for the first time in the Prophetic Books, that building of furnaces, and wielding of hammer and anvil of which we are to hear so much in Jerusalem. He forges the sun, and chains cold intellect to vital heat, from whose torments
'a twin
Was completed, a Human Illusion
In darkness and deep clouds involved.'
In The Book of Los almost all relationship to poetry has vanished; the myth is cloudier and more abstract. Scarcely less so is The Book of Ahania (1795), written in the same short lines, but in a manner occasionally more concrete and realisable. Like Urizen, it is almost all myth. It follows Fuzon, 'son of Urizen's silent burnings,' in his fiery revolt against
'This cloudy God seated on waters,
Now seen, now obscured, king of Sorrows.'
From the stricken and divided Urizen is born Ahania ('so name his parted soul'), who is 'his invisible lust,' whom he loves, hides, and calls Sin.
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'She fell down, a faint shadow wandering, |
