The Book Of Urizen: Chapter I

I

    Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
    In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!
    Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon
    Hath form'd this abominable void
    This soul-shudd'ring vacuum?--Some said
    "It is Urizen", But unknown, abstracted
    Brooding secret, the dark power hid.

II

    Times on times he divided, & measur'd
    Space by space in his ninefold darkness
    Unseen, unknown! changes appeard
    In his desolate mountains rifted furious
    By the black winds of perturbation

III

    For he strove in battles dire
    In unseen conflictions with shapes
    Bred from his forsaken wilderness,
    Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element
    Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.

IV

    Dark revolving in silent activity:
    Unseen in tormenting passions;
    An activity unknown and horrible;
    A self-contemplating shadow,
    In enormous labours occupied

V

    But Eternals beheld his vast forests
    Age on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown
    Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
    The petrific abominable chaos

VI

    His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
    Prepar'd: his ten thousands of thunders
    Rang'd in gloom'd array stretch out across
    The dread world, & the rolling of wheels
    As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds
    In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains
    Of hail & ice; voices of terror,
    Are heard, like thunders of autumn,
    When the cloud blazes over the harvests