! thrill! Mounting upon the wings of light into the great expanse, Reaching against the lovely blue and shining heavenly skies; His little throat labours with inspiration; every feather

On throat and breast and wings vibrates with the effluence divine,

All Nature listens silent to him, and the awful sun

Stands still upon the mountain looking on the little bird

With eyes of soft humility, and wonder, love, and awe.

Then loud from their green covert all the birds begin their song: The thrush, the linnet, and the goldfinch, robin, and the wren, Awake the sun from his sweet reverie on the mountain.

THE MORNING SCENT OF THE FLOWERS.

THOU perceivest the flowers put forth their precious odours,
And none can tell how from so small a centre come such sweets,
Forgetting that within that centre Eternity expands

Its everduring doors, that Og and Anak fiercely guard.

First ere the morning breaks, joy opens in the flowery bosoms, Joy even to tears, which the sun rising dries: first the wild thyme,

And meadowsweet, downy, and soft waving among the reeds,
Light springing on the air lead the sweet dance; they wake
The honeysuckle sleeping on the oak, the flaunting beauty
Revels along upon the wind; the white-thorn lovely May
Opens her many lovely eyes; listening, the rose still sleeps,
None dare to wake her; soon she bursts her crimson-curtained
bed,

And comes forth in the majesty of beauty. Every flower
The pink, the jessamine, the wallflower and the carnation,
The jonquil; the mild lily opens her heavens; every tree
And flower and herb soon fill the air with an innumerable
dance,

Yet all in order, sweet and lovely. Men are sick with Love.

A