Evil is the active springing from Energy

From the opening lines, there is a strong presence of Dionysian energy; Rintrah is not a passive deity, but a God that "roars and shakes his fires." The origin of the perilous path leads to a connection between men and there relation to the divine. Blake writes, "Then the perilous path was planted:/ And a river and a spring/On every cliff and tomb." From this statement, the "perilous" path is associated with the dual metaphor of a river and a spring. Both images function as externalizations of Swedenborn's (who later appears in the poem) concept of the Infinite, a type of creative impulse from which "from which of all creation proceeds, and all of creation must also return". The river is the current that runs throughout all beings, while the spring is the representation of the gushes and spurts that are produced by the Dionysian impulse. In a way, the Infinite is analogous to the Nietzschean "will-to-power", which posits that an underlying creative spark is common to all of existence, and in fact makes existence possible. Subsequently, it is interesting to note that "the villain left the paths of ease/To walk in perilous paths, and drive/ The just man into barren climes" The person associated with the unconventional path that embodies Swedenborg's conception of the Infinite is in some way "a hero". The "villain" does not "(plant roses) where thorns grow" like the "just man"; the "villain" does not add any artificiality to existence, and does not restrain the overflowing creative impulse by narrowly walking along the "vale of death."//

Therefore, it is commensurate that the villain "(drives) the just man into barren climes"; the mundane realm is displaced by the creative, Dionysian "villain", who derives from the incendiary Rintrah and is intrexicably connected to the Mythological figure. The villain renders the just-man of normative standards "barren", literally "bare of intellectual wealth". The just-men look dull compared to the fiery minds of the villains.

Going full-circle, just like the Swedenborg conception of the Infinite, the "Eternal Hell revives." Everything is engulfed in the creative flames of the Dionysian impusle. The universe starts over again, delineated as an Eden-like tranquility in plate 2. This perfection, the primordial utopia of Rintrah, cannot be sustained because there is inevitable duality, which the "villain" seeks to erase. Like the rose being planted over the thorn, "without Contraries there is no progession". The Dionysian instinct will eternally battle the delusive "just-men", burning in platonic light through their "roaring and shaking" fire.