America a Prophecy/Preludium
Preludium
The shadowy daughter of Urthona stood before red Orc.
When fourteen suns had faintly journey'd o'er his dark abode:
His food she brought in iron baskets, his drink in cups of iron:
Crown'd with a helmet & dark hair the nameless female stood:
A quiver with its burning stores, a bow like that of night,
When pestilence is shot from heaven: no other arms she need:
Invulnerable tho' naked, save where clouds roll round her loins,
Their awful folds in the dark air: silent she stood as night:
For never from her iron tongue could voice or sound arise:
But dumb till that dread day when Orc assay'd his fierce embrace.
Dark virgin: said the hairy youth, thy father stern abhorr'd:
Rivets my tenfold chains while still on high my spirit soars:
Sometimes an eagle screaming in the sky, sometimes a lion,
Stalking upon the mountains, & sometimes a whale I lash
The raging fathomless abyss, anon a serpent folding
Around the pillars of Urthona, and round thy dark limbs,
On the Canadian wilds I fold, feeble my spirit folds.
For chaind beneath I rend these caverns: when thou bringest food
I howl my joy! and my red eyes seek to behold thy face
In vain! these clouds roll to & fro, & hide thee from my sight.
Silent as despairing love, and strong as jealousy,
The hairy shoulders rend the links, free are the wrists of fire:
Round the terrific loins he siez'd the panting struggling womb:
It joy'd: she put asider her clouds & smiled her first-born smile:
As when a black cloud shews its lightnings to the silent deep.
Soon as she saw the terrible boy then burst the virgin cry.
I know thee, I have found thee, & I will not let thee go:
Thou art the image of God who dwells in darkness of Africa:
And thou art fall'n to give me life in regions of dark death.
On my American plains I feel the struggling afflictions
Endur'd by roots that writhe their arms into the nether deep:
I see a serpent in Canada, who courts me to his love
In Mexico an Eagle, and a Lion in Peru:
I see a Whale in the South-sea, drinking my soul away.
O what limb rendering pains I feel, thy fire & my frost
Mingle in howling pains, in furrows by the ligtnings rent:
This is eternal death: and this the torment long foretold.