25To display Nature's cruel holiness: the deceits of Natural Religion.
Walking in my Cottage Garden, sudden I beheld
The Virgin Ololon & address'd her as a Daughter of Beulah.
Virgin of Providence, fear not to enter into my Cottage.
What is thy message to thy friend: What am I now to do?
30Is it again to plunge into deeper affliction? behold me
Ready to obey, but pity thou my Shadow of Delight:
Enter my Cottage, comfort her, for she is sick with fatigue.
P. 37 THE Virgin answer'd: Knowest thou of Milton who descended,
Driven from Eternity; him I seek, terrified at my Act
In Great Eternity which thou knowest: I come him to seek.
So Ololon utter'd in words distinct the anxious thought:
5Mild was the voice but more distinct than any earthly.
That Milton's Shadow heard, & condensing all his Fibres
Into a strength impregnable of majesty & beauty infinite,
I saw he was the Covering Cherub & within him Satan
And Rahab in an outside which is fallacious within,
10Beyond the outline of Identity in the Selfhood deadly:
And he appear'd the Wicker Man of Scandinavia, in whom
Jerusalem's children consume in flames among the Stars.
Descending down into my Garden a Human Wonder of God,
Reaching from heaven to earth, a Cloud & Human Form,
15I beheld Milton with astonishment & in him beheld
The Monstrous Churches of Beulah, the Gods of Ulro dark,
Twelve monstrous dishumanized terrors, Synagogues of Satan,
A Double Twelve & Thrice Nine: such their divisions.
And these their Names & their Places within the Mundane Shell.
20In Tyre & Sidon I saw Baal & Ashtaroth. In Moab Chemosh:
In Ammon Molech: loud his Furnaces rage among the Wheels
Of Og, & pealing loud the cries of the Victims of Fire:
And pale his Priestesses unfolded in Veils of Pestilence, border'd
With War: Woven in Looms of Tyre & Sidon by beautiful Ashtaroth.
25In Palestine Dagon, Sea Monster: worship'd o'er the Sea.
Thammuz in Lebanon & Rimmon in Damascus curtain'd:
Osiris, Isis, Orus, in Egypt: dark their Tabernacles on Nile
Floating with solemn songs, & on the Lakes of Egypt nightly
With pomp even till morning break & Osiris appear in the sky.
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