PARADISE LOST

First Book

The Argument

     The First Book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject - Man's

disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise, wherein he was placed: then

touches the prime cause of his fall - the Serpent, or rather Satan in the

Serpent; who, revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of

Angels, was, by the command of God, driven out of Heaven, with all his crew,

into the great Deep. Which action passed over, the Poem hastes into the midst

of things; presenting Satan, with his Angels, now fallen into Hell - described

here not in the Centre (for heaven and earth may be supposed as yet not made,

certainly not yet accursed), but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called

Chaos. Here Satan, with his Angels lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck

and astonished after a certain space recovers, as from confusion; calls up him

who, next in order and dignity, lay by him: they confer of their miserable

fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner

confounded. They rise: their numbers; array of battle; their chief leaders

named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries

adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech; comforts them with hope yet of

regaining Heaven; but tells them, lastly, of a new world and new kind of

creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy, or report, in Heaven

- for that Angels were long before this visible creation was the opinion of

many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to

determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence

attempt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the

Deep: the infernal Peers there sit in council.

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into the World, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

Sing, Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed

In the beginning how the heavens and earth

Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed

Fast by the oracle of God, I thence

SInvoke thy aid to my adventrous song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer

Before all temples the upright heart and pure,

Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first

Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,

Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss,

And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark

Illumine, what is low raise and support;

That, to the highth of this great argument,

I may assert Eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.

Say first - for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,

Nor the deep tract of Hell - say first what cause

Moved our grand Parents, in that happy state,

Favoured of Heaven so highly, to fall off

From their Creator, and transgress his will

For one restraint, lords of the World besides.

Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?

The infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,

Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived

The mother of mankind, what time his pride

Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host

Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring

To set himself in glory above his peers,

He trusted to have equalled the Most High,

If he opposed, and, with ambitious aim

Against the throne and monarchy of God,

Raised impious war in Heaven and battle proud,

With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power

Hurled headlong flaming from the ethereal sky,

With hideous ruin and combustion, down

To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

In adamantine chains and penal fire,

Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms.

Nine times the space that measures day and night

To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew,

Lay vanquished, rowling in the fiery gulf,

Confounded, though immortal. But his doom

Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought

Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes,

That witnessed huge affliction and dismay,

Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.

At once, as far as Angel's ken, he views

The dismal situation waste and wild.

A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,

As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames

No light; but rather darkness visible

Served only to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

That comes to all, but torture without end

Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed

With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.

Such place Eternal Justice had prepared

For those rebellious; here their prison ordained

In utter darkness, and their portion set,

As far removed from God and light of Heaven

As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole.

Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell!

There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed

With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,

He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side,

One next himself in power, and next in crime,

Long after known in Palestine, and named

Beelzebub. To whom the Arch-Enemy,

And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words

Breaking the horrid silence, thus began: -

"If thou beest he - but Oh how fallen! how changed

From him! - who, in the happy realms of light,

Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine

Myriads, though bright - if he whom mutual league,

United thoughts and counsels, equal hope

And hazard in the glorious enterprise,

Joined with me once, now misery hath joined

In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest

From what highth fallen: so much the stronger proved

He with his thunder: and till then who knew

The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,

Nor what the potent Victor in his rage

Can else inflict, do I repent, or change,

Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,

And high disdain from sense of injured merit,

That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,

And to the fierce contention brought along

Innumerable force of Spirits armed,

That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,

His utmost power with adverse power opposed

In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?

All is not lost - the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield:

And what is else not to be overcome.

That glory never shall his wrath or might

Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace

With suppliant knee, and deify his power

Who, from the terror of this arm, so late

Doubted his empire - that were low indeed;

That were an ignominy and shame beneath

This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,

And this empyreal substance, cannot fail;

Since, through experience of this great event,

In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,

We may with more successful hope resolve

To wage by force or guile eternal war,

Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,

Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy

Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven."

So spake the apostate Angel, though in pain,

Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair;

And him thus answered soon his bold Compeer; -

"O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers

That led the embattled Seraphim to war

Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds

Fearless, endangered Heaven's perpetual King,

And put to proof his high supremacy,

Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate!

Too well I see and rue the dire event

That, with sad overthrow and foul defeat,

Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host

In horrible destruction laid thus low,

As far as Gods and Heavenly Essences

Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains

Invincible, and vigour soon returns,

Though all our glory extinct, and happy state

Here swallowed up in endless misery.

But what if He our Conqueror (whom I now

Of force believe Almighty, since no less

Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours)

Have left us this our spirit and strength entire,

Strongly to suffer and support our pains,

That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,

Or do him mightier service as his thralls

By right of war, whate'er his business be,

Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,

Or do errands in the gloomy Deep?

What can it then avail though yet we feel

Strength undiminished, or eternal being

To undergo eternal punishment?"

Whereto with speedy words the Arch-Fiend replied: -

"Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,

Doing or suffering: but of this be sure -

To do aught good never will be our task,

But ever to do ill our sole delight,

As being the contrary to His high will

Whom we resist. If then His providence

Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,

Our labour must be to pervert that end,

And out of good still to find means of evil;

Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps

Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb

His inmost counsels from their destined aim.

But see! the angry Victor hath recalled

His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,

Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid

The fiery surge that from the precipice

Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,

Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,

Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now

To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.

Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn

Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.

Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,

The seat of desolation, void of light,

Save what the glimmering of these livid flames

Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend

From off the tossing of these fiery waves;

There rest, if any rest can harbour there;

And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,

Consult how we may henceforth most offend

Our Enemy, our own loss how repair,

How overcome this dire calamity,

What reinforcement we may gain from hope,

If not what resolution from despair."

Thus Satan, talking to his nearest Mate,

With head uplift above the wave, and eyes

That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides

Prone on the flood, extended long and large,

Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge

As whom the fables name of monstrous size,

Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,

Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast

Leviathan, which God of all his works

Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream.

Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,

The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,

Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,

With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,

Moors by his side under the lee, while night

Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.

So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay,

Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence

Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will

And high permission of all-ruling Heaven

Left him at large to his own dark designs,

That with reiterated crimes he might

Heap on himself damnation, while he sought

Evil to others, and enraged might see

How all his malice served but to bring forth

Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn

On Man by him seduced, but on himself

Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured.

Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool

His mighty stature; on each hand the flames

Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and, rowled

In billows, leave i' the midst a horrid vale.

Then with expanded wings he steers his flight

Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,

That felt unusual weight; till on dry land

He lights - if it were land that ever burned

With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,

And such appeared in hue as when the force

Of subterranean wind transports a hill

Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side

Of thundering Aetna, whose combustible

And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,

Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,

And leave a singed bottom all involved

With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole

Of unblest feet. Him followed his next Mate;

Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood

As gods, and by their own recovered strength,

Not by the sufferance of supernal power.

"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"

Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat

That we must change for Heaven? - this mournful gloom

For that celestial light? Be it so, since He

Who now is sovran can dispose and bid

What shall be right: fardest from Him is best,

Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme

Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,

Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,

Receive thy new possessor - one who brings

A mind not to be changed by place or time.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less than he

Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

The associates and co-partners of our loss,

Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,

And call them not to share with us their part

In this unhappy mansion, or once more

With rallied arms to try what may be yet

Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"

So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub

Thus answered: - "Leader of those armies bright

Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foiled!

If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge

Of hope in fears and dangers - heard so oft

In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge

Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults

Their surest signal - they will soon resume

New courage and revive, though now they lie

Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,

As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;

No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth!"

He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend

Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,

Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,

Behind him cast. The broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views

At evening, from the top of Fesole,

Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,

Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.

His spear - to equal which the tallest pine

Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast

Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand -

He walked with, to support uneasy steps

Over the burning marle, not like those steps

On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime

Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.

Nathless he so endured, till on the beach

Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called

His legions - Angel Forms, who lay entranced

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades

High over-arched imbower; or scattered sedge

Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed

Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew

Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued

The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld

From the safe shore their floating carcases

And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,

Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,

Under amazement of their hideous change.

He called so loud that all the hollow deep

Of Hell resounded: - "Princes, Potentates,

Warriors, the Flower of Heaven - once yours; now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place

After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find

To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?

Or in this abject posture have ye sworn

To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds

Cherub and Seraph rowling in the flood

With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon

His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern

The advantage, and, descending tread us down

Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts

Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf? -

Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"

They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung

Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch,

On duty sleeping found by whom they dread,

Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.

Nor did they not perceive the evil plight

In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;

Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed

Innumerable. As when the potent rod

Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,

Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud

Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,

That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung

Like Night, and darkened all the land of Nile;

So numberless were those bad Angels seen

Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,

'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;

Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear

Of their great Sultan waving to direct

Their course, in even balance down they light

On the firm brimstone, and fill the plain:

A multitude like which the populous North

Poured never from her frozen loins to pass

Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons

Came like a deluge on the South, and spread

Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.

Forthwith, from every squadron and each band,

The heads and leaders thither haste where stood

Their great Commander - godlike Shapes, and Forms

Excelling human; princely Dignities;

And powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones,

Though of their names in Heavenly records now

Be no memorial, blotted out and rased

By their rebellion from the Books of Life.

Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

Got them new names, till, wondering o'er the earth,

Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,

By falsities and lies the greatest part

Of mankind they corrupted to forsake

God their Creator, and the invisible

Glory of Him that made them to transform

Oft to the image of a brute, adorned

With gay religions full of pomp and gold,

And devils to adore for deities:

Then were they known to men by various names,

And various idols through the heathen world.

Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,

Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch,

At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth

Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,

While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof.

The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell

Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix

Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,

Their altars by His altar, gods adored

Among the nations round, and durst abide

Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned

Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed

Within His sanctuary itself their shrines,

Abominations; and with cursed things

His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,

And with their darkness durst affront His light.

First, Moloch, horrid King, besmeared with blood

Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;

Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,

Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire

To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such

Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart

Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

His temple right against the temple of God

On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove

The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence

And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.

Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,

From Aroar to Nebo and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond

The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,

And Eleale to the Asphaltick Pool:

Peor his other name, when he enticed

Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,

To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.

Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged

Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove

Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate,

Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.

With these came they who, from the bordering flood

Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts

Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names

Of Baalim and Ashtaroth - those male,

These feminine. For Spirits, when they please,

Can either sex assume, or both; so soft

And uncompounded is their essence pure,

Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,

Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,

Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,

Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,

Can execute their aery purposes,

And works of love or enmity fulfil.

For those the race of Israel oft forsook

Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left

His righteous altar, bowing lowly down

To bestial gods; for which their heads, as low

Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear

Of despicable foes. With these in troop

Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called

Astarte, queen of heaven, with cresent horns;

To whose bright image nightly by the moon

Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;

In Sion also not unsung, where stood

Her temple on the offensive mountain, built

By that uxorious king whose heart, though large,

Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

In amorous ditties all a summer's day,

While smooth Adonis from his native rock

Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood

Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale

Infected Sion's daughters with like heat,

Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch

Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,

His eye surveyed the dark idolatries

Of alienated Judah. Next came one

Who mourned in earnest, when the captive Ark

Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off,

In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge,

Where he fell flat and shamed his worshipers:

Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man

And downward fish; yet had his temple high

Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast

Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,

And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.

Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat

Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks

Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.

He also against the house of God was bold:

A leper once he lost, and gained a king -

Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew

God's altar to disparage and displace

For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn

His odious offerings, and adore the gods

Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared

A crew who, under names of old renown -

Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train -

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused

Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek

Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms

Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape

The infection, when their borrowed gold composed

The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king

Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,

Likening his Maker to the grazed ox -

Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed

From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke

Both her first-born and all her bleating gods.

Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more lewd

Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love,

Vice for itself. To him no temple stood

Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he

In temples and at altars, when the priest

Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who filled

With lust and violence the house of God?

In courts and palaces he also reigns,

And in luxurious cities, where the noise

Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,

And injury and outrage; and, when night

Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons

Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.

Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night

In Gibeah, when the hospitable door

Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape.

These were the prime in order and in might:

The rest were long to tell; though far renowned

The Ionian gods - of Javan's issue held

Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth,

Their boasted parents; - Titan, Heaven's first-born,

With his enormous brood, and birthright seized

By younger Saturn: he from mightier Jove,

His own and Rhea's son, like measure found;

So Jove unsurping reigned. These, first in Crete

And Ida known, thence on the snowy top

Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air,

Their highest heaven; or on the Delphian cliff,

Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds

Of Doric land; or who with Saturn old

Fled over Adria to the Hesperian fields,

And o'er the Celtic roamed the utmost Isles.

All these and more came flocking; but with looks

Downcast and damp; yet such wherein appeared

Obscure some glimpse of joy to have found their Chief

Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost

In loss itself; which on his countenance cast

Like doubtful hue. But he, his wonted pride

Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore

Semblance of worth, nor substance, gently raised

Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears:

Then straight commands that, at the war-like sound

Of trumpets loud and clarions, be upreared

His mighty standard. That proud honour claimed

Azazel as his right, a Cherub tall:

Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled

The imperial ensign; which, full high advanced,

Shon like a meteo  streaming to the wind,

With gems and golden lustre rich imblazed,

Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:

At which the universal host up-sent

A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond

Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.

All in a moment through the gloom were seen

Ten thousand banners rise into the air,

With orient colours waving: with them rose

A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms

Appeared, and serried shields in thick array

Of depth immeasurable. Anon they move

In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood

Of flutes and soft recorders - such as raised

To highth of noblest temper heroes old

Arming to battle, and instead of rage

Deliberate valour breathed, firm, and unmoved

With dread of death to flight or foul retreat;

Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage

With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chase

Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain

From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they,

Breathing united force with fixed thought,

Moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed

Their painful steps o'er the burnt soil. And now

Advanced in view they stand - a horrid front

Of dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guise

Of warriors old, with ordered spear and shield,

Awaiting what command their mighty Chief

Had to impose. He through the armed files

Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse

The whole battalion views - their order due,

Their visages and stature as of Gods;

Their number last he sums. And now his heart

Distends with pride, and, hardening in his strength,

Glories: for never, since created Man,

Met such imbodied force as, named with these,

Could merit more than that small infantry

Warred on by cranes - though all the giant brood

Of Phlegra with the heroic race were joined

That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side

Mixed with auxiliar gods; and what resounds

In fable or romance of Uther's son,

Begirt with British and Armoric knights;

And all who since, baptized or infidel,

Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban,

Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond,

Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore

When Charlemain with all his peerage fell

By Fontarabbia. Thus far these beyond

Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed

Their dread Commander. He, above the rest

In shape and gesture proudly eminent,

Stood like a tower. His form had yet not lost

All her original brightness, nor appeared

Less than Archangel ruined, and the excess

Of glory obscured: as when the sun new-risen

Looks through the horizontal misty air

Shorn of his beams, or, from behind the moon,

In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change

Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shon

Above them all the Archangel: but his face

Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care

Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows

Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride

Waiting revenge. Cruel his eye, but cast

Signs of remorse and passion, to behold

The fellows of his crime, the followers rather

(Far other once beheld in bliss), condemned

For ever now to have their lot in pain -

Millions of Spirits for his fault amerced

Of Heaven, and from eternal splendours flung

For his revolt - yet faithful how they stood,

Their glory withered; as, when heaven's fire

Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines,

With singed top their stately growth, though bare,

Stands on the blasted heath. He now prepared

To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend

From wing to wing, and half enclose him round

With all his peers: Attention held them mute.

Thrice he assayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn,

Tears, such as Angels weep, burst forth: at last

Words interwove with sighs found out their way: -

"O myriads of immortal Spirits! O Powers

Matchless, but with the Almighty! - and that strife

Was not inglorious, though the event was dire,

As this place testifies, and this dire change,

Hateful to utter. But what power of mind,

Foreseeing or presaging, from the depth

Of knowledge past or present, could have feared

How such united force of gods, how such

As stood like these, could ever know repulse?

For who can yet believe, though after loss,

That all these puissant legions, whose exile

Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to reascend,

Self-raised, and re-possess their native seat?

For me, be witness all the host of Heaven,

If counsels different, or danger shunned

By me, have lost our hopes. But he who reigns

Monarch in Heaven till then as one secure

Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,

Consent or custom, and his regal state

Put forth at full, but still his strength concealed -

Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.

Henceforth his might we know, and know our own,

So as not either to provoke, or dread

New war provoked: our better part remains

To work in close design, by fraud or guile,

What force effected not; that he no less

At length from us may find, Who overcomes

By force hath overcome but half his foe.

Space may produce new Worlds; whereof so rife

There went a fame in Heaven that He ere long

Intended to create, and therein plant

A generation whom his choice regard

Should favour equal to the Sons of Heaven.

Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps

Our first eruption - thither, or elsewhere;

For this infernal pit shall never hold

Caelestial Spirits in bondage, nor the Abyss

Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts

Full counsel must mature. Peace is despaired;

For who can think submission? War, then, war

Open or understood, must be resolved."

He spake; and, to confirm his words, out-flew

Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs

Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze

Far around illumined Hell. Highly they raged

Again the Highest and fierce with grasped arms

Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,

Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven.

There stood a hill not far, whose griesly top

Belched fire and rowling smoke; the rest entire

Shown with a glossy scurf - undoubted sign

That in his womb was hid metallic ore,

The work of sulphur. Thither, winged with speed,

A numerous brigad hastened: as when bands

Of pioners, with spade and pickaxe armed,

Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field,

Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on -

Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell

From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and

thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed

In vision beatific. By him first

Men also, and by suggestion taught

Ransacked the Centre, and with impious hands

Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth

For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew

Opened into the hill a spacious wound,

And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire

That riches grow in Hell: that soil may best

Deserve the pretious bane. And here let those

Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell

Of Babel and the works of Memphian kings,

Learn how their greatest monuments of fame,

And strength, and art, are easily outdone

By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour

What in an age they, with incessant toil

And hands innumerable, scarce perform.

Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared,

That underneath had veins of liquid fire

Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude

With wondrous art founded the massy ore,

Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion-dross.

A third as soon had formed within the ground

A various mould, and from the boiling cells

By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook;

As in an organ, from one blast of wind,

To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.

Anon out of the earth a fabric huge

Rose like an exhalation, with the sound

Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet -

Built like a temple, where pilasters round

Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid

With golden architrave; nor did there want

Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven:

The roof was fretted gold. Not Babilon

Nor great Alcairo such magnificence

Equalled in all their glories, to inshrine

Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat

Their kings, when Aegypt with Assyria strove

In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile

Stood fixed her stately highth; and straight the doors

Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide

Within, her ample spaces o'er the smooth

And level pavement: from the arched roof,

Pendent by subtle magic, many a row

Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed

With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light

As from a sky. The hasty multitude

Admiring entered; and the work some praise,

And some the Architect. His hand was known

In Heaven by many a towered structure high,

Where sceptred Angels held their residence,

And sat as Princes, whom the supreme King

Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,

Each in his hierarchy, the Orders bright.

Nor was his name unheard or unadored

In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land

Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell

From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove

Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer's day, and with the setting sun

Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star,

On Lemnos, the Aegaean isle. Thus they relate,

Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

Fell long before; nor aught availed him now

To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did he scape

By all his engines, but was headlong sent,

With his industrious crew, to build in Hell.

Meanwhile the winged Haralds, by command

Of sovran power, with awful ceremony

And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim

A solemn council forthwith to be held

At Pandaemonium, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers. Their summons called

From every band and squared regiment

By place or choice the worthiest: they anon

With hundreds and with thousands trooping came

Attended. All access was thronged; the gates

And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall

(Though like a covered field, where champions bold

Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair

Defied the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat, or career with lance),

Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air,

Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees

In spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides,

Pour forth their populous youth about the hive

In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers

Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,

The suburb of their straw-built citadel,

New rubbed with balm, expatiate, and confer

Their state-affairs: so thick the aerie crowd

Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given,

Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed

In bigness to surpass Earth's gaint sons,

Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room

Throng numberless - like that pygmean race

Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves,

Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side

Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon

Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth

Wheels her pale course: they, on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocond music charm his ear;

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms

Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,

Though without number still, amidst the hall

Of that infernal court. But far within,

And in their own dimensions like themselves,

The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim

In close recess and secret conclave sat,

A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,

Frequent and full. After short silence then,

And summons read, the great consult began.

Second Book

The Argument

     The consultation begun, Satan debates whether another battle is to be

hazarded for the recovery of Heaven: some advise it, others dissuade. A third

proposal is preferred, mentioned before by Satan - to search the truth of that

prophecy or tradition in Heaven concerning another world, and another kind of

creature, equal, or not much inferior, to themselves, about this time to be

created. Their doubt who shall be sent on this difficult search: Satan, their

chief, undertakes alone the voyage; is honoured and applauded. The council

thus ended, the rest betake them several ways and to several imployments, as

their inclinations lead them, to entertain the time till Satan return. He

passes on his journey to Hell-gates; finds them shut, and who sat there to

guard them; by whom at length they are opened, and discover to him the great

gulf between Hell and Heaven. With what difficulty he passes through, directed

by Chaos, the Power of that place, to the sight of this new World which he

sought.

High on a throne of royal state, which far

Outshon the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand

Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,

Satan exalted sat, by merit raised

To that bad eminence; and, from despair

Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires

Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue

Vain war with Heaven; and, by success untaught,

His proud imaginations thus displayed: -

     "Powers and Dominions, Deities of Heaven! -

For, since no deep within her gulf can hold

Immortal vigour, though oppressed and fallen,

I give not Heaven for lost: from this descent

Celestial Virtues rising will appear

More glorious and more dread than from no fall,

And trust themselves to fear no second fate! -

Me though just right, and the fixed laws of Heaven,

Did first create your leader - next, free choice,

With what besides in council or in fight

Hath been achieved of merit - yet this loss,

Thus far at least recovered, hath much more

Established in a safe, unenvied throne,

Yielded with full consent. The happier state

In Heaven, which follows dignity, mightadraw

Envy from each inferior; but who here

Will envy whom the highest place exposes

Foremost to stand against the Thunderer's aim

Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share

Of endless pain? Where there is, then, no good

For which to strive, no strife can grow up there

From faction: for none sure will claim in Hell

Precedence; none whose portion is so small

Of present pain that with ambitious mind

Will covet more! With this advantage, then,

To union, and firm faith, and firm accord,

More than can be in Heaven, we now return

To claim our just inheritance of old,

Surer to prosper than prosperity

Could have assured us; and by what best way,

Whether of open war or covert guile,

We now debate. Who can advise may speak."

He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptred king,

Stood up - the strongest and the fiercest Spirit

That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair.

His trust was with the Eternal to be deemed

Equal in strength, and rather than be less

Cared not to be at all; with that care lost

Went all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse,

He recked not, and these words thereafter spake: -

"My sentence is for open war. Of wiles,

More unexpert, I boast not: them let those

Contrive who need, or when they need; not now.

For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest -

Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait

The signal to ascend - sit lingering here,

Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling-place

Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,

The prison of His tyranny who reigns

By our delay? No! let us rather choose,

Armed with Hell-flames and fury, all at once

O'er Heaven's high towers to force resistless way,

Turning our tortures into horrid arms

Against the torturer; when, to meet the noise

Of his almighty engine, he shall hear

Infernal thunder, and, for lightning, see

Black fire and horror shot with equal rage

Among his Angels and his throne itself

Mixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,

His own invented torments. But perhaps

The way seems difficult, and steep to scale

With upright wing against a higher foe!

Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench

Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,

That in our proper motion we ascend

Up to our native seat; descent and fall

To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,

When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear

Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep,

With what compulsion and laborious flight

We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy, then;

The event is feared! Should we again provoke

Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find

To our destruction, if there be in Hell

Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be worse

Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned

In this abhorred deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire

Must exercise us without hope of end

The vassals of his anger, when the scourge

Inexorably, and the torturing hour,

Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus,

We should be quite abolished, and expire.

What fear we then? what doubt we to incense

His utmost ire? which, to the highth enraged,

Will either quite consume us, and reduce

To nothing this essential - happier far

Than miserable to have eternal being! -

Or, if our substance be indeed Divine,

And cannot cease to be, we are at worst

On this side nothing; and by proof we feel

Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,

And with perpetual inroads to alarm,

Though inaccessible, his fatal Throne:

Which, if not victory, is yet revenge."

He ended frowning, and his look denounced

Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous

To less than gods. On the other side up rose

Belial, in act more graceful and humane.

A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed

For dignity composed, and high exploit.

But all was false and hollow, though his tongue

Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason, to perplex and dash

Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low -

To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds

Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear,

And with persuasive accent thus began: -

"I should be much for open war, O Peers,

As not behind in hate, if what was urged

Main reason to persuade immediate war

Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast

Ominous conjecture on the whole success;

When he who most excels in fact of arms,

In what he counsels and in what excels

Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair

And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled

With armed watch, that render all access

Impregnable: oft on the bordering Deep

Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing

Scout far and wide into the realm of Night,

Scorning surprise. Or, could we break our way

By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise

With blackest insurrection to confound

Heaven's purest light, yet our great Enemy,

All incorruptible, would on his throne

Sit unpolluted, and the ethereal mould,

Incapable of stain, would soon expel

Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,

Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope

Is flat despair: we must exasperate

The Almighty Victor to spend all his rage:

And that must end us; that must be our cure -

To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being,

Those thoughts that wander through eternity,

To perish rather, swallowed up and lost

In the wide womb of uncreated Night,

Devoid of sense and motion? and who knows,

Let this be good, whether our angry Foe

Can give it, or will ever? How he can

Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.

Will He, so wise, let loose at once his ire,

Belike through impotence or unaware,

To give his enemies their wish, and end

Them in his anger whom his anger saves

To punish endless? 'Wherefore cease we, then?'

Say they who counsel war; 'we are decreed,

Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;

Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,

What can we suffer worse?' Is this, then, worst -

Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?

What when we fled amain, pursued and strook

With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and eesought

The Deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed

A refuge from those wounds. Or when we lay

Chained on the burning lake? That sure was worse.

What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,

Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,

And plunge us in the flames; or from above

Should intermitted vengeance arm again

His red right hand to plague us? What if all

Her stores were opened, and this firmament

Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,

Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall

One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,

Designing or exhorting glorious war,

Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled.

Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey

Of racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk

Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,

There to converse with everlasting groans,

Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,

Ages of hopeless end? This would be worse.

War, therefore, open or concealed, alike

My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile

With Him, or who deceive His mind, whose eye

Views all things at one view? He from Heaven's highth

All these our motions vain sees and derides,

Not more almighty to resist our might

Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.

Shall we, then, live thus vile - the race of Heaven

Thus trampled, thus expelled, to suffer here

Chains and these torments? Better these than worse

By my advice; since fate inevitable

Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,

The Victor's will. To suffer, as to do,

Our strength is equal; nor the law unjust

That so ordains. This was at first resolved,

If we were wise, against so great a foe

Contending, and so doubtful what might fall.

I laugh when those who at the spear are bold

And ventrous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear

What yet they know must follow - to endure

Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain,

The sentence of their conqueror. This is now

Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,

Our Supreme Foe in time may such remit

His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed,

Not mind us not offending, satisfied

With what is punished; whence these raging fires

Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.

Our purer essence then will overcome

Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel;

Or, changed at length, and to the place conformed

In temper and in nature, will receive

Familiar the fierce heat; and void of pain,

This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;

Besides what hope the never-ending flight

Of future days may bring, what chance, what change

Worth waiting - since our present lot appears

For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,

If we procure not to ourselves more woe."

Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason's garb,

Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth,

Not peace; and after him thus Mammon spake: -

"Either to disinthrone the King of Heaven

We war, if war be best, or to regain

Our own right lost. Him to unthrone we then

May hope, when everlasting Fate shall yield

To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.

The former, vain to hope, argues as vain

The latter; for what place can be for us

Within Heaven's bound, unless Heaven's Lord Supreme

We overpower? Suppose he should relent,

And publish grace to all, on promise made

Of new subjection; with what eyes could we

Stand in his presence humble, and receive

Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne

With warbled hymns, and to his Godhead sing

Forced Halleluiahs, while he lordly sits

Our envied sovran, and his altar breathes

Ambrosial odours and ambrosial flowers,

Our servile offerings? This must be our task

In Heaven, this our delight. How wearisome

Eternity so spent in worship paid

To whom we hate! Let us not then pursue,

By force impossible, by leave obtained

Unacceptable, though in Heaven, our state

Of splendid vassalage; but rather seek

Our own good from ourselves, and from our own

Live to ourselves, though in this vast recess,

Free and none accountable, preferring

Hard liberty before the easy yoke

Of servile pomp. Our greatness will appear

Then most conspicuous when great things of small,

Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse,

We can create, and in what place soe'er

Thrive under evil, and work ease out of pain

Through labour and indurance. This deep world

Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst

Thick clouds and dark doth Heaven's all-ruling Sire

Choose to reside, his glory unobscured,

And with the majesty of darkness round

Covers his throne, from whence deep thunders roar,

Mustering their rage, and Heaven resembles Hell!

As He our darkness, cannot we His light

Imitate when we please? This desart soil

Wants not her hidden lustre, gems and gold;

Nor want we skill or art from whence to raise

Magnificence; and what can Heaven shew more?

Our torments also may, in length of time,

Become our elements, these piercing fires

As soft as now severe, our temper changed

Into their temper; which must needs remove

The sensible of pain. All things invite

To peaceful counsels, and the settled state

Of order, how in safety best we may

Compose our present evils, with regard

Of what we are and where, dismissing quite

All thoughts of war. Ye have what I advise."

He scarce had finished, when such murmur filled

The assembly as when hollow rocks retain

The sound of blustering winds, which all night long

Had roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lull

Seafaring men o'erwatched, whose bark by chance,

Or pinnace, anchors in a craggy bay

After the tempest. Such applause was heard

As Mammon ended, and his sentence pleased,

Advising peace: for such another field

They dreaded worse than Hell; so much the fear

Of thunder and the sword of Michael

Wrought still within them; and no less desire

To found this nether empire, which might rise,

By policy and long process' of time,

In emulation opposite to Heaven.

Which when Beelzebub perceived - than whom,

Satan except, none higher sat - with grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed

A pillar of state. Deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat, and public care;

And princely counsel in his face yet shon,

Majestic, though in ruin. Sage he stood,

With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as night

Or summer's noontide air, while thus he spake: -

"Thrones and Imperial Powers, Offspring of Heaven,

Ethereal Virtues! or these titles now

Must we renounce, and, changing style, be called

Princes of Hell? for so the popular vote

Inclines - here to continue, and build up here

A growing empire; doubtless! while we dream;

And know not that the king of Heaven hath doomed

This place our dungeon - not our safe retreat

Beyond his potent arm, to live exempt

From Heaven's high jurisdiction, in new league

Banded against his throne, but to remain

In strictest bondage, though thus far removed,

Under the inevitable curb, reserved

His captive multitude. For He, be sure,

In highth of depth, still first and last will reign

Sole king, and of his kingdom lose no part

By our revolt, but over Hell extend

His empire, and with iron sceptre rule

Us here, as with his golden those in Heaven,

What sit we then projecting peace and war?

War hath determined us and foiled with loss

Irreparable; terms of peace yet none

Voutsafed or sought; for what peace will be given

To us enslaved, but custody severe,

And stripes and arbitrary punishment

Inflicted? and what peace can we return,

But, to out power, hostility and hate,

Untamed reluctance, and revenge, though slow,

Yet ever plotting how the Conqueror least

May reap his conquest, and may least rejoice

In doing what we most in suffering feel?

Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need

With dangerous expedition to invade

Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege,

Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find

Some easier enterprise? There is a place

(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven

Err not) - another World, the happy seat

Of some new rave, called Man, about this time

To be created like to us, though less

In power and excellence, but favoured more

Of Him who rules above; so was His will

Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath

That shook Heaven's whole circumference confirmed.

Thither let us bend all our thoughts, to learn

What creatures there inhabit, of what mould

Or substance, how endued, and what their power

And where their weakness; how attempted best,

By force or subtlety. Though Heaven be shut,

And Heaven's high Arbitrator sit secure

In his own strength, this place may lie exposed,

The utmost border of his kingdom, left

To their defence who hold it: here, perhaps,

Some advantageous act may be achieved

By sudden onset - either with Hell-fire

To waste his whole creation, or possess

All as our own, and drive, as we are driven,

The puny habitants; or, if not drive,

Seduce them to our party, that their God

May prove their foe, and with repenting hand

Abolish his own works. This would surpass

Common revenge, and interrupt His joy

In our confusion, and our joy upraise

In His disturbance; when his darling sons,

Hurled headlong to partake with us, shall curse

Their frail original, and faded bliss -

Faded so soon! Advise if this be worth

Attempting, or to sit in darkness here

Hatching vain empires." Thus Beelzebub,

Pleaded his devilish counsel - first devised

By Satan, and in part proposed: for whence,

But from the author of all ill, could spring

So deep a malice, to confound the race

Of mankind in one root, and Earth with Hell

To mingle and involve, done all to spite

The great Creator? But their spite still serves

His glory to augment. The bold design

Pleased highly those Infernal States, and joy

Sparkled in all their eyes: with full assent

They vote: whereat his speech he thus renews: -

"Well have ye judged, well ended long debate,

Synod of Gods and, like to what ye are,

Great things resolved, which from the lowest deep

Will once more lift us up, in spite of Fate,

Nearer our ancient Seat - perhaps in view

Of those bright confines, whence, with neighbouring arms,

And opportune excursion, we may chance

Re-enter Heaven; or else in some mild zone

Dwell, not unvisited of Heaven's fair light,

Secure, and at the brightening orient beam

Purge off this gloom: the soft delicious air,

To heal the scar of these corrosive fires,

Shall breathe her balm. But, first, whom shall we send

In search of this new World? whom shall we find

Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandering feet

The dark, unbottomed, infinite Abyss,

And through the palpable obscure find out

His uncouth way, or spread his aerie flight,

Upborne with indefatigable wings

Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive

The happy Isle? What strength, what art, can then

Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe

Through the strict senteries and stations thick

Of Angels watching round? Here he had need

All circumspection: and we now no less

Choice in our suffrage; for on whom we send

The weight of all, and our last hope, relies."

This said, he sat; and expectation held

His look suspense, awaiting who appeared

To second, or oppose, or undertake

The perilous attempt. But all sat mute,

Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each

In other's countenance read his own dismay,

Astonished. None among the choice and prime

Of those Heaven-warring champions could be found

So hardy as to proffer or accept,

Alone, the dreadful voyage; till, at last,

Satan, whom now transcendent glory raised

Above his fellows, with monarchal pride

Conscious of highest worth, unmoved thus spake: -

"O Progeny of Heaven! Empyreal Thrones!

With reason hath deep silence and demur

Seized us, though undismayed. Long is the way

And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.

Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire,

Outrageous to devour, immures us round

Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant,

Barred over us, prohibit all egress.

These passed, if any pass, the void profound

Of unessential Night receives him next,

Wide-gaping, and with utter loss of being

Threatens him, plunged in that abortive gulf.

If thence he scape, into whatever world,

Or unknown region, what remains him less

Than unknown dangers, and as hard escape?

But I should ill become this throne, O Peers,

And this imperial sovranty, adorned

With splendour, armed with power, if aught proposed

And judged of public moment in the shape

Of difficulty or danger, could deter

Me from attempting. Wherefore do I assume

These royalties, and not refuse to reign,

Refusing to accept as great a share

Of hazard as of honour, due alike

To him who reigns, and so much to him due

Of hazard more as he above the rest

High honoured sits? Go, therefore, mighty Powers,

Terror of Heaven, though fallen; intend at home,

While here shall be our home, what best may ease

The present misery, and render Hell

More tolerable; if there be cure or charm

To respite, or deceive, or slack the pain

Of this ill mansion: intermit no watch

Against a wakeful Foe, while I abroad

Through all the coasts of dark destruction seek

Deliverance for us all. This enterprise

None shall partake with me." Thus saying, rose

The Monarch, and prevented all reply;

Prudent lest, from his resolution raised,

Others among the chief might offer now,

Certain to be refused, what erst they feared,

And, so refused, might in opinion stand

His rivals, winning cheap the high repute

Which he through hazard huge must earn. But they

Dreaded not more the adventure than his voice

Forbidding; and at once with him they rose.

Their rising all at once was as the sound

Of thunder heard remote. Towards him they bend

With awful reverence prone, and as a God

Extol him equal to the Highest in Heaven.

Nor failed they to express how much they praised

That for the general safety he despised

His own: for neither do the Spirits damned

Lose all their virtue; lest bad men should boast

Their specious deeds on earth, which glory excites,

Or close ambition varnished o'er with zeal.

Thus they their doubtful consultations dark

Ended, rejoicing in their matchless Chief:

As, when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds

Ascending, while the North-wind sleeps, o'erspread

Heaven's cheerful face, the louring element

Scowls o'er the darkened lantskip snow or shower,

If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet,

Extend his evening beam, the fields revive,

The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds

Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings.

O shame to men! Devil with devil damned

Firm concord holds; men only disagree

Of creatures rational, though under hope

Of heavenly grace, and, God proclaiming peace,

Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife

Among themselves, and levy cruel wars

Wasting the earth, each other to destroy:

As if (which might induce us to accord)

Man had not hellish foes enow besides,

That day and night for his destruction wait!

The Stygian council thus dissolved; and forth

In order came the grand Infernal Peers:

Midst came their mighty Paramount, and seemed

Alone the Antagonist of Heaven, nor less

Than Hell's dread Emperor, with pomp supreme,

And god-like imitated state: him round

A globe of fiery Seraphim inclosed

With bright imblazonry, and horrent arms.

Then of their session ended they bid cry

With trumpet's regal sound the great result:

Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim

Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy,

By harald's voice explained; the hollow Abyss

Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell

With deafening shout returned them loud acclaim.

Thence more at ease their minds, and somewhat raised

By false presumptuous hope, the ranged Powers

Disband; and, wandering, each his several way

Pursues, as inclination or sad choice,

Leads him perplexed, where he may likeliest find

Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain

The irksome hours, till his great Chief return.

Part on the plain, or in the air sublime,

Upon the wing or in swift race contend,

As at the Olympian games or Pythian fields;

Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal

With rapid wheels, or fronted brigades form:

As when, to warn proud cities, war appears

Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush

To battle in the clouds; before each van

Prick forth the aerie knights, and couch their spears,

Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms

From either end of heaven the welkin burns.

Others, with vast Typhoean rage, more fell,

Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air

In whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild uproar: -

As when Alcides, from Oechalia crowned

With conquest, felt the envenomed robe, and tore

Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines,

And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw

Into the Euboic sea. Others, more mild,

Retreated in a silent valley, sing

With notes angelical to many a harp

Their own heroic deeds, and hapless fall

By doom of battle, and complain that Fate

Free Virtue should enthrall to Force or Chance.

Their song was partial; but the harmony

(What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?)

Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment

The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet

(For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense)

Others apart sat on a hill retired,

In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high

Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate -

Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute -

And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.

Of good and evil much they argued then,

Of happiness and final misery,

Passion and apathy, and glory and shame:

Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy! -

Yet, with a pleasing sorcery, could charm

Pain for a while or anguish, and excite

Fallacious hope, or arm the obdured breast

With stubborn patience as with triple steel.

Another part, in squadrons and gross bands,

On bold adventure to discover wide

That dismal world, if any clime perhaps

Might yield them easier habitation, bend

Four ways their flying march, along the banks

Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge

Into the burning lake their baleful streams -

Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;

Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;

Cocytus, named of lamentation loud

Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton,

Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.

Far off from these, a slow and silent stream,

Lethe, the river of oblivion, rowls

Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks

Forthwith his former state and being forgets -

Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.

Beyond this flood a frozen continent

Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms

Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land

Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems

Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice,

A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog

Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,

Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air

Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.

Thither, by harpy-footed Furies haled,

At certain revolutions all the damned

Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,

From beds of raging fire to starve in ice

Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine

Immovable, infixed, and frozen round

Periods of time, - thence hurried back to fire.

They ferry over this Lethean sound

Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment,

And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach

The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose

In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,

All in one moment, and so near the brink;

But Fate withstands, and, to oppose the attempt,

Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards

The ford, and of itself the water flies

All taste of living wight, as once it fled

The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on

In confused march forlorn, the adventrous bands,

With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,

Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found

No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale

They passed, and many a region dolorous,

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death -

A universe of death, which God by curse

Created evil, for evil only good;

Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,

Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,

Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimaeras dire.

Meanwhile the Adversary of God and Man,

Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design,

Puts on swift wings, and toward the gates of Hell

Explores his solitary flight: sometimes

He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left;

Now shaves with level wing the Deep, then soars

Up to the fiery concave towering high.

As when far off at sea a fleet descried

Hangs in the clouds, by aequinoctial winds

Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring

Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood,

Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape,

Ply stemming nightly toward the pole: so seemed

Far off the flying Fiend. At last appear

Hell-hounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,

And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass,

Three iron, three of adamantine rock,

Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,

Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat

On either side a formidable Shape.

The one seemed a woman to the waist, and fair,

But ended foul in many a scaly fold,

Voluminous and vast - a serpent armed

With mortal sting. About her middle round

A cry of Hell-hounds never-ceasing barked

With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung

A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,

If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,

And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled

With in unseen. Far less abhorred than these

Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts

Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore;

Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, called

In secret, riding through the air she comes,

Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance

With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon

Eclipses at their charms. Thd other Shape -

If shape it might be called that shape had none

Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;

Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,

For each seemed either - black it stood as Night,

Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,

And shook a dreadful dart: what seemed his head

The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

Satan was now at hand, and from his seat

The monster moving onward came as fast

With horrid strides; Hell trembled as he strode.

The undaunted Fiend what this might be admired -

Admired, not feared (God and his Son except,

Created thing naught valued he nor shunned),

And with disdainful look thus first began: -

"Whence and what art thou, execrable Shape,

That dar'st though grim and terrible, advance

Thy miscreated front athwart my way

To yonder gates? Through them I mean to pass,

That be assured, without leave asked of thee.

Retire; or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,

Hell-born, not to contend with Spirits of Heaven."

To whom the Goblin, full of wrauth, replied: -

"Art thou that Traitor-Angel, art thou he,

Who first broke peace in Heaven and faith, till then

Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms

Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons,

Conjured against the Highest - for which both thou

And they, outcast from God, are here condemned

To waste eternal days in woe and pain?

And reckon'st thou thyself with Spirits of Heaven,

Hell-doomed, and breath'st defiance here and scorn,

Where I reign king, and, to enrage thee more,

Thy king and lord? Back to thy punishment,

False fugitive; and to thy speed add wings,

Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue

Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart

Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."

So spake the griesly Terror, and in shape,

So speaking and so threatening, grew tenfold

More dreadful and deform. On the other side,

Incensed with indignation, Satan stood

Unterrified, and like a comet burned,

That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge

In the artick sky, and from his horrid hair

Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head

Levelled his deadly aim; their fatal hands

No second stroke intend; and such a frown

Each cast at the other as when two black clouds,

With Heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on

Over the Caspian, - then stand front to front

Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow

To join their dark encounter in mid-air.

So frowned the mighty combatants that Hell

Grew darker at their frown; so matched they stood;

For never but once more was either like

To meet so great a foe. And now great deeds

Had been achieved, whereof all Hell had rung,

Had not the snaky Sorceress, that sat

Fast by Hell-gate and kept the fatal key,

Risen, and with hideous outcry rushed between.

"O father, what intends thy hand," she cried,

"Against thy only son? What fury, O son,

Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart

Against thy father's head? And know'st for whom?

For Him who sits above, and laughs the while

At thee, ordained his drudge to execute

Whate'er his wrauth, which He calls justice, bids -

His wrauth, which one day will destroy ye both!"

She spake, and at her words the hellish Pest

Forbore: then these to her Satan returned: -

"So strange thy outcry, and thy words so strange

Thou interposest, that my sudden hand,

Prevented, spares to tell thee yet by deeds

What it intends, till first I know of thee

What thing thou art, thus double-formed, and why

In this infernal vale first met, thou call'st

Me father, and that fantasm call'st my son.

I know thee not, nor ever saw till now

Sight more detestable than him and thee."

To whom thus the Portress of Hell-gate replied: -

"Hast thou forgot me, then; and do I seem

Now in thine eyes so foul? - once deemed so fair

In Heaven, when at the assembly, and in sight

Of all the Seraphim with thee combined

In bold conspiracy against Heaven's King,

All on a sudden miserable pain

Surprised thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum

In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast

Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide,

Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,

Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed,

Out of thy head I sprung. Amazement seized

All the host of Heaven; back they recoiled afraid

At first, and called me Sin, and for a sign

Portentous held me; but, familiar grown,

I pleased, and with attractive graces won

The most averse - thee chiefly, who, full oft

Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing,

Becam'st enamoured; and such joy thou took'st

With me in secret that my womb conceived

A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,

And fields were fought in Heaven: wherein remained

(For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe

Clear victory; to our part loss and rout

Through all the Empyrean. Down they fell,

Driven headlong from the pitch of Heaven, down

Into this Deep; and in the general fall

I also: at which time this powerful Key

Into my hands was given, with charge to keep

These gates for ever shut, which none can pass

Without my opening. Pensive here I sat

Alone; but long I sat not, till my womb,

Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown,

Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes.

At last this odious offspring whom thou seest,

Thine own begotten, breaking violent way,

Tore through my entrails, that, with fear and pain

Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew

Transformed: but he my inbred enemy

Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart,

Made to destroy. I fled, and cried out Death!

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed

From all her caves, and back resounded Death!

I fled; but he pursued (though more, it seems,

Inflamed with lust than rage), and, swifter far,

Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed,

And, in embraces forcible and foul

Engendering with me, of that rape begot

These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry

Surround me, as thou saw'st - hourly conceived

And hourly born, with sorrow infinite

To me: for, when they list, into the womb

That bred them they return, and howl, and gnaw

My bowels, their repast; then, bursting forth

Afresh, with conscious terrors vex me round,

That rest or intermission none I find.

Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on,

And me, his parent, would full soon devour

For want of other prey, but that he knows

His end with mine involved, and knows that I

Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,

Whenever that shall be: so Fate pronounced.

But thou, O Father, I forewarn thee, shun

His deadly arrow: neither vainly hope

To be invulnerable in those bright arms,

Though tempered heavenly; for that mortal dint,

Save He who reigns above, none can resist."

     She finished; and the subtle Fiend his lore

Soon learned, now milder, and thus answered smooth: -

"Dear daughter - since thou claim'st me for thy sire,

And my fair son here show'st me, the dear pledge

Of dalliance had with thee in Heaven, and joys

Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change

Befallen us unforeseen, unthought-of - know,

I come no enemy, but to set free

From out this dark and dismal house of pain

Both him and thee, and all the Heavenly host

Of Spirits that, in our just pretences armed,

Fell with us from on high. From them I go

This uncouth errand sole, and one for all

Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread

The unfounded Deep, and through the void immense

To search, with wandering quest, a place foretold

Should be - and, by concurring signs, ere now

Created vast and round - a place of bliss

In the pourlieues of Heaven; and therein placed

A race of upstart creatures, to supply

Perhaps our vacant room, though more removed,

Lest Heaven, surcharged with potent multitude,

Might hap to move new broils. Be this, or aught

Than this more secret, now designed, I haste

To know; and this once known, shall soon return

And bring ye to the place where thou and Death

Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen

Wing silently the buxom air, imbalmed

With odours. There ye shall be fed and filled

Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey."

He ceased; for both seemed highly pleased, and Death

Grinned horrible a ghastly smile, to hear

His famine should be filled, and blessed his maw

Destined to that good hour. No less rejoiced

His mother bad, and thus bespake her Sire: -

"The key of this infernal Pit, by due

And by command of Heaven's all-powerful King,

I keep, by Him forbidden to unlock

These adamantine gates; against all force

Death ready stands to interpose his dart,

Fearless to be o'ermatched by living might.

But what I owe I to His commands above,

Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down

Into this gloom of Tartarus profound,

To sit in hateful office here confined,

Inhabitant of Heaven and heavenly-born -

Here in perpetual agony and pain,

With terrors and with clamours compassed round

Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed?

Thou art my father, thou my author, thou

My being gav'st me; whom should I obey

But thee? whom follow? Thou wilt bring me soon

To that new world of light and bliss, among

The gods who live at ease, where I shall reign

At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems

Thy daughter and thy darling, without end."

Thus saying, from her side the fatal key,

Sad instrument of all our woe, she took;

And, toward the gate rowling her bestial train,

Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew,

Which, but herself, not all the Stygian Powers

Could once have moved; then in the keyhole turns

The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar

Of massy iron or solid rock with ease

Unfastens. On a sudden open fly,

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,

The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate

Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook

Of Erebus. She opened; but to shut

Excelled her power: the gates wide open stood,

That with extended wings a bannered host,

Under spread ensigns marching, might pass through

With horse and chariots ranked in loose array;

So wide they stood, and like a furnace-mouth

Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.

Before their eyes in sudden view appear

The secrets of the hoary Deep - a dark

Illimitable ocean, without bound,

Without dimension: where length, breadth, and highth,

And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night

And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.

For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce,

Strive here for maistrie, and to battle bring

Their embryon atoms: they around the flag

Of each his faction, in their several clans,

Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow,

Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands

Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring winds, and poise

Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere

He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits,

And by decision more imbroils the fray

By which he reigns: next him, high arbiter,

Chance governs all. Into this wild Abyss,

The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,

Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,

But all these in their pregnant causes mixed

Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,

Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more worlds -

Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,

Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith

He had to cross. Nor was his ear less pealed

With noises loud and ruinous (to compare

Great things with small) than when Bellona storms

With all her battering engines, bent to rase

Some capital city; or less than if this frame

Of heaven were falling, and these elements

In mutiny had from her axle torn

The steadfast Earth. At last his sail-broad vans

He spreads for flight, and, in the surging smoke

Uplifted, spurns the ground; thence many a league,

As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides

Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets

A vast vacuity. All unawares,

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops

Ten thousand fadom deep, and to this hour

Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance,

The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,

Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him

As many miles aloft. That fury stayed -

Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea,

Nor good dry land-nigh foundered, on he fares,

Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,

Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.

As when a gryfon through the wilderness

With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,

Pursues the Arimpasian, who by stealth

Had from his wakeful custody purloined

The guarded gold; so eagerly the Fiend

O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,

And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

At length, a universal hubbub wild

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused,

Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear

With loudest vehemence. Thither he plies

Undaunted, to meet there whatever Power

Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss

Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies

Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne

Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful Deep! With him enthroned

Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,

The consort of his reign; and by them stood

Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name

Of Demogorgon; Rumour next, and Chance,

And Tumult, and Confusion, all embroiled,

And Discord with a thousand various mouths.

To whom Satan, turning boldly, thus: - "Ye Powers

And Spirits of this nethermost Abyss,

Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy

With purpose to explore or to disturb

The secrets of your realm; but, by constraint

Wandering this darksome desert, as my way

Lies through your spacious empire up to light,

Alone and without guide, half lost, I seek,

What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds

Confine with Heaven; or, if some other place,

From your dominion won, the Ethereal King

Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound. Direct my course;

Directed, no mean recompense it brings

To your behoof, if I that region lost.

All usurpation thence expelled, reduce

To her original darkness and your sway

(Which is my present journey), and once more

Erect the standard there of ancient Night.

Yours be the advantage all, mine the revenge!"

Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old,

With faltering speech and visage incomposed,

Answered: - "I know thee, stranger, who thou art -

That mighty leading Angel, who of late

Made head against Heaven's King, though overthrown.

I saw and heard; for such a numerous host

Fled not in silence through the frighted Deep,

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

Confusion worse confounded; and Heaven-gates

Poured out by millions her victorious bands,

Pursuing. I upon my frontiers here

Keep residence; if all I can will serve

That little which is left so to defend,

Encroached on still through our intestine broils

Weakening the sceptre of old Night: first, Hell,

Your dungeon, stretching far and wide beneath;

Now lately Heaven and Earth, another world

Hung o'er my realm, linked in a golden chain

To that side Heaven from whence your legions fell!

If that way be your walk, you have not far;

So much the nearer danger. Go, and speed;

Havoc, and spoil, and ruin, are my gain."

He ceased; and Satan staid not to reply,

But, glad that now his sea should find a shore,

With fresh alacrity and force renewed

Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire,

Into the wild expanse, and through the shock

Of fighting elements, on all sides round

Environed, wins his way; harder beset

And more endangered than when Argo passed

Through Bosporus betwixt the justling rocks,

Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned

Charybdis, and by the other Whirlpool steered.

So he with difficulty and labour hard

Moved on. With difficulty and labour he;

But, he once passed, soon after, when Man fell,

Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain,

Following his track (such was the will of Heaven)

Paved after him a broad and beaten way

Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling gulf

Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length,

From Hell continued, reaching the utmost Orb

Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse

With easy intercourse pass to and fro

To tempt or punish mortals, except whom

God and good Angels guard by special grace.

But now at last the sacred influence

Of light appears, and from the walls of Heaven

Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night

A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first begins

Her fardest verge, and Chaos to retire,

As from her utmost works, a broken foe,

With tumult less and with less hostile din;

That Satan with less toil, and now with ease,

Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light,

And, like a weather-beaten vessel, holds

Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn;

Or in the emptier waste, resembling air,

Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold

Far off the imperial Heaven, extended wide

In circuit, undetermined square or round,

With opal towers and battlements adorned

Of living sapphire, once his native seat,

And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,

This pendent World, in bigness as a star

Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.

Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,

Accurst, and in a cursed hour, he hies.

Third Book

The Argument

     God, sitting on his throne, sees Satan flying towards this World, then

newly created; shews him to the Son, who sat at his right hand; foretells the

success of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his, own Justice and Wisdom

from all imputation, having created Man free, and able enough to have

withstood his Tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in

regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The

Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious

purpose towards Man: but God again declares that Grace cannot be extended

towards Man without the satisfaction of Divine Justice; Man hath offended the

majesty of God by aspiring to Godhead, and therefore, with all his progeny,

devoted to death, must die, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer

for his offence, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers

himself a ransom for Man: the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation,

pronounces his exaltation above all Names in Heaven and Earth; commands all

the Angels to adore him. They obey, and, hymning to their harps in full quire,

celebrate the Father and the Son. Meanwhile Satan alights upon the bare convex

of this World's outermost orb; where wandering he first finds a place since

called the Limbo of Vanity; what persons and things fly up thither: thence

comes to the gate of Heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters

above the firmament that flow about it. His passage thence to the orb of the

Sun: he finds there Uriel, the regent of that orb, but first changes himself

into the shape of a meaner Angel, and, pretending a zealous desire to behold

the new Creation, and Man whom God had placed here, inquires of him the place

of his habitation, and is directed: Alights first on Mount Niphates.

Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!

Or of the Eternal coeternal beam

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,

And never but in unapproached light

Dwelt from eternity-dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of bright essence increate!

Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal Stream,

Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the Sun,

Before the Heavens, thou wert, and at the voice

Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest

The rising World of waters dark and deep,

Won from the void and formless Infinite!

Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian Pool, though long detained

In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,

Through utter and through middle Darkness borne,

With other notes than to the Orphean lyre

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,

Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down

The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,

Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,

And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou

Revisit'st not these eyes, that rowl in vain

To find thy piercing ray, aed find no dawn;

So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,

Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more

Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt

Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,

Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief

Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,

That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,

Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget

Those other two equalled with me in fate,

(So were I equalled with them in renown!)

Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides,

And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:

Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move

Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird

Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,

Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year

Seasons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

But cloud instead and ever - during dark

Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men

Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,

Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

So much the rather thou, Celestial Light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers

Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Now had the Almighty Father from above,

From the pure Empyrean where He sits

High throned above all highth, bent down his eye,

His own works and their works at once to view:

About him all the Sanctities of Heaven

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received

Beatitude past utterance; on his right

The radiant image of his glory sat,

His only Son. On Earth he first beheld

Our two first parents, yet the only two

Of mankind, in the Happy Garden placed,

Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,

Uninterrupted joy, unrivalled love,

In blissful solitude. He then surveyed

Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there

Coasting the wall of Heaven on this side Night,

In the dun air sublime, and ready now

To stoop, with wearied wings and willing feet,

On the bare outside of this World, that seemed

Firm land imbosomed without firmament,

Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.

Him God beholding from his prospect high,

Wherein past, present, future, he beholds,

Thus to His only Son foreseeing spake: -

"Only - begotten Son, seest thou what rage

Transports our Adversary? whom no bounds

Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains

Heaped on him there, nor yet the main Abyss

Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems

On desperate revenge, that shall redound

Upon his own rebellious head. And now,

Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way

Not far off Heaven, in the precincts of light,

Directly towards the new - created World,

And Man there placed, with purpose to assay

If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,

By some false guile pervert: and shall pervert;

For Man will hearken to his glozing lies,

And easily transgress the sole command,

Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall

He and his faithless progeny. Whose fault?

Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me

All he could have; I made him just and right,

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

Such I created all the Ethereal Powers

And Spirits, both them who stood and them who failed;

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have given sincere

Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love,

Where only what they needs must do appeared,

Not what they would? What praise could they receive,

What pleasure I, from such obedience paid.

When Will and Reason (Reason also is Choice),

Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled,

Made passive both, had served Necessity,

Not Me? They, therefore, as to right belonged

So were created, nor can justly accuse

Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,

As if Predestination overruled

Their will, disposed by absolute decree

Or high foreknowledge. They themselves decreed

Their own revolt, not I. If I foreknew,

Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,

Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.

So without least impulse or shadow of fate,

Or aught by me immutably foreseen,

They trespass, authors to themselves in all,

Both what they judge and what they choose; for so

I formed them free, and free they must remain

Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change

Their nature, and revoke the high decree

Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained

Their freedom; they themselves ordained their fall.

The first sort by their own suggestion fell,

Self - tempted, self - depraved; Man falls, deceived

By the other first: Man, therefore, shall find grace;

The other, none. In mercy and justice both,

Through Heaven and Earth, so shall my glory excel;

But mercy, first and last, shall brightest shine."

Thus while God spake ambrosial fragrance filled

All Heaven, and in the blessed Spirits elect

Sense of new joy ineffable diffused.

Beyond compare the Son of God was seen

Most glorious; in him all his Father shon

Substantially expressed; and in his face

Divine compassion visibly appeared,

Love without end, and without measure grace;

Which uttering, thus He to his Father spake; -

"O Father, gracious was that word which closed

Thy sovran sentence, that Man should find grace;

For which both Heaven and Earth shall high extol

Thy praises, with the innumerable sound

Of hymns and sacred songs, wherewith thy throne

Encompassed shall resound thee ever blest.

For, should Man finally be lost - should Man,

Thy creature late so loved, thy youngest son,

Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though joined

With his own folly -! That be from thee far,

That far be from thee, Father, who art judge

Of all things made, and judgest only right!

Or shall the Adversary thus obtain

His end, and frustrate thine? Shall he fulfil

His malice, and thy goodness bring to naught

Or proud return, though to his heavier doom

Yet with revenge accomplished, and to Hell

Draw after him the whole race of mankind,

By him corrupted? Or wilt thou thyself

Abolish thy creation, and unmake,

For him, what for thy glory thou hast made? -

So should thy goodness and thy greatness both

Be questioned and blasphemed without defense."

To whom the great Creator thus replied: -

"O Son, in whom my soul hath chief delight,

Son of my bosom, Son who art alone

My word, my wisdom, and effectual might,

All hast thou spoken as my thoughts are, all

As my eternal purpose hath decreed.

Man shall not quite be lost, but saved who will;

Yet not of will in him, but grace in me

Freely voutsafed. Once more I will renew

His lapsed powers, though forfeit, and enthralled

By sin to foul exorbitant desires:

Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand

On even ground against his mortal foe -

By me upheld, that he may know how frail

His fallen condition is, and to me owe

All his deliverance, and to none but me.

Some I have chosen of peculiar grace,

Elect above the rest; so is my will:

The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warned

Their sinful state, and to appease betimes

The incensed Deity, while offered grace

Invites; for I will clear their senses dark

What may suffice, and soften stony hearts

To pray, repent, and bring obedience due.

To prayer, repentance, and obedience due,

Though but endeavoured with sincere intent,

Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.

And I will place within them as a guide

My umpire Conscience; whom if they will hear,

Light after light well used they shall attain,

And to the end persisting safe arrive.

This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,

They who neglect and scorn shall never taste;

But hard be hardened, blind be blinded more,

That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;

And none but such from mercy I exclude. -

But yet all is not done. Man disobeying,

Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins

Against the high supremacy of Heaven,

Affecting Godhead, and, so losing all,

To expiate his treason hath naught left,

But, to destruction sacred and devote,

He with his whole posterity must die;

Die he or Justice must; unless for him

Some other, able, and as willing, pay

The rigid satisfaction, death for death.

Say, Heavenly Powers, where shall we find such love?

Which of ye will be mortal, to redeem

Man's mortal crime, and just, the unjust to save?

Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?"

He asked, but all the Heavenly Quire stood mute,

And silence was in Heaven: on Man's behalf

Patron or intercessor none appeared -

Much less that durst upon his own head draw

The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.

And now without redemption all mankind

Must have been lost, adjudged to Death and Hell

By doom severe, had not the Son of God,

In whom the fulness dwells of love divine,

His dearest mediation thus renewed: -

"Father, thy word is passed, Man shall find grace;

And shall Grace not find means, that finds her way,

The speediest of thy winged messengers,

To visit all thy creatures, and to all

Comes unprevented, unimplored, unsought?

Happy for Man, so coming! He her aid

Can never seek, once dead in sins and lost -

Atonement for himself, or offering meet,

Indebted and undone, hath none to bring.

Behold me, then: me for him, life for life,

I offer; on me let thine anger fall;

Account me Man: I for his sake will leave

Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee

Freely put off, and for him lastly die

Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage.

Under his gloomy power I shall not long

Lie vanquished. Thou hast given me to possess

Life in myself for ever; by thee I live;

Though now to Death I yield, and am his due,

All that of men can die, yet, that debt paid,

Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave

His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul

For ever with corruption there to dwell;

But I shall rise victorious, and subdue

My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.

Death his death's wound shall then receive, and stoop

Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed;

I through the ample air in triumph high

Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell, and show

The powers of Darkness bound. Thou, at the sight