Book I
1.
Of
Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
2.
Of
that forbidden tree whose mortal taste
3.
Brought
death into the World, and all our woe,
4.
With
loss of
5.
Restore
us, and regain the blissful seat,
6.
Sing,
Heavenly Muse, that, on the secret top
7.
Of
Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
8.
That
shepherd who first taught the chosen seed
9.
In
the beginning how the heavens and earth
10.
Rose
out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill
11.
Delight
thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed
12.
Fast
by the oracle of God, I thence
13.
Invoke
thy aid to my adventurous song,
14.
That
with no middle flight intends to soar
15.
Above
th' Aonian mount, while it pursues
16.
Things
unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.
17.
And
chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer
18.
Before
all temples th' upright heart and pure,
19.
Instruct
me, for thou know'st; thou from the first
20.
Wast
present, and, with mighty wings outspread,
21.
Dove-like
sat'st brooding on the vast Abyss,
22.
And
mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark
23.
Illumine,
what is low raise and support;
24.
That,
to the height of this great argument,
25.
I
may assert Eternal Providence,
26.
And
justify the ways of God to men.
27.
Say first--for Heaven hides nothing
from thy view,
28.
Nor
the deep tract of Hell--say first what cause
29.
Moved
our grand parents, in that happy state,
30.
Favoured
of Heaven so highly, to fall off
31.
From
their Creator, and transgress his will
32.
For
one restraint, lords of the World besides.
33.
Who
first seduced them to that foul revolt?
34.
Th' infernal Serpent; he it was
whose guile,
35.
Stirred
up with envy and revenge, deceived
36.
The
mother of mankind, what time his pride
37.
Had
cast him out from Heaven, with all his host
38.
Of
rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring
39.
To
set himself in glory above his peers,
40.
He
trusted to have equalled the Most High,
41.
If
he opposed, and with ambitious aim
42.
Against
the throne and monarchy of God,
43.
Raised
impious war in Heaven and battle proud,
44.
With
vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
45.
Hurled
headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,
46.
With
hideous ruin and combustion, down
47.
To
bottomless perdition, there to dwell
48.
In
adamantine chains and penal fire,
49.
Who
durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.
50.
Nine times the space that measures
day and night
51.
To
mortal men, he, with his horrid crew,
52.
Lay
vanquished, rolling in the fiery gulf,
53.
Confounded,
though immortal. But his doom
54.
Reserved
him to more wrath; for now the thought
55.
Both
of lost happiness and lasting pain
56.
Torments
him: round he throws his baleful eyes,
57.
That
witnessed huge affliction and dismay,
58.
Mixed
with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.
59.
At
once, as far as Angels ken, he views
60.
The
dismal situation waste and wild.
61.
A
dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
62.
As
one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames
63.
No
light; but rather darkness visible
64.
Served
only to discover sights of woe,
65.
Regions
of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
66.
And
rest can never dwell, hope never comes
67.
That
comes to all, but torture without end
68.
Still
urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
69.
With
ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.
70.
Such
place Eternal Justice has prepared
71.
For
those rebellious; here their prison ordained
72.
In
utter darkness, and their portion set,
73.
As
far removed from God and light of Heaven
74.
As
from the centre thrice to th' utmost pole.
75.
Oh
how unlike the place from whence they fell!
76.
There
the companions of his fall, o'erwhelmed
77.
With
floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,
78.
He
soon discerns; and, weltering by his side,
79.
One
next himself in power, and next in crime,
80.
Long
after known in
81.
Beelzebub.
To whom th' Arch-Enemy,
82.
And
thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words
83.
Breaking
the horrid silence, thus began:--
84.
"If thou beest he--but O how
fallen! how changed
85.
From
him who, in the happy realms of light
86.
Clothed
with transcendent brightness, didst outshine
87.
Myriads,
though bright!--if he whom mutual league,
88.
United
thoughts and counsels, equal hope
89.
And
hazard in the glorious enterprise
90.
Joined
with me once, now misery hath joined
91.
In
equal ruin; into what pit thou seest
92.
From
what height fallen: so much the stronger proved
93.
He
with his thunder; and till then who knew
94.
The
force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,
95.
Nor
what the potent Victor in his rage
96.
Can
else inflict, do I repent, or change,
97.
Though
changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,
98.
And
high disdain from sense of injured merit,
99.
That
with the Mightiest raised me to contend,
100.And to the fierce contentions brought along
101.Innumerable force of Spirits armed,
102.That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,
103.His utmost power with adverse power opposed
104.In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,
105.And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
106.All is not lost--the unconquerable will,
107.And study of revenge, immortal hate,
108.And courage never to submit or yield:
109.And what is else not to be overcome?
110.That glory never shall his wrath or might
111.Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
112.With suppliant knee, and deify his power
113.Who, from the terror of this arm, so late
114.Doubted his empire--that were low indeed;
115.That were an ignominy and shame beneath
116.This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,
117.And this empyreal sybstance, cannot fail;
118.Since, through experience of this great event,
119.In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
120.We may with more successful hope resolve
121.To wage by force or guile eternal war,
122.Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,
123.Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy
124.Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven."
125. So spake th'
apostate Angel, though in pain,
126.Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair;
127.And him thus answered soon his bold compeer:--
128. "O
Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers
129.That led th' embattled Seraphim to war
130.Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds
131.Fearless, endangered Heaven's perpetual King,
132.And put to proof his high supremacy,
133.Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate,
134.Too well I see and rue the dire event
135.That, with sad overthrow and foul defeat,
136.Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host
137.In horrible destruction laid thus low,
138.As far as Gods and heavenly Essences
139.Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains
140.Invincible, and vigour soon returns,
141.Though all our glory extinct, and happy state
142.Here swallowed up in endless misery.
143.But what if he our Conqueror (whom I now
144.Of force believe almighty, since no less
145.Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours)
146.Have left us this our spirit and strength entire,
147.Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
148.That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
149.Or do him mightier service as his thralls
150.By right of war, whate'er his business be,
151.Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,
152.Or do his errands in the gloomy Deep?
153.What can it the avail though yet we feel
154.Strength undiminished, or eternal being
155.To undergo eternal punishment?"
156. Whereto with
speedy words th' Arch-Fiend replied:--
157."Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,
158.Doing or suffering: but of this be sure--
159.To do aught good never will be our task,
160.But ever to do ill our sole delight,
161.As being the contrary to his high will
162.Whom we resist. If then his providence
163.Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
164.Our labour must be to pervert that end,
165.And out of good still to find means of evil;
166.Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps
167.Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
168.His inmost counsels from their destined aim.
169.But see! the angry Victor hath recalled
170.His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
171.Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,
172.Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid
173.The fiery surge that from the precipice
174.Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,
175.Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,
176.Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
177.To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.
178.Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn
179.Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.
180.Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
181.The seat of desolation, void of light,
182.Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
183.Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
184.From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
185.There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
186.And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,
187.Consult how we may henceforth most offend
188.Our enemy, our own loss how repair,
189.How overcome this dire calamity,
190.What reinforcement we may gain from hope,
191.If not, what resolution from despair."
192. Thus Satan,
talking to his nearest mate,
193.With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
194.That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides
195.Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
196.Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge
197.As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
198.Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,
199.Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
200.By ancient
201.Leviathan, which God of all his works
202.Created hugest that swim th' ocean-stream.
203.Him, haply slumbering on the
204.The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,
205.Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
206.With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
207.Moors by his side under the lee, while night
208.Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.
209.So stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay,
210.Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence
211.Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will
212.And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
213.Left him at large to his own dark designs,
214.That with reiterated crimes he might
215.Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
216.Evil to others, and enraged might see
217.How all his malice served but to bring forth
218.Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn
219.On Man by him seduced, but on himself
220.Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured.
221. Forthwith
upright he rears from off the pool
222.His mighty stature; on each hand the flames
223.Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and,rolled
224.In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale.
225.Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
226.Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
227.That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
228.He lights--if it were land that ever burned
229.With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
230.And such appeared in hue as when the force
231.Of subterranean wind transprots a hill
232.Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
233.Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
234.And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,
235.Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
236.And leave a singed bottom all involved
237.With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole
238.Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate;
239.Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood
240.As gods, and by their own recovered strength,
241.Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
242. "Is
this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
243.Said then the lost
244.That we must change for Heaven?--this mournful gloom
245.For that celestial light? Be it so, since he
246.Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid
247.What shall be right: farthest from him is best
248.Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
249.Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
250.Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
251.Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,
252.Receive thy new possessor--one who brings
253.A mind not to be changed by place or time.
254.The mind is its own place, and in itself
255.Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
256.What matter where, if I be still the same,
257.And what I should be, all but less than he
258.Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
259.We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
260.Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
261.Here we may reigh secure; and, in my choice,
262.To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
263.Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
264.But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
265.Th' associates and co-partners of our loss,
266.Lie thus astonished on th' oblivious pool,
267.And call them not to share with us their part
268.In this unhappy mansion, or once more
269.With rallied arms to try what may be yet
270.Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"
271. So Satan
spake; and him Beelzebub
272.Thus answered:--"Leader of those armies bright
273.Which, but th' Omnipotent, none could have foiled!
274.If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
275.Of hope in fears and dangers--heard so oft
276.In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
277.Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
278.Their surest signal--they will soon resume
279.New courage and revive, though now they lie
280.Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
281.As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
282.No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height!"
283. He scare had
ceased when the superior Fiend
284.Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,
285.Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
286.Behind him cast. The broad circumference
287.Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
288.Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
289.At evening, from the top of Fesole,
290.Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
291.Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
292.His spear--to equal which the tallest pine
293.Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
294.Of some great ammiral, were but a wand--
295.He walked with, to support uneasy steps
296.Over the burning marl, not like those steps
297.On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
298.Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
299.Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
300.Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called
301.His legions--Angel Forms, who lay entranced
302.Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
303.In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades
304.High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
305.Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed
306.Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
307.Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
308.While with perfidious hatred they pursued
309.The sojourners of
310.From the safe shore their floating carcases
311.And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,
312.Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
313.Under amazement of their hideous change.
314.He called so loud that all the hollow deep
315.Of Hell resounded:--"Princes, Potentates,
316.Warriors, the Flower of Heaven--once yours; now lost,
317.If such astonishment as this can seize
318.Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
319.After the toil of battle to repose
320.Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
321.To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
322.Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
323.To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
324.Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
325.With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
326.His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
327.Th' advantage, and, descending, tread us down
328.Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
329.Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
330.Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"
331. They heard,
and were abashed, and up they sprung
332.Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch
333.On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
334.Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.
335.Nor did they not perceive the evil plight
336.In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
337.Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed
338.Innumerable. As when the potent rod
339.Of Amram's son, in
340.Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud
341.Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
342.That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
343.Like Night, and darkened all the
344.So numberless were those bad Angels seen
345.Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,
346.'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
347.Till, as a signal given, th' uplifted spear
348.Of their great Sultan waving to direct
349.Their course, in even balance down they light
350.On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain:
351.A multitude like which the populous North
352.Poured never from her frozen loins to pass
353.Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
354.Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
355.Beneath
356.Forthwith, form every squadron and each band,
357.The heads and leaders thither haste where stood
358.Their great Commander--godlike Shapes, and Forms
359.Excelling human; princely Dignities;
360.And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones,
361.Though on their names in Heavenly records now
362.Be no memorial, blotted out and rased
363.By their rebellion from the Books of Life.
364.Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve
365.Got them new names, till, wandering o'er the earth,
366.Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,
367.By falsities and lies the greatest part
368.Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
369.God their Creator, and th' invisible
370.Glory of him that made them to transform
371.Oft to the image of a brute, adorned
372.With gay religions full of pomp and gold,
373.And devils to adore for deities:
374.Then were they known to men by various names,
375.And various idols through the heathen world.
376. Say, Muse,
their names then known, who first, who last,
377.Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch,
378.At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth
379.Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
380.While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof?
381. The chief
were those who, from the pit of Hell
382.Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix
383.Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,
384.Their altars by his altar, gods adored
385.Among the nations round, and durst abide
386.Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned
387.Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed
388.Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
389.Abominations; and with cursed things
390.His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,
391.And with their darkness durst affront his light.
392.First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
393.Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;
394.Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
395.Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire
396.To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
397.Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,
398.In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
399.Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
400.Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
401.Of Solomon he led by fraoud to build
402.His temple right against the
403.On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove
404.The pleasant
405.And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.
406.Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of
407.From Aroar to Nebo and the wild
408.Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
409.And Horonaim, Seon's real, beyond
410.The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
411.And Eleale to th' Asphaltic Pool:
412.Peor his other name, when he enticed
413.
414.To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
415.Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
416.Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove
417.Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate,
418.Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.
419.With these came they who, from the bordering flood
420.Of old
421.
422.Of Baalim and Ashtaroth--those male,
423.These feminine. For Spirits, when they please,
424.Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
425.And uncompounded is their essence pure,
426.Not tried or manacled with joint or limb,
427.Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
428.Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,
429.Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,
430.Can execute their airy purposes,
431.And works of love or enmity fulfil.
432.For those the race of
433.Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left
434.His righteous altar, bowing lowly down
435.To bestial gods; for which their heads as low
436.Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear
437.Of despicable foes. With these in troop
438.Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
439.Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns;
440.To whose bright image nigntly by the moon
441.Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
442.In Sion also not unsung, where stood
443.Her temple on th' offensive mountain, built
444.By that uxorious king whose heart, though large,
445.Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell
446.To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,
447.Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
448.The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
449.In amorous ditties all a summer's day,
450.While smooth Adonis from his native rock
451.Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
452.Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
453.Infected Sion's daughters with like heat,
454.Whose wanton passions in the sacred proch
455.Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,
456.His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
457.Of alienated
458.Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark
459.Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off,
460.In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge,
461.Where he fell flat and shamed his worshippers:
462.Dagon his name, sea-monster,upward man
463.And downward fish; yet had his temple high
464.Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
465.Of
466.And Accaron and
467.Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat
468.Was fair
469.Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
470.He also against the house of God was bold:
471.A leper once he lost, and gained a king--
472.Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew
473.God's altar to disparage and displace
474.For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn
475.His odious offerings, and adore the gods
476.Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared
477.A crew who, under names of old renown--
478.Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train--
479.With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused
480.Fanatic
481.Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms
482.Rather than human. Nor did
483.Th' infection, when their borrowed gold composed
484.The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king
485.Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,
486.Likening his Maker to the grazed ox--
487.Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed
488.From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke
489.Both her first-born and all her bleating gods.
490.Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more lewd
491.Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love
492.Vice for itself. To him no temple stood
493.Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he
494.In temples and at altars, when the priest
495.Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who filled
496.With lust and violence the house of God?
497.In courts and palaces he also reigns,
498.And in luxurious cities, where the noise
499.Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
500.And injury and outrage; and, when night
501.Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
502.Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
503.Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night
504.In Gibeah, when the hospitable door
505.Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape.
506. These were
the prime in order and in might:
507.The rest were long to tell; though far renowned
508.Th' Ionian gods--of Javan's issue held
509.Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth,
510.Their boasted parents;--Titan, Heaven's first-born,
511.With his enormous brood, and birthright seized
512.By younger Saturn: he from mightier Jove,
513.His own and Rhea's son, like measure found;
514.So Jove usurping reigned. These, first in Crete
515.And Ida known, thence on the snowy top
516.Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air,
517.Their highest heaven; or on the Delphian cliff,
518.Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds
519.Of Doric land; or who with Saturn old
520.Fled over Adria to th' Hesperian fields,
521.And o'er the Celtic roamed the utmost Isles.
522. All these
and more came flocking; but with looks
523.Downcast and damp; yet such wherein appeared
524.Obscure some glimpse of joy to have found their Chief
525.Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost
526.In loss itself; which on his countenance cast
527.Like doubtful hue. But he, his wonted pride
528.Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore
529.Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised
530.Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears.
531.Then straight commands that, at the warlike sound
532.Of trumpets loud and clarions, be upreared
533.His mighty standard. That proud honour claimed
534.Azazel as his right, a Cherub tall:
535.Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled
536.Th' imperial ensign; which, full high advanced,
537.Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind,
538.With gems and golden lustre rich emblazed,
539.Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while
540.Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:
541.At which the universal host up-sent
542.A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond
543.Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.
544.All in a moment through the gloom were seen
545.Ten thousand banners rise into the air,
546.With orient colours waving: with them rose
547.A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms
548.Appeared, and serried shields in thick array
549.Of depth immeasurable. Anon they move
550.In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood
551.Of flutes and soft recorders--such as raised
552.To height of noblest temper heroes old
553.Arming to battle, and instead of rage
554.Deliberate valour breathed, firm, and unmoved
555.With dread of death to flight or foul retreat;
556.Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage
557.With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chase
558.Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain
559.From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they,
560.Breathing united force with fixed thought,
561.Moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed
562.Their painful steps o'er the burnt soil. And now
563.Advanced in view they stand--a horrid front
564.Of dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guise
565.Of warriors old, with ordered spear and shield,
566.Awaiting what command their mighty Chief
567.Had to impose. He through the armed files
568.Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse
569.The whole battalion views--their order due,
570.Their visages and stature as of gods;
571.Their number last he sums. And now his heart
572.Distends with pride, and, hardening in his strength,
573.Glories: for never, since created Man,
574.Met such embodied force as, named with these,
575.Could merit more than that small infantry
576.Warred on by cranes--though all the giant brood
577.Of Phlegra with th' heroic race were joined
578.That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side
579.Mixed with auxiliar gods; and what resounds
580.In fable or romance of Uther's son,
581.Begirt with British and Armoric knights;
582.And all who since, baptized or infidel,
583.Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban,
584.Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond,
585.Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore
586.When Charlemain with all his peerage fell
587.By Fontarabbia. Thus far these beyond
588.Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed
589.Their dread Commander. He, above the rest
590.In shape and gesture proudly eminent,
591.Stood like a tower. His form had yet not lost
592.All her original brightness, nor appeared
593.Less than Archangel ruined, and th' excess
594.Of glory obscured: as when the sun new-risen
595.Looks through the horizontal misty air
596.Shorn of his beams, or, from behind the moon,
597.In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds
598.On half the nations, and with fear of change
599.Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shone
600.Above them all th' Archangel: but his face
601.Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care
602.Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows
603.Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride
604.Waiting revenge. Cruel his eye, but cast
605.Signs of remorse and passion, to behold
606.The fellows of his crime, the followers rather
607.(Far other once beheld in bliss), condemned
608.For ever now to have their lot in pain--
609.Millions of Spirits for his fault amerced
610.Of Heaven, and from eteranl splendours flung
611.For his revolt--yet faithful how they stood,
612.Their glory withered; as, when heaven's fire
613.Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines,
614.With singed top their stately growth, though bare,
615.Stands on the blasted heath. He now prepared
616.To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend
617.From wing to wing, and half enclose him round
618.With all his peers: attention held them mute.
619.Thrice he assayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn,
620.Tears, such as Angels weep, burst forth: at last
621.Words interwove with sighs found out their way:--
622. "O
myriads of immortal Spirits! O Powers
623.Matchless, but with th' Almighth!--and that strife
624.Was not inglorious, though th' event was dire,
625.As this place testifies, and this dire change,
626.Hateful to utter. But what power of mind,
627.Forseeing or presaging, from the depth
628.Of knowledge past or present, could have feared
629.How such united force of gods, how such
630.As stood like these, could ever know repulse?
631.For who can yet believe, though after loss,
632.That all these puissant legions, whose exile
633.Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend,
634.Self-raised, and repossess their native seat?
635.For me, be witness all the host of Heaven,
636.If counsels different, or danger shunned
637.By me, have lost our hopes. But he who reigns
638.Monarch in Heaven till then as one secure
639.Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,
640.Consent or custom, and his regal state
641.Put forth at full, but still his strength concealed--
642.Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.
643.Henceforth his might we know, and know our own,
644.So as not either to provoke, or dread
645.New war provoked: our better part remains
646.To work in close design, by fraud or guile,
647.What force effected not; that he no less
648.At length from us may find, who overcomes
649.By force hath overcome but half his foe.
650.Space may produce new Worlds; whereof so rife
651.There went a fame in Heaven that he ere long
652.Intended to create, and therein plant
653.A generation whom his choice regard
654.Should favour equal to the Sons of Heaven.
655.Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps
656.Our first eruption--thither, or elsewhere;
657.For this infernal pit shall never hold
658.Celestial Spirits in bondage, nor th' Abyss
659.Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts
660.Full counsel must mature. Peace is despaired;
661.For who can think submission? War, then, war
662.Open or understood, must be resolved."
663. He spake;
and, to confirm his words, outflew
664.Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
665.Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze
666.Far round illumined Hell. Highly they raged
667.Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms
668.Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,
669.Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven.
670. There stood
a hill not far, whose grisly top
671.Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire
672.Shone with a glossy scurf--undoubted sign
673.That in his womb was hid metallic ore,
674.The work of sulphur. Thither, winged with speed,
675.A numerous brigade hastened: as when bands
676.Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe armed,
677.Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field,
678.Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on--
679.Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
680.From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts
681.Were always downward bent, admiring more
682.The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold,
683.Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed
684.In vision beatific. By him first
685.Men also, and by his suggestion taught,
686.Ransacked the centre, and with impious hands
687.Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth
688.For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew
689.Opened into the hill a spacious wound,
690.And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire
691.That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best
692.Deserve the precious bane. And here let those
693.Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell
694.Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings,
695.Learn how their greatest monuments of fame
696.And strength, and art, are easily outdone
697.By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour
698.What in an age they, with incessant toil
699.And hands innumerable, scarce perform.
700.Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared,
701.That underneath had veins of liquid fire
702.Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude
703.With wondrous art founded the massy ore,
704.Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion-dross.
705.A third as soon had formed within the ground
706.A various mould, and from the boiling cells
707.By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook;
708.As in an organ, from one blast of wind,
709.To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.
710.Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
711.Rose like an exhalation, with the sound
712.Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet--
713.Built like a temple, where pilasters round
714.Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
715.With golden architrave; nor did there want
716.Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven;
717.The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon
718.Nor great Alcairo such magnificence
719.Equalled in all their glories, to enshrine
720.Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat
721.Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove
722.In wealth and luxury. Th' ascending pile
723.Stood fixed her stately height, and straight the doors,
724.Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide
725.Within, her ample spaces o'er the smooth
726.And level pavement: from the arched roof,
727.Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
728.Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
729.With naptha and asphaltus, yielded light
730.As from a sky. The hasty multitude
731.Admiring entered; and the work some praise,
732.And some the architect. His hand was known
733.In Heaven by many a towered structure high,
734.Where sceptred Angels held their residence,
735.And sat as Princes, whom the supreme King
736.Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
737.Each in his Hierarchy, the Orders bright.
738.Nor was his name unheard or unadored
739.In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
740.Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
741.From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
742.Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
743.To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
744.A summer's day, and with the setting sun
745.Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star,
746.On Lemnos, th' Aegaean isle. Thus they relate,
747.Erring; for he with this rebellious rout
748.Fell long before; nor aught aviled him now
749.To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did he scape
750.By all his engines, but was headlong sent,
751.With his industrious crew, to build in Hell.
752. Meanwhile
the winged Heralds, by command
753.Of sovereign power, with awful ceremony
754.And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim
755.A solemn council forthwith to be held
756.At Pandemonium, the high capital
757.Of Satan and his peers. Their summons called
758.From every band and squared regiment
759.By place or choice the worthiest: they anon
760.With hundreds and with thousands trooping came
761.Attended. All access was thronged; the gates
762.And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall
763.(Though like a covered field, where champions bold
764.Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair
765.Defied the best of Paynim chivalry
766.To mortal combat, or career with lance),
767.Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air,
768.Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees
769.In spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides.
770.Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
771.In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
772.Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
773.The suburb of their straw-built citadel,
774.New rubbed with balm, expatiate, and confer
775.Their state-affairs: so thick the airy crowd
776.Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given,
777.Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed
778.In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons,
779.Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
780.Throng numberless--like that pygmean race
781.Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves,
782.Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side
783.Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
784.Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon
785.Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth
786.Wheels her pale course: they, on their mirth and dance
787.Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;
788.At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.
789.Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms
790.Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,
791.Though without number still, amidst the hall
792.Of that infernal court. But far within,
793.And in their own dimensions like themselves,
794.The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim
795.In close recess and secret conclave sat,
796.A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,
797.Frequent and full. After short silence then,
798.And summons read, the great consult began.
799.
800.
801.
Book II
1.
High
on a throne of royal state, which far
2.
Outshone
the wealth or Ormus and of
3.
Or
where the gorgeous East with richest hand
4.
Showers
on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
5.
Satan
exalted sat, by merit raised
6.
To
that bad eminence; and, from despair
7.
Thus
high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
8.
Beyond
thus high, insatiate to pursue
9.
Vain
war with Heaven; and, by success untaught,
10.
His
proud imaginations thus displayed:--
11.
"Powers and Dominions, Deities
of Heaven!--
12.
For,
since no deep within her gulf can hold
13.
Immortal
vigour, though oppressed and fallen,
14.
I
give not Heaven for lost: from this descent
15.
Celestial
Virtues rising will appear
16.
More
glorious and more dread than from no fall,
17.
And
trust themselves to fear no second fate!--
18.
Me
though just right, and the fixed laws of Heaven,
19.
Did
first create your leader--next, free choice
20.
With
what besides in council or in fight
21.
Hath
been achieved of merit--yet this loss,
22.
Thus
far at least recovered, hath much more
23.
Established
in a safe, unenvied throne,
24.
Yielded
with full consent. The happier state
25.
In
Heaven, which follows dignity, might draw
26.
Envy
from each inferior; but who here
27.
Will
envy whom the highest place exposes
28.
Foremost
to stand against the Thunderer's aim
29.
Your
bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
30.
Of
endless pain? Where there is, then, no good
31.
For
which to strive, no strife can grow up there
32.
From
faction: for none sure will claim in Hell
33.
Precedence;
none whose portion is so small
34.
Of
present pain that with ambitious mind
35.
Will
covet more! With this advantage, then,
36.
To
union, and firm faith, and firm accord,
37.
More
than can be in Heaven, we now return
38.
To
claim our just inheritance of old,
39.
Surer
to prosper than prosperity
40.
Could
have assured us; and by what best way,
41.
Whether
of open war or covert guile,
42.
We
now debate. Who can advise may speak."
43.
He ceased; and next him Moloch,
sceptred king,
44.
Stood
up--the strongest and the fiercest Spirit
45.
That
fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair.
46.
His
trust was with th' Eternal to be deemed
47.
Equal
in strength, and rather than be less
48.
Cared
not to be at all; with that care lost
49.
Went
all his fear: of God, or Hell, or worse,
50.
He
recked not, and these words thereafter spake:--
51.
"My sentence is for open war.
Of wiles,
52.
More
unexpert, I boast not: them let those
53.
Contrive
who need, or when they need; not now.
54.
For,
while they sit contriving, shall the rest--
55.
Millions
that stand in arms, and longing wait
56.
The
signal to ascend--sit lingering here,
57.
Heaven's
fugitives, and for their dwelling-place
58.
Accept
this dark opprobrious den of shame,
59.
The
prison of his ryranny who reigns
60.
By
our delay? No! let us rather choose,
61.
Armed
with Hell-flames and fury, all at once
62.
O'er
Heaven's high towers to force resistless way,
63.
Turning
our tortures into horrid arms
64.
Against
the Torturer; when, to meet the noise
65.
Of
his almighty engine, he shall hear
66.
Infernal
thunder, and, for lightning, see
67.
Black
fire and horror shot with equal rage
68.
Among
his Angels, and his throne itself
69.
Mixed
with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
70.
His
own invented torments. But perhaps
71.
The
way seems difficult, and steep to scale
72.
With
upright wing against a higher foe!
73.
Let
such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
74.
Of
that forgetful lake benumb not still,
75.
That
in our porper motion we ascend
76.
Up
to our native seat; descent and fall
77.
To
us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
78.
When
the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
79.
Insulting,
and pursued us through the Deep,
80.
With
what compulsion and laborious flight
81.
We
sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy, then;
82.
Th'
event is feared! Should we again provoke
83.
Our
stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
84.
To
our destruction, if there be in Hell
85.
Fear
to be worse destroyed! What can be worse
86.
Than
to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned
87.
In
this abhorred deep to utter woe!
88.
Where
pain of unextinguishable fire
89.
Must
exercise us without hope of end
90.
The
vassals of his anger, when the scourge
91.
Inexorably,
and the torturing hour,
92.
Calls
us to penance? More destroyed than thus,
93.
We
should be quite abolished, and expire.
94.
What
fear we then? what doubt we to incense
95.
His
utmost ire? which, to the height enraged,
96.
Will
either quite consume us, and reduce
97.
To
nothing this essential--happier far
98.
Than
miserable to have eternal being!--
99.
Or,
if our substance be indeed divine,
100.And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
101.On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
102.Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,
103.And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
104.Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:
105.Which, if not victory, is yet revenge."
106. He ended
frowning, and his look denounced
107.Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
108.To less than gods. On th' other side up rose
109.Belial, in act more graceful and humane.
110.A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed
111.For dignity composed, and high exploit.
112.But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
113.Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear
114.The better reason, to perplex and dash
115.Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low--
116. To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
117.Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear,
118.And with persuasive accent thus began:--
119. "I
should be much for open war, O Peers,
120.As not behind in hate, if what was urged
121.Main reason to persuade immediate war
122.Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
123.Ominous conjecture on the whole success;
124.When he who most excels in fact of arms,
125.In what he counsels and in what excels
126.Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
127.And utter dissolution, as the scope
128.Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.
129.First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled
130.With armed watch, that render all access
131.Impregnable: oft on the bodering Deep
132.Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing
133.Scout far and wide into the realm of Night,
134.Scorning surprise. Or, could we break our way
135.By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise
136.With blackest insurrection to confound
137.Heaven's purest light, yet our great Enemy,
138.All incorruptible, would on his throne
139.Sit unpolluted, and th' ethereal mould,
140.Incapable of stain, would soon expel
141.Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
142.Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
143.Is flat despair: we must exasperate
144.Th' Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;
145.And that must end us; that must be our cure--
146.To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
147.Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
148.Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
149.To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
150.In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
151.Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,
152.Let this be good, whether our angry Foe
153.Can give it, or will ever? How he can
154.Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.
155.Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,
156.Belike through impotence or unaware,
157.To give his enemies their wish, and end
158.Them in his anger whom his anger saves
159.To punish endless? 'Wherefore cease we, then?'
160.Say they who counsel war; 'we are decreed,
161.Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;
162.Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
163.What can we suffer worse?' Is this, then, worst--
164.Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
165.What when we fled amain, pursued and struck
166.With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought
167.The Deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed
168.A refuge from those wounds. Or when we lay
169.Chained on the burning lake? That sure was worse.
170.What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,
171.Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,
172.And plunge us in the flames; or from above
173.Should intermitted vengeance arm again
174.His red right hand to plague us? What if all
175.Her stores were opened, and this firmament
176.Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
177.Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
178.One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
179.Designing or exhorting glorious war,
180.Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,
181.Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey
182.Or racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk
183.Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,
184.There to converse with everlasting groans,
185.Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,
186.Ages of hopeless end? This would be worse.
187.War, therefore, open or concealed, alike
188.My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile
189.With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye
190.Views all things at one view? He from Heaven's height
191.All these our motions vain sees and derides,
192.Not more almighty to resist our might
193.Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.
194.Shall we, then, live thus vile--the race of Heaven
195.Thus trampled, thus expelled, to suffer here
196.Chains and these torments? Better these than worse,
197.By my advice; since fate inevitable
198.Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,
199.The Victor's will. To suffer, as to do,
200.Our strength is equal; nor the law unjust
201.That so ordains. This was at first resolved,
202.If we were wise, against so great a foe
203.Contending, and so doubtful what might fall.
204.I laugh when those who at the spear are bold
205.And venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear
206.What yet they know must follow--to endure
207.Exile, or igominy, or bonds, or pain,
208.The sentence of their Conqueror. This is now
209.Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,
210.Our Supreme Foe in time may much remit
211.His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed,
212.Not mind us not offending, satisfied
213.With what is punished; whence these raging fires
214.Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.
215.Our purer essence then will overcome
216.Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel;
217.Or, changed at length, and to the place conformed
218.In temper and in nature, will receive
219.Familiar the fierce heat; and, void of pain,
220.This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;
221.Besides what hope the never-ending flight
222.Of future days may bring, what chance, what change
223.Worth waiting--since our present lot appears
224.For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
225.If we procure not to ourselves more woe."
226. Thus Belial,
with words clothed in reason's garb,
227.Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth,
228.Not peace; and after him thus Mammon spake:--
229. "Either
to disenthrone the King of Heaven
230.We war, if war be best, or to regain
231.Our own right lost. Him to unthrone we then
232.May hope, when everlasting Fate shall yield
233.To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.
234.The former, vain to hope, argues as vain
235.The latter; for what place can be for us
236.Within Heaven's bound, unless Heaven's Lord supreme
237.We overpower? Suppose he should relent
238.And publish grace to all, on promise made
239.Of new subjection; with what eyes could we
240.Stand in his presence humble, and receive
241.Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne
242.With warbled hyms, and to his Godhead sing
243.Forced hallelujahs, while he lordly sits
244.Our envied sovereign, and his altar breathes
245.Ambrosial odours and ambrosial flowers,
246.Our servile offerings? This must be our task
247.In Heaven, this our delight. How wearisome
248.Eternity so spent in worship paid
249.To whom we hate! Let us not then pursue,
250.By force impossible, by leave obtained
251.Unacceptable, though in Heaven, our state
252.Of splendid vassalage; but rather seek
253.Our own good from ourselves, and from our own
254.Live to ourselves, though in this vast recess,
255.Free and to none accountable, preferring
256.Hard liberty before the easy yoke
257.Of servile pomp. Our greatness will appear
258.Then most conspicuous when great things of small,
259.Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse,
260.We can create, and in what place soe'er
261.Thrive under evil, and work ease out of pain
262.Through labour and endurance. This deep world
263.Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst
264.Thick clouds and dark doth Heaven's all-ruling Sire
265.Choose to reside, his glory unobscured,
266.And with the majesty of darkness round
267.Covers his throne, from whence deep thunders roar.
268.Mustering their rage, and Heaven resembles Hell!
269.As he our darkness, cannot we his light
270.Imitate when we please? This desert soil
271.Wants not her hidden lustre, gems and gold;
272.Nor want we skill or art from whence to raise
273.Magnificence; and what can Heaven show more?
274.Our torments also may, in length of time,
275.Become our elements, these piercing fires
276.As soft as now severe, our temper changed
277.Into their temper; which must needs remove
278.The sensible of pain. All things invite
279.To peaceful counsels, and the settled state
280.Of order, how in safety best we may
281.Compose our present evils, with regard
282.Of what we are and where, dismissing quite
283.All thoughts of war. Ye have what I advise."
284. He scarce
had finished, when such murmur filled
285.Th' assembly as when hollow rocks retain
286.The sound of blustering winds, which all night long
287.Had roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lull
288.Seafaring men o'erwatched, whose bark by chance
289.Or pinnace, anchors in a craggy bay
290.After the tempest. Such applause was heard
291.As Mammon ended, and his sentence pleased,
292.Advising peace: for such another field
293.They dreaded worse than Hell; so much the fear
294.Of thunder and the sword of Michael
295.Wrought still within them; and no less desire
296.To found this nether empire, which might rise,
297.By policy and long process of time,
298.In emulation opposite to Heaven.
299.Which when Beelzebub perceived--than whom,
300.Satan except, none higher sat--with grave
301.Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed
302.A pillar of state. Deep on his front engraven
303.Deliberation sat, and public care;
304.And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
305.Majestic, though in ruin. Sage he stood
306.With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
307.The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
308.Drew audience and attention still as night
309.Or summer's noontide air, while thus he spake:--
310.
"Thrones and Imperial Powers, Offspring of Heaven,
311.Ethereal Virtues! or these titles now
312.Must we renounce, and, changing style, be called
313.Princes of Hell? for so the popular vote
314.Inclines--here to continue, and build up here
315.A growing empire; doubtless! while we dream,
316.And know not that the King of Heaven hath doomed
317.This place our dungeon, not our safe retreat
318.Beyond his potent arm, to live exempt
319.From Heaven's high jurisdiction, in new league
320.Banded against his throne, but to remain
321.In strictest bondage, though thus far removed,
322.Under th' inevitable curb, reserved
323.His captive multitude. For he, to be sure,
324.In height or depth, still first and last will reign
325.Sole king, and of his kingdom lose no part
326.By our revolt, but over Hell extend
327.His empire, and with iron sceptre rule
328.Us here, as with his golden those in Heaven.
329.What sit we then projecting peace and war?
330.War hath determined us and foiled with loss
331.Irreparable; terms of peace yet none
332.Vouchsafed or sought; for what peace will be given
333.To us enslaved, but custody severe,
334.And stripes and arbitrary punishment
335.Inflicted? and what peace can we return,
336.But, to our power, hostility and hate,
337.Untamed reluctance, and revenge, though slow,
338.Yet ever plotting how the Conqueror least
339.May reap his conquest, and may least rejoice
340.In doing what we most in suffering feel?
341.Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need
342.With dangerous expedition to invade
343.Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege,
344.Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find
345.Some easier enterprise? There is a place
346.(If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven
347.Err not)--another World, the happy seat
348.Of some new race, called Man, about this time
349.To be created like to us, though less
350.In power and excellence, but favoured more
351.Of him who rules above; so was his will
352.Pronounced among the Gods, and by an oath
353.That shook Heaven's whole circumference confirmed.
354.Thither let us bend all our thoughts, to learn
355.What creatures there inhabit, of what mould
356.Or substance, how endued, and what their power
357.And where their weakness: how attempted best,
358.By force of subtlety. Though Heaven be shut,
359.And Heaven's high Arbitrator sit secure
360.In his own strength, this place may lie exposed,
361.The utmost border of his kingdom, left
362.To their defence who hold it: here, perhaps,
363.Some advantageous act may be achieved
364.By sudden onset--either with Hell-fire
365.To waste his whole creation, or possess
366.All as our own, and drive, as we were driven,
367.The puny habitants; or, if not drive,
368.Seduce them to our party, that their God
369.May prove their foe, and with repenting hand
370.Abolish his own works. This would surpass
371.Common revenge, and interrupt his joy
372.In our confusion, and our joy upraise
373.In his disturbance; when his darling sons,
374.Hurled headlong to partake with us, shall curse
375.Their frail original, and faded bliss--
376.Faded so soon! Advise if this be worth
377.Attempting, or to sit in darkness here
378.Hatching vain empires." Thus beelzebub
379.Pleaded his devilish counsel--first devised
380.By Satan, and in part proposed: for whence,
381.But from the author of all ill, could spring
382.So deep a malice, to confound the race
383.Of mankind in one root, and Earth with Hell
384.To mingle and involve, done all to spite
385.The great Creator? But their spite still serves
386.His glory to augment. The bold design
387.Pleased highly those infernal States, and joy
388.Sparkled in all their eyes: with full assent
389.They vote: whereat his speech he thus renews:--
390."Well have ye judged, well ended long debate,
391.Synod of Gods, and, like to what ye are,
392.Great things resolved, which from the lowest deep
393.Will once more lift us up, in spite of fate,
394.Nearer our ancient seat--perhaps in view
395.Of those bright confines, whence, with neighbouring arms,
396.And opportune excursion, we may chance
397.Re-enter Heaven; or else in some mild zone
398.Dwell, not unvisited of Heaven's fair light,
399.Secure, and at the brightening orient beam
400.Purge off this gloom: the soft delicious air,
401.To heal the scar of these corrosive fires,
402.Shall breathe her balm. But, first, whom shall we send
403.In search of this new World? whom shall we find
404.Sufficient? who shall tempt with wandering feet
405.The dark, unbottomed, infinite Abyss,
406.And through the palpable obscure find out
407.His uncouth way, or spread his airy flight,
408.Upborne with indefatigable wings
409.Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
410.The happy Isle? What strength, what art, can then
411.Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe,
412.Through the strict senteries and stations thick
413.Of Angels watching round? Here he had need
414.All circumspection: and we now no less
415.Choice in our suffrage; for on whom we send
416.The weight of all, and our last hope, relies."
417. This said,
he sat; and expectation held
418.His look suspense, awaiting who appeared
419.To second, or oppose, or undertake
420.The perilous attempt. But all sat mute,
421.Pondering the danger with deep thoughts; and each
422.In other's countenance read his own dismay,
423.Astonished. None among the choice and prime
424.Of those Heaven-warring champions could be found
425.So hardy as to proffer or accept,
426.Alone, the dreadful voyage; till, at last,
427.Satan, whom now transcendent glory raised
428.Above his fellows, with monarchal pride
429.Conscious of highest worth, unmoved thus spake:--
430. "O
Progeny of Heaven! Empyreal Thrones!
431.With reason hath deep silence and demur
432.Seized us, though undismayed. Long is the way
433.And hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.
434.Our prison strong, this huge convex of fire,
435.Outrageous to devour, immures us round
436.Ninefold; and gates of burning adamant,
437.Barred over us, prohibit all egress.
438.These passed, if any pass, the void profound
439.Of unessential Night receives him next,
440.Wide-gaping, and with utter loss of being
441.Threatens him, plunged in that abortive gulf.
442.If thence he scape, into whatever world,
443.Or unknown region, what remains him less
444.Than unknown dangers, and as hard escape?
445.But I should ill become this throne, O Peers,
446.And this imperial sovereignty, adorned
447.With splendour, armed with power, if aught proposed
448.And judged of public moment in the shape
449.Of difficulty or danger, could deter
450.Me from attempting. Wherefore do I assume
451.These royalties, and not refuse to reign,
452.Refusing to accept as great a share
453.Of hazard as of honour, due alike
454.To him who reigns, and so much to him due
455.Of hazard more as he above the rest
456.High honoured sits? Go, therefore, mighty Powers,
457.Terror of Heaven, though fallen; intend at home,
458.While here shall be our home, what best may ease
459.The present misery, and render Hell
460.More tolerable; if there be cure or charm
461.To respite, or deceive, or slack the pain
462.Of this ill mansion: intermit no watch
463.Against a wakeful foe, while I abroad
464.Through all the coasts of dark destruction seek
465.Deliverance for us all. This enterprise
466.None shall partake with me." Thus saying, rose
467.The Monarch, and prevented all reply;
468.Prudent lest, from his resolution raised,
469.Others among the chief might offer now,
470.Certain to be refused, what erst they feared,
471.And, so refused, might in opinion stand
472.His rivals, winning cheap the high repute
473.Which he through hazard huge must earn. But they
474.Dreaded not more th' adventure than his voice
475.Forbidding; and at once with him they rose.
476.Their rising all at once was as the sound
477.Of thunder heard remote. Towards him they bend
478.With awful reverence prone, and as a God
479.Extol him equal to the Highest in Heaven.
480.Nor failed they to express how much they praised
481.That for the general safety he despised
482.His own: for neither do the Spirits damned
483.Lose all their virtue; lest bad men should boast
484.Their specious deeds on earth, which glory excites,
485.Or close ambition varnished o'er with zeal.
486. Thus they
their doubtful consultations dark
487.Ended, rejoicing in their matchless Chief:
488.As, when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds
489.Ascending, while the north wind sleeps, o'erspread
490.Heaven's cheerful face, the louring element
491.Scowls o'er the darkened landscape snow or shower,
492.If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet,
493.Extend his evening beam, the fields revive,
494.The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds
495.Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings.
496.O shame to men! Devil with devil damned
497.Firm concord holds; men only disagree
498.Of creatures rational, though under hope
499.Of heavenly grace, and, God proclaiming peace,
500.Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife
501.Among themselves, and levy cruel wars
502.Wasting the earth, each other to destroy:
503.As if (which might induce us to accord)
504.Man had not hellish foes enow besides,
505.That day and night for his destruction wait!
506. The Stygian
council thus dissolved; and forth
507.In order came the grand infernal Peers:
508.Midst came their mighty Paramount, and seemed
509.Alone th' antagonist of Heaven, nor less
510.Than Hell's dread Emperor, with pomp supreme,
511.And god-like imitated state: him round
512.A globe of fiery Seraphim enclosed
513.With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms.
514.Then of their session ended they bid cry
515.With trumpet's regal sound the great result:
516.Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim
517.Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy,
518.By herald's voice explained; the hollow Abyss
519.Heard far adn wide, and all the host of Hell
520.With deafening shout returned them loud acclaim.
521.Thence more at ease their minds, and somewhat raised
522.By false presumptuous hope, the ranged Powers
523.Disband; and, wandering, each his several way
524.Pursues, as inclination or sad choice
525.Leads him perplexed, where he may likeliest find
526.Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain
527.The irksome hours, till his great Chief return.
528.Part on the plain, or in the air sublime,
529.Upon the wing or in swift race contend,
530.As at th' Olympian games or Pythian fields;
531.Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal
532.With rapid wheels, or fronted brigades form:
533.As when, to warn proud cities, war appears
534.Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush
535.To battle in the clouds; before each van
536.Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears,
537.Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms
538.From either end of heaven the welkin burns.
539.Others, with vast Typhoean rage, more fell,
540.Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air
541.In whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild uproar:--
542.As when Alcides, from Oechalia crowned
543.With conquest, felt th' envenomed robe, and tore
544.Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines,
545.And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw
546.Into th' Euboic sea. Others, more mild,
547.Retreated in a silent valley, sing
548.With notes angelical to many a harp
549.Their own heroic deeds, and hapless fall
550.By doom of battle, and complain that Fate
551.Free Virtue should enthrall to Force or Chance.
552.Their song was partial; but the harmony
553.(What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?)
554.Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment
555.The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet
556.(For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense)
557.Others apart sat on a hill retired,
558.In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
559.Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate--
560.Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
561.And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.
562.Of good and evil much they argued then,
563.Of happiness and final misery,
564.Passion and apathy, and glory and shame:
565.Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy!--
566.Yet, with a pleasing sorcery, could charm
567.Pain for a while or anguish, and excite
568.Fallacious hope, or arm th' obdured breast
569.With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
570.Another part, in squadrons and gross bands,
571.On bold adventure to discover wide
572.That dismal world, if any clime perhaps
573.Might yield them easier habitation, bend
574.Four ways their flying march, along the banks
575.Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge
576.Into the burning lake their baleful streams--
577.Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
578.Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;
579.Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
580.Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton,
581.Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
582.Far off from these, a slow and silent stream,
583.Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls
584.Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks
585.Forthwith his former state and being forgets--
586.Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
587.Beyond this flood a frozen continent
588.Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
589.Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
590.Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
591.Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice,
592.A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
593.Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,
594.Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
595.Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire.
596.Thither, by harpy-footed Furies haled,
597.At certain revolutions all the damned
598.Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change
599.Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,
600.From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
601.Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
602.Immovable, infixed, and frozen round
603.Periods of time,--thence hurried back to fire.
604.They ferry over this Lethean sound
605.Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment,
606.And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach
607.The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose
608.In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,
609.All in one moment, and so near the brink;
610.But Fate withstands, and, to oppose th' attempt,
611.Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards
612.The ford, and of itself the water flies
613.All taste of living wight, as once it fled
614.The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on
615.In confused march forlorn, th' adventurous bands,
616.With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,
617.Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found
618.No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale
619.They passed, and many a region dolorous,
620.O'er many a frozen, many a fiery alp,
621.Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of
death--
622.A universe of death, which God by curse
623.Created evil, for evil only good;
624.Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds,
625.Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
626.Obominable, inutterable, and worse
627.Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived,
628.Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.
629. Meanwhile
the Adversary of God and Man,
630.Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design,
631.Puts on swift wings, and toward the gates of Hell
632.Explores his solitary flight: sometimes
633.He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left;
634.Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars
635.Up to the fiery concave towering high.
636.As when far off at sea a fleet descried
637.Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds
638.Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles
639.Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring
640.Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood,
641.Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape,
642.Ply stemming nightly toward the pole: so seemed
643.Far off the flying Fiend. At last appear
644.Hell-bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,
645.And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass,
646.Three iron, three of adamantine rock,
647.Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,
648.Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat
649.On either side a formidable Shape.
650.The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair,
651.But ended foul in many a scaly fold,
652.Voluminous and vast--a serpent armed
653.With mortal sting. About her middle round
654.A cry of Hell-hounds never-ceasing barked
655.With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
656.A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
657.If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,
658.And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled
659.Within unseen. Far less abhorred than these
660.Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts
661.Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore;
662.Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, called
663.In secret, riding through the air she comes,
664.Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
665.With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon
666.Eclipses at their charms. The other Shape--
667.If shape it might be called that shape had none
668.Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
669.Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,
670.For each seemed either--black it stood as Night,
671.Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,
672.And shook a dreadful dart: what seemed his head
673.The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
674.Satan was now at hand, and from his seat
675.The monster moving onward came as fast
676.With horrid strides; Hell trembled as he strode.
677.Th' undaunted Fiend what this might be admired--
678.Admired, not feared (God and his Son except,
679.Created thing naught valued he nor shunned),
680.And with disdainful look thus first began:--
681. "Whence
and what art thou, execrable Shape,
682.That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance
683.Thy miscreated front athwart my way
684.To yonder gates? Through them I mean to pass,
685.That be assured, without leave asked of thee.
686.Retire; or taste thy folly, and learn by proof,
687.Hell-born, not to contend with Spirits of Heaven."
688. To whom the
Goblin, full of wrath, replied:--
689."Art thou that traitor Angel? art thou he,
690.Who first broke peace in Heaven and faith, till then
691.Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms
692.Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons,
693.Conjured against the Highest--for which both thou
694.And they, outcast from God, are here condemned
695.To waste eternal days in woe and pain?
696.And reckon'st thou thyself with Spirits of Heaven
697.Hell-doomed, and breath'st defiance here and scorn,
698.Where I reign king, and, to enrage thee more,
699.Thy king and lord? Back to thy punishment,
700.False fugitive; and to thy speed add wings,
701.Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue
702.Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart
703.Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."
704. So spake the
grisly Terror, and in shape,
705.So speaking and so threatening, grew tenfold,
706.More dreadful and deform. On th' other side,
707.Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
708.Unterrified, and like a comet burned,
709.That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
710.In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
711.Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head
712.Levelled his deadly aim; their fatal hands
713.No second stroke intend; and such a frown
714.Each cast at th' other as when two black clouds,
715.With heaven's artillery fraught, came rattling on
716.Over the Caspian,--then stand front to front
717.Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
718.To join their dark encounter in mid-air.
719.So frowned the mighty combatants that Hell
720.Grew darker at their frown; so matched they stood;
721.For never but once more was wither like
722.To meet so great a foe. And now great deeds
723.Had been achieved, whereof all Hell had rung,
724.Had not the snaky Sorceress, that sat
725.Fast by Hell-gate and kept the fatal key,
726.Risen, and with hideous outcry rushed between.
727. "O
father, what intends thy hand," she cried,
728."Against thy only son? What fury, O son,
729.Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart
730.Against thy father's head? And know'st for whom?
731.For him who sits above, and laughs the while
732.At thee, ordained his drudge to execute
733.Whate'er his wrath, which he calls justice, bids--
734.His wrath, which one day will destroy ye both!"
735. She spake,
and at her words the hellish Pest
736.Forbore: then these to her Satan returned:--
737. "So
strange thy outcry, and thy words so strange
738.Thou interposest, that my sudden hand,
739.Prevented, spares to tell thee yet by deeds
740.What it intends, till first I know of thee
741.What thing thou art, thus double-formed, and why,
742.In this infernal vale first met, thou call'st
743.Me father, and that phantasm call'st my son.
744.I know thee not, nor ever saw till now
745.Sight more detestable than him and thee."
746. T' whom thus
the Portress of Hell-gate replied:--
747."Hast thou forgot me, then; and do I seem
748.Now in thine eye so foul?--once deemed so fair
749.In Heaven, when at th' assembly, and in sight
750.Of all the Seraphim with thee combined
751.In bold conspiracy against Heaven's King,
752.All on a sudden miserable pain
753.Surprised thee, dim thine eyes and dizzy swum
754.In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast
755.Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide,
756.Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,
757.Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed,
758.Out of thy head I sprung. Amazement seized
759.All th' host of Heaven; back they recoiled afraid
760.At first, and called me Sin, and for a sign
761.Portentous held me; but, familiar grown,
762.I pleased, and with attractive graces won
763.The most averse--thee chiefly, who, full oft
764.Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing,
765.Becam'st enamoured; and such joy thou took'st
766.With me in secret that my womb conceived
767.A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,
768.And fields were fought in Heaven: wherein remained
769.(For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe
770.Clear victory; to our part loss and rout
771.Through all the Empyrean. Down they fell,
772.Driven headlong from the pitch of Heaven, down
773.Into this Deep; and in the general fall
774.I also: at which time this powerful key
775.Into my hands was given, with charge to keep
776.These gates for ever shut, which none can pass
777.Without my opening. Pensive here I sat
778.Alone; but long I sat not, till my womb,
779.Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown,
780.Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes.
781.At last this odious offspring whom thou seest,
782.Thine own begotten, breaking violent way,
783.Tore through my entrails, that, with fear and pain
784.Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew
785.Transformed: but he my inbred enemy
786.Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart,
787.Made to destroy. I fled, and cried out Death!
788.Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed
789.From all her caves, and back resounded Death!
790.I fled; but he pursued (though more, it seems,
791.Inflamed with lust than rage), and, swifter far,
792.Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed,
793.And, in embraces forcible and foul
794.Engendering with me, of that rape begot
795.These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry
796.Surround me, as thou saw'st--hourly conceived
797.And hourly born, with sorrow infinite
798.To me; for, when they list, into the womb
799.That bred them they return, and howl, and gnaw
800.My bowels, their repast; then, bursting forth
801.Afresh, with conscious terrors vex me round,
802.That rest or intermission none I find.
803.Before mine eyes in opposition sits
804.Grim Death, my son and foe, who set them on,
805.And me, his parent, would full soon devour
806.For want of other prey, but that he knows
807.His end with mine involved, and knows that I
808.Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
809.Whenever that shall be: so Fate pronounced.
810.But thou, O father, I forewarn thee, shun
811.His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope
812.To be invulnerable in those bright arms,
813.Through tempered heavenly; for that mortal dint,
814.Save he who reigns above, none can resist."
815. She
finished; and the subtle Fiend his lore
816.Soon learned, now milder, and thus answered smooth:--
817. "Dear
daughter--since thou claim'st me for thy sire,
818.And my fair son here show'st me, the dear pledge
819.Of dalliance had with thee in Heaven, and joys
820.Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change
821.Befallen us unforeseen, unthought-of--know,
822.I come no enemy, but to set free
823.From out this dark and dismal house of pain
824.Both him and thee, and all the heavenly host
825.Of Spirits that, in our just pretences armed,
826.Fell with us from on high. From them I go
827.This uncouth errand sole, and one for all
828.Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread
829.Th' unfounded Deep, and through the void immense
830.To search, with wandering quest, a place foretold
831.Should be--and, by concurring signs, ere now
832.Created vast and round--a place of bliss
833.In the purlieus of Heaven; and therein placed
834.A race of upstart creatures, to supply
835.Perhaps our vacant room, though more removed,
836.Lest Heaven, surcharged with potent multitude,
837.Might hap to move new broils. Be this, or aught
838.Than this more secret, now designed, I haste
839.To know; and, this once known, shall soon return,
840.And bring ye to the place where thou and Death
841.Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen
842.Wing silently the buxom air, embalmed
843.With odours. There ye shall be fed and filled
844.Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey."
845. He ceased;
for both seemed highly pleased, and Death
846.Grinned horrible a ghastly smile, to hear
847.His famine should be filled, and blessed his maw
848.Destined to that good hour. No less rejoiced
849.His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire:--
850. "The
key of this infernal Pit, by due
851.And by command of Heaven's all-powerful King,
852.I keep, by him forbidden to unlock
853.These adamantine gates; against all force
854.Death ready stands to interpose his dart,
855.Fearless to be o'ermatched by living might.
856.But what owe I to his commands above,
857.Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down
858.Into this gloom of Tartarus profound,
859.To sit in hateful office here confined,
860.Inhabitant of Heaven and heavenly born--
861.Here in perpetual agony and pain,
862.With terrors and with clamours compassed round
863.Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed?
864.Thou art my father, thou my author, thou
865.My being gav'st me; whom should I obey
866.But thee? whom follow? Thou wilt bring me soon
867.To that new world of light and bliss, among
868.The gods who live at ease, where I shall reign
869.At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems
870.Thy daughter and thy darling, without end."
871. Thus saying,
from her side the fatal key,
872.Sad instrument of all our woe, she took;
873.And, towards the gate rolling her bestial train,
874.Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew,
875.Which, but herself, not all the Stygian Powers
876.Could once have moved; then in the key-hole turns
877.Th' intricate wards, and every bolt and bar
878.Of massy iron or solid rock with ease
879.Unfastens. On a sudden open fly,
880.With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,
881.Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
882.Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
883.Of Erebus. She opened; but to shut
884.Excelled her power: the gates wide open stood,
885.That with extended wings a bannered host,
886.Under spread ensigns marching, mibht pass through
887.With horse and chariots ranked in loose array;
888.So wide they stood, and like a furnace-mouth
889.Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.
890.Before their eyes in sudden view appear
891.The secrets of the hoary Deep--a dark
892.Illimitable ocean, without bound,
893.Without dimension; where length, breadth, and height,
894.And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night
895.And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
896.Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
897.Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.
898.For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce,
899.Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring
900.Their embryon atoms: they around the flag
901.Of each his faction, in their several clans,
902.Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow,
903.Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands
904.Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,
905.Levied to side with warring winds, and poise
906.Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere
907.He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits,
908.And by decision more embroils the fray
909.By which he reigns: next him, high arbiter,
910.Chance governs all. Into this wild Abyss,
911.The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,
912.Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
913.But all these in their pregnant causes mixed
914.Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,
915.Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain
916.His dark materials to create more worlds--
917.Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend
918.Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,
919.Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith
920.He had to cross. Nor was his ear less pealed
921.With noises loud and ruinous (to compare
922.Great things with small) than when Bellona storms
923.With all her battering engines, bent to rase
924.Some capital city; or less than if this frame
925.Of Heaven were falling, and these elements
926.In mutiny had from her axle torn
927.The steadfast Earth. At last his sail-broad vans
928.He spread for flight, and, in the surging smoke
929.Uplifted, spurns the ground; thence many a league,
930.As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides
931.Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets
932.A vast vacuity. All unawares,
933.Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops
934.Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour
935.Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance,
936.The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
937.Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
938.As many miles aloft. That fury stayed--
939.Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea,
940.Nor good dry land--nigh foundered, on he fares,
941.Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
942.Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.
943.As when a gryphon through the wilderness
944.With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,
945.Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
946.Had from his wakeful custody purloined
947.The guarded gold; so eagerly the Fiend
948.O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
949.With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
950.And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.
951.At length a universal hubbub wild
952.Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused,
953.Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear
954.With loudest vehemence. Thither he plies
955.Undaunted, to meet there whatever Power
956.Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss
957.Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask
958.Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies
959.Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne
960.Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread
961.Wide on the wasteful Deep! With him enthroned
962.Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,
963.The consort of his reign; and by them stood
964.Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
965.Of Demogorgon; Rumour next, and Chance,
966.And Tumult, and Confusion, all embroiled,
967.And Discord with a thousand various mouths.
968. T' whom
Satan, turning boldly, thus:--"Ye Powers
969.And Spirtis of this nethermost Abyss,
970.Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy
971.With purpose to explore or to disturb
972.The secrets of your realm; but, by constraint
973.Wandering this darksome desert, as my way
974.Lies through your spacious empire up to light,
975.Alone and without guide, half lost, I seek,
976.What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds
977.Confine with Heaven; or, if some other place,
978.From your dominion won, th' Ethereal King
979.Possesses lately, thither to arrive
980.I travel this profound. Direct my course:
981.Directed, no mean recompense it brings
982.To your behoof, if I that region lost,
983.All usurpation thence expelled, reduce
984.To her original darkness and your sway
985.(Which is my present journey), and once more
986.Erect the standard there of ancient Night.
987.Yours be th' advantage all, mine the revenge!"
988. Thus Satan;
and him thus the Anarch old,
989.With faltering speech and visage incomposed,
990.Answered:
"I know thee, stranger, who thou art-- ***