Composed between the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the Prophetic Books express William Blake’s radical spiritual, political, and artistic philosophy.
Blake composed and illustrated several Prophetic Books, of which we have chosen three to present here. We have included an illustration and the first few hundred words of The Book of Urizen (1794), Milton: A Poem (1804–1811), and Jerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion: (1804–1820).
These works are recognized as profound contributions to visionary literature. The Prophetic Books are not just poetry—they are acts of spiritual revolution.
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William Blake – Cover of The Book of Urizen
This book, published in 1794, introduces the character Urizen, who represents reason and the oppressive forces of law and dogma. It explores the origins of the universe and humanity, focusing on Urizen’s separation from the divine and his creation of a restrictive, material world. The cover illustration and first few hundred words of the book are presented here:
Prelude
Of the primeval Priests assum’d power,
When Eternals spurn’d back his religion;
And gave him a place in the north,
Obscure, shadowy, void, solitary.
Eternals I hear your call gladly,
Chap: I
Lo, a shadow of horror is risen
In Eternity! Unknown, unprolific!
Self-closd, all-repelling: what Demon
Hath form’d this abominable void
This soul-shudd’ring vacuum?—Some said
“It is Urizen”, But unknown, abstracted
Brooding secret, the dark power hid.
Times on times he divided, & measur’d
Space by space in his ninefold darkness
Unseen, unknown! changes appeard
In his desolate mountains rifted furious
By the black winds of perturbation
For he strove in battles dire
In unseen conflictions with shapes
Bred from his forsaken wilderness,
Of beast, bird, fish, serpent & element
Combustion, blast, vapour and cloud.
Dark revolving in silent activity:
Unseen in tormenting passions;
An activity unknown and horrible;
A self-contemplating shadow,
In enormous labours occupied
But Eternals beheld his vast forests
Age on ages he lay, clos’d, unknown
Brooding shut in the deep; all avoid
The petrific abominable chaos
His cold horrors silent, dark Urizen
Prepar’d: his ten thousands of thunders
Rang’d in gloom’d array stretch out across
The dread world, & the rolling of wheels
As of swelling seas, sound in his clouds
In his hills of stor’d snows, in his mountains
Of hail & ice; voices of terror,
Are heard, like thunders of autumn,
When the cloud blazes over the harvests
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William Blake – illustration from Milton: A Poem
A more expansive work, “Milton” revisits Blake’s mythology, including the fall of Albion and the role of the imagination in spiritual redemption. It features Milton as a character, returning to Earth to correct his theological errors and inspire a new vision of humanity’s relationship with the divine. An illustration and the first few hundred words of the book are presented here:
Prelude
And did those feet in ancient time,
Walk upon Englands mountains green:
And was the holy Lamb of God,
On Englands pleasant pastures seen!
And did the Countenance Divine,
Shine forth upon our clouded hills?
And was Jerusalem builded here,
Among these dark Satanic Mills?
Bring me my Bow of burning gold:
Bring me my Arrows of desire:
Bring me my Spear: O clouds unfold!
Bring me my Chariot of fire!
I will not cease from Mental Fight,
Nor shall my Sword sleep in my hand:
Till we have built Jerusalem,
In Englands green & pleasant Land.
Would to God that all the Lords people were Prophets.
Book The First
Daughters of Beulah! Muses who inspire the Poets Song
Record the journey of immortal Milton thro’ your Realms
Of terror & mild moony lustre, in soft sexual delusions
Of varied beauty, to delight the wanderer and repose
His burning thirst & freezing hunger! Come into my band
By your mild power; descending down the Nerves of my right arm
From out the Portals of my Brain, where by your ministry
The Eternal Great Humanity Divine. planted his Paradise,
And in it caus’d the Spectres of the Dead to take sweet forms
In likeness of himself. Tell also of the False Tongue! vegetated
Beneath your land of shadows: of its sacrifices. and
Its offerings; even till Jesus, the image of the Invisible God
Became its prey; a curec, an offering, and an atonement,
For Death Eternal in the heavens of Albion, & before the Gates
Of Jerusalem his Emanation, in the heavens beneath Beulah
Say first! what mov’d Milton, who walkd about in Eternity
One hundred years, pondring the intricate mazes of Providence
Unhappy tho in heav’n, he obey’d, he murmur’d not. he was silent
Viewing his Sixfold Emanation scatter’d thro’ the deep
In torment! To go into the deep her to redeem & himself perish?
What cause at length mov’d Milton to this unexampled deed
A Bards prophetic Song! for sitting at eternal tables,
Terrific among the Sons of Albion in chorus solemn & loud
A Bard broke forth! all sat attentive to the awful man.
Mark well my words! they are of your eternal salvation:
Three Classes are Created by the Hammer of Los, & Woven
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William Blake – cover ofJerusalem: The Emanation of the Giant Albion:
Blake’s longest prophetic book, “Jerusalem” is a complex and symbolic epic that further explores Albion’s fall and the process of spiritual regeneration. It delves into themes of individual and universal redemption, emphasizing the power of imagination and love. Cover illustration and the first few hundred words of the book are presented here:
Prelude
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
Half Friendship is the bitterest Enmity said Los
As he enterd the Door of Death for Albions sake Inspired
The long sufferings of God are not for ever there is a Judgment
Every Thing has its Vermin O Spectre of the Sleeping Dead!
Chap 1
Of the Sleep of Ulro! and of the passage through
Eternal Death! and of the awaking to Eternal Life.
This theme calls me in sleep night after night, & ev’ry morn
Awakes me at sunrise, then I see the Saviour over me
Spreading his beams of love, & dictating the words of this mild song.
Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand!
I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine:
Fibres of love from man to man thro Albions pleasant land.
In all the dark Atlantic vale down from the hills of Surrey
A black water accumulates, return Albion! return!
Thy brethren call thee, and thy fathers, and thy sons,
Thy nurses and thy mothers, thy sisters and thy daughters
Weep at thy souls disease, and the Divine Vision is darkend:
Thy Emanation that was wont to play before thy face,
Beaming forth with her daughters into the Divine bosom [ Where!!
Where hast thou hidden thy Emanation lovely Jerusalem
From the vision and fruition of the Holy-one?
I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend;
Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me:
Lo! we are One; forgiving all Evil; Not seeking recompense!
Ye are my members O ye sleepers of Beulah, land of shades!
But the perturbed Man away turns down the valleys dark;
Saying. We are not One: we are Many, thou most simulative
Phantom of the over heated brain! shadow of immortality!
Seeking to keep my soul a victim to thy Love!
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UMLogic 
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