Poem
The work begins with a title page image of an empty, dead world with an old man looking at the title of the work. The story of the work begins in Africa with Los singing of Adam, Noah, and Moses and how they were granted laws by Urizen. This involve abstractions being granted to Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, gospel being given to Jesus, a bible for Mahomet, and a book on war given to Odin. These caused the world to fail, as they were chains that bound the mind:
- Thus the terrible race of Los & Enitharmon gave
- Laws & Religions to the sons of Har binding them more
- And more to Earth: closing and restraining:
- Till a Philosophy of Five senses was complete
- Urizen wept & gave it into the hands of Newton & Locke (44-48)
In the second half of the work, Asia, Orc creates fires in the mind that causes kings to be startled and an apocalypse of sorts to start:
- The Grave shrieks with delight, & shakes
- Her hollow womb, & clasps the solid stem:
- Her bosom swells with wild desirel
- And mild & glandous wine
- In rivers rush & shout & dance,
- On mountain, dale and plain. (lines 59-63)
Read more about this topic: The Song Of Los
Famous quotes containing the word poem:
“No other human being, no woman, no poem or music, book or painting can replace alcohol in its power to give man the illusion of real creation.”
—Marguerite Duras (b. 1914)
“A bad short story or novel or poem leaves one comparatively calm because it does not exist, unless it gets a fake prestige through being mistaken for good work. It is essentially negative, it is something that has not come through. But over bad criticism one has a sense of real calamity.”
—Rebecca West (1892–1983)
“There were ghosts that returned to earth to hear his phrases,
As he sat there reading, aloud, the great blue tabulae.
They were those from the wilderness of stars that had expected more.
There were those that returned to hear him read from the poem of life,
Of the pans above the stove, the pots on the table, the tulips among them.
They were those that would have wept to step barefoot into reality....”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)