"How should Hayley know the duties of another?"
"Hayley wept, And mildly cursing Blake, him accused of crimes himself had wrought."
"So Los said: Henceforth, Blake, let each his own station Keep; nor in pity false, nor in officious brotherhood, where None needs be active."
"But Hayley, returning to his Mills (for Blake had served The Mills of Hayley as the easier task), found all confusion, And back returned to Los, not filled with vengeance, but with tears. Himself convinced of Blake's turpitude."
"Blake prayed: O God protect me from my friends."
"For Hayley, flaming with Rintrah's fury hidden beneath his own mildness, Accused Blake before the Assembly of ingratitude and malice."
"When Hayley, making to himself Laws from his own identity, Compelled others to serve him in moral gratitude and submission."
"Leutha said: 'Entering the doors of Hayley's brain night after night, Like sweet perfumes, I stupefied the masculine perceptions, And kept only the feminine awake; hence rose his soft Delusory love to Blake.'"
"The Gnomes cursed Hayley bitterly, To do unkind thinks in kindness, with power armed; to say The most irritating things in the midst of tears and love-- These are the stings of the Serpent!"
These are enough to show Blake's method, and his remorseless understanding of Hayley. There is present an irresistible touch of humour which preserves them from being too bitter.
For the rest, the poem narrates Milton's encounter with Urizen; his going down into self-annihilation and death; his judgment, and final redemption as he ascends to the heaven of the imagination. Milton's heaven is then the heaven of Jesus, and his hell remains its irreconcilable contrary.
In this poem Blake's full-grown mythology appears. The mythical persons, places, states are ominously present; but since they appear with much more particularity in _The Four Zoas_ and _Jerusalem_, I may pass to them to extract what is necessary for understanding the mature Blake.
_Jerusalem_ and _The Four Zoas_ should be studied together. The latter was begun about 1795, and rewritten at Felpham. The early prophetic books--_Urizen_, _Los_--stand as preliminary sketches to this large poem. They are woven into it with scarcely a change of word.