The Book Of Urizen: Chapter I

I     Lo, a shadow of horror is risen     In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!     Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon     Hath form'd this abominable void     This soul-shudd'ring vacuum?--Some said     "It is Urizen", But unknown, abstracted     Brooding secret, the dark power hid. II     Times on times he divided, & measur'd     Space by space in his ninefold darkness     Unseen, unknown! changes appeard     In his desolate mountains rifted furious     By the black winds of perturbation III     For he strove in battles dire     In unseen conflictions with shapes     Bred from his forsaken wilderness,     Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element     Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud. IV     Dark revolving in silent activity:     Unseen in tormenting passions;     An activity unknown and horrible;     A self-contemplating shadow,     In enormous labours occupied V     But Eternals beheld his vast forests     Age on ages he lay, clos'd, unknown     Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid     The petrific abominable chaos VI     His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen     Prepar'd: his ten thousands of thunders     Rang'd in gloom'd array stretch out across     The dread world, & the rolling of wheels     As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds     In his hills of stor'd snows, in his mountains     Of hail & ice; voices of terror,     Are heard, like thunders of autumn,     When the cloud blazes over the harvests