The emanation of the Giant Albion

[Frontispiece]

[Above the archway:]

There is a Void, outside of Existence, which if enterd into
Englobes itself & becomes a Womb, such was Albions Couch
A pleasant Shadow of Repose calld Albions lovely Land
His Sublime & Pathos become Two Rocks fixd in the Earth

His Reason, his Spectrous Power, covers them above[.]
Jerusalem his Emanation is a Stone laying beneath[.]
O [Albion behold Pitying] behold the Vision of Albion
[On right side of archway:]

Too Much

A Roman had an
artist, a freedman,
contrive a cone — pine-cone
or fir-cone — with holes for a fountain. Placed on
the Prison of St. Angelo, this cone
of the Pompeys which is known

now as the Popes', passed
for art. A huge cast
bronze, dwarfing the peacock
statue in the garden of the Vatican,

I. James Lee's Wife Speaks at the Window

I

Ah, Love, but a day
And the world has changed!
The sun's away,
And the bird estranged;
The wind has dropped,
And the sky's deranged:
Summer has stopped.

II

Look in my eyes!
Wilt thou change too?
Should I fear surprise?
Shall I find aught new
In the old and dear,

The mighty thoughts of an old world
Fan, like a dragon's wing unfurled,
The surface of my yearnings deep;
And solemn shadows then awake,
Like the fish-lizard in the lake,
Troubling a planet's morning sleep.

My waking is a Titan's dream,
Where a strange sun, long set, doth beam
Through Montezuma's cypress bough:
Through the fern wilderness forlorn
Glisten the giant harts' great horn
And serpents vast with helmed brow.

The measureless from caverns rise
With steps of earthquake, thunderous cries,
And graze upon the lofty wood;

From Chap 3d
In the Moon as Phebus stood over his Oriental Gardening O ay come Ill sing you a song said the Cynic. the trumpeter shit in his hat said the Epicurean & clapt it on his head said the Pythagorean
Ill begin again said the Cynic
Little Phebus came strutting in
With his fat belly & his round chin
What is it you would please to have
Ho Ho
I wont let it go at only so & so

From Chap 6
Ah said Sipsop, I only wish Jack [Hunter ] Tearguts had had the cutting of Plutarch he understands anatomy better than any of the Ancients hell plunge his knife up to the hilt in a single drive and thrust his fist in, and all in the space of a Quarter of an hour. he does not mind their crying — tho they cry ever so hell Swear at them & keep them down with his fist & tell them that hell scrape their bones if they dont lay still & be quiet — What the devil should the people in the hospital that have it done for nothing, make such a piece of work for

1
When old corruption first begun,
Adorn'd in yellow vest,
He committed on flesh a whoredom--
O, what a wicked beast!
2

From them a callow babe did spring,
And old corruption smil'd
To think his race should never end,
For now he had a child.
3

He call'd him surgery, & fed
The babe with his own milk,
For flesh & he could n'er agree,
She would not let him suck.
4

And this he always kept in mind,
And form'd a crooked knife,
And ran about with bloody hands
To seek his mother's life.
5

Obtuse Angle, Scopprell, Aradodo, & Tilly Lally are all met in Obtuse Angle's study.
"Pray,' said Aradobo, "is Chatterton a Mathematician?'
"No,' said Obtuse Angle, "How can you be so foolish as to think he was?'
"Oh, I did not think he was--I only ask'd,' said Aradobo.
"How could you think he was not, & ask if he was?' said Obtuse Angle.
"Oh no, Sir. I did think he was, before you told me, but afterwards I thought he was not.'

XXXI

My stiff-spread arms
Break into sudden gesture;
My feet seize upon the rhythm;
My hands drag it upwards:
Thus I create the dance.

I drink of the red bowl of the sunlight:
I swim through seas of rain:
I dig my toes into the earth:
I taste the smack of the wind:
I am myself:
I live.

The temples of the gods are forgotten or in ruins:
Professors are still arguing about the past and the future:
I am sick of reading marginal notes on life,
I am weary of following false banners:

XXV

As I wandered over the city through the night,
I saw many strange things:
But I have forgotten all
Except one painted face.
Gaudy, shameless night-orchid,
Heavy, flushed, sticky with narcotic perfume,
There was something in you which made me prefer you
Above all the feeble forget-me-nots of the world.
You were neither burnt out nor pallid,
There was plain, coarse, vulgar meaning in every line of you
And no make-believe:
You were at least alive,
When all the rest were but puppets of the night.