|
As the moon anguished circles the earth, |
But Urizen, recovering his strength, seizes the bright son of fire, his energy or passion, and nails him to the dark 'religious' 'Tree of Mystery,' from under whose shade comes the voice of Ahania, 'weeping upon the void,' lamenting her lost joys of love, and the days when
'Swelled with ripeness and fat with fatness,
Bursting on winds my odours,
My ripe figs and rich pomegranates,
In infant joy at my feet,
Urizen, sported and sang.'
In The Four Zoas Ahania is called 'the feminine indolent bliss, the indulgent self of weariness.' 'One final glimpse,' says Mr. Swinburne, 'we may take of Ahania after her division—the love of God, as it were, parted from God, impotent therefore and a shadow, if not rather a plague and blight; mercy severed from justice, and thus made a worse thing than useless.' And her lament ends in this despair:
