The Book Of Urizen: Chapter IX

1.     Then the Inhabitants of those Cities:     Felt their Nerves change into Marrow     And hardening Bones began     In swift diseases and torments,     In throbbings & shootings & grindings     Thro' all the coasts; till weaken'd     The Senses inward rush'd shrinking,     Beneath the dark net of infection. 2.     Till the shrunken eyes clouded over     Discernd not the woven hipocrisy     But the streaky slime in their heavens     Brought together by narrowing perceptions     Appeard transparent air; for their eyes     Grew small like the eyes of a man     And in reptile forms shrinking together     Of seven feet stature they remaind 3.     Six days they shrunk up from existence     And on the seventh day they rested     And they bless'd the seventh day, in sick hope:     And forgot their eternal life 4.     And their thirty cities divided     In form of a human heart     No more could they rise at will     In the infinite void, but bound down     To earth by their narrowing perceptions     They lived a period of years     Then left a noisom body     To the jaws of devouring darkness 5.     And their children wept, & built     Tombs in the desolate places,     And form'd laws of prudence, and call'd them     The eternal laws of God 6.     And the thirty cities remaind     Surrounded by salt floods, now call'd     Africa: its name was then Egypt. 7.     The remaining sons of Urizen     Beheld their brethren shrink together     Beneath the Net of Urizen;     Perswasion was in vain;     For the ears of the inhabitants,     Were wither'd, & deafen'd, & cold:     And their eyes could not discern,     Their brethren of other cities. 8.     So Fuzon call'd all together     The remaining children of Urizen:     And they left the pendulous earth:     They called it Egypt, & left it. 9.     And the salt ocean rolled englob'd.