William Blake

For everything that lives is holy.

Let the Priests of the Raven of Dawn, no longer in deadly black, with hoarse note curse the Sons of Joy. Nor his accepted brethren whom, tyrant, he calls free, lay the bound or build the roof. Nor pale religious lechery call that virginity that wishes, but acts not!

20. Spurning the clouds written with curses, stamps the stony law to dust, loosing the eternal horses from the dens of night, crying: “Empire is no more! and now the lion and wolf shall cease.”

19. Where the Son of Fire in his Eastern cloud, while the Morning plumes her golden breast,

18. With thunder and fire, leading his starry hosts through the waste wilderness, he promulgates his ten commandments, glancing his beamy eyelids over the deep in dark dismay.

17. All night beneath the ruins; then their sullen flames, faded, emerge round the gloomy king.

16. Falling, rushing, ruining; buried in the ruins, on Urthona’s dens.

15. Down rush’d, beating his wings in vain, the jealous king, his grey-brow’d councillors, thunderous warriors, curl’d veterans, among helms and shields, and chariots, horses, elephants, banners, castles, slings, and rocks.

14. Wak’d from his eternal sleep, the hoary element roaring fled away.

13. The fiery limbs, the flaming hair shot like the sinking sun into the Western sea.

11. The fire, the fire is falling!

10. The speary hand burn’d aloft; unbuckled was the shield; forth went the hand of jealousy among the flaming hair, and hurl’d the new-born wonder through the starry night.

9. Flagg’d with grey-brow’d snows and thunderous visages, the jealous wings wav’d over the deep.

8. On those infinite mountains of light now barr’d out by the Atlantic sea, the new-born fire stood before the starry king.

7. In her trembling hands she took the new-born terror, howling.

6. And weep!

5. Cast thy keys, O Rome, into the deep—down falling, even to eternity down falling;

4. Golden Spain, burst the barriers of old Rome!

3. Shadows of prophecy shiver along by the lakes and the rivers, and mutter across the ocean. France, rend down thy dungeon!

2. Albion’s coast is sick silent; the American meadows faint.