95

Sleep is considered by Urizen to be a form of death. It seems to Urizen that sleep is "the feminine indolent bliss, the indulgent self of weariness" which, "passive" and "idle," becomes the "enormous night & darkness of Death." The loss of conscious intellect associated with sleep is seen by Urizen as a defeat of his "active masculine virtue." His loss of perception results in his seeing Ahania not as an interdepend­ent energy, but as a "little diminutive portion that dar'st be a counterpart." He accuses Ahania of passivity and of "laws of obedience & insincerity," for he has lost his understanding of her complementary, formative powers. As a result, he describes her function negatively as "A sluggish current of dim waters" rather than as a stream of regenerative thought. The "verdant margin" where Urizen rested is to him now "A cavern shagg'd with horrid shades, dark, cool & deadly." Now, Urizen sees the darkness of sleep as a form of "non Entity." Ahania is a "wat'ry image" who reflects Urizen's "indolence," his "weakness," and his "death." So, to Urizen, she weighs him "down beneath the grave into non Entity." Finally, in a complex, inverted parallel to Albion's self-adulation, Urizen negates the presence of his component energy, asserts hubris and falls:

So loud in thunders spoke the King, folded in dark

despair,

And threw Ahania from his bosom obdurate. She fell

like lightning.

Then fled the sons of Urizen from his thunderous

throne petrific;

They fled to East & West & left the North & South

of Heaven.

135 A crash ran thro' the immense. The bounds of Destiny

were broken.

The bound of Destiny crash'd direful, & the swelling

sea

Burst from its bonds in whirlpools fierce, roaring

with Human voice,

Triumphing even to the stars at bright Ahania's fall.