His main thoughts can be gathered from _The Visions of the Daughters of
Albion_, which he engraved and printed in 1793. The heroine Oothoon, a
Blakean Tess, loves and is beloved by Theotormon. But Bromion, forcibly
conveying her to his stormy bed, tears her virgin mantle in twain.
Satiated, he cries to Theotormon: "Now thou mayst marry Bromion's harlot,
and protect the child of Bromion's rage, that Oothoon shall put forth in
nine moons' time."
Theotormon refused. Consumed with jealousy, and reckoning Oothoon a
defiled thing, he cannot receive her, and the two, loving, remain apart,
consuming their days in misery and tears.
Oothoon calls on Theotormon's eagles to rend away her defiled bosom, that
she may reflect the image of Theotormon on her pure transparent breast.
The eagles rend their bleeding prey, at which Theotormon, considering that
Oothoon suffers what she deserves, severely smiles. She, with no touch of
resentment at his self-righteous cruelty, which in truth she is too
self-effacing to perceive, reflects the smile, "and as the clear spring,
muddied with feet of beasts, grows pure and smiles." It is plain that,
whatever her past acts, she is a pure living soul, and Theotormon with his
conventional morality is neither clean nor alive. She is "a new-washed
lamb tinged with the village smoke," or "a bright swan by the red earth of
our immortal river," but she has only to bathe her wings, and she is white
and pure to hover round Theotormon's breast.
With the cleansing of her breast comes the clearing of her vision. She is
no longer enclosed by her five senses, nor her infinite brain into a
narrow circle, but she sees through nature, and comes to see Theotormon as
he really is. He was only a selfish devourer. But she cries:
"Can that be Love, that drinks another as a sponge drinks water,
That clouds with jealousy his nights, with weepings all the day,
To spin a web of age around him, grey and hoary and dark;
Till his eyes sicken at the fruit that hangs before his sight?"
Then she names it aright:
"Such is _self-love_ that envies all, a creeping skeleton,
With lamplike eyes watching around the frozen marriage bed!"
Her own love has risen far above such selfishness. She will even lie by
his side on a bank, and view him without jealousy as he takes his delight
with "girls of mild silver, or of furious gold," and into the heaven of
generous love she will bring no selfish blightings. Then with these lovely
words she concludes her golden speech:
"Arise, you little glancing wings, and sing your infant joy!
Arise, and drink your bliss, for everything that lives is holy."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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