Analysis of The Book of Urizen: Chapter VIII
William Blake 1757 (Soho) – 1827 (London)
1. Urizen explor'd his dens
Mountain, moor, & wilderness,
With a globe of fire lighting his journey
A fearful journey, annoy'd
By cruel enormities: forms
Of life on his forsaken mountains
2. And his world teemd vast enormities
Frightning; faithless; fawning
Portions of life; similitudes
Of a foot, or a hand, or a head
Or a heart, or an eye, they swam mischevous
Dread terrors! delighting in blood
3. Most Urizen sicken'd to see
His eternal creations appear
Sons & daughters of sorrow on mountains
Weeping! wailing! first Thiriel appear'd
Astonish'd at his own existence
Like a man from a cloud born, & Utha
From the waters emerging, laments!
Grodna rent the deep earth howling
Amaz'd! his heavens immense cracks
Like the ground parch'd with heat; then Fuzon
Flam'd out! first begotten, last born.
All his eternal sons in like manner
His daughters from green herbs & cattle
From monsters, & worms of the pit.
4. He in darkness clos'd, view'd all his race,
And his soul sicken'd! he curs'd
Both sons & daughters; for he saw
That no flesh nor spirit could keep
His iron laws one moment.
5. For he saw that life liv'd upon death
The Ox in the slaughter house moans
The Dog at the wintry door
And he wept, & he called it Pity
And his tears flowed down on the winds
6. Cold he wander'd on high, over their cities
In weeping & pain & woe!
And where-ever he wanderd in sorrows
Upon the aged heavens
A cold shadow follow'd behind him
Like a spiders web, moist, cold, & dim
Drawing out from his sorrowing soul
The dungeon-like heaven dividing.
Where ever the footsteps of Urizen
Walk'd over the cities in sorrow.
7. Till a Web dark & cold, throughout all
The tormented element stretch'd
From the sorrows of Urizens soul
And the Web is a Female in embrio
None could break the Web, no wings of fire.
8. So twisted the cords, & so knotted
The meshes: twisted like to the human brain
9. And all calld it, The Net of Religion
Scheme | AXBXXC ADAXAX BECXXFXDXBXGXX XXXXX FXXBX XHXCIIJDBH XXJEG XX X |
---|---|
Poetic Form | |
Metre | 10111 101100 10111010110 0101001 11011 111101010 011111 1110 10111 101101101 101111111 11001001 111011 101001001 110110110 10101101 010111010 10110111 101001001 1101110 01110011 10111111 11101011 1101010110 11011110 1101101 101011111 0111011 1110111 11111011 1101110 111111011 01001011 0110101 01111110 01111101 11101110110 01011 011011010 010110 01110011 10101111 1011111 010110010 1100111 110010010 10111011 0101001 1010111 00110101 1110111110 11001110 01010110101 0111011010 |
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,879 |
Words | 351 |
Sentences | 24 |
Stanzas | 9 |
Stanza Lengths | 6, 6, 14, 5, 5, 10, 5, 2, 1 |
Lines Amount | 54 |
Letters per line (avg) | 27 |
Words per line (avg) | 6 |
Letters per stanza (avg) | 164 |
Words per stanza (avg) | 39 |
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on April 01, 2023
- 1:50 min read
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"The Book of Urizen: Chapter VIII" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 26 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem-analysis/39161/the-book-of-urizen%3A-chapter-viii>.
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