The Book of Ahania (Chapter I )

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1. Fuzon, on a chariot iron-wing'd,
     On spikèd flames rose; his hot visage
     Flam'd furious; sparkles his hair and beard
     Shot down his wide bosom and shoulders.
     On clouds of smoke rages his chariot,
     And his right hand burns red in its cloud,
     Moulding into a vast Globe his wrath,
     As the thunder-stone is moulded,
     Son of Urizen's silent burnings.
     2. `Shall we worship this Demon of smoke,'
     Said Fuzon, `this abstract Nonentity,
     This cloudy God seated on waters,
     Now seen, now obscur'd, King of Sorrow?'
     3. So he spoke in a fiery flame,
     On Urizen frowning indignant,
     The Globe of wrath shaking on high.
     Roaring with fury, he threw
     The howling Globe; burning it flew,
     Length'ning into a hungry beam. Swiftly
     4. Oppos'd to the exulting flam'd beam,
     The broad Disk of Urizen upheav'd
     Across the Void many a mile.
     5. It was forg'd in mills where the winter
     Beats incessant: ten winters the disk,
     Unremitting, endur'd the cold hammer.
     6. But the strong arm that sent it remember'd
     The sounding beam: laughing, it tore through
     That beaten mass, keeping its direction,
     The cold loins of Urizen dividing.
     7. Dire shriek'd his invisible Lust!
     Deep groan'd Urizen; stretching his awful hand,
     Ahania (so name his parted Soul)
     He seiz'd on his mountains of Jealousy.
     He groan'd, anguish'd, and callèd her Sin,
     Kissing her and weeping over her;
     Then hid her in darkness, in silence,
     Jealous, tho' she was invisible.
     8. She fell down, a faint Shadow, wand'ring
     In Chaos, and circling dark Urizen,
     As the moon, anguish'd, circles the earth,
     Hopeless! abhorr'd! a death-shadow,
     Unseen, unbodièd, unknown,
     The mother of Pestilence!
     9. But the fiery beam of Fuzon
     Was a pillar of fire to Egypt,
     Five hundred years wand'ring on earth,
     Till Los seiz'd it, and beat in a mass
     With the body of the sun.