65

In cruel delight they trap the listeners, & in

cruel delight

Bind them, condensing the strong energies into

little compass.

Some became seed of every plant that shall be

planted; some

165 The bulbous roots, thrown up together into barns & garners.

(K. II. 156-165)

Allusions to the music of the spheres [associated earlier with the song at the feast of Los and Enitharmon) combine with harvest imagery. The music traps the senses into its limits and the limits compress the "strong energies into little compass." The "compass" is that of generation and is the "seed of every plant that shall be planted."

In other terms, Luvah's energies are fused into the fabric of atoms, generation, and the motion of light. His role in the first universe of The Four Zoas is complete. He re-appears in the second universe as the figure of Ore. But, till then, Vala is still compelled to complement his sacrificed energies. As she tended the furnaces until Luvah became fused with the universe, so now she 'tends' the universe and spiritualizes it with the attractive or unifying power of her mundane love. Vala's role is symbolized by her part in the construction of Urizen's palace. She is ^enslaved' by the need to spiritualize whatever Luvah energizes:

Then rose the Builders. First the Architect divine

his plan

Unfolds. The wondrous scaffold rear'd all round the

infinite,

Quadrangular the building rose, the heavens squared

by a line,

Trigons & cubes divide the elements in finite bonds.

Multitudes without number work incessant: the hewn

stone

Is plac'd in beds of mortar mingled with the ashes

of Vala.