She is noted for her complaints against cold cruel nature:
Enion blind and age-bent wept upon the desolate wind
Why does the Raven cry aloud and no eye pities her
Why fall the Sparrow & the Robin in the foodless winter?
Faint! shivering they sit on leafless bush, or frozen stone
Wearied with seeking food across the snowy waste; the little
heart, cold; and the little tongue consum'd, that once in thoughtless joy
Gave songs of gratitude to waving corn fields round their nest.
Why howl the Lion & the Wolf? why do they roam abroad?
Deluded by summers heat they sport in enormous love
And cast their young out to the hungry wilds & sandy desarts
Why is the Sheep given to the knife? the Lamb plays in the Sun
He starts! he hears the foot of Man! he says, Take thou my wool
But spare my life, but he knows not that winter cometh fast.
The Spider sits in his labourd Web, eager watching for the Fly
Presently comes a famishd Bird & takes away the Spider
His Web is left all desolate, that his little anxious heart
So careful wove; & spread it out with sighs and weariness.
Eternity groand and was troubled at the image of Eternal Death.
This of course is a complaint against blind nature, "red of tooth and claw";
(Four Zoas 1-17.2-18.9; E310)
but here's another more pointed complaint against social immorality, where the
economic world too often emulates the natural one, which is to say there is no spirit
evident in the world (that's Ulro):
If nothing else Blake demonstrates here his power as a social prophet. Was it any
- What is the price of Experience do men buy it for a song
Or wisdom for a dance in the street? No it is bought with the price
Of all that a man hath his house his wife his children
Wisdom is sold in the desolate market where none come to buy
And in the witherd field where the farmer plows for bread in vain
It is an easy thing to triumph in the summers sun
in the vintage & to sing on the waggon loaded with corn
It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted
to speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer
To listen to the hungry ravens cry in wintry season
When the red blood is filld with wine & with the marrow of lambs
It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan
To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast
To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies house
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his children
While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door & our children bring fruits & flowers
Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten & the slave grinding at the mill
And the captive in chains & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field
When the shatterd bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead
It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity
Thus could I sing & thus rejoice, but it is not so with me!
(Four Zoas 2-35.11-36.13 325)
more appropriate for his age than it is for ours?
From Enion Laments we have:
"Percival sums up her role in Circle of Destiny , page 44:
In the grave Enion learns that the 'time of love' returns, and sees man gathering
up the scattered portions of his immortal body. She is here the mouthpiece for
Blake's belief that the function of the mortal body is the return of the immortal.
Having borne the burden or corporeality, Enion learns its purpose. Life cannot be
quenched; it springs eternal. But error must be destroyed, and as death, the
'dark consumer,' Enion is happy in her function."
Four Zoas Night 8 (E385):
"Behold the time approaches fast that thou shalt be as a thing
Forgotten when one speaks of thee he will not be believd
When the man gently fades away in his immortality
When the mortal disappears in improved knowledge cast away
The former things so shall the Mortal gently fade away
And so become invisible to those who still remain"
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