| America, A Prophecy | |
| William Blake (1793) | |
|
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 aside her clouds & smiled her first-born smile; As when a black cloud shews its light’nings 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. 
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