Man Anointed universal King all Power I give thee reign for ever and assume Thy Merits under thee as Head Supream Thrones Princedoms Powers Dominions I reduce All knees to thee shall bow of them that bide In Heaven or Earth or under Earth in Hell When thou attended gloriously from Heav'n Shalt in the Sky appeer and from thee send The summoning Arch-Angels to proclaime Thy dread Tribunal forthwith from all Windes The living and forthwith the cited dead Of all past Ages to the general Doom Shall hast'n such a peal shall rouse thir sleep Then all thy Saints assembl'd thou shalt judge Bad men and Angels they arraignd shall sink Beneath thy Sentence Hell her numbers full Thenceforth shall be for ever shut Mean while The World shall burn and from her ashes spring New Heav'n and Earth wherein the just shall dwell And after all thir tribulations long See golden days fruitful of golden deeds With Joy and Love triumphing and fair Truth Then thou thy regal Scepter shalt lay by For regal Scepter then no more shall need God shall be All in All. But all ye Gods Adore him who to compass all this dies Adore the Son and honour him as mee No sooner had th' Almighty ceas't but all The multitude of Angels with a shout Loud as from numbers without number sweet As from blest voices uttering joy Heav'n rung With Jubilee and loud Hosanna's filld Th' eternal Regions lowly reverent Towards either Throne they bow and to the ground With solemn adoration down they cast Thir Crowns inwove with Amarant and Gold Immortal Amarant a Flour which once In Paradise fast by the Tree of Life Began to bloom but soon for mans offence To Heav'n remov'd where first it grew there grows And flours aloft shading the Fount of Life And where the river of Bliss through midst of Heavn Rowls o're Elisian Flours her Amber stream With these that never fade the Spirits elect Bind thir resplendent locks inwreath'd with beams Now in loose Garlands thick thrown off the bright Pavement that like a Sea of Jasper shon Impurpl'd with Celestial Roses smil'd Then Crown'd again thir gold'n Harps they took Harps ever tun'd that glittering by thir side Like Quivers hung and with Praeamble sweet Of charming symphonie they introduce Thir sacred Song and waken raptures high No voice exempt no voice but well could joine Melodious part such concord is in Heav'n Thee Father first they sung Omnipotent Immutable Immortal Infinite Eternal King thee Author of all being Fountain of Light thy self invisible Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit'st Thron'd inaccessible but when thou shad'st The full blaze of thy beams and through a cloud Drawn round about thee like a radiant Shrine Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appeer Yet dazle Heav'n that brightest Seraphim Approach not but with both wings veil thir eyes Thee next they sang of all Creation first Begotten Son Divine Similitude In whose conspicuous count'nance without cloud Made visible th' Almighty Father shines Whom else no Creature can behold on thee Impresst the effulgence of his Glorie abides Transfus'd on thee his ample Spirit rests Hee Heav'n of Heavens and all the Powers therein By thee created and by thee threw down Th' aspiring Dominations thou that day Thy Fathers dreadful Thunder didst not spare Nor stop thy flaming Chariot wheels that shook Heav'ns everlasting Frame while o're the necks Thou drov'st of warring Angels disarraid Back from pursuit thy Powers with loud acclaime Thee only extoll'd Son of thy Fathers might To execute fierce vengeance on his foes Not so on Man him through their malice fall'n Father of Mercie and Grace thou didst not doome So strictly but much more to pitie encline No sooner did thy dear and onely Son Perceive thee purpos'd not to doom frail Man So strictly but much more to pitie enclin'd He to appease thy wrauth and end the strife Of Mercy and Justice in thy face discern'd Regardless of the Bliss wherein hee sat Second to thee offerd himself to die For mans offence O unexampl'd love Love no where to be found less then Divine Hail Son of God Saviour of Men thy Name Shall be the copious matter of my Song Henceforth and never shall my Harp thy praise Forget nor from thy Fathers praise disjoine Thus they in Heav'n above the starry Sphear Thir happie hours in joy and hymning spent Mean while upon the firm opacous Globe Of this round World whose first convex divides The luminous inferior Orbs enclos'd From Chaos and th' inroad of Darkness old Satan alighted walks a Globe farr off It seem'd now seems a boundless Continent Dark waste and wild under the frown of Night Starless expos'd and ever-threatning storms Of Chaos blustring round inclement skie Save on that side which from the wall of Heav'n Though distant farr som small reflection gaines Of glimmering air less vext with tempest loud Here walk'd the Fiend at large in spacious field As when a Vultur on Imaus bred Whose snowie ridge the roving Tartar bounds Dislodging from a Region scarce of prey To gorge the flesh of Lambs or yeanling Kids Oâ— Hills where Flocks are fed flies toward the Springs Of Ganges or Hydaspes Indian streams But in his way lights on the barren Plaines Of Sericana where Chineses drive With Sails and Wind thir canie Waggons light So on this windie Sea of Land the Fiend Walk'd up and down alone bent on his prey Alone for other Creature in this place Living or liveless to be found was none None yet but store hereafter from the earth Up hither like Aereal vapours flew Of all things transitorie and vain when Sin With vanity had filld the works of men Both all things vain and all who in vain things Built thir fond hopes of Glorie or lasting fame Or happiness in this or th' other life All who have thir reward on Earth the fruits Of painful Superstition and blind Zeal Naught seeking but the praise of men here find Fit retribution emptie as thir deeds All th' unaccompisht works of Natures hand Abortive monstrous or unkindly mixt Dissolvd on Earth fleet hither and in vain Till final dissolution wander here Not in the neighbouring Moon as some have dreamd Those argent Fields more likely habitants Translated Saints or middle Spirits hold Betwixt th' Angelical and Human kinde Hither of ill-joynd Sons and Daughters born First from the ancient World those Giants came With many a vain exploit though then renownd The builders next of Babel on the Plain Of Sennaar and still with vain designe New Babels had they wherewithall would build Others came single he who to be deemd A God leap'd fondly into Aetna flames Empedocles and hee who to enjoy Plito's Elysium leap'd into the Sea Cleombrotus and many more too long Embryo's and Idiots Eremits and Friers White Black and Grey with all thir trumperie Here Pilgrims roam that stray'd so farr to seek In Golgotha him dead who lives in Heav'n And they who to be sure
descending snatch'd him thence Unseen amid the throng so violence Proceeded and Oppression and Sword-Law Through all the Plain and refuge none was found Adam was all in tears and to his guide Lamenting turnd full sad O what are these Deaths Ministers not Men who thus deal Death Inhumanly to men and multiply Ten thousand fould the sin of him who slew His Brother for of whom such massacher Make they but of thir Brethren men of men But who was that Just Man whom had not Heav'n Rescu'd had in his Righteousness bin lost To whom thus Michael These are the product Of those ill mated Marriages thou saw'st Where good with bad were matcht who of themselves Abhor to joyn and by imprudence mixt Produce prodigious Births of bodie or mind Such were these Giants men of high renown For in those dayes Might onely shall be admir'd And Valour and Heroic Vertu call'd To overcome in Battle and subdue Nations and bring home spoils with infinite Man-slaughter shall be held the highest pitch Of human Glorie and for Glorie done Of triumph to be styl'd great Conquerours Patrons of Mankind Gods and Sons of Gods Destroyers rightlier call'd and Plagues of men Thus Fame shall be atchiev'd renown on Earth And what most merits fame in silence hid But hee the seventh from thee whom thou beheldst The onely righteous in a World perverse And therefore hared therefore so beset With Foes for daring single to be just And utter odious Truth that God would come To judge them with his Saints Him the most High Rapt in a balmie Cloud with winged Steeds Did as thou sawst receave to walk with God High in Salvation and the Climes of bliss Exempt from Death to shew thee what reward Awaits the good the rest what punishment Which now direct thine eyes and soon behold He look'd and saw the face of things quite chang'd The brazen Throat of Warr had ceast to roar All now was turn'd to jollitie and game To luxurie and riot feast and dance Marrying or prostituting as befell Rape or Adulterie where passing faire Allurd them thence from Cups to civil Broiles At length a Reverend Sire among them came And of thir doings great dislike declar'd And testifi'd against thir wayes hee oft Frequented thir Assemblies where so met Triumphs or Festivals and to them preachd Conversion and Repentance as to Souls In Prison under Judgements imminent But all in vain which when he saw he ceas'd Contending and remov'd his Tents farr off Then from the Mountain hewing Timber tall Began to build a Vessel of huge bulk Measur'd by Cubit length and breadth and highth Smeard round with Pitch and in the side a dore Contriv'd and of provisions laid in large For Man and Beast when loe a wonder strange I Of every Beast and Bird and Insect small Came seavens and pairs and enterd in as taught Thir order last the Sire and his three Sons With thir four Wives and God made fast the dore Meanwhile the Southwind rose and with black wings Wide hovering all the Clouds together drove From under Heav'n the Hills to their supplie Vapour and Exhalation dusk and moist Sent up amain and now the thick'nd Skie Like a dark Ceeling stood down rush'd the Rain Impetuous and continu'd till the Earth No more was seen the floating Vessel swum Uplifted and secure with beaked prow Rode tilting o're the Waves all dwellings else Flood overwhelmd and them with all thir pomp Deep under water rould Sea cover'd Sea Sea without shoar and in thir Palaces Where luxurie late reign'd Sea-monsters whelp'd And stabl'd of Mankind so numerous late All left in one small bottom swum imbark't How didst thou grieve then Adam to behold The end of all thy Ofspring end so sad Depopulation thee another Floud Of tears and sorrow a Floud thee also drown'd And sunk thee as thy Sons till gently reard By th' Angel on thy feet thou stoodst at last Though comfortless as when a Father mourns His Children all in view destroyd at once And scarce to th' Angel utterdst thus thy plaint O Visions ill foreseen better had I Liv'd ignorant of future so had borne My part of evil onely each dayes lot Anough to beare those now that were dispenst The burd'n of many Ages on me light At once by my foreknowledge gaining Birth Abortive to torment me ere thir being With thought that they must be Let no man seek Henceforth to be foretold what shall befall Him or his Childern evil he may be sure Which neither his foreknowing can prevent And hee the future evil shall no less In apprehension then in substance feel Grievous to bear but that care now is past Man is not whom to warne those few escap't Famin and anguish will at last consume Wandring that watrie Desert I had hope When violence was ceas't and Warr on Earth All would have then gon well peace would have crownd With length of happy dayes the race of man But I was farr deceav'd for now I see Peace to corrupt no less then Warr to waste How comes it thus unfould Celestial Guide And whether here the Race of man will end To whom thus Michael Those whom last thou sawst In Triumph and luxurious wealth are they First seen in acts of prowess eminent And great exploits but of true vertu void Who having spilt much blood and don much waste Subduing Nations and achievd thereby Fame in the World high titles and rich prey Shall change thir course to pleasure ease and sloth Surfet and lust till wantonness and pride Raise out of friendship hostil deeds in Peace The conquerd also and enslav'd by Warr Shall with thir freedom lost all vertu loose And fear of God from whom thir pietie feign'd In sharp contest of Battel found no aide Against invaders therefore coold in zeale Thenceforth shall practice how to live secure Worldlie or dissolute on what thir Lords Shall leave them to enjoy for th' Earth shall bear More then anough that temperance may be tri'd So all shall turn degenerate all deprav'd Justice and Temperance Truth and Faith forgot One Man except the onely Son of light In a dark Age against example good Against allurement custom and a World Offended fearless of reproach and scorn Or violence hee of thir wicked wayes Shall them admonish and before them set The paths of righteousness how much more safe And full of peace denouncing wrauth to come On thir impenitence and shall returne Of them derided but of God observd The one just Man alive by his command Shall build a wondrous Ark as thou beheldst To save himself and houshold from amidst A World devote to universal rack No sooner hee with them of Man and Beast Select for life shall in the Ark be lodg'd And shelterd round but all the Cataracts Of Heav'n set open on the Earth shall powre Raine day and night all fountains of the Deep Broke up shall heave the Ocean to usurp Beyond all bounds till inundation rise Above the highest
Paradise Lost A POEM IN TWELVE BOOKS The Author JOHN MILTON The Second Edition Revised and Augmented by the same Author LONDON Printed by S. Simmons next door to the Golden Lion in Aldersgate-street 1674. IN Paradisum Amissam Summi Poetae JOHANNIS MILTONI QVilegis Amissam Paradisum grandia magni Carmina Miltoni quid nisi cuncta legis Res cunctas cunctarum primordia rerum Et fata fines continet iste liber Intima panduntur magni penetralia mundi Scribitur toto quicquid in Orbe latet Terraeque tractusque maris coelumque profundum Sulphureumque Erebi stammivomumque specus Quaeque colunt terras Portumque Tartara caeca Quaeque colunt summi lucida regna Poli. Et quodcunque ullis conclusum est finibus usquam Et sine fine Chaos sine fine Deus Et sine fine magis si quid magis est sine fine In Christo erga homines conciliatus amor Haec qui speraret quis crederet esse futurum Et tamen haec hodie terra Britanna legit O quantos in bella Duces quae protulit arma Quae canit quanta praelia dira tuba Coelestes acies atque in certamine Coelum Et quae Coelestes pugna deceret agros Quantus in aetheriis tollit se Lucifer armis Atque ipso graditur vix Michaele minor Quantis quam funestis concurritur iris Dum ferus hic stellas protegit ille rapit Dum vulsos Montes ceu Tela reciproca torquent Et non mortali desuper igne pluunt Stat dubius cui se parti concedat Olympus Et metuit pugnae non superesse suae At simul in clis Messiae insignia fulgent Et currus animes armaque digna Deo Horrendumque rotae strident soeva rotaruns Erumpunt torvis fulgura luminibus Et flammae vibrant vera tonitrua rauco Admistis flammis insonuere Polo Excidit attonitis mens omnis impetus omnis Et cassis dextris irrita Telacadunt Ad poenas fugiunt ceu foret Orcus asylum Infernis certant condere se tenebris Cedite Romani Scriptores cedite Graii Et quos fama recens vel celebravit anus Haec quicunque leget tantum cecinesse putabit Maeonidem ranas Virgilium culices S. B. M. D. ON Paradise Lost WHen I beheld the Poet blind yet bold In slender Book his vast Design unfold Messiah Crown'd Gods Reconcil'd Decree Rebelling Angels the Forbidden Tree Heav'n Hell Earth Chaos All the Argument Held me a while misdoubting his Intent That he would ruine for I saw him strong The sacred Truths to Fable and old Song So Sampson groap'd the Temples Posts in spight The World o'rewhelming to revenge his sight Yet as I read soon growing less severe I lik'd his Project the success did fear Through that wide Field how he his way should find O're which lame Faith leads Understanding blind Lest he perplex'd the things he would explain And what was easie he should render vain Or if a Work so infinite he spann'd Jealous I was that some less skilful hand Such as disquiet always what is well And by ill imitating would excell Might hence presume the whole Creations day To change in Scenes and show it in a Play Pardon me Mighty Poet nor despise My causeless yet not impious surmise But I am now convinc'd and none will dare Within thy Labours to pretend a share Thou hast not miss'd one thought that could be fit And all that was improper dost omit So that no room is here for Writers left But to detect their Ignorance or Theft That Majesty which through thy Work doth Reign Draws the Devout deterring the Profane And things divine thou treatst of in such state As them preserves and thee inviolate At once delight and horrour on us seise Thou singst with so much gravity and ease And above humane flight dost soar aloft With Plume so strong so equal and so soft The Bird nam'd from that Paradise you sing So never flaggs but always keeps on Wing Where couldst thou words of such a compass find Whence furnish such a vast expence of mind Just Heav'n thee like Tiresias to requite Rewards with Prophesie thy loss of sight Well mightst thou scorn thy Readers to allure With tinkling Rhime of thy own sense secure While the Town-Bayes writes all the while and spells And like a Pack-horse tires without his Bells Their Fancies like our Bushy-points appear The Poets tag them we for fashion wear I too transported by the Mode offend And while I meant to Praise thee must Commend Thy Verse created like thy Theme sublime In Number Weight and Measure needs not Rhime A. M. THE VERSE THE Measure is English Heroic Verse without Rime as that of Homer in Greek and of Virgil in Latin Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse in longer Works especially but the Invention of a barbarous Age to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets carried away by Custom but much to thir own vexation hindrance and constraint to express many things otherwise and for the most part worse then else they would have exprest them Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish Poets of prime note have rejected Rime both in longer and shorter Works as have also long since our best English Tragedies as a thing of it self to all judicious ears triveal and of no true musical delight which consists onely in apt Numbers fit quantity of Syllables and the sense variously drawn out from one Verse into another not in the jingling sound of like endings a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory This neglect then of Rime so little is to be taken for a defect though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar Readers that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set the first in English of ancient liberty recover'd to Heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing Paradise Lost BOOK I. THE ARGUMENT This first Book proposes first in brief the whole Subject Mans disobedience and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was plac't 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 past over the Poem hasts into the midst of things presenting Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell describ'd here not in the Center for Heaven and Earth may be suppos'd as yet not made certainly not yet accurst but in a place of utter darkness fitliest call'd Chaos Here Satan with his Angels lying on the burning Lake thunder-struck and astonisht after a certain space recovers as from confusion calls up him who next in Order and Dignity lay by him they confer of thir miserable fall Satan
all unawares Fluttring 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 som tumultuous cloud Instinct with Fire and Nitre hurried him As many miles aloft that furie stay'd Quencht in a Boggie Syrtis neither Sea Nor good dry Land nigh founderd on he fares Treading the crude consistence half on foot Half flying behoves him now both Oare and Saile As when a Gryfon through the Wilderness With winged course ore Hill or moarie Dale Pursues the Arimaspian who by stelth Had from his wakeful custody purloind The guarded Gold So eagerly the fiend Ore 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 flyes At length a universal hubbub wilde Of stunning sounds and voices all confus'd Born through the hollow dark assaults his eare With loudest vehemence thither he plyes Undaunted to meet there what ever power Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss Might in that noise reside of whom to ask Which way the nearest coast of darkness lyes Bordering on light when strait behold the Throne Of Chaos and his dark Pavilion spread Wide on the wasteful Deep with him Enthron'd 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 Rumor next and Chance And Tumult and Confusion all imbroild And Discord with a thousand various mouths T' 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 Wandring this darksome Desart 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 gloomie bounds Confine with Heav'n or if som other place From your Dominion won th' Ethereal King Possesses lately thither to arrive I travel this profound direct my course Directed no mean recompence it brings To your behoof if I that Region lost All usurpation thence expell'd 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 th' advantage all mine the revenge Thus Satan and him thus the Anarch old With faultring speech and visage incompos'd Answer'd I know thee stranger who thou art That mighty leading Angel who of late Made head against Heav'ns King though overthrown I saw and heard for such a numerous Host Fled not in silence through the frighted deep VVith ruin upon ruin rout on rout Confusion worse confounded and Heav'n Gates Pourd out by millions her victorious Bands Pursuing I upon my Frontieres here Keep residence if all I can will serve That little which is left so to defend Encroacht on still through our intestine broiles VVeakning the Scepter of old Night first Hell Your dungeon stretching far and wide beneath Now lately Heaven and Earth another VVorld Hung ore my Realm link'd in a golden Chain To that side Heav'n from whence your Legions fell If that way be your walk you have not farr So much the neerer danger go and speed Havock and spoil and ruin are my gain He ceas'd and Satan staid not to reply But glad that now his Sea should find a shore VVith fresh alacritie and force renew'd Springs upward like a Pyramid of fire Into the wilde expanse and through the shock Of fighting Elements on all sides round Environ'd wins his way harder beset And more endanger'd then when Argo pass'd Through Bosporus betwixt the justling Rocks Or when Vlysses on the Larbord shunnd Charybdis and by th' other whirlpool steard So he with difficulty and labour hard Mov'd on with difficulty and labour hee But hee once past soon after when man fell Strange alteration Sin and Death amain Following his track such was the will of Heav'n Pav'd alter him a broad and beat'n way Over the dark Abyss whose boiling Gulf Tamely endur'd a Bridge of wondrous length From Hell continu'd reaching th' utmost Orbe Of this frail VVorld by which the Spirits perverse VVith easie 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 Heav'n Shoots farr into the bosom of dim Night A glimmering dawn here Nature first begins Her fardest verge and Chaos to retire As from her outmost works a brok'd foe VVith tumult less and with less hostile din That Satan with less toil and now with ease VVafts 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 VVeighs his spread wings at leasure to behold Farr off th' Empyreal Heav'n extended wide In circuit undetermind square or round VVith Opal Towrs and Battlements adorn'd Of living Saphire once his native Seat And fast by hanging in a golden Chain This pendant world in bigness as a Starr Of smallest Magnitude close by the Moon Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge Accurst and in a cursed hour he hies The End of the Second Book Paradise Lost BOOK III. 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 seduc't 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 God-head and therefore with all his Progeny devoted to death must dye unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence and undergo his Punishment The Son of God freely offers himself a Ransome for Man the Father accepts hint 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 thir Harps in full Quire celebrate the Father and the Son Mean while Satan alights upon the bare Convex of this Worlds outermost Orb where wandring he first finds a place since call'd The Lymbo of Vanity what persons and things fly up thither thence comes to the Gate of Heaven describ'd ascending by staires and the waters above the Firmament that flow about it His passage thence to the Orb of the Sun he finds there Uriel the Regient of that Orb but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner
invisible exploits Of warring Spirits how without remorse The ruin of so many glorious once And perfet while they stood how last unfould The secrets of another world perhaps Not lawful to reveal yet for thy good This is dispenc't and what surmounts the reach Of human sense I shall delineate so By lik'ning spiritual to corporal forms As may express them best though what if Earth Be but the shaddow of Heav'n and things therein Each to other like more then on earth is thought As yet this world was not and Chaos wilde Reignd where these Heav'ns now rowl where Earth now rests Upon her Center pois'd when on a day For time though in Eternitie appli'd To motion measures all things durable By present past and future on such day As Heav'ns great Year brings forth th' Empyreal Host Of Angels by Imperial summons call'd Innumerable before th' Almighties Throne Forthwith from all the ends of Heav'n appeerd Under thir Hierarchs in orders bright Ten thousand thousand Ensignes high advanc'd Standards and Gonfalons twixt Van and Reare Streame in the Aire and for distinction serve Of Hierarchies of Orders and Degrees Or in thir glittering Tissues bear imblaz'd Holy Memorials acts of Zeale and Love Recorded eminent Thus when in Orbes Of circuit inexpressible they stood Orb within Orb the Father infinite By whom in bliss imbosom'd sat the Son Amidst as from a flaming Mount whose top Brightness had made invisible thus spake Hear all ye Angels Progenie of Light Thrones Dominations Princedoms Vertues Powers Hear my Decree which unrevok't shall stand This day I have begot whom I declare My onely Son and on this holy Hill Him have anointed whom ye now behold At my right hand your Head I him appoint And by my Self have sworn to him shall bow All knees in Heav'n and shall confess him Lord Under his great Vice-gerent Reign abide United as one individual Soule For ever happie him who disobeyes Mee disobeyes breaks union and that day Cast out from God and blessed vision falls Into utter darkness deep ingulft his place Ordaind without redemption without end So spake th' Omnipotent and with his words All seemd well pleas'd all seem'd but were not all That day as other solemn dayes they spent In song and dance about the sacred Hill Mystical dance which yonder starrie Spheare Of Planets and of fixt in all her Wheeles Resembles nearest mazes intricate Eccentric intervolv'd yet regular Then most when most irregular they seem And in thir motions harmonic Divine So smooths her charming tones that Gods own ear Listens delighted Eevning now approach'd For wee have also our Eevning and our Morn Wee ours for change delectable not need Forthwith from dance to sweet repast they turn Desirous all in Circles as they stood Tables are set and on a sudden pil'd With Angels Food and rubied Nectar flows In Pearl in Diamond and massie Gold Fruit of delicious Vines the growth of Heav'n On flours repos'd and with fresh flourets crownd They eate they drink and in communion sweet Quaff immortalitie and joy secure Of surfet where full measure onely bounds Excess before th' all bounteous King who showrd With copious hand rejoycing in thir joy Now when ambrosial Night with Clouds exhal'd From that high mount of God whence light shade Spring both the face of brightest Heav'n had changd To grateful Twilight for Night comes not there In darker veile and roseat Dews dispos'd All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest Wide over all the Plain and wider farr Then all this globous Earth in Plain out spred Such are the Courts of God Th' Angelic throng Disperst in Bands and Files thir Camp extend By living Streams among the Trees of Life Pavilions numberless and sudden reard Celestial Tabernacles where they slept Fannd with coole Winds save those who in thir course Melodious Hymns about the sovran Throne Alternate all night long but not so wak'd Satan so call him now his former name Is heard no more in Heav'n he of the first If not the first Arch-Angel great in Power In favour and praeeminence yet fraught With envie against the Son of God that day Honourd by his great Father and proclaimd Messiah King anointed could not beare Through pride that sight thought himself impaird Deep malice thence conceiving and disdain Soon as midnight brought on the duskie houre Friendliest to sleep and silence he resolv'd With all his Legions to dislodge and leave Unworshipt unobey'd the Throne supream Contemptuous and his next subordinate Awak'ning thus to him in secret spake Sleepst thou Companion dear what sleep can close Thy eye lids and remembrest what Decree Of yesterday so late hath past the lips Of Heav'ns Almightie Thou to me thy thoughts Wast wont I mine to thee was wont to impart Both waking we were one how then can now Thy sleep dissent new Laws thou seest impos'd New Laws from him who reigns new minds may raise In us who serve new Counsels to debate What doubtful may ensue more in this place To utter is not safe Assemble thou Of all those Myriads which we lead the chief Tell them that by command ere yet dim Night Her shadowie Cloud withdraws I am to haste And all who under me thir Banners wave Homeward with flying march where we possess The Quarters of the North there to prepare Fit entertainment to receive our King The great Messiah and his new commands Who speedily through all the Hierarchies Intends to pass triumphant and give Laws So spake the false Arch-Angel and infus'd Bad influence into th' unwarie brest Of his Associate hee together calls Or several one by one the Regent Powers Under him Regent tells as he was taught That the most High commanding now ere Night Now ere dim Night had disincumberd Heav'n The great Hierarchal Standard was to move Tells the suggested cause and casts between Ambiguous words and jealousies to sound Or taint integritie but all obey'd The wonted signal and superior voice Of thir great Potentate for great indeed His name and high was his degree in Heav'n His count'nance as the Morning Starr that guides The starrie flock allur'd them and with lyes Drew after him the third part of Heav'ns Host Mean while th' Eternal eye whose sight discernes Abstrusest thoughts from forth his holy Mount And from within the golden Lamps that burne Nightly before him saw without thir light Rebellion rising saw in whom how spred Among the sons of Morn what multitudes Were banded to oppose his high Decree And smiling to his onely Son thus said Son thou in whom my glory I behold In full resplendence Heir of all my might Neerly it now concernes us to be sure Of our Omnipotence and with what Arms We mean to hold what anciently we claim Of Deitie or Empire such a foe Is rising who intends to erect his Throne Equal to ours throughout the spacious North Nor so content hath in his thought to try In battel what our Power is or our right Let
and rejoycing was in Heav'n When such was heard declar'd the Almightie's will Glorie they sung to the most High good will To future men and in thir dwellings peace Glorie to him whose just avenging ire Had driven out th' ungodly from his sight And th' habitations of the just to him Glorie and praise whose wisdom had ordain'd Good out of evil to create in stead Of Spirits maligne a better Race to bring Into thir vacant room and thence diffuse His good to Worlds and Ages infinite So sang the Hierarchies Mean while the Son On his great Expedition now appeer'd Girt with Omnipotence with Radiance crown'd Of Majestie Divine Sapience and Love Immense and all his Father in him shon About his Chariot numberless were pour'd Cherub and Seraph Potentates and Thrones And Vertues winged Spirits and Chariots wing'd From the Armoury of God where stand of old Myriads between two brazen Mountains lodg'd Against a solemn day harnest at hand Celestial Equipage and now came forth Spontaneous for within them Spirit livd Attendant on thir Lord Heav'n op'nd wide Her ever during Gates Harmonious sound On golden Hinges moving to let forth The King of Glorie in his powerful Word And Spirit coming to create new Worlds On heav'nly ground they stood and from the shore They view'd the vast immeasurable Abyss Outrageous as a Sea dark wasteful wilde Up from the bottom turn'd by furious windes And surging waves as Mountains to assault Heav'ns highth and with the Center mix the Pole Silence ye troubl'd waves and thou Deep peace Said then th' Omnific Word your discord end Nor staid but on the Wings of Cherubim Uplifted in Paternal Glorie rode Farr into Chaos and the World unborn For Chaos heard his voice him all his Traine Follow'd in bright procession to behold Creation and the wonders of his might Then staid the fervid Wheeles and in his hand He took the golden Compasses prepar'd In Gods Eternal store to circumscribe This Universe and all created things One foot he center'd and the other turn'd Round through the vast profunditie obscure And said thus farr extend thus farr thy bounds This be thy just Circumference O World Thus God the Heav'n created thus the Earth Matter unform'd and void Darkness profound Cover'd th' Abyss but on the watrie calme His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspred And vital vertue infus'd and vital warmth Throughout the fluid Mass but downward purg'd The black tartareous cold Infernal dregs Adverse to life then founded then conglob'd Like things to like the rest to several place Disparted and between spun out the Air And Earth self ballanc't on her Center hung Let ther be Light said God and forthwith Light Ethereal first of things quintessence pure Sprung from the Deep and from her Native East To journie through the airie gloom began Sphear'd in a radiant Cloud for yet the Sun Was not shee in a cloudie Tabernacle So journ'd the while God saw the Light was good And light from darkness by the Hemisphere Divided Light the Day and Darkness Night He nam'd Thus was the first Day Eev'n and Morn Nor past uncelebrated nor unsung By the Celestial Quires when Orient Light Exhaling first from Darkness they beheld Birth-day of Heav'n and Earth with joy and shout The hollow Universal Orb they fill'd And touch't thir Golden Harps and hymning prais'd God and his works Creatour him they sung Both when first Eevning was and when first Morn Again God said let ther be Firmament Amid the Waters and let it divide The Waters from the Waters and God made The Firmament expanse of liquid pure Transparent Elemental Air diffus'd In circuit to the uttermost convex Of this great Round partition firm and sure The Waters underneath from those above Dividing for as Earth so he the World Built on circumfluous Waters calme in wide Crystallin Ocean and the loud misrule Of Chaos farr remov'd least fierce extreames Contiguous might distemper the whole frame And Heav'n he nam'd the Firmament So Eev'n And Morning Chorus sung the second Day The Earth was form'd but in the Womb as yet Of Waters Embryon immature involv'd Appeer'd not over all the face of Earth Main Ocean flow'd not idle but with warme Prolific humour soft'ning all her Globe Fermented the great Mother to conceave Satiate with genial moisture when God said Be gather'd now ye Warers under Heav'n Into one place and let dry Land appeer Immediately the Mountain huge appeer Emergent and thir broad bare backs upheave Into the Clouds thir tops ascend the Skie So high as heav'd the tumid Hills so low Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep Capacious bed of Waters thither they Hasted with glad precipitance uprowld As drops on dust conglobing from the drie Part rise in crystal Wall or ridge direct For haste such flight the great command impress'd On the swift flouds as Armies at the call Of Trumpet for of Armies thou hast heard Troop to thir Standard so the watrie throng Wave rowling after Wave where way they found If steep with torrent rapture if through Plaine Soft-ebbing nor withstood them Rock or Hill But they or under ground or circuit wide With Serpent errour wandring found thir way And on the washie Oose deep Channels wore Easie e're God had bid the ground be drie All but within whose banks where Rivers now Stream and perpetual draw thir humid traine The dry Land Earth and the great receptacle Of congregated Waters he call'd Seas And saw that it was good and said Let th' Earth Put forth the verdant Grass Herb yielding Seed And Fruit Tree yielding Fruit after her kind Whose Seed is in her self upon the Earth He scarce had said when the bate Earth till then Desert and bare unsightly unadornd Brought forth the tender Grass whose verdure clad Her Universal Face with pleasant green Then Herbs of every leaf that sudden flour'd Op'ning thir various colours and made gay Her bosom smelling sweet and these scarce blown Forth flourish't thick the clustring Vine forth crept The smelling Gourd up stood the cornie Reed Embattell'd in her field and the humble Shrub And Bush with frizl'd hair implicit last Rose as in Dance the stately Trees and spred Thir branches hung with copious Fruit or gemm'd Thir blossoms with high woods the hills were crownd With tufts the vallies and each fountain side With borders long the Rivers That Earth now Seemd like to Heav'n a seat where Gods might dwell Or wander with delight and love to haunt Her sacred shades though God had yet not rain'd Upon the Earth and man to till the ground None was but from the Earth a dewie Mist Went up and waterd all the ground and each Plant of the field which e're it was in the Earth God made and every Herb before it grew On the green stemm God saw that it was good So Eev'n and Morn recorded the Third Day Again th' Almightie spake Let there be Lights High in th' expanse of Heaven to divide The
to thee Not noxious but obedient at thy call Now Heav'n in all her Glorie shon and rowld Her motions as the great first-Movers hand First wheeld thir course Earth in her rich attire Consummate lovly smil'd Aire Water Earth By Fowl Fish Beast was flown was swum was walkt Frequent and of the Sixt day yet remain'd There wanted yet the Master work the end Of all yet don a Creature who not prone And Brute as other Creatures but endu'd With Sanctitie of Reason might erect His Stature and upright with Front serene Govern the rest self-knowing and from thence Magnanimous to correspond with Heav'n But grateful to acknowledge whence his good Descends thither with heart and voice and eyes Directed in Devotion to adore And worship God Supream who made him chief Of all his works therefore the Omnipotent Eternal Father For where is not hee Present thus to his Son audibly spake Let us make now Man in our image Man In our similitude and let them rule Over the Fish and Fowle of Sea and Aire Beast of the Field and over all the Earth And every creeping thing that creeps the ground This said he formd thee Adam thee O Man Dust of the ground and in thy nostrils breath'd The breath of Life in his own Image hee Created thee in the Image of God Express and thou becam'st a living Soul Male he created thee but thy consort Female for Race then bless'd Mankinde and said Be fruitful multiplie and fill the Earth Subdue it and throughout Dominion hold Over Fish of the Sea and Fowle of the Aire And every living thing that moves on the Earth Wherever thus created for no place Is yet distinct by name thence as thou know'st He brought thee into this delicious Grove This Garden planted with the Trees of God Delectable both to behold and taste And freely all thir pleasant fruit for food Gave thee all sorts are here that all th' Earth yields Varietie without end but of the Tree Which tasted works knowledge of Good and Evil Thou mai'st not in the day thou eat'st thou di'st Death is the penaltie impos'd beware And govern well thy appetite least sin Surprise thee and her black attendant Death Here finish'd hee and all that he had made View'd and behold all was entirely good So Ev'n and Morn accomplish'd the Sixt day Yet not till the Creator from his work Desisting though unwearied up returnd Up to the Heav'n of Heav'ns his high abode Thence to behold this new created World Th' addition of his Empire how it shew'd In prospect from his Throne how good how faire Answering his great Idea Up he rode Followd with acclamation and the sound Symphonious of ten thousand Harpes that tun'd Angelic harmonies the Earth the Aire Resounded thou remember'st for thou heardst The Heav'ns and all the Constellations rung The Planets in thir station list'-ning stood While the bright Pomp ascended jubilant Open ye everlasting Gates they sung Open ye Heav'ns your living dores let in The great Creator from his work returnd Magnificent his Six days work a World Open and henceforth oft for God will deigne To visit oft the dwellings of just Men Delighted and with frequent intercourse Thither will send his winged Messengers On errands of supernal Grace So sung The glorious Train ascending He through Heav'n That open'd wide her blazing Portals led To Gods Eternal house direct the way A broad and ample rode whose dust is Gold And pavement Starrs as Starrs to thee appeer Seen in the Galaxie that Milkie way Which nightly as a circling Zone thou seest Pouderd with Starrs And now on Earth the Seventh Eev'ning arose in Eden for the Sun Was set and twilight from the East came on Forerunning Night when at the holy mount Of Heav'ns high-seated top th' Impereal Throne Of Godhead fixt for ever firm and sure The Filial Power arriv'd and sate him down With his great Father for be also went Invisible yet staid such priviledge Hath Omnipresence and the work ordain'd Author and end of all things and from work Now resting bless'd and hallowd the Seav'nth day As resting on that day from all his work But not in silence holy kept the Harp Had work and rested not the solemn Pipe And Dulcimer all Organs of sweet stop All sounds on Fret by String or Golden Wire Temper'd soft Tunings intermixt with Voice Choral or Unison of incense Clouds Fuming from Golden Censers hid the Mount Creation and the Six dayes acts they sung Great are thy works Jehovah infinite Thy power what thought can measure thee or tongue Relate thee greater now in thy return Then from the Giant Angels thee that day Thy Thunders magnifi'd but to create Is greater then created to destroy Who can impair thee mighty King or bound Thy Empire easily the proud attempt Of Spirits apostat and thir Counsels vaine Thou hast repeld while impiously they thought Thee to diminish and from thee withdraw The number of thy worshippers Who seekes To lessen thee against his purpose serves To manifest the more thy might his evil Thou usest and from thence creat'st more good Witness this new-made World another Heav'n From Heaven Gate not farr founded in view On the cleer Hyaline the Glassie Sea Of amplitude almost immense with Starr's Numerous and every Starr perhaps a World Of destind habitation but thou know'st Thir seasons among these the seat of men Earth with her nether Ocean circumfus'd Thir pleasant dwelling place Thrice happie men And sons of men whom God hath thus advanc't Created in his Image there to dwell And worship him and in reward to rule Over his Works on Earth in Sea or Air And multiply a Race of Worshippers Holy and just thrice happie if they know Thir happiness and persevere upright So sung they and the Empyrean rung With Halleluiahs Thus was Sabbath kept And thy request think now fulfill'd that ask'd How first this World and face of things began And what before thy memorie was don From the beginning that posteritie Informd by thee might know if else thou seekst Aught not surpassing human measure say The End of the Seventh Book Paradise Lost BOOK VIII THE ARGUMENT Adam inquires concerning celestial Motions is doubtfully answer'd and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledg Adam assents and still desirous to detain Raphael relates to him what he remember'd since his own Creation his placing in Paradise his talk with God concerning solitude and fit society his first meeting and Nuptials with Eve his discourse with the Angel thereupon who after admonitions repeated departs THE Angel ended and in Adams Eare So Charming left his voice that he a while Thought him still speaking still stood fixt to hear Then as new wak't thus gratefully repli'd What thanks sufficient or what recompence Equal have I to render thee Divine Hystorian who thus largely hast allayd The thirst I had of knowledge and voutsaf't This friendly condescention to relate Things else by me unsearchable now heard With
wonder but delight and as is due With glorie attributed to the high Creator something yet of doubt remaines Which onely thy solution can resolve When I behold this goodly Frame this World Of Heav'n and Earth consisting and compute Thir magnitudes this Earth a spot a graine An Atom with the Firmament compar'd And all her numberd Starrs that seem to rowle Spaces incomprehensible for such Thir distance argues and thir swift return Diurnal meerly to officiate light Round this opacous Earth this punctual spot One day and night in all thir vast survey Useless besides reasoning I oft admire How Nature wise and frugal could commit Such disproportions with superfluous hand So many nobler Bodies to create Greater so manifold to this one use For aught appeers and on thir Orbs impose Such restless revolution day by day Repeated while the sedentarie Earth That better might with farr less compass move Serv'd by more noble then her self attaines Her end without least motion and receaves As Tribute such a sumless journey brought Of incorporeal speed her warmth and light Speed to describe whose swiftness Number failes So spake our Sire and by his count'nance seemd Entring on studious thoughts abstruse which Eve Perceaving where she sat retir'd in sight With lowliness Majestic from her seat And Grace that won who saw to wish her stay Rose and with forth among her Fruits and Flours To visit how they prosper'd bud and bloom Her Nurserie they at her coming sprung And toucht by her fair tendance gladlier grew Yet went she not as not with such discourse Delighted or not capable her eare Of what was high such pleasure she reserv'd Adam relating she sole Auditress Her Husband the Relater she preferr'd Before the Angel and of him to ask Chose rather hee she knew would intermit Grateful digressions and solve high dispute With conjugal Caresses from his Lip Not Words alone pleas'd her O when meet now Such pairs in Love and mutual Honour joyn'd With Goddess-like demeanour forth she went Not unatrended for on her as Queen A pomp of winning Graces waited still And from about her shot Darts of desire Into all Eyes to wish her still in sight And Raphael now to Adam's doubt propos'd Benevolent and facil thus repli'd To ask or search I blame thee not for Heav'n Is as the Book of God before thee set Wherein to read his wondrous Works and learne His Seasons Hours or Dayes or Months or Yeares This to attain whether Heav'n move or Earth Imports not if thou reck'n right the rest From Man or Angel the great Architect Did wisely to conceal and not divulge His secrets to be scann'd by them who ought Rather admire or if they list to try Conjecture he his Fabric of the Heav'ns Hath left to thir disputes perhaps to move His laughter at thir quaint Opinions wide Hereafter when they come to model Heav'n And calculate the Starrs how they will weild The mightie frame how build unbuild contrive To save appeerances how gird the Sphear With Centric and Eccentric scribl'd o're Cycle and Epicycle Orb in Orb Alreadie by thy reasoning this I guess Who art to lead thy ofspring and supposest That bodies bright and greater should not serve The less not bright nor Heav'n such journies run Earth sitting still when she alone receaves The benefit consider first that Great Or Bright inferrs not Excellence the Earth Though in comparison of Heav'n so small Nor glistering may of solid good containe More plenty then the Sun that barren shines Whose vertue on it self workes no effect But in the fruitful Earth there first receavd His beams unactive else thir vigour find Yet not to Earth are those bright Luminaries Officious but to thee Earths habitant And for the Heav'ns wide Circuit let it speak The Makers high magnificence who built So spacious and his Line stretcht out so farr That Man may know he dwells not in his own An Edifice too large for him to fill Lodg'd in a small partition and the rest Ordain'd for uses to his Lord best known The swiftness of those Circles attribute Though numberless to his Omnipotence That to corporeal substances could adde Speed almost Spiritual mee thou thinkst not slow Who since the Morning hour set out from Heav'n Where God resides and eremid-day arriv'd In Eden distance inexpressible By Numbers that have name But this I urge Admitting Motion in the Heav'ns to shew Invalid that which thee to doubt it mov'd Not that I so affirm though so it seem To thee who hast thy dwelling here on Earth God to remove his wayes from human sense Plac'd Heav'n from Earth so farr that earthly sight If it presume might erre in things too high And no advantage gaine What if the Sun Be Center to the World and other Starrs By his attractive vertue and thir own Incited dance about him various rounds Thir wandring course now high now low then hid Progressive retrograde or standing still In six thou seest and what if sev'nth to these The Planet Earth so stedfast though she seem Insensibly three different Motions move Which else to several Sphears thou must ascribe Mov'd contrarie with thwart obliquities Or save the Sun his labour and that swift Nocturnal and Diurnal rhomb suppos'd Invisible else above all Starrs the Wheele Of Day and Night which needs not thy beleefe If Earth industrious of her self fetch Day Travelling East and with her part averse From the Suns beam meet Night her other part Still luminous by his ray What if that light Sent from her through the wide transpicuous aire To the terrestrial Moon be as a Starr Enlightning her by Day as she by Night This Earth reciprocal if Land be there Feilds and Inhabitants Her spots thou seest As Clouds and Clouds may rain and Rain produce Fruits in her soft'nd Soile for some to eate Allotted there another Suns perhaps With thir attendant Moons thou wilt descrie Communicating Male and Femal Light Which two great Sexes animate the World Stor'd in each Orb perhaps with some that live For such vast room in Nature unpossest By living Soule desert and desolate Onely to shine yet scarce to contribute Each Orb a glimps of Light conveyd so farr Down to this habitable which returnes Light back to them is obvious to dispute But whether thus these things or whether not Whether the Sun predominant in Heav'n Rise on the Earth or Earth rise on the Sun Hee from the East his flaming rode begin Or Shee from West her silent course advance With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps On her soft Axle while she paces Eev'n And beares thee soft with the smooth Air along Sollicit not thy thoughts with matters hid Leave them to God above him serve and feare Of other Creatures as him pleases best Wherever plac't let him dispose joy thou In what he gives to thee this Paradise And thy faire Eve Heav'n is for thee too high To know what passes there be lowlie wise Think onely what concernes thee
or woe In wo then that destruction wide may range To mee shall be the glorie sole among The infernal Powers in one day to have marr'd What he Almightie styl'd six Nights and Days Continu'd making and who knows how long Before had bin contriving though perhaps Not longer then since I in one Night freed From servitude inglorious welnigh half Th' Angelic Name and thinner left the throng Of his adorers hee to be aveng'd And to repaire his numbers thus impair'd Whether such vertue spent of old now faild More Angels to Create if they at least Are his Created or to spite us more Determin'd to advance into our room A Creature form'd of Earth and him endow Exalted from so base original With Heav'nly spoils our spoils What he decreed He effected Man he made and for him built Magnificent this World and Earth his seat Him Lord pronounc'd and O indignitie Subjected to his service Angel wings And flaming Ministers to watch and tend Thir earthy Charge Of these the vigilance I dread and to elude thus wrapt in mist Of midnight vapor glide obscure and prie In every Bush and Brake where hap may finde The Serpent sleeping in whose mazie foulds To hide me and the dark intent I bring O foul descent that I who erst contended With Gods to sit the highest am now constraind Into a Beast and mixt with bestial slime This essence to incarnate and imbrute That to the hight of Deitie aspir'd But what will not Ambition and Revenge Descend to who aspires must down as low As high he soard obnoxious first or last To basest things Revenge at first though sweet Bitter ere long back on it self recoiles Let it I reck not so it light well aim'd Since higher I fall short on him who next Provokes my envie this new Favorite Of Heav'n this Man of Clay Son of despite Whom us the more to spite his Maker rais'd From dust spite then with spite is best repaid So saying through each Thicket Danck or Drie Like a black mist low creeping he held on His midnight search where soonest he might finde The Serpent him fast sleeping soon he found In Labyrinth of many a round self-rowld His head the midst well stor'd with suttle wiles Not yet in horrid Shade or dismal Den Nor nocent yet but on the grassie Herbe Fearless unfeard he slept in at his Mouth The Devil enterd and his brutal sense In heart or head possessing soon inspir'd With act intelligential but his sleep Disturbd not waiting close th' approach of Morn Now when as sacred Light began to dawne In Eden on the humid Flours that breathd Thir morning incense when all things that breath From th' Earths great Altar send up silent praise To the Creator and his Nostrils fill With grateful Smell forth came the human pair And joind thir vocal Worship to the Quire Of Creatures wanting voice that done partake The season prime for sweetest Sents and Aires Then commune how that day they best may ply Thir growing work for much thir work outgrew The hands dispatch of two Gardning so wide And Eve first to her Husband thus began Adam well may we labour still to dress This Garden still to tend Plant Herb and Flour Our pleasant task enjoyn'd but till more hands Aid us the work under our labour grows Luxurious by restraint what we by day Lop overgrown or prune or prop or bind One night or two with wanton growth derides Tending to wilde Thou therefore now advise Or bear what to my minde first thoughts present Let us divide our labours thou where choice Leads thee or where most needs whether to wind The Woodbine round this Arbour or direct The clasping Ivie where to climb while I In yonder Spring of Roses intermixt With Myrtle find what to redress till Noon For while so near each other thus all day Our taske we choose what wonder if so near Looks intervene and smiles or object new Casual discourse draw on which intermits Our dayes work brought to little though begun Early and th' hour of Supper comes unearn'd To whom mild answer Adam thus return'd Sold Eve Associate sole to me beyond Compare above all living Creatures deare Well hast thou motion'd well thy thoughts imploy'd How we might best fulfill the work which here God hath assign'd us nor of me shalt pass Unprais'd for nothing lovelier can be found In Woman then to studie houshold good And good workes in her Husband to promote Yet not so strictly hath our Lord impos'd Labour as to debarr us when we need Refreshment whether food or talk between Food of the mind or this sweet intercourse Of looks and smiles for smiles from Reason flow To brute deni'd and are of Love the food Love not the lowest end of human life For not to irksom toile but to delight He made us and delight to Reason joyn'd These paths Bowers doubt not but our joynt hands Will keep from Wilderness with ease as wide As we need walk till younger hands ere long Assist us But if much converse perhaps Thee satiate to short absence I could yield For solitude somtimes is best societie And short retirement urge sweet returne But other doubt possesses me least harm Befall thee sever'd from me for thou knowst What hath bin warn'd us what malicious Foe Envying our happiness and of his own Despairing seeks to work us woe and shame By sly assault and somwhere nigh at hand Watches no doubt with greedy hope to find His wish and best advantage us asunder Hopeless to circumvent us joynd where each To other speedie aide might lend at need Whether his first design be to withdraw Our fealtie from God or to disturb Conjugal Love then which perhaps no bliss Enjoy'd by us excites his envie more Or this or worse leave not the faithful side That gave thee being still shades thee and protects The Wife where danger or dishonour lurks Safest and seemliest by her Husband staies Who guards her or with her the worst endures To whom the Virgin Majestie of Eve As one who loves and some unkindness meets With sweet austeer composure thus reply'd Ofspring of Heav'n and Earth and all Earths Lord That such an Enemie we have who seeks Our ruin both by thee informd I learne And from the parting Angel over-heard As in a shadie nook I stood behind Just then returnd at shut of Evening Flours But that thou shouldst my firmness therfore doubt To God or thee because we have a foe May tempt it I expected nor to hear His violence thou fearst not being such As wee not capable of death or paine Can either not receave or can repell His fraud is then thy fear which plain inferrs Thy equal fear that my firm Faith and Love Can by his fraud be shak'n or seduc't Thoughts which how found they harbour in thy brest Adam missthought of her to thee so dear To whom with healing words Adam replyd Daughter of God and Man immortal Eve For such thou
With me how can they then acquitted stand In sight of God Him after all Disputes Forc't I absolve all my evasions vain And reasonings though through Mazes lead me still But to my own conviction first and last On mee mee onely as the fourse and spring Of all corruption all the blame lights due So might the wrauth Fond wish couldst thou support That burden heavier then the Earth to bear Then all the World much heavier though divided With that bad Woman Thus what thou desir'st And what thou fearst alike destroyes all hope Of refuge and concludes thee miserable Beyond all past example and future To Satan only like both crime and doom O Conscience into what Abyss of fears And horrors hast thou driv'n me out of which I find no way from deep to deeper plung'd Thus Adam to himself lamented loud Through the still Night not now as ere man fell Wholsom and cool and mild but with black Air Accompanied with damps and dreadful gloom Which to his evil Conscience represented All things with double terror On the Ground Outstretcht he lay on the cold ground and oft Curs'd his Creation Death as oft accus'd Of tardie execution since denounc't The day of his offence Why comes not Death Said hee with one thrice acceptable stroke To end me Shall Truth fail to keep her word Justice Divine not hast'n to be just But Death comes not at call Justice Divine Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries O Woods O Fountains Hillocks Dales and Bowrs With other echo late I taught your Shades To answer and resound farr other Song Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld Desolate where she sate approaching nigh Soft words to his fierce passion she assay'd But her with stern regard he thus repell'd Out of my sight thou Serpent that name best Befits thee with him leagu'd thy self as false And hateful nothing wants but that thy shape Like his and colour Serpentine may shew Thy inward fraud to warn all Creatures from thee Henceforth least that too heav'nly form pretended To hellish falshood snare them But for thee I had persisted happie had not thy pride And wandring vanitie when lest was safe Rejected my forewarning and disdain'd Not to be trusted longing to be seen Though by the Devil himself him overweening To over-reach but with the Serpent meeting Fool'd and beguil'd by him thou I by thee To trust thee from my side imagin'd wise Constant mature proof against all assaults And understood not all was but a shew Rather then solid vertu all but a Rib Crooked by nature bent as now appears More to the part sinister from me drawn Well if thrown out as supernumerarie To my just number found O why did God Creator wise that peopl'd highest Heav'n With Spirits Masculine create at last This noveltie on Earth this fair defect Of Nature and not fill the World at once With Men as Angels without Feminine Or find some other way to generate Mankind this mischief had not then befall'n And more that shall befall innumerable Disturbances on Earth through Femal snares And straight conjunction with this Sex for either He never shall find out fit Mate but such As some misfortune brings him or mistake Or whom he wishes mod shall seldom gain Through her perversness but shall see her gaind By a farr worse or if she love withheld By Parents or his happiest choice too late Shall meet alreadie linkt and Wedlock-bound To a fell Adversarie his hate or shame Which infinite calamine shall cause To Humane life and houshold peace confound He added not and from her turn'd but Eve Not so repulst with Tears that ceas'd not flowing And tresses all disorderd at his feet Fell humble and imbracing them besaught His peace and thus proceeded in her plaint Forsake me not thus Adam witness Heav'n What love sincere and reverence in my heart I beare thee and unweeting have offended Unhappilie deceav'd thy suppliant I beg and clasp thy knees bereave me not Whereon I live thy gentle looks thy aid Thy counsel in this uttermost distress My onely strength and stay forlorn of thee Whither shall I betake me where subsist While yet we live scarse one short hour perhaps Between us two let there be peace both joyning As joyn'd in injuries one enmitie Against a Foe by doom express assign'd us That cruel Serpent On me exercise not Thy hatred for this miserie befall'n On me alreadie lost mee then thy self More miserable both have sin'd but thou Against God onely I against God and thee And to the place of judgment will return There with my cries importune Heaven that all The sentence from thy head remov'd may ligh On me sole cause to thee of all this woe Mee mee onely just object of his ire She ended weeping and her lowlie plight Immoveable till peace obtain'd from fault Acknowledg'd and deplor'd in Adam wraught Commiseration soon his heart relented Towards her his life so late and sole delight Now at his feet submissive in distress Creature so faire his reconcilement seeking His counsel whom she had displeas'd his aide As one disarm'd his anger all he lost And thus with peaceful words uprais'd her soon Unwarie and too desirous as before So now of what thou knowst not who desir'st The punishment all on thy self alas Beare thine own first ill able to sustaine His full wrauth whose thou feelst as yet lest part And my displeasure bearst so ill If Prayers Could alter high Decrees I to that place Would speed before thee and be louder heard That on my head all might be visited Thy frailtie and infirmer Sex forgiv'n To me committed and by me expos'd But rise let us no more contend nor blame Each other blam'd enough elsewhere but strive In offices of Love how we may light'n Each others burden in our share of woe Since this days Death denounc't if ought I see Will prove no sudden but a slow pac't evill A long days dying to augment our paine And to our Seed O hapless Seed deriv'd To whom thus Eve recovering heart repli'd Adam by sad experiment I know How little weight my words with thee can finde Found so erroneous thence by just event Found so unfortunate nevertheless Restor'd by thee vile as I am to place Of new acceptance hopeful to regaine Thy Love the sole contentment of my heart Living or dying from thee I will not hide What thoughts in my unquiet brest are ris'n Tending to some relief of our extremes Or end though sharp and sad yet tolerable As in our evils and of easier choice If care of our descent perplex us most Which must be born to certain woe devourd By Death at last and miserable it is To be to others cause of misery Our own begotten and of our Loines to bring Into this cursed World a woful Race That after wretched Life must be at last Food for so foule a Monster in thy power It lies yet ere Conception to prevent The Race unblest to being yet
Hills then shall this Mount Of Paradise by might of Waves be moovd Out of his place pushd by the horned floud With all his verdure spoil'd and Trees adrift Down the great River to the op'ning Gulf And there take root an Iland salt and bare The haunt of Seales and Orcs and Sea-mews clang To teach thee that God attributes to place No sanctitie if none be thither brought By Men who there frequent or therein dwell And now what further shall ensue behold He lookd and saw the Ark hull on the floud Which now abated for the Clouds were fled Drivn by a keen North-winde that blowing drie Wrinkl'd the face of Deluge as decai'd And the deer Sun on his wide watrie Glass Gaz'd hot and of the fresh Wave largely drew As after thirst which made thir flowing shrink From standing lake to tripping ebbe that stole With soft foot towards the deep who now had stopt His Sluces as the Heav'n his windows shut The Ark no more now flotes but seems on ground Fast on the top of som high mountain fixt And now the tops of Hills as Rocks appeer With clamor thence the rapid Currents drive Towards the retreating Sea thir furious tyde Forthwith from out the Arke a Raven flies And after him the furer messenger A Dove sent forth once and agen to spie Green Tree or ground whereon his foot may light The second time returning in his Bill An Olive leafe he brings pacific signe Anon drie ground appeers and from his Arke The ancient Sire descends with all his Train Then with uplifted hands and eyes devout Grateful to Heav'n over his head beholds A dewie Cloud and in the Cloud a Bow Conspicuous with three listed colours gay Betok'ning peace from God and Cov'nant new Whereat the heart of Adam erst so sad Greatly rejoyc'd and thus his joy broke forth O thou who future things canst represent As present Heav'nly instructer I revive At this last sight assur'd that Man shall live With all the Creatures and thir seed preserve Farr less I now lament for one whole World Of wicked Sons destroyd then I rejoyce For one Man found so perfet and so just That God voutsafes to raise another World From him and all his anger to forget But say what mean those colourd streaks in Heavn Distended as the Brow of God appeas'd Or serve they as a flourie verge to binde The fluid skirts of that same watrie Cloud Least it again dissolve and showr the Earth To whom th' Archangel Dextrously thou aim'st So willingly doth God remit his Ire Though late repenting him of Mandeprav'd Griev'd at his heart when looking down he saw The whole Earth fill'd with violence and all flesh Corrupting each thir way yet those remoov'd Such grace shall one just Man find in his sight That he relents nor to blot out mankind And makes a Covenant never to destroy The Earth again by flood nor let the Sea Surpass his bounds nor Rain to drown the World With Man therein or Beast but when he brings Over the Earth a Cloud will therein set His triple-colour'd Bow whereon to look And call to mind his Cov'nant Day and Night Seed time and Harvest Heat and hoary Frost Shall hold thir course till fire purge all things new Both Heav'n and Earth wherein the just shall dwell The End of the Eleventh Book Paradise Lost BOOK XII THE ARGUMENT The Angel Michael continues from the Flood to relate what shall succeed then in the mention of Abraham comes by degrees to explain who that Seed of the Woman shall be which was promised Adam and Eve in the Fall his Incarnation Death Resurrection and Ascention the state of the Church till his second Coming Adam greatly satisfied and recomforted by these Relations and Promises descends the Hill with Michael wakens Eve who all this while had slept but with gentle dreams compos'd to quietness of mind and submission Michael in either hand leads them out of Paradise the fiery Sword waving behind them and the Cherubim taking thir Stations to guard the Place AS one who in his journey bates at Noone Though bent on speed so heer the Archangel paus'd Betwixt the world destroy'd and world restor'd If Adam aught perhaps might interpose Then with transition sweet new Speech resumes Thus thou hast seen one World begin and end And Man as from a second stock proceed Much thou hast yet to see but I perceave Thy mortal sight to faile objects divine Must needs impaire and wearie human sense Henceforth what is to com I will relate Thou therefore give due audience and attend This second sours of Men while yet but few And while the dread of judgement past remains Fresh in thir mindes fearing the Deitie With some regard to what is just and right Shall lead thir lives and multiplie apace Labouring the soile and reaping plenteous crop Corn wine and oyle and from the herd or flock Oft sacrificing Bullock Lamb or Kid With large Wine-offerings pour'd and sacred Feast Shal spend thir dayes in joy unblam'd and dwell Long time in peace by Families and Tribes Under paternal rule till one shall rise Of proud ambitious heart who nor content With fair equalitie fraternal state Will arrogate Dominion undeserv'd Over his brethren and quite dispossess Concord and law of Nature from the Earth Hunting and Men not Beasts shall be his game With Warr and hostile snare such as refuse Subjection to his Empire tyrannous A mightie Hunter thence he shall be styl'd Before the Lord as in despite of Heav'n Or from Heav'n claming second Sovrantie And from Rebellion shall derive his name Though of Rebellion others he accuse Hee with a crew whom like Ambition joyns With him or under him to tyrannize Marching from Eden towards the West shall finde The Plain wherein a black bituminous gurge Boiles out from under ground the mouth of Hell Of Brick and of that stuff they cast to build A Citie and Towre whose top may reach to Heav'n And get themselves a name least far disperst In foraign Lands thir memorie be lost Regardless whether good or evil fame But God who oft descends to visit men Unseen and through thir habitations walks To mark thir doings them beholding soon Comes down to see thir Citie ere the Tower Obstruct Heav'n Towrs and in derision sets Upon thir Tongues a various Spirit to rase Quite out thir Native Language and instead To sow a jangling noise of words unknown Forthwith a hideous gabble rises loud Among the Builders each to other calls Not understood till hoarse and all in rage As mockt they storm great laughter was in Heav'n And looking down to see the hubbub strange And hear the din thus was the building left Ridiculous and the work Confusion nam'd Whereto thus Adam fatherly displeas'd O execrable Son so to aspire Above his Brethren to himself assuming Authoritie usurpt from God not giv'n He gave us onely over Beast Fish Fowl Dominion absolute that right we hold By his donation
nor so is overcome Satan whose fall from Heav'n a deadlier bruise Disabl'd not to give thee thy deaths wound Which hee who comes thy Saviour shall recure Not by destroying Satan but his works In thee and in thy Seed nor can this be But by fulfilling that which thou didst want Obedience to the Law of God impos'd On penaltie of death and suffering death The penaltie to thy transgression due And due to theirs which out of thine will grow So onely can high Justice rest appaid The Law of God exact he shall fulfill Both by obedience and by love though love Alone fulfill the Law thy punishment He shall endure by coming in the Flesh To a reproachful life and cursed death Proclaiming Life to all who shall believe In his redemption and that his obedience Imputed becomes theirs by Faith his merits To save them not thir own though legal works For this he shall live hated be blasphem'd Seis'd on by force judg'd and to death condemnd A shameful and accurst naild to the Cross By his own Nation slaine for bringing Life Bur to the Cross he nailes thy Enemies The Law that is against thee and the sins Of all mankinde with him there crucifi'd Never to hurt them more who rightly trust In this his satisfaction so he dies But soon revives Death over him no power Shall long usurp ere the third dawning light Returne the Starres of Morn shall see him rise Out of his grave fresh as the dawning light Thy ransom paid which Man from death redeems His death for Man as many as offerd Life Neglect not and the benefit imbrace By Faith not void of workes this God-like act Annuls thy doom the death thou shouldst have dy'd In sin for ever lost from life this act Shall bruise the head of Satan crush his strength Defeating Sin and Death his two maine armes And fix farr deeper in his head thir stings Then temporal death shall bruise the Victors heel Or theirs whom he redeems a death like sleep A gentle wafting to immortal Life Nor after resurrection shall he stay Longer on Earth then certaine times to appeer To his Disciples Men who in his Life Still follow'd him to them shall leave in charge To teach all nations what of him they learn'd And his Salvation them who shall beleeve Baptizing in the profluent stream the signe Of washing them from guilt of sin to Life Pure and in mind prepar'd if so befall For death like that which the redeemer dy'd All Nations they shall teach for from that day Not onely to the Sons of Abrahams Loines Salvation shall be Preacht but to the Sons Of Abrahams Faith wherever through the world So in his seed all Nations shall be blest Then to the Heav'n of Heav'ns he shall ascend With victory triumphing through the aire Over his foes and thine there shall surprise The Serpent Prince of aire and drag in Chaines Through all his Realme and there confounded leave Then enter into glory and resume His Seat at Gods right hand exalted high Above all names in Heav'n and thence shall come When this worlds disolution shall be ripe With glory and power to judge both quick and dead To judge th' unfaithful dead but to reward His faithful and receave them into bliss Whether in Heav'n or Earth for then the Earth Shall all be Paradise far happier place Then this of Eden and far happier daies So spake th' Archangel Michael then paus'd As at the Worlds great period and our Sire Replete with joy and wonder thus repli'd O goodness infinite goodness immense That all this good of evil shall produce And evil turn to good more wonderful Then that which by creation first brought forth Light out of darkness full of doubt I stand Whether I should repent me now of sin By mee done and occasiond or rejoyce Much more that much more good thereof shall spring To God more glory more good will to Men From God and over wrauth grace shall abound Buâ— say if our deliverer up to Heav'n Must reascend what will betide the few His faithful left among th' unfaithful herd The enemies of truth who then shall guide His people who defend will they not deale Wors with his followers then with him they dealt Be sure they will said th' Angel but from Heav'n Hee to his own a Comforter will send The promise of the Father who shall dwell His Spirit within them and the Law of Faith Working through love upon thir hearts shall write To guide them in all truth and also arme With spiritual Armour able to resist Satans assaults and quench his fierie darts What man can do against them not affraid Though to the death against such cruelties With inward consolations recompenc't And oft supported so as shall amaze Thir proudest persecuters for the Spirit Powrd first on his Apostles whom he sends To evangelize the Nations then on all Baptiz'd shall them with wondrous gifts endue To speak all Tongues and do all Miracles As did thir Lord before them Thus they win Great numbers of each Nation to receave With joy the tidings brought from Heav'n at length Thir Ministry perform'd and race well run Thir doctrine and thir story written left They die but in thir room as they forewarne Wolves shall succeed for teachers grievous Wolves Who all the sacred mysteries of Heav'n To thir own vile advantages shall turne Of lucre and ambition and the truth With superstitions and traditions taint Left onely in those written Records pure Though not but by the Spirit understood Then shall they seek to avail themselves of names Places and titles and with these to joine Secular power though feigning still to act By spiritual to themselves appropriating The Spirit of God promisd alike and giv'n To all Beleevers and from that pretense Spiritual Lawes by carnal power shall force On every conscience Laws which none shall finde Left them inrould or what the Spirit within Shall on the heart engrave What will they then But force the Spirit of Grace it self and binde His consort Libertie what but unbuild His living Temples built by Faith to stand Thir own Faith not anothers for on Earth Who against Faith and Conscience can be heard Infallible yet many will presume Whence heavie persecution shall arise On all who in the worship persevere Of Spirit and Truth the rest farr greater part Well deem in outward Rites and specious formes Religion satisfi'd Truth shall retire Bestuck with slandrous darts and works of Faith Rarely be found so shall the World goe on To good malignant to bad men benigne Under her own waight groaning till the day Appeer of respiration to the just And vengeance to the wicked at return Of him so lately promiss'd to thy aid The Womans seed obscurely then foretold Now amplier known thy Saviour and thy Lord Last in the Clouds from Heav'n to be reveald In glory of the Father to dissolve Satan with his perverted World then raise From the conflagrant mass purg'd
and refin'd New Heav'ns new Earth Ages of endless date Founded in righteousness and peace and love To bring forth fruits Joy and eternal Bliss He ended and thus Adam last reply'd How soon hath thy prediction Seer blest Measur'd this transient World the Race of time Till time stand fixt beyond is all abyss Eternitie whose end no eye can reach Greatly instructed I shall hence depart Greatly in peace of thought and have my fill Of knowledge what this Vessel can containe Beyond which was my folly to aspire Henceforth I learne that to obey is best And love with fear the onely God to walk As in his presence ever to observe His providence and on him sole depend Mercifull over all his works with good Still overcoming evil and by small Accomplishing great things by things deemd weak Subverting worldly strong and worldly wise By simply meek that suffering for Truths sake Is fortitude to highest victorie And to the faithful Death the Gate of Life Taught this by his example whom I now Acknowledge my Redeemer ever blest To whom thus also th' Angel last repli'd This having learnt thou hast attaind the summe Of wisdome hope no higher though all the Starrs Thou knewst by name and all th' ethereal Powers All secrets of the deep all Natures works Or works of God in Heav'n Aire Earth or Sea And all the riches of this World enjoydst And all the rule one Empire onely add Deeds to thy knowledge answerable add Faith Add vertue Patience Temperance add Love By name to come call'd Charitie the soul Of all the rest then wilt thou not be loath To leave this Paradise but shalt possess A paradise within thee happier farr Let us descend now therefore from this top Of Speculation for the hour precise Exacts our parting hence and see the Guards By mee encampt on yonder Hill expect Thir motion at whose Front a flaming Sword In signal of remove waves fiercely round We may no longer stay go waken Eve Her also I with gentle Dreams have calm'd Portending good and all her spirits compos'd To meek submission thou at season fit Let her with thee partake what thou hast heard Chiefly what may concern her Faith to know The great deliverance by her Seed to come For by the Womans Seed on all Mankind That ye may live which will be many dayes Both in one Faith unanimous though sad With cause for evils past yet much more cheer'd With meditation on the happie end He ended and they both descend the Hill Descended Adam to the Bowre where Eve Lay sleeping ran before but found her wak't And thus with words not sad she him receav'd Whence thou returnst and whither wentst I know For God is also in sleep and Dreams advise Which he hath sent propitious some great good Presaging since with sorrow and hearts distress Wearied I fell asleep but now lead on In mee is no delay with thee to goe Is to stay here without thee here to stay Is to go hence unwilling thou to mee Art all things under Heav'n all places thou Who for my wilful crime art banisht hence This further consolation yet secure I carry hence though all by mee is lost Such favour I unworthie am voutsaft By mee the Promis'd Seed shall all restore So spake our Mother Eve and Adam heard Well pleas'd but answer'd not for now too nigh Th' Archangel stood and from the other Hill To thir sixt Station all in bright array The Cherubim descended on the ground Gliding meteorous as Ev'ning Mist Ris'n from a River o're the marish glides And gathers ground fast at the Labourers heel Homeward returning High in Front advanc't The brandisht Sword of God before them blaz'd Fierce as a Comet which with torrid heat And vapour as the Libyan Air adust Began to parch that temperate Clime whereat In either hand the hastning Angel caught Our lingring Parents and to th' Eastern Gate Led them direct and down the Cliff as fast To the subjected Plaine then disappeer'd They looking back all th' Eastern side beheld Of Paradise so late thir happie seat Wav'd over by that flaming Brand the Gate With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes Som natural tears they drop'd but wip'd them soon The World was all before them where to choose Thir place of rest and Providence thir guide They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow Through Eden took thir solitarie way THE END
awakens all his Legions who lay till then in the same manner confounded They rise thir Numbers array of Battel thir chief Leaders nam'd according to the Idols known afterwards in Canaan and the Countries adjoyning 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 Prophesie 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 Prophesie and what to determin thereon he refers to a full Councel What his Associates thence attempt Pandemonium the Place of Satan rises suddenly built out of the Deep The infernal Peers there sit in Councel OF Mans First Disobedience and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree whose mortal tast 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 Heav'nly 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 Heav'ns and Earth Rose out of Chaos Or if Sion Hill Delight thee more and Siloa's Brook that flow'd Fast by the Oracle of God I thence Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song That with no middle flight intends to soar Above th' Aonian Mount while it pursues Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime And chiefly Thou O Spirit that dost prefer Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure Instruct me for Thou know'st Thou from the first Wast present and with mighty wings outspread Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And mad'st it pregnant What in me is dark Illumin what is low raise and support That to the highth of this great-Argument I may assert Eternal Providence And justifie the wayes of God to men Say first for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view Nor the deep Tract of Hell say first what cause Mov'd our Grand Parents in that happy State Favour'd of Heav'n so highly to fall off From thir Creator and transgress his Will For one restraint Lords of the World besides Who first seduc'd them to that foul revolt Th' infernal Serpent he it was whose guile Stird up with Envy and Revenge deceiv'd The Mother of Mankind what time his Pride Had cast him out from Heav'n with all his Host Of Rebel Angels by whose aid aspiring To set himself in Glory above his Peers He trusted to have equal'd the most High If he oppos'd and with ambitious aim Against the Throne and Monarchy of God Rais'd impious War in Heav'n and Battel proud With vain attempt Him the Almighty Power Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie With hideous ruine and combustion down To bottomless perdition there to dwell In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms. Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night To mortal men he with his horrid crew Lay vanquisht rowling in the fiery Gulfe Confounded though immortal But his doom Reserv'd him to more wrath for now the thought Both of lost happiness and lasting pain Torments him round he throws his baleful eyes That witness'd huge affliction and dismay Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate At once as far as Angels kenn he views The dismal Situation waste and wilde A Dungeon horrible on all sides round As one great Furnace flam'd yet from those flames No light but rather darkness visible Serv'd onely 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 unconsum'd Such place Eternal Justice had prepar'd For those rebellious here their Prison ordain'd In utter darkness and thir portion set As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n As from the Center thrice to th' utmost Pole O how unlike the place from whence they fell There the companions of his fall o'rewhelm'd With Floods and Whirlwinds of tempestuous fire He soon discerns and weltring by his side One next himself in power and next in crime Long after known in Palestine and nam'd Beelzebub To whom th' Arch-Enemy And thence in Heav'n call'd Satan with bold words Breaking the horrid silence thus began If thou beest he But O how fall'n how chang'd From him who in the happy Realms of Light Cloth'd with transcendent brightness didst out-shine Myriads though bright If he whom mutual league United thoughts and counsels equal hope And hazard in the Glorious Enterprize Joynd with me once now misery hath joynd In equal ruin into what Pit thou seest From what highth fall'n so much the stronger prov'd 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 chang'd in outward lustre that fixt mind And high disdain from sence of injur'd merit That with the mightiest rais'd me to contend And to the fierce contention brought along Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd That durst dislike his reign and me preferring His utmost power with adverse power oppos'd In dubious Battel on the Plains of Heav'n 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 deifie his power Who from the terrour 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 fall Since through experience of this great event In Arms not worse in foresight much advanc't We may with more successful hope resolve To wage by force or guile eternal Warr Irreconcileable to our grand Foe Who now triumphs and in th' excess of joy Sole reigning holds the Tyranny of Heav'n So spake th' Apostate Angel though in pain Vaunting aloud but rackt with deep despare And him thus answer'd soon his bold Compeer O Prince O Chief of many Throned Powers That led th' imbattelld Seraphim to Warr Under thy conduct and in dreadful deeds Fearless endanger'd Heav'ns 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 soul defeat Hath lost us Heav'n and all this mighty Host In horrible destruction laid thus low As far as Gods and Heav'nly Essences Can perish for the mind and spirit remains Invincible and vigour soon returns Though all our Glory extinct and happy state Here swallow'd up in endless misery But what if he our Conquerour whom I now Of
Brooks In Vallombrosa where th' Etrurian shades High overarch't imbowr or scatterd sedge A float when with fierce Winds Orion arm'd Hath vext the Red-Sea Coast whose waves orethrew Busiris and his Memphian Chivalry While with perfidious hatred they pursu'd The Sojourners of Goshen who beheld From the safe shore thir floating Carkases And broken Chariot Wheels so thick bestrown Abject and lost lay these covering the Flood Under amazement of thir hideous change He call'd so loud that all the hollow Deep Of Hell resounded Princes Potentates Warriers the Flowr of Heav'n once yours now lost If such astonishment as this can sieze Eternal spirits or have ye chos'n this place After the toyl of Battel to repose Your wearied vertue for the ease you find To slumber here as in the Vales of Heav'n Or in this abject posture have ye sworn To adore the Conquerour who now beholds Cherube and Seraph rowling in the Flood With scatter'd Arms and Ensigns till anon His swift pursuers from Heav'n Gates discern Th' advantage and descending tread us down Thus drooping or with linked Thunderbolts Transfix us to the bottom of this Gulfe Awake arise or be for ever fall'n They heard and were abasht 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 perceave the evil plight In which they were or the fierce pains not feel Yet to thir Generals Voyce they soon obeyd Innumerable As when the potent Rod Of Amrams Son in Egypts evill day Wav'd round the Coast up call'd a pitchy cloud Of Locusts warping on the Eastern Wind That ore the Realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like Night and darken'd 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 giv'n th' uplifted Spear Of thir great Sultan waving to direct Thir course in even ballance down they light On the firm brimstone and fill all the Plain A multitude like which the populous North Pour'd never from her frozen loyns to pass Rhene or the Danaw when her barbarous Sons Came like a Deluge on the South and spread Beneath Gibralter to the Lybian sands Forthwith from every Squadron and each Band The Heads and Leaders thither hast where stood Thir great Commander Godlike shapes and forms Excelling human Princely Dignities And Powers that earst in Heaven sat on Thrones Though of thir Names in heav'nly Records now Be no memorial blotted out and ras'd By thir Rebellion from the Books of Life Nor had they yet among the Sons of Eve Got them new Names till wandring ore the Earth Through Gods high sufferance for the tryal of man By falsities and lyes the greatest part Of Mankind they corrupted to forsake God thir Creator and th' invisible Glory of him that made them to transform Oft to the Image of a Brute adorn'd 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 thir Names then known who first who last Rous'd from the slumber on that fiery Couch At thir great Emperors call as next in worth Came singly where he stood on the bare strand While the promiscuous croud stood yet aloof The chief were those who from the Pit of Hell Roaming to seek thir prey on earth durst fix Thir Seats long after next the Seat of God Thir Altars by his Altar Gods ador'd Among the Nations round and durst abide Jehovah thundring out of Sion thron'd Between the Cherubim yea often plac'd Within his Sanctuary it self thir Shrines Abominations and with cursed things His holy Rites and solemn Feasts profan'd And with thir darkness durst affront his light First Moloch horrid King besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice and parents tears Though for the noyse of Drums and Timbrels loud Thir children cries unheard that past through fire To his grim Idol Him the Ammonite Worshipt in Rabba and her watry Plain In Argob and in Basan to the stream Of utmost Anion 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 Vally of Hinnom Tophet thence And black Gehenna call'd the Type of Hell Next Chemos th' obscene dread of Moabs Sons From Aroar to Nebo and the wild Of Southmost Abarim in Hesebon And Horonaim Seons Realm beyond The flowry Dale of Sibma clad with Vines And Eleale to th' Asphaltick Pool Peor his other Name when he entic'd Israel in Sittim on thir march from Nile To do him wanton rites which cost them woe Yet thence his lustful Orgies he enlarg'd 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 bordring flood Of old Euphrates to the Brook that parts Egyp 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 thir Essence pure Not ti'd or manacl'd with joynt or limb Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones Like cumbrous flesh but in what shape they choose Dilated or condens't bright or obscure Can execute thir aerie purposes And works of love or enmity fulfill For those the Race of Israel oft forsook Thir living strength and unfrequented left His righteous Altar bowing lowly down To bestial Gods for which thir heads as low Bow'd down in Battel sunk before the Spear Of despicable foes With these in troop Came Astoreth whom the Phoenicians call'd Astarte Queen of Heav'n with crescent Horns To whose bright Image nightly by the Moon Sidonian Virgins paid thir Vows and Songs In Sion also not unsung where stood Her Temple on th' offensive Mountain built By that uxorious King whose heart though large Beguil'd by fair Idolatresses fell To Idols foul Thammuz came next behind Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd The Syrian Damsels to lament his fate In amorous dittyes all a Summers day While smooth Adonis from his native Rock Ran purple to the Sea suppos'd with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded the Love-tale Infected Sions daughters with like heat Whose wanton passions in the sacred Porch Ezekiel saw when by the Vision led His eye survay'd the dark Idolatries Of alienated Judah Next came one Who mourn'd in earnest when the Captive Ark Maim'd his brute Image head and hands lopt off In his own Temple on the grunsel edge Where he fell flat and sham'd his Worshipers Dargon his Name Sea Monster upward Man And downward Fish yet had his Temple high Rear'd in Azotus dreaded through the Coast Of Palestine in Gath and Ascalon And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds Him follow'd Rimmon
whose delightful Seat Was fair Damascus on the fertil Banks Of Abbana and Pharphar lucid streams He also against the house of God was bold A Leper once he lost and gain'd a King Ahaz his fottish Conquerour whom he drew Gods Altar to disparage and displace For one of Syrian mode whereon to burn His odious offrings and adore the Gods Whom he had vanquisht After these appear'd A crew who under Names of old Renown Osiris Isis Orus and their Train With monstrous shapes and sorceries abus'd Fanatic Egypt and her Priests to seek Thir wandring Gods disguis'd in brutish forms Rather then human Nor did Israel scape Th' infection when thir borrow'd Gold compos'd The Calf in Oreb and the Rebel King Doubl'd that sin in Bethel and in Dan Lik'ning his Maker to the Grazed Ox Jehovah who in one Night when he pass'd From Egypt marching equal'd with one stroke Both her first born and all her bleating Gods Belial came last then whom a Spirit more lewd Fell not from Heaven or more gross to love Vice for it self To him no Temple stood Or Altar smoak'd yet who more oft then hee In Temples and at Altars when the Priest Turns Atheist as did Ely's Sons who fill'd With lust and violence the house of God In Courts and Palaces he also Reigns And in luxurious Cities where the noyse Of riot ascends above their loftiest Towrs 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 Expos'd a Matron to avoid worse rape These were the prime in order and in might The rest were long to tell though far renown'd Th' Ionian Gods of Javans ' Issue held Gods yet confest later then Heav'n and Earth Thir boasted Parents Titan Heav'ns first born With his enormous brood and birthright seis'd By younger Saturn he from mightier Jove His own and Rhea's Son like measure found So Jove usurping reign'd these first in Creet And Ida known thence on the Snowy top Of cold Olympus rul'd the middle Air Thir highest Heav'n 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 th' Hesperian Fields And ore the Celtic roam'd the utmost Isles All these and more came flocking but with looks Down cast and damp yet such wherein appear'd Obscure some glimps of joy to have found thir chief Not in despair to have found themselves not lost In loss it self which on his count'nance cast Like doubtful hue but he his wonted pride Soon recollecting with high words that bore Semblance of worth not substance gently rais'd Thir fanting courage and dispel'd thir fears Then strait commands that at the warlike sound Of Trumpets loud and Clarions be upreard His mighty Standard that proud honour claim'd Azazel as his right a Cherube tall Who forthwith from the glittering Staff unfurld Th' Imperial Ensign which full high advanc't Shon like a Meteor streaming to the Wind With Gemms and Golden lustre rich imblaz'd Seraphic arms and Trophies all the while Sonorous mettal blowing Martial sounds At which the universal Host upsent A shout that tore Hells 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 Forrest huge of Spears and thronging Helms Appear'd 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 rais'd To hight of noblest temper Hero's old Arming to Battel and in stead of rage Deliberate valour breath'd firm and unmov'd With dread of death to flight or foul retreat Nor warning power to mitigate and swage With solemn touches troubl'd 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 Mov'd on in silence to soft Pipes that charm'd Thir painful steps o're the burnt soyle and now Advanc't in view they stand a horrid Front Of dreadful length and dazling Arms in guise Of Warriers old with order'd Spear and Shield Awaiting what command thir mighty Chief Had to impose He through the armed Files Darts his experienc't eye and soon traverse The whole Battalion views thir order due Thir visages and stature as of Gods Thir number last he summs And now his heart Distends with pride and hardning in his strength Glories For never since created man Met such imbodied force as nam'd with these Could merit more then that small infantry Warr'd on by Cranes though all the Giant brood Of Phlegra with th' Heroic Race were joyn'd That fought at Theb's and Ilium on each side Mixt with auxiliar Gods and what resounds In Fable or Romance of Vthers Son Begirt with British and Armoric Knights And all who since Baptiz'd 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 observ'd Thir dread commander he above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent Stood like a Towr his form had yet not lost All her Original brightness nor appear'd Less then Arch Angel ruind and th' excess Of Glory obscur'd As when the Sun new ris'n Looks through the Horizontal misty Air Shorn of his Beams or from behind the Moon In dim Eclips disastrous twilight sheds On half the Nations and with fear of change Perplexes Monarchs Dark'n'd so yet shon Above them all th' Arch Angel but his face Deep scars of Thunder had intrencht and care Sat on his faded cheek but under Browes 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 condemn'd For ever now to have thir lot in pain Millions of Spirits for his fault amerc't Of Heav'n and from Eternal Splendors flung For his revolt yet faithfull how they stood Thir Glory witherd As when Heavens Fire Hath scath'd the Forrest Oaks or Mountain Pines With singed top thir stately growth though bare Stands on the blasted Heath He now prepar'd To speak whereat thir doubl'd Ranks they bend From wing to wing and half enclose him round With all his Peers attention held them mute Thrice he assayd and thrice in spight of scorn Tears such as Angels weep burst forth at last Words interwove with sighs found out thir way O Myriads of immortal Spirits O Powers Matchless but with th' Almighty and that strife Was not inglorious though th' 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 fear'd How such united force of Gods how such As stood like these could ever know repulse For who can yet beleeve though after loss That all these puissant Legions whose exile Hath emptied Heav'n shall fail to re-ascend Self-rais'd and repossess thir native seat For mee be witness all the Host of Heav'n If counsels different or danger shun'd By me have lost our hopes But he who reigns Monarch in Heav'n till then as one secure Sat on his Throne upheld by old repute Consent or custome and his Regal State Put forth at full but still his strength conceal'd 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 warr provok't 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 VVorlds whereof so rise There went a fame in Heav'n 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 th' Abyss Long under darkness cover But these thoughts Full Counsel must mature Peace is despaird For who can think Submission Warr then VVarr Open or understood must be resolv'd He spake and to confirm his words out-flew Millions of flaming swords drawn from the thighs Of mighty Cherubim the sudden blaze Far round illumin'd hell highly they rag'd Against the Highest and fierce with grasped Arms Clash'd on thir sounding Shields the din of war Hurling defiance toward the Vault of Heav'n There stood a Hill not farwhose griesly top Belch'd fire and rowling smoak the rest entire Shon with a glossie scurff undoubted sign That in his womb was hid metallic Ore The work of Sulphur Thither wing'd with speed A numerous Brigad hasten'd As when Bands Of Pioners with Spade and Pickax arm'd Forerun the Royal Camp to trench a Field Or cast a Rampart Mammon led them on Mammon the least erected Spirit that fell From heav'n for ev'n in heav'n his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent admiring more The riches of Heav'ns pavement trod'n Gold Then aught divine or holy else enjoy'd In vision beatific by him first Men also and by his suggestion taught Ransack'd the Center and with impious hands Rifl'd the bowels of thir mother Earth For Treasures better hid Soon had his crew Op'nd into the Hill a spacious wound And dig'd out ribs of Gold Let none admire That riches grow in Hell that soyle may best Deserve the precious bane And here let those VVho boast in mortal things and wond'ring tell Of Babel and the works of Memphian Kings Learn how thir greatest Monuments of Fame And Strength and Art are easily out-done By Spirits reprobate and in an hour VVhat in an age they with incessant toyle And hands innumerable scarce perform Nigh on the Plain in many cells prepar'd That underneath had veins of liquid fire Sluc'd from the Lake a second multitude VVith wond'rous Art found out the massie Ore Severing each kind and scum'd the Bullion dross A third as soon had form'd within the ground A various mould and from the boyling cells By strange conveyance fill'd each hollow nook As in an Organ from one blast of wind To many a row of Pipes the sound-board breaths Anon out of the earth a Fabrick huge Rose like an Exhalation with the sound Of Dulcet Symphonies and voices sweet Built like a Temple where Pilasters round VVere set and Doric pillars overlaid VVith Golden Architrave nor did there want Cornice or Freeze with bossy Sculptures grav'n The Roof was fretted Gold Not Babilon Nor great Alcairo such magnificence Equal'd in all thir glories to inshrine Belus or Serapis thir Gods or seat Thir Kings when Aegypt with Assyria strove In wealth and luxurie Th' ascending pile Stood fixt her stately highth and strait the dores Op'ning thir brazen foulds discover wide VVithin her ample spaces o're the smooth And level pavement from the arched roof Pendant by suttle Magic many a row Of Starry Lamps and blazing Cressets fed VVith Naphtha and Asphaltus yeilded light As from a sky The hasty multitude Admiring enter'd and the work some praise And some the Architect his hand was known In Heav'n by many a Towred structure high VVhere Scepter'd Angels held thir residence And sat as Princes whom the supreme King Exalted to such power and gave to rule Each in his Hierarchie the Orders bright Nor was his name unheard or unador'd In ancient Greece and in Ausonian land Men call'd him Mulciber and now he fell From Heav'n they fabl'd thrown by angry Jove Sheer o're the Chrystal Battlements from Morn To Noon he fell from Noon to dewy Eve A Summers day and with the setting Sun Dropt from the Zenith like a falling Star On Lemnos th' Aegaean Ile thus they relate Erring for he with this rebellious rout Fell long before nor aught avail'd him now To have built in Heav'n high Towrs nor did he scape By all his Engins but was headlong sent VVith his industrious crew to build in hell Mean while the winged Haralds by command Of Sovran power with awful Ceremony And Trumpets sound throughout the Host proclaim A solemn Councel forthwith to be held At Pandaemonium the high Capital Of Satan and his Peers thir summons call'd From every Band and squared Regiment By place or choice the worthiest they anon VVith hunderds and with thousands trooping came Attended all access was throng'd the Gates And Porches wide but chief the spacious Hall Though like a cover'd field where Champions bold Wont ride in arm'd and at the Soldans chair Defi'd the best of Panim chivalry To mortal combat or carreer with Lance Thick swarm'd both on the ground and in the air Brusht with the hiss of russling wings As Bees In spring time when the Sun with Taurus rides Pour forth thir populous youth about the Hive In clusters they among fresh dews and flowers Flie to and fro or on the smoothed Plank The suburb of thir Straw-built Cittadel New rub'd with Baum expatiate and confer Thir State affairs So thick the aerie crowd Swarm'd and were straitn'd till the Signal giv'n Behold a wonder they but now who seemd In bigness to surpass Earths Giant Sons Now less then smallest Dwarfs in narrow room Throng numberless like that Pigmean Race Beyond the Indian Mount or Faerie Elves Whose midnight Revels by a Forrest side Or Fountain some belated Peasant sees Or dreams he sees while over-head the Moon Sits Arbitress and neerer to the Earth Wheels her pale course they on thir 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
so much to him due Of hazard more as he above the rest High honourd sits Go therfore mighty Powers Terror of Heav'n though fall'n intend at home While here shall be our home what best may ease The present misery and render Hell More tollerable 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 enterprize None shall partake with me Thus saying rose The Monarch and prevented all reply Prudent least from his resolution rais'd Others among the chief might offer now Certain to be refus'd what erst they feard And so refus'd might in opinion stand His Rivals winning cheap the high repute Which he through hazard huge must earn But they Dreaded not more th' adventure then his voice Forbidding and at once with him they rose Thir rising all at once was as the sound Of Thunder heard remote Towards him they bend With awful reverence prone and as a God Extoll him equal to the highest in Heav'n Nor fail'd they to express how much they prais'd That for the general safety he despis'd His own for neither do the Spirits damn'd Loose all her virtue least bad men should boast Thir specious deeds on earth which glory excites Or clos ambition varnisht o're with zeal Thus they thir doubtful consultations dark Ended rejoycing in thir matchless Chief As when from mountain tops the dusky clouds Ascending while the North wind sleeps o'respread Heav'ns chearful face the lowring Element Scowls ore the dark'nd lantskip Snow or showre If chance the radiant Sun with farewell sweet Extend his ev'ning beam the fields revive The birds thir notes renew and bleating herds Attest thir joy that hill and valley rings O shame to men Devil with Devil damn'd Firm concord holds men onely disagree Of Creatures rational though under hope Of heavenly Grace and God proclaiming peace Yet live in hatred enmity and strife Among themselves and levie cruel warres Wasting the Earth each other to destroy As if which might induce us to accord Man had not hellish foes a now besides That day and night for his destruction waite The Stygian Counsel thus dissolv'd and forth In order came the grand infernal Peers Midst came thir mighty Paramount and seemd Alone th' Antagonist of Heav'n nor less Than Hells dread Emperour with pomp Supream And God-like imitated State him round A Globe of fierie Seraphim inclos'd With bright imblazonrie and horrent Arms. Then of thir Session ended they bid cry With Trumpets regal sound the great result Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim Put to thir mouths the sounding Alchymie By Haralds voice explain'd the hollow Abyss Heard farr and wide and all the host of Hell With deafning shout return'd them loud acclaim Thence more at ease thir minds and somwhat rais'd By false presumptuous hope the ranged powers Disband and wandring each his several way Pursues as inclination or sad choice Leads him perplext where he may likeliest find Truce to his restless thoughts and entertain The irksom hours till this great Chief return Part on the Plain or in the Air sublime Upon the wing or in swift Rare contend As at th' Olympian Games or Pythian fields Part curb thir fierie Steeds or shun the Goal With rapid wheels or fronted Brigads form As when to warn proud Cities warr appears Wag'd in the troubl'd Skie and Armies rush To Battel in the Clouds before each Van Prick forth the Aerie Knights and couch thir Spears Till thickest Legions close with feats of Arms From either end of Heav'n 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 wilde uproar As when Alcides from Oechalia Crown'd With conquest felt th' envenom'd robe and tore Through pain up by the roots Thessalian Pines And Lichas from the top of Oeta threw Into th' Euboic Sea Others more milde Retreated in a silent valley sing With notes Angelical to many a Harp Thir own Heroic deeds and hapless fall By doom of Battel and complain that Fate Free Vertue should enthrall to Force or Chance Thir 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 retir'd In thoughts more elevate and reason'd high Of Providence Foreknowledge Will and Fate Fixt Fate free will foreknowledg absolute And found no end in wandring mazes lost Of good and evil much they argu'd then Of happiness and final misery Passion and Apathie and glory and shame Vain wisdom all and false Philosophie Yet with a pleasing sorcerie could charm Pain for a while or anguish and excite Fallacious hope or arm th' obdured brest 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 thir flying March along the Banks Of four infernal Rivers that disgorge Into the burning Lake thir baleful streams Abhorred Styx the flood of deadly hate Sad Acheron of sorrow black and deep Cocytus nam'd of lamentation loud Heard on the ruful stream fierce Phlegeton Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage Farr off from these a slow and silent stream Lethe the River of Oblivion roules Her watrie 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 wilde 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 th' effect of Fire Thither by harpy-footed Furies hail'd At certain revolutions all the damn'd Are brought and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extreams extreams by change more fierce From Beds of raging Fire to starve in Ice Thir soft Ethereal warmth and there to pine Immovable infixt and frozen round Periods of time thence hurried back to fire They ferry over this Lethean Sound Both to and fro thir sorrow to augment And wish and struggle as they pass to reach The tempting stream with one small drop to loose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe All in one moment and so neer the brink But Fate withstands and to oppose th' attempt Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The Ford and of it self the water flies All taste of living wight as once it fled The lip of Tantalus Thus roving on In confus'd march forlorn th' adventrous Bands With shuddring horror pale and eyes agast View'd
and in the general fall I also at which time this powerful Key Into my hand was giv'n with charge to keep These Gates for ever shut which none can pass Without my op'ning 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 Transform'd but he my inbred enemie Forth issu'd brandishing his fatal Dart Made to destroy I fled and cry'd out Death Hell trembl'd at the hideous Name and sigh'd From all her Caves and back resounded Death I fled but he pursu'd though more it seems Inflam'd with lust then rage and swifter far Mee overtook his mother all dismaid And in embraces forcible and foule Ingendring with me of that rape begot These yelling Monsters that with ceasless cry Surround me as thou sawst hourly conceiv'd And hourly born with sorrow infinite To me for when they list into the womb That bred them they return and howle and gnaw My Bowels thir repast then bursting forth A fresh with conscious terrours 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 involvd and knows that I Should prove a bitter Morsel and his bane VVhen ever that shall be so Fate pronounc'd But thou O Father I forewarn thee shun His deadly arrow neither vainly hope To be invulnerable in those bright Arms Though temper'd heav'nly for that mortal dint Save he who reigns above none can resist She finish'd and the suttle Fiend his lore Soon learnd now milder and thus answerd smooth Dear Daughter since thou claim'st me for thy Sire And my fair Son here showst me the dear pledge Of dalliance had with thee in Heav'n and joys Then sweet now sad to mention through dire change Befalln us unforeseen unthought of know I come no enemie but to set free From out this dark and dismal house of pain Both him and thee and all the heav'nly Host Of Spirits that in our just pretenses arm'd Fell with us from on high from them I go This uncouth errand sole and one for all My self expose with lonely steps to tread Th' unfounded deep and through the void immense To search with wandring quest a place foretold Should be and by concurring signs ere now Created vast and round a place of bliss In the Pourlieues of Heav'n and therein plac't A race of upstart Creatures to supply Perhaps our vacant room though more remov'd Least Heav'n surcharg'd with potent multitude Might hap to move new broiles Be this or aught Then this more secret now design'd 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 VVing silently the buxom Air imbalm'd VVith odours there ye shall be fed and fill'd Immeasurably all things shall be your prey He ceas'd for both seemd highly pleasd and Death Grinnd horrible a gast'y smile to hear His famine should be fill'd and blest his mawe Destin'd to that good hour no less rejoyc'd His mother bad and thus bespake her Sire The key of this infernal Pit by due And by command of Heav'ns 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'rmatcht by living might But what ow 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 confin'd Inhabitant of Heav'n and heav'n lie-born Here in perpetual agonie and pain With terrors and with clamors compasst round Of mine own brood that on my bowels feed Thou art my Father thou ray 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 towards the Gate rouling her bestial train Forthwith the huge Porcullis high up drew Which but her self not all the Stygian powers Could once have mov'd then in the key-hole turns Th' intricate wards and every Bolt and Bar Of massie Iron or sollid Rock with ease Unfast'ns on a sudden op'n flie With impetuous recoile and jarring sound Th' infernal dores and on thir hinges grate Harsh Thunder that the lowest bottom shook Of Erebus She op'nd but to shut Excel'd her power the Gates wide op'n stood That with extended wings a Bannerd Host Under spread Ensigns marching might pass through With Horse and Chariots rankt in loose array So wide they stood and like a Furnace mouth Cast forth redounding smoak and ruddy flame Before thir eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoarie deep a dark Illimitable Ocean without bound Without dimension where length breadth highth And time and place are lost where eldest Night And Chaos Ancestors of Nature hold Eternal Anarchie amidst the noise Of endless Warrs and by confusion stand For hot cold moist and dry four Champions fierce Strive here for Maistrie and to Battel bring Thir embryon Atoms they around the flag Of each his Faction in thir several Clanns Light-arm'd or heavy sharp smooth swift or slow Swarm populous unnumber'd as the Sands Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil Levied to side with warring Winds and poise Thir lighter wings To whom these most adhere Hee rules a moment Chaos Umpire sits And by decision more imbroiles the fray By which he Reigns next him high Arbiter Chance governs all Into this wilde Abyss The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave Of neither Sea nor Shore nor Air nor Fire But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt Confus'dly and which thus must ever fight Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more Worlds Into this wild Abyss the warie fiend Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while Pondering his Voyage for no narrow frith He had to cross Nor was his eare less peal'd With noises loud and ruinous to compare Great things with small then when Bellona storms With all her battering Engines bent to rase Som Capital City or less then if this frame Of Heav'n were falling and these Elements In mutinie had from her Axle torn The stedfast Earth At last his Sail-broad Vannes He spreads for flight and in the surging smoak Uplifted spurns the ground thence many a League As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides Audacious but that seat soon failing meets A vast vacuitie
Angel and pretending a zealous desire to behold the new Creation and Man whom God had plac't here inquires of him the place of his habitation and is directed alights first on Mount Niphates HAil holy Light of spring of Heav'n first-born Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam May I express thee unblam'd since God is light And never but in unapproached light Dwelt from Eternitie 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 re-visit now with bolder wing Escap't the Stygian Pool though long detain'd In that obscure so journ while in my flight Through utter and through middle darkness borne With other notes then to th' Orphean Lyre I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down The dark descent and up to reascend Though hard and rare thee I revisit safe And feel thy sovran vital Lamp but thou Revisit'st not these eyes that rowle in vain To find thy piercing ray and find no dawn So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs Or dim suffusion veild Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt Cleer Spring or shadie Grove or Sunnie Hill Smit with the love of sacred Song but chief Thee Sion and the flowrie Brooks beneath That wash thy hallowd feet and warbling flow Nightly I visit nor somtimes forget Those other two equal'd with me in Fate So were I equal'd with them in renown Blind Thamyris and blind Maeonides And Tiresias and Phineus Prophets old Then feed on thoughts that voluntarie 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 Ev'n or Morn Or sight of vernal bloom or Summers Rose Or flocks or heards or human face divine But cloud in stead and ever-during dark Surrounds me from the chearful wayes of men Cut off and for the Book of knowledg fair Presented with a Universal blanc Of Natures works to mee expung'd and ras'd And wisdome at one entrance quite shut out So much the rather thou Celestial light Shine inward and the mind through all her powers Irradiate there plane 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 Thron'd 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 Starrs and from his sight receiv'd Beatitude past utterance on his right The radiant image of his Glory sat His onely Son On Earth he first beheld Our two first Parents yet the onely two Of mankind in the happie Garden plac't Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love Uninterrupted joy unrivald love In blissful solitude he then survey'd Hell and the Gulf between and Satan there Coasting the wall of Heav'n 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 seem'd Firm land imbosom'd 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 onely Son foreseeing spake Onely begotten Son seest thou what rage Transports our adversarie whom no bounds Prescrib'd no barrs of Hell nor all the chains Heapt on him there nor yet the main Abyss Wide interrupt can hold so bent he seems On desparate reveng that shall redound Upon his own rebellious head And now Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way Not farr off Heav'n in the Precincts of light Directly towards the new created World And Man there plac't with purpose to assay If him by force he can destroy or worse By some false guile pervert and shall pervert For man will hark'n to his glozing lyes And easily transgress the sole Command Sole pledge of his obedience So will fall Hee and his faithless Progenie whose fault Whose but his own ingrate he had of mee All he could have I made him just and right Sufficient to have stood though free to fall Such I created all th' Ethereal Powers And Spirits both them who stood and them who faild Freely they stood who stood and fell who fell Not free what proof could they have givn sincere Of true allegiance constant Faith or Love Where onely what they needs must do appeard 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 despoild Made passive both had servd necessitie Not mee They therefore as to right belongd So were created nor can justly accuse Thir maker or thir making or thir Fate As if predestination over-rul'd Thir will dispos'd by absolute Decree Or high foreknowledge they themselves decreed Thir own revolt not I if I foreknew Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown So without least impulse or shadow of Fate Or aught by me immutablie foreseen They trespass Authors to themselves in all Both what they judge and what they choose for so I formd them free and free they must remain Till they enthrall themselves I else must change Thir nature and revoke the high Decree Unchangeable Eternal which ordain'd Thir freedom they themselves ordain'd thir fall The first sort by thir own suggestion fell Self-tempted self-deprav'd Man falls deceiv'd By the other first Man therefore shall find grace The other none in Mercy and Justice both Through Heav'n and Earth so shall my glorie excel But Mercy first and last shall brightest shine Thus while God spake ambrosial fragrance fill'd All Heav'n and in the blessed Spirits elect Sense of new joy ineffable diffus'd Beyond compare the Son of God was seen Most glorious in him all his Father shon Substantially express'd and in his face Divine compassion visibly appeerd Love without end and without measure Grace Which uttering thus he to his Father spake O Father gracious was that word which clos'd Thy sovran sentence that Man should find grace For which both Heav'n and Earth shall high extoll Thy praises with th' innumerable sound Of Hymns and sacred Songs wherewith thy Throne Encompass'd shall resound thee ever blest For should Man finally be lost should Man Thy creature late so lov'd thy youngest Son Fall circumvented thus by fraud though joynd With his own folly that be from thee farr That farr be from thee Father who art Judg Of all things made and judgest onely right Or shall the Adversarie thus obtain His end
and frustrate thine shall he fulfill His malice and thy goodness bring to naught Or proud return though to his heavier doom Yet with revenge accomplish't and to Hell Draw after him the whole Race of mankind By him corrupted or wilt thou thy self Abolish thy Creation and unmake For him what for thy glorie thou hast made So should thy goodness and thy greatness both Be questiond and blaspheam'd without defence To whom the great Creatour thus reply'd 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 haft thou spok'n as my thoughts are all As my Eternal purpose hath decreed Man shall not quite be lost but sav'd who will Yet not of will in him but grace in me Freely voutsaft once more I will renew His lapsed powers though forfeit and enthrall'd 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 Hâ—s fall'n condition is and to me ow All his deliv'rance 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 warnd Thir sinful date and to appease betimes Th' incensed Deitie while offerd grace Invites for I will cleer thir senses dark What may suffice and soft'n stonie hearts To pray repent and bring obedience due To Prayer repentance and obedience due Though but endevord 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 us'd 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 hard'nd 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 don Man disobeying Disloyal breaks his fealtie and sinns Against the high Supremacie of Heav'n Affecting God-head and so loosing all To expiate his Treason hath naught left But to destruction sacred and devote He with his whole posteritie must dye Dye hee or Justice must unless for him Som other able and as willing pay The rigid satisfaction death for death Say Heav'nly powers where shall we find such love Which of ye will be mortal to redeem Mans mortal crime and just th' unjust to save Dwels in all Heaven charitie so deare He ask'd but all the Heav'nly Quire stood mute And silence was in Heav'n on mans behalf Patron or Intercessor none appeerd Much less that durst upon his own head draw The deadly forfeiture and ransom set And now without redemption all mankind Must have bin lost adjudg'd to Death and Hell By doom severe had not the Son of God In whom the fulness dwels of love divine His dearest mediation thus renewd Father thy word is past 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 unimplor'd unsought Happie for man so coming he her aide Can never seek once dead in sins and lost Attonement for himself or offering meet Indebted and undon hath none to bring Behold mee then mee for him life for life I offer on mee let thine anger fall Account mee man I for his sake will leave Thy bosom and this glorie next to thee Freely put off and for him lastly dye Well pleas'd on me let Death wreck all his rage Under his gloomie power I shall not long Lie vanquisht thou hast givn me to possess Life in my self for ever by thee I live Though now to Death I yield and am his due All that of me can die yet that debt paid Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsom grave His prey nor suffer my unspotted Soule For ever with corruption there to dwell But I shall rise Victorious and subdue My vanquisher spoild of his vanted spoile Death his deaths wound shall then receive and stoop Inglorious of his mortall sting disarm'd 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 Pleas'd out of Heaven shalt look down and smile While by thee rais'd I ruin all my Foes Death last and with his Carcass glut the Grave Then with the multitude of my redeemd Shall enter Heaven long absent and returne Father to see thy face wherein no cloud Of anger shall remain but peace assur'd And reconcilement wrauth shall be no more Thenceforth but in thy presence Joy entire His words here ended but his meek aspect Silent yet spake and breath'd immortal love To mortal men above which only shon Filial obedience as a sacrifice Glad to be offer'd he attends the will Of his great Father Admiration seis'd All Heav'n what this might mean and whither tend Wondring but soon th' Almighty thus reply'd O thou in Heav'n and Earth the only peace Found out for mankind under wrauth O thou My sole complacence well thou know'st how dear To me are all my works nor Man the least Though last created that for him I spare Thee from my bosom and right hand to save By loosing thee a while the whole Race lost Thou therefore whom thou only canst redeem Thir Nature also to thy Nature joyn And be thy self Man among men on Earth Made flesh when time shall be of Virgin seed By wondrous birth Be thou in Adams room The Head of all mankind though Adams Son As in him perish all men so in thee As from a second root shall be restor'd As many as are restor'd without thee none His crime makes guiltie all his Sons thy merit Imputed shall absolve them who renounce Thir own both righteous and unrighteous deeds And live in thee transplanted and from thee Receive new life So Man as is most just Shall satisfie for Man be judg'd and die And dying rise and rising with him raise His Brethren ransomd with his own dear life So Heav'nly love shall outdoo Hellish hate Giving to death and dying to redeeme So dearly to redeem what Hellish hate So easily destroy'd and still destroyes In those who when they may accept not grace Nor shalt thou by descending to assume Mans Nature less'n or degrade thine owne Because thou hast though Thron'd in highest bliss Equal to God and equally enjoying God-like fruition quitted all to save A World from utter loss and hast been found By Merit more then Birthright Son of God Found worthiest to be so by being Good Farr more then Great or High because in thee Love hath abounded more then Glory abounds Therefore thy Humiliation shall exalt With thee thy Manhood also to this Throne Here shalt thou sit incarnate here shalt Reign Both God and Man Son both of God and
of Paradise Dying put on the weeds of Dominic Or in Franciscan think to pass disguis'd They pass the Planets seven and pass the fixt And that Crystalline Sphear whose ballance weighs The Trepidation talkt and that first mov'd And now Saint Peter at Heav'ns Wicket seems To wait them with his Keys and now at foot Of Heav'ns ascent they lift thir Feet when loe A violent cross wind from either Coast Blows them transverse ten thousand Leagues awry Into the devious Air then might ye see Cowles Hoods and Habits with thir wearers tost And flutterd 〈◊〉 Raggs then Reliques Beads Indulgences Dispenses Pardons Bulls The sport of Winds all these upwhirld aloft Fly o're the backside of the World farr off Into a Limbo large and broad since calld The Paradise of Fools to few unknown Long after now unpeopl'd and uncrod All this dark Globe the Fiend found as he pass'd And long he wanderd till at last a gleame Of dawning light turnd thither-ward in haste His travell'd steps farr distant he descries Ascending by degrees magnificent Up to the wall of Heaven a Structure high At top whereof but farr more rich appeerd The work as of a Kingly Palace Gate With Frontispice of Diamond and Gold Imbellisht thick with sparkling orient Gemmes The Portal shon inimitable on Earth By Model or by shading Pencil drawn The Stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw Angels ascending and descending bands Of Guardians bright when he from Esau fled To Padan-Aram in the field of Luz Dreaming by night under the open Skie And waking cri'd This is the Gate of Heav'n Each Stair mysteriously was meant nor stood There alwayes but drawn up to Heav'n somtimes Viewless and underneath a bright Sea flow'd Of Jasper or of liquid Pearle whereon Who after came from Earth sayling arriv'd Wafted by Angels or flew o're the Lake Rapt in a Chariot drawn by fiery Steeds The Stairs were then let down whether to dare The Fiend by easie ascent or aggravate His sad exclusion from the dores of 〈◊〉 Direct against which op'nd from beneath Just o're the blissful seat of Paradise A passage down to th' Earth a passage wide Wider by farr then that of after-times Over Mount Sion and though that were large Over the Promis'd Land to God so dear By which to visit oft those happy Tribes On high behests his Angels to and fro Pass'd frequent and his eye with choice regard From Paneas the fount of Jordans flood To Beersaba where the Holy Land Borders on Aegypt and the Arabian shoare So wide the op'ning seemd where bounds were set To darkness such as bound the Ocean wave Satan from hence now on the lower stair That scal'd by steps of Gold to Heav'n Gate Looks down with wonder at the sudden view Of all this World at once As when a Scout Through dark and desart wayes with peril gone All night at last by break of chearful dawne Obtains the brow of some high-climbing Hill Which to his eye discovers unaware The goodly prospect of some forein land First-seen or some renown'd Metropolis With glistering Spires and Pinnacles adornd Which now the Rising Sun guilds with his beams Such wonder seis'd though after Heaven seen The Spirit maligne but much more envy seis'd At sight of all this World beheld so faire Round he surveys and well might where he stood So high above the circling Canopie Of Nights extended shade from Eastern Point Of Libra to the fleecie Starr that bears Andromeda farr off Atlantic Seas Beyond th' Horizon then from Pole to Pole He views in bredth and without longer pause Down right into the Worlds first Region throws His flight precipitant and windes with ease Through the pure marble Air his oblique way Amongst innumerable Starrs that shon Stars distant but nigh hand seemd other Worlds Or other Worlds they seemd or happy Iles Like those Hesperian Gardens fam'd of old Fortunate Fields and Groves and flourie Vales Thrice happy Iles but who dwelt happy there He stayd not to enquire above them all The golden Sun in splendor likest Heaven Allur'd his eye Thither his course he bends Through the calm Firmament but up or downe By center or eccentric hard to tell Or Longitude where the great Luminarie A looff the vulgar Constellations thick That from his Lordly eye keep distance due Dispenses Light from farr they as they move Thir Starry dance in numbers that compute Days months years towards his all-chearing Lamp Turn swift thir various motions or are turnd By his Magnetic beam that gently warms The Univers and to each inward part With gentle penetration though unseen Shoots invisible venue even to the deep So wondrously was set his Station bright There lands the Fiend a spot like which perhaps Astronomer in the Sun 's lucent Orbe Through his glaz'd Optic Tube yet never saw The place he found beyond expression bright Compar'd with aught on Earth Medal or Stone Not all parts like but all alike informd With radiant light as glowing Iron with fire If mettal part seemd Gold part Silver cleer If stone Carbuncle most or Chrysolite Rubie or Topaz to the Twelve that shon In Aarons Brest-plate and a stone besides Imagind rather oft then elsewhere seen That stone or like to that which here below Philosophers in vain so long have sought In vain though by thir powerful Art they binde Volatil Hermes and call up unbound In various shape old Proteus from the Sea Draind through a Limbec to his Native forme What wonder then if fields and regions here Breathe forth Elixir pure and Rivers run Potable Gold when with one vertuous touch Th' Arch-chimic Sun so farr from us remote Produces with Terrestrial Humor mixt Here in the dark so many precious things Of colour glorious and effect so rare Here matter new to gaze the Devil met Undazl'd farr and wide his eye commands For sight no obstacle found here nor shade But all Sun-shine as when his Beams at Noon Culminate from th' Aequator as they now Shot upward still direct whence no way round Shadow from body opaque can fall and the Aire No where so cleer sharp'nd his visual ray To objects distant farr whereby he soon Saw within kenn a glorious Angel stand The same whom John saw also in the Sun His back was turnd but not his brightness hid Of beaming sunnie Raies a golden tiar Circl'd his Head nor less his Locks behind Illustrious on his Shoulders fledge with wings Lay waving round on som great charge imploy'd He seemd of fixt in cogitation deep Glad was the Spirit impure as now in hope To find who might direct his wandring flight To Paradise the happie seat of Man His journies end and our beginning woe But first he casts to change his proper shape Which else might work him danger or delay And now a stripling Cherube he appeers Not of the prime yet such as in his face Youth smil'd Celestial and to every Limb Sutable grace diffus'd so well he feignd Under a
Coronet his flowing haire In curles on either cheek plaid wings he wore Of many a colourd plume sprinkl'd with Gold His habit fit for speed succinct and held Before his decent steps a Silver wand He drew not nigh unheard the Angel bright Ere he drew nigh his radiant visage turnd Admonisht by his ear and strait was known Th' Arch-Angel Vriel one of the seav'n Who in Gods presence neerest to his Throne Stand ready at command and are his Eyes That run through all the Heav'ns or down to th' Earth Bear his swift errands over moist and dry O're Sea and Land him Satan thus accostes Vriel for thou of those seav'n Spirits that stand In sight of God's high Throne gloriously bright The first art wont his great authentic will Interpreter through highest Heav'n to bring Where all his Sons thy Embassie attend And here art likeliest by supream decree Like honour to obtain and as his Eye To visit oft this new Creation round Unspeakable desire to see and know All these his wondrous works but chiefly Man His chief delight and favour him for whom All these his works so wondrous he ordaind Hath brought me from the Quires of Cherubim Alone thus wandring Brightest Seraph tell In which of all these shining Orbes hath Man His fixed seat or fixed seat hath none But all these shining Orbes his choice to dwell That I may find him and with secret gaze Or open admiration him behold On whom the great Creator hath bestowd Worlds and on whom hath all these graces powrd That both in him and all things as is meet The Universal Maker we may praise Who justly hath drivn out his Rebell Foes To deepest Hell and to repair that loss Created this new happie Race of Men To serve him better wise are all his wayes So spake the false dissembler unperceivd For neither Man nor Angel can discern Hypocrisie the onely evil that walks Invisible except to God alone By his permissive will through Heav'n and Earth And oft though wisdom wake suspicion sleeps At wisdoms Gate and to simplicitie Resigns her charge while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems Which now for once beguil'd Vriel though Regent of the Sun and held The sharpest sighted Spirit of all in Heav'n Who to the fraudulent Impostor foule In his uprightness answer thus returnd Fair Angel thy desire which tends to know The works of God thereby to gforifie The great Work-Maister leads to no excess That reaches blame but rather merits praise The more it seems excess that led thee hither From thy Empyreal Mansion thus alone To witness with thine eyes what some perhaps Contented with report hear onely in heav'n For wonderful indeed are all his works Pleasant to know and worthiest to be all Had in remembrance alwayes with delight But what created mind can comprehend Thir number or the wisdom infinite That brought them forth but hid thir causes deep I saw when at his Word the formless Mass This worlds material mould came to a heap Confusion heard his voice and wilde uproar Stood rul'd stood vast infinitude confin'd Till at his second bidding darkness fled Light shon and order from disorder sprung Swift to thir several Quarters hasted then The cumbrous Elements Earth Flood Aire Fire And this Ethereal quintessence of Heav'n Hew upward spirited with various forms That rowld orbicular and turnd to Starrs Numberless as thou seest and how they move Each had his place appointed each his course The rest in circuit walles this Universe Look downward on that Globe whose hither side With light from hence though but reflected shines That place is Earth the seat of Man that light His day which else as th' other Hemisphere Night would invade but there the neighbouring Moon So call that opposite fair Starr her aide Timely interposes and her monthly round Still ending still renewing through mid Heav'n With borrowd light her countenance triform Hence fills and empties to enlighten th' Earth And in her pale dominion checks the night That spot to which I point is Paradise Adams abode those loftie shades his Bowre Thy way thou canst not miss me mine requires Thus said he turnd and Satan bowing low As to superior Spirits is wont in Heaven Where honour due and reverence none neglects Took leave and toward the coast of Earth beneath Down from th' Ecliptic sped with hop'd success Throws his steep flight in many an Aerie wheele Nor staid till on Niphates top he lights The End of the Third Book Paradise Lost BOOK IV. THE ARGUMENT Satan now in prospect of Eden and nigh the place where he must now attempt the bold enterprize which he undertook alone against God and Man falls into many doubts with himself and many passions fear envy and despare but at length confirms himself in evil journeys on to Paradise whose outward prospect and scituation is discribed overleaps the bounds sits in the shape of a Cormorant on the Tree of life as highest in the Garden to look about him The Garden describ'd Satans first sight of Adam and Eve his wonder at thir excellent form and happy state but with resolution to work thir fall overhears thir discourse thence gathers that the Tree of knowledge was forbidden them to eat of under penalty of death and thereon intends to found his Temptation by seducing them to transgress then leaves them a while to know further of thir state by some other means Mean while Uriel descending on a Sun-beam warns Gabriel who had in charge the Gate of Paradise that some evil spirit had escap'd the Deep and past at Noon by his Sphere in the shape of a good Angel down to Paradise discovered after by his furious gestures in the Mount Gabriel promises to find him ere morning Night coming on Adam and Eve discourse of going to thir rest thir Bower describ'd thir Evening worship Gabriel drawing forth his Bands of Night-watch to walk the round of Paradise appoints two strong Angels to Adams Bower least the evill spirit should be there doing some harm to Adam or Eve sleeping there they find him at the ear of Eve tempting her in a dream and bring him though unwilling to Gabriel by whom question'd he scornfully answers prepares resistance but hinder'd by a Sign from Heaven flies out of Paradise O For that warning voice which he who saw Th' Apocalyps heard cry in Heaven aloud Then when the Dragon put to second rout Came furious down to be reveng'd on men Wo to the inhabitants on Earth that now While time was our first-Parents had bin warnd The coming of thir secret foe and scap'd Haply so scap'd his mortal snare for now Satan now first inflam'd with rage came down The Tempter ere th' Accuser of man-kind To wreck on innocent frail man his loss Of that first Battel and his flight to Hell Yet not rejoycing in his speed though bold Far off and fearless nor with cause to boast Begins his dire attempt which nigh the birth Now rowling
had perplext All path of Man or Beast that past that way One Gate there only was and that look'd East On th' other side which when th' arch-fellon saw Due entrance he disdaind and in contempt At one slight bound high over leap'd all bound Of Hill or highest Wall and sheer within Lights on his feet As when a prowling Wolfe Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for pray Watching where Shepherds pen thir Flocks at eve In hurdl'd Cotes amid the field secure Leaps o're the fence with ease into the Fould Or as a Thief bent to unhoord the cash Of some rich Burgher whose substantial dores Cross-barrd and bolted fast fear no assault In at the window climbs or o're the tiles So clomb this first grand Thief into Gods Fould So since into his Church lewd Hirelings climbe Thence up he flew and on the Tree of Life The middle Tree and highest there that grew Sat like a Cormorant yet not true Life Thereby regaind but sat devising Death To them who liv'd nor on the vertue thought Of that life-giving Plant but only us'd For prospect what well us'd had bin the pledge Of immortality So little knows Any but God alone to value right The good before him but perverts best things To worst abuse or to thir meanest use Beneath him with new wonder now he views To all delight of human sense expos'd In narrow room Natures whole wealth yea more A Heav'n on Earth for blissful Paradise Of God the Garden was by him in the East Of Eden planted Eden stretchd her Line From Auran Eastward to the Royal Towrs Of great Seleucia built by Grecian Kings Or where the Sons of Eden long before Dwelt in Telassar in this pleasant soile His farr more pleasant Garden God ordaind Out of the fertil ground he caus'd to grow All Trees of noblest kind for sight smell taste And all amid them stood the Tree of Life High eminent blooming Ambrosial Fruit Of vegetable Gold and next to Life Our Death the Tree of knowledge grew fast by Knowledge of Good bought dear by knowing ill Southward through Eden went a River large Nor chang'd his course but through the shaggie hill Pass'd underneath ingulft for God had thrown That Mountain as his Garden mould high rais'd Upon the rapid current which through veins Of porous Earth with kindly thirst up drawn Rose a fresh Fountain and with many a rill Waterd the Garden thence united fell Down the steep glade and met the neather Flood Which from his darksom passage now appeers And now divided into four main Streams Runs divers wandring many a famous Realme And Country whereof here needs no account But rather to tell how if Art could tell How from that Saphire Fount the crisped Brooks Rowling on Orient Pearl and sands of Gold VVith mazie error under pendant shades Ran Nectar visiting each plant and fed Flours worthy of Paradise which not nice Art In Beds and curious Knots but Nature boon Powrd forth profuse on Hill and Dale and Plaine Both where the morning Sun first warmly smote The open field and where the unpierc't shade Imbround the noontide Bowrs Thus was this place Balme A happy rural seat of various view Groves whose rich Trees wept odorous Gumms and Others whose fruit burnisht with Golden Rinde Hung amiable Hesperian Fables true If true here only and of delicious taste Betwixt them Lawns or level Downs and Flocks Grasing the tender herb were interpos'd Or palmie hilloc or the flourie lap Of som irriguous Valley spred her store Flours of all hue and without Thorn the Rose Another side umbrageous Grots and Caves Of coole recess o're which the mantling vine Layes forth her purple Grape and gently creeps Luxuriant mean while murmuring waters fall Down the slope hills disperst or in a Lake That to the fringed Bank with Myrtle crownd Her chrystal mirror holds unite thir streams The Birds thir quire apply aires vernal aires Breathing the smell of field and grove attune The trembling leaves while Universal Pan Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance Led on th' Eternal Spring Not that faire field Of Enna where Proserpin gathering flours Her self a fairer Floure by gloomie Dis Was gatherd which cost Ceres all that pain To seek her through the world nor that sweet Grove Of Daphne by Orontes and th' inspir'd Castalian Spring might with this Paradise Of Eden strive nor that Nyscian I le Girt with the River Triton where old Cham Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Lybian Jove Hid Amalthea and her Florid Son Young Bacchus from his Stepdame Rhea's eye Nor where Abassin Kings thir issue Guard Mount Amara though this by som suppos'd True Paradise under the Ethiop Line By Nilus head enclosd with shining Rock A whole days journy high but wide remote From this Assyrian Garden where the Fiend Saw undelighted all delight all kind Of living Creatures new to sight and strange Two of far nobler shape erect and tall Godlike erect with native Honour clad In naked Majestie seemd Lords of all And worthie seemd for in thir looks Divine The image of thir glorious Maker shon Truth wisdome Sanctitude severe and pure Severe but in true filial freedom plac't Whence true autoritie in men though both Not equal as thir sex not equal seemd For contemplation hee and valour formd For softness shee and sweet attractive Grace Hee for God only shee for God in him His fair large Front and Eye sublime dedar'd Absolute rule and Hyacinthin Locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clustring but not beneath his shoulders broad Shee as a vail down to the slender waste Her unadorned golden tresses wore Dissheveld but in wanton ringlets wav'd As the Vine curles her tendrils which impli'd Subjection but requir'd with gentle sway And by her yielded by him best receivd Yielded with coy submission modest pride And sweet reluctant amorous delay Nor those mysterious parts were then conceald Then was not guiltie shame dishonest shame Of natures works honor dishonorable Sin-bred how have ye troubl'd all mankind With shews instead meer shews of seeming pure And banisht from mans life his happiest life Simplicitie and spotless innocence So passd they naked on nor shund the sight Of God or Angel for they thought no ill So hand in hand they passd the lovliest pair That ever since in loves imbraces met Adam the goodliest man of men since borne His Sons the fairest of her Daughters Eve Under a tuft of shade that on a green Stood whispering soft by a fresh Fountain side They sat them down and after no more toil Of thir sweet Gardning labour then suffic'd To recommend coole Zephyr and made ease More easie wholsom thirst and appetite More grateful to thir Supper Fruits they fell Nectarine Fruits which the compliant boughes Yielded them side-long as they sat recline On the soft downie Bank damaskt with flours The favourie pulp they chew and in the rinde Still as they thirsted scoop the brimming stream Nor gentle
meek surrender half Embracing leand On our first Father half her swelling Breast Naked met his under the flowing Gold Of her loose tresses hid he in delight Both of her Beauty and submissive Charms Smil'd with superior Love as Jupiter On Juno smiles when he impregns the Clouds That shed May Flowers and press'd her Matron lip With kisses pure aside the Devil turnd For envie yet with jealous leer maligne Ey'd them askance and to himself thus plaind Sight hateful sight tormenting thus these two Imparadis't in one anothers arms The happier Eden shall enjoy thir fill Of bliss on bliss while I to Hell am thrust Where neither joy nor love but fierce desire Among our other torments not the least Still unfulfill'd with pain of longing pines Yet let me not forget what I have gain'd From thir own mouths all is not theirs it seems One fatal Tree there stands of Knowledge call'd Forbidden them to taste Knowledge forbidd'n Suspicious reasonless Why should thir Lord Envie them that can it be sin to know Can it be death and do they onely stand By Ignorance is that thir happie state The proof of thir obedience and thir faith O fair foundation laid whereon to build Thir ruine Hence I will excite thir minds With more desire to know and to reject Envious commands invented with designe To keep them low whom knowledge might exalt Equal with Gods aspiring to be such They taste and die what likelier can ensue But first with narrow search I must walk round This Garden and no corner leave unspi'd A chance but chance may lead where I may meet Some wandring Spirit of Heav'n by Fountain side Or in thick shade retir'd from him to draw What further would be learnt Live while ye may Yet happie pair enjoy till I return Short pleasures for long woes are to succeed So saying his proud step he scornful turn'd But with sly circumspection and began Through wood through waste o're hill o're dale his roam Mean while in utmost Longitude where Heav'n With Earth and Ocean meets the setting Sun Slowly descended and with right aspect Against the eastern Gate of Paradise Leveld his eevning Rayes it was a Rock Of Alablaster pil'd up to the Clouds Conspicuous farr winding with one ascent Accessible from Earth one entrance high The rest was craggie cliff that overhung Still as it rose impossible to climbe Betwixt these rockie Pillars Gabriel sat Chief of th' Angelic Guards awaiting night About him exercis'd Heroic Games Th' unarmed Youth of Heav'n but nigh at hand Celestial Armourie Shields Helmes and Speares Hung high with Diamond flaming and with Gold Thither came Vriel gliding through the Eeven On a Sun beam swift as a shooting Starr In Autumn thwarts the night when vapors fir'd Impress the Air and shews the Mariner From what point of his Compass to beware Impetuous winds he thus began in haste Gabriel to thee thy course by Lot hath giv'n Charge and strict watch that to this happie Place No evil thing approach or enter in This day at highth of Noon came to my Spheare A Spirit zealous as he seem'd to know More of th' Almighties works and chiefly Man Gods latest Image I describ'd his way Bent all on speed and markt his Aerie Gate But in the Mount that lies from Eden North Where he first lighted soon discernd his looks Alien from Heav'n with passions foul obscur'd Mine eye pursu'd him still but under shade Lost sight of him one of the banisht crew I fear hath ventur'd from the deep to raise New troubles him thy care must be to find To whom the winged Warriour thus returnd Vriel no wonder if thy perfet sight Amid the Suns bright circle where thou first See farr and wide in at this Gate none pass The vigilance here plac't but such as come Well known from Heav'n and since Meridian hour No Creature thence if Spirit of other sort So minded have ore leapt these earthie bounds On purpose hard thou knowst it to exclude Spiritual substance with corporeal barr But if within the circuit of these walks In whatsoever shape he lurk of whom Thou tellst by morrow dawning I shall know So promis'd hee and Vriel to his charge Returnd on that bright beam whose point now raisd Bore him slope downward to the Sun now fall'n Beneath th' Azores whither the prime Orb Incredible how swift had thither rowl'd Diurnal or this less volubil Earth By shorter flight to th' East had left him there Arraying with reflected Purple and Gold The Clouds that on his Western Throne attend Now came still Eevning on and Twilight gray Had in her sober Liverie all things clad Silence accompanied for Beast and Bird They to thir grassie Couch these to thir Nests Were slunk all but the wakeful Nightingale She all night long her amorous descant sung Silence was pleas'd now glow'd the Firmament With living Saphirs Hesperus that led The starrie Host rode brightest till the Moon Rising in clouded Majestie at length Apparent Queen unvaild her peerless light And o're the dark her Silver Mantle threw When Adam thus to Eve Fair Consort th' hour Of night and all things now retir'd to rest Mind us of like repose since God hath set Labour and rest as day and night to men Successive and the timely dew of sleep Now falling with soft slumbrous weight inclines Our eye-lids other Creatures all day long Rove idle unimploid and less need rest Man hath his daily work of body or mind Appointed which declares his Dignitie And the regard of Heav'n on all his waies While other Animals unactive range And of thir doings God takes no account To morrow ere fresh Morning streak the East With first approach of light we must be ris'n And at our pleasant labour to reform Yon flourie Arbors yonder Allies green Our walk at noon with branches overgrown That mock our scant manuring and require More hands then ours to lop thir wanton growth Those Blossoms also and those dropping Gumms That lie bestrowne unsightly and unsmooth Ask riddance if we mean to tread with ease Mean while as Nature wills Night bids us rest To whom thus Eve with perfet beauty adornd My Author and Disposer what thou bidst Unargu'd I obey so God ordains God is thy Law thou mine to know no more Is womans happiest knowledge and her praise With thee conversing I forget all time All seasons and thir change all please alike Sweet is the breath of morn her rising sweet With charm of earliest Birds pleasant the Sun When first on this delightful Land he spreads His orient Beams on herb tree fruit and flour Glistring with dew fragrant the fertil earth After soft showers and sweet the coming on Of grateful Eevning milde then silent Night With this her solemn Bird and this fair Moon And these the Gemms of Heav'n her starrie train But neither breath of Morn when she ascends With charm of earliest Birds nor rising Sun On this delightful land nor herb fruit floure Glistring
with dew nor fragrance after showers Nor grateful Eevning mild nor silent Night With this her solemn Bird nor walk by Moon Or glittering Starr-light without thee is sweet But wherfore all night long shine these for whom This glorious sight when sleep hath shut all eyes To whom our general Ancestor repli'd Daughter of God and Man accomplisht Eve Thole have thir course to finish round the Earth By morrow Eevning and from Land to Land In order though to Nations yet unborn Ministring light prepar'd they set and rise Least total darkness should by Night regaine Her old possession and extinguish life In Nature and all things which these soft fires Not only enlighten but with kindly heate Of various influence foment and warme Temper or nourish or in part shed down Thir stellar vertue on all kinds that grow On Earth made hereby apter to receive Perfection from the Suns more potent Ray. These then though unbeheld in deep of night Shine not in vain nor think though men were none That heav'n would want spectators God want praise Millions of spiritual Creatures walk the Earth Unseen both when we wake and when we sleep All these with ceasless praise his works behold Both day and night how often from the steep Of echoing Hill or Thicket have we heard Celestial voices to the midnight air Sole or responsive each to others note Singing thir great Creator oft in bands While they keep watch or nightly rounding walk With Heav'nly touch of instrumental sounds In full harmonic number joind thir songs Divide the night and lift our thoughts to Heaven Thus talking hand in hand alone they pass'd On to thir blissful Bower it was a place Chos'n by the sovran Planter when he fram'd All things to mans delightful use the roofe Of thickest covert was inwoven shade Laurel and Mirtle and what higher grew Of firm and fragrant leaf on either side Acanthus and each odorous bushie shrub Fenc'd up the verdant wall each beauteous flour Iris all hues Roses and Gessamin Rear'd high thir flourisht heads between and wrought Mosaic underfoot the Violet Crocus and Hyacinth with rich inlay Broiderd the ground more colour'd then with stone Of costliest Emblem other Creature here Beast Bird Insect or Worm durst enter none Such was thir awe of Man In shadie Bower More sacred and sequesterd though but feignd Pan or Silvanus never slept nor Nymph Nor Faunus haunted Here in close recess With Flowers Garlands and sweet-smelling Herbs Espoused Eve deckt first her nuptial Bed And heav'nly Quires the Hymenaean sung What day the genial Angel to our Sire Brought her in naked beauty more adorn'd More lovely then Pandora whom the Gods Endowd with all thir gifts and O too like In sad event when to the unwiser Son Of Japhet brought by Hermes she ensnar'd Mankind with her faire looks to be avengeâ—d On him who had stole Joves authentic fire Thus at thir shadie Lodge arriv'd both stood Both turnd and under op'n Skie ador'd The God that made both Skie Air Earth and Heav'n Which they beheld the Moons resplendent Globe And starrie Pole Thou also mad'st the Night Maker Omnipotent and thou the Day Which we in our appointed work imployd Have finisht happie in our mutual help And mutual love the Crown of all our bliss Ordaind by thee and this delicious place For us too large where thy abundance wants Partakers and uncropt falls to the ground But thou hast promis'd from us two a Race To fill the Earth who shall with us extoll Thy goodness infinite both when we wake And when we seek as now thy gift of sleep This said unanimous and other Rites Observing none but adoration pure Which God likes best into thir inmost bowre Handed they went and eas'd the purting off These troublesom disguises which wee wear Strait side by side were laid nor turnd I weene Adam from his fair Spouse nor Eve the Rites Mysterious of connubial Love refus'd Whatever Hypocrites austerely talk Of puritie and place and innocence Defaming as impure what God declares Pure and commands to som leaves free to all Our Maker bids increase who bids abstain But our destroyer foe to God and Man Haile wedded Love mysterious Law true source Of human ofsspring sole proprietie In Paradise of all things common else By thee adulterous lust was driv'n from men Among the bestial herds to raunge by thee Founded in Reason Loyal Just and Pure Relations dear and all the Charities Of Father Son and Brother first were known Farr be it that I should write thee sin or blame Or think thee unbefitting holiest place Perpetual Fountain of Domestic sweets Whose bed is undefil'd and chaste pronounc't Present or past as Saints and Patriarchs us'd Here Love his golden shafts imploies here lights His constant Lamp and waves his purple wings Reigns here and revels not in the bought smile Of Harlots loveless joyless unindeard Casual fruition nor in Court Amours Mixt Dance or wanton Mask or Midnight Bal Or Serenate which the starv'd Lover sings To his proud fair best quitted with disdain These lulld by Nightingales imbraceing slept And on thir naked limbs the flourie roof Showrd Roses which the Morn repair'd Sleep on Blest pair and O yet happiest if ye seek No happier state and know to know no more Now had night measur'd with her shaddowie Cone Half way up Hill this vast Sublunar Vault And from thir Ivorie Port the Cherubim Forth issuing at th' accustomd hour stood armd To thir night watches in warlike Parade When Gabriel to his next in power thus spake Vzziel half these draw off and coast the South With strictest watch these other wheel he North Our circuit meets full West As flame they part Half wheeling to the Shield half to the Spear From these two strong and suttle Spirits he calld That neer him stood and gave them thus in charge Ithuriel and Zephon with wingd speed Search through this Garden leave unsearcht no nook But chiefly where those two fair Creatures Lodge Now laid perhaps asleep secure of harme This Eevning from the Sun 's decline arriv'd Who tells of som infernal Spirit seen Hitherward bent who could have thought escap'd The barrs of Hell on errand bad no doubt Such where ye find seise fast and hither bring So saying on he led his radiant Files Daz'ling the Moon these to the Bower direct In search of whom they sought him there they found Squat like a Toad close at the eare of Eve Assaying by his Devilish art to reach The Organs of her Fancie and with them forge Illusions as he list Phantasms and Dreams Or if inspiring venom he might taint Th' animal Spirits that from pure blood arise Like gentle breaths from Rivers pure thence raise At least distemperd discontented thoughts Vaine hopes vaine aimes inordinate desires Blown up with high conceits ingendring pride Him thus intent Ithuriel with his Spear Touch'd lightly for no falshood can endure Touch of Celestial temper but returns Of force to its
captive talk of chaines Proud limitarie Cherube but ere then Farr heavier load thy self expect to feel From my prevailing arme though Heavens King Ride on thy wings and thou with thy Compeers Us'd to the yoak draw'st his triumphant wheels In progress through the rode of Heav'n Star-pav'd While thus he spake th' Angelic Squadron bright Turnd fierie red sharpning in mooned hornes Thir Phalanx and began to hemm him round With ported Spears as thick as when a field Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends Her bearded Grove of ears which way the wind Swayes them the careful Plowman doubting stands Least on the threshing floore his hopeful sheaves Prove chaff On th' other side Satan allarm'd Collecting all his might dilated stood Like Teneriff or Atlas unremov'd His stature reacht the Skie and on his Crest Sat horror Plum'd nor wanted in his graspe What seemd both Spear and Shield now dreadful deeds Might have ensu'd nor onely Paradise In this commotion but the Starrie Cope Of Heav'n perhaps or all the Elements At least had gon to rack disturbd and torne With violence of this conflict had not soon Th' Eternal to prevent such horrid fray Hung forth in Heav'n his golden Scales yet seen Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion signe Wherein all things created first he weighd The pendulous round Earth with ballanc't Aire In counterpoise now ponders all events Battels and Realms in these he put two weights The sequel each of parting and of fight The latter quick up flew and kickt the beam Which Gabriel spying thus bespake the Fiend Satan I know thy strength and thou knowst mine Neither our own but giv'n what follie then To boast what Arms can doe since thine no more Then Heav'n permits nor mine though doubld now To trample thee as mire for proof look up And read thy Lot in yon celestial Sign Where thou art weigh'd and shown how light how weak If thou resist The Fiend lookt up and knew His mounted scale aloft nor more but fled Murmuring and with him fled the shades of night The End of the Fourth Book Paradise Lost BOOK V. THE ARGUMENT Morning approach't Eve relates to Adam her troublesome dream he likes it not yet comforts her They come forth to thir day labours Thir Morning Hymn at the Door of thir Bower God to render Man inexcusable sends Raphael to admonish him of his obedience of his free estate of his enemy near at hand who he is and why his enemy and whatever else may avail Adam to know Raphael comes down to Paradise his appearance describ'd his coming discern'd by Adam afar off sitting at the door of his Bower he goes out to meet him brings him to his lodge entertains him with the choycest fruits of Paradise got together by Eve thir discourse at Table Raphael performs his message minds Adam of his state and of his enemy relates at Adams request who that enemy is and how he came to be so beginning from his first revolt in Heaven and the occasion thereof how he drew his Legions after him to the parts of the North and there incited them to rebel with him perswading all but only Abdiel a Seraph who in Argument diswades and opposes him then forsakes him NOw Morn her rosie steps in th' Eastern Clime Advancing sow'd the earth with Orient Pearle When Adam wak't so customd for his sleep Was Aerie light from pure digestion bred And temperat vapors bland which th' only sound Of leaves and fuming rills Aurora's fan Lightly dispers'd and the shrill Matin Song Of Birds on every bough so much the more His wonder was to find unwak'nd Eve With Tresses discompos'd and glowing Cheek As through unquiet rest he on his side Leaning half-rais'd with looks of cordial Love Hung over her enamour'd and beheld Beautie which whether waking or asleep Shot forth peculiar Graces then with voice Milde as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes Her hand soft touching whisperd thus Awake My fairest my espous'd my latest found Heav'ns last best gift my ever new delight Awake the morning shines and the fresh field Calls us we lose the prime to mark how spring Our tended Plants how blows the Citron Grove What drops the Myrrhe and what the balmie Reed How Nature paints her colours how the Bee Sits on the Bloom extracting liquid sweet Such whispering wak'd her but with startl'd eye On Adam whom imbracing thus she spake O Sole in whom my thoughts find all repose My Glorie my Perfection glad I see Thy face and Morn return'd for I this Night Such night till this I never pass'd have dream'd If dream'd not as I oft am wont of thee Works of day pass't or morrows next designe But of offence and trouble which ray mind Knew never till this irksom night methought Close at mine ear one call'd me forth to walk With gentle voice I thought it thine it said Why sleepst thou Eve now is the pleasant time The cool the silent save where silence yields To the night-warbling Bird that now awake Tunes sweetest his love-labor'd song now reignes Full Orb'd the Moon and with more pleasing light Shadowie sets off the face of things in vain If none regard Heav'n wakes with all his eyes Whom to behold but thee Natures desire In whose sight all things joy with ravishment Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze I rose as at thy call but found thee not To find thee I directed then my walk And on methought alone I pass'd through ways That brought me on a sudden to the Tree Of interdicted Knowledge fair it seem'd Much fairer to my Fancie then by day And as I wondring lookt beside it stood One shapâ—d and wing'd like one of those from Heav'n By us oft seen his dewie locks distill'd Ambrosia on that Tree he also gaz'd And O fair Plant said he with fruit surcharg'd Deigns none to ease thy load and taste thy sweet Nor God nor Man is Knowledge so despis'd Or envie or what reserve forbids to taste Forbid who will none shall from me withhold Longer thy offerd good why else set here This said he paus'd not but with ventrous Arme He pluckt he tasted mee damp horror chil'd At such bold words voucht with a deed so bold But he thus overjoy'd O Fruit Divine Sweet of thy self but much more sweet thus cropt Forbidd'n here it seems as onely fit For God's yet able to make Gods of Men And why not Gods of Men since good the more Communicated more abundant growes The Author not impair'd but honourd more Here happie Creature fair Angelic Eve Partake thou also happie though thou art Happier thou mayst be worthier canst not be Taste this and be henceforth among the Gods Thy self a Goddess not to Earth confind But somtimes in the Air as wee somtimes Ascend to Heav'n by merit thine and see What life the Gods live there and such live thou So saying he drew nigh and to me held Even to my mouth of that same fruit held part Which he had pluckt
the pleasant savourie smell So quick'nd appetite that I methought Could not but taste Forthwith up to the Clouds With him I flew and underneath beheld The Earth outstretcht immense a prospect wide And various wondring at my flight and change To this high exaltation suddenly My Guide was gon and I me thought sunk down And fell asleep but O how glad I wak'd To find this but a dream Thus Eve her Night Related and thus Adam answerd sad Best Image of my self and dearer half The trouble of thy thoughts this night in sleep Affects me equally nor ran I like This uncouth dream of evil sprung I fear Yet evil whence in thee can harbour none Created pure But know that in the Soule Are many lesser Faculties that serve Reason as chief among these Fansie next Her office holds of all external things Which the five watchful Senses represent She forms Imaginations Aerie shapes Which Reason joyning or disjoyning frames All what we affirm or what deny and call Our knowledge or opinion then retires Into her private Cell when Nature rests Oft in her absence mimic Fansie wakes To imitare her but misjoyning shapes Wilde work produces oft and most in dreams Ill matching words and deeds long past or late Som such resemblances methinks I find Of our last Eevnings talk in this thy dream But with addition strange yet be not sad Evil into the mind of God or Man May come and go so unapprov'd and leave No spot or blame behind Which gives me hope That what in sleep thou didst abhorr to dream Waking thou never wilt consent to do Be not disheart'nd then nor cloud those looks That wont to be more chearful and serene Then when fair Morning first smiles on the World And let us to our fresh imployments rise Among the Groves the Fountains and the Flours That open now thir choicest bosom'd smells Reservd from night and kept for thee in store So cheard he his fair Spouse and she was cheard But silently a gentle tear let fall From either eye and wip'd them with her haire Two other precious drops that ready stood Each in thir Chrystal sluce hee ere they fell Kiss'd as the gracious signs of sweet remorse And pious awe that feard to have offended So all was cleard and to the Field they haste But first from under shadie arborous roof Soon as they forth were come to open sight Of day-spring and the Sun who scarce up risen With wheels yet hov'ring o're the Ocean brim Shot paralel to the earth his dewie ray Discovering in wide Lantskip all the East Of Paradise and Edens happie Plains Lowly they bow'd adoring and began Thir Orisons each Morning duly paid In various style for neither various style Nor holy rapture wanted they to praise Thir Maker in fit strains pronounc't or sung Unmeditated such prompt eloquence Flowd from thir lips in Prose or numerous Verse More tuneable then needed Lute or Harp To add more sweetness and they thus began These are thy glorious works Parent of good Almightie thine this universal Frame Thus wondrous fair thy self how wondrous then Unspeakable who first above these Heavens To us invisible or dimly seen In these thy lowest works yet these declare Thy goodness beyond thought and Power Divine Speak yee who best can tell ye Sons of light Angels for yee behold him and with songs And choral symphonies Day without Night Circle his Throne rejoycing yee in Heav'n On Earth joyn all ye Creatures to extoll Him first him last him midst and without end Fairest of Starrs last in the train of Night If better thou belong not to the dawn Sure pledge of day that crownst the smiling Morn With thy bright Circlet praise him in thy Spheare While day arises that sweet hour of Prime Thou Sun of this great World both Eye and Soule Acknowledge him thy Greater sound his praise In thy eternal course both when thou climbâ—st And when high Noon hast gaind and when thou fallst Moon that now meetst the orient Sun now fli'st With the fixt Starrs fixt in thir Orb that flies And yee five other wandring Fires that move In mystic Dance not without Song resound His praise who out of Darkness call'd up Light Aire and ye Elements the eldest birth Of Natures Womb that in quaternion run Perpetual Circle multiform and mix And nourish all things let your ceasless change Varie to our great Maker still new praise Ye Mists and Exhalations that now rise From Hill or steaming Lake duskie or grey Till the Sun paint your fleecie skirts with Gold In honour to the Worlds great Author rise Whether to deck with Clouds the uncolourd skie Or wet the thirstie Earth with falling showers Rising or falling still advance his praise His praise ye Winds that from four Quarters blow Breathe soft or loud and wave your tops ye Pines With every Plant in sign of Worship wave Fountains and yee that warble as ye flow Melodious murmurs warbling tune his praise Joyn voices all ye living Souls ye Birds That singing up to Heaven Gate ascend Bear on your wings and in your notes his praise Yee that in Waters glide and yee that walk The Earth and stately tread or lowly creep Witness if I be silent Morn or Eeven To Hell or Valley Fountain or fresh shade Made vocal by my Song and taught his praise Hail universal Lord be bounteous still To give us onely good and if the night Have gathered aught of evil or conceald Disperse it as now light dispels the dark So pray'd they innocent and to thir thoughts Firm peace recoverd soon and wonted calm On to thir mornings rural work they haste Among sweet dewes and flours where any row Of Fruit-trees overwoodie reachd too farr Thir pamperd boughes and needed hands to check Fruitless imbraces or they led the Vine To wed her Elm she spous'd about him twines Her mariageable arms and with her brings Her dowr th' adopted Clusters to adorn His barren leaves Them thus imploid beheld With pittie Heav'ns high King and to him call'd Raphael the sociable Spirit that deign'd To travel with Tobias and secur'd His marriage with the seaventimes-wedded Maid Raphael said hee thou hear'st what stir on Earth Satan from Hell scap't through the darksom Gulf Hath raisd in Paradise and how disturbd This night the human pair how he designes In them at once to ruin all mankind Go therefore half this day as friend with friend Converse with Adam in what Bowre or shade Thou find'st him from the heat of Noon retir'd To respit his day-labour with repast Or with repose and such discourse bring on As may advise him of his happie state Happiness in his power left free to will Left to his own free Will his Will though free Yet mutable whence warne him to beware He swerve not too secure tell him withall His danger and from whom what enemie Late falln himself from Heav'n is plotting now The fall of others from like state or bliss By
violence no for that shall be withstood But by deceit and lies this let him know Least wilfully transgressing he pretend Surprisal unadmonisht unforewarnd So spake th' Eternal Father and fulfilld All Justice nor delaid the winged Saint After his charge receivd but from among Thousand Celestial Ardors where he stood Vaild with his gorgeous wings up springing light Flew through the midst of Heav'n th' angelic Quires On each hand parting to his speed gave way Through all th' Empyreal road till at the Gate Of Heav'n arriv'd the gate self-opend wide On golden Hinges turning as by work Divine the sov'ran Architect had fram'd From hence no cloud or to obstruct his sight Starr interpos'd however small he sees Not unconform to other shining Globes Earth and the Gard'n of God with Cedars crownd Above all Hills As when by night the Glass Of Galileo less assur'd observes Imagind Lands and Regions in the Moon Or Pilot from amidst the Cyclades Delos or Samos first appeering kenns A cloudy spot Down thither prone in flight He speeds and through the vast Ethereal Skie Sailes between worlds and worlds with steddie wing Now on the polar windes then with quick Fann Winnows the buxom Air till within soare Of Towring Eagles to all the Fowles he seems A Phaenix gaz'd by all as that sole Bird When to enshrine his reliques in the Sun 's Bright Temple to Aegyptian Theb's he flies At once on th' Eastern cliff of Paradise He lights and to his proper shape returns A Seraph wingd six wings he wore to shade His lineaments Divine the pair that clad Each shoulder broad came mantling o're his brest With regal Ornament the middle pair Girt like a Starrie Zone his waste and round Skirted his loines and thighes with downie Gold And colours dipt in Heav'n the third his feet Shaddowd from either heele with featherd maile Skie-tinctur'd grain Like Maia's son he stood And shook his Plumes that Heav'nly fragrance filld The circuit wide Strait knew him all the Bands Of Angels under watch and to his state And to his message high in honour rise For on som message high they guessd him bound Thir glittering Tents he passd and now is come Into the blissful field through Groves of Myrrhe And flouring Odours Cassia Nard and Balme A Wilderness of sweets for Nature here Wantond as in her prime and plaid at will Her Virgin Fancies pouring forth more sweet Wilde above Rule or Art enormous bliss Him through the spicie Forrest onward com Adam discernd as in the dore he sat Of his coole Bowre while now the mounted Sun Shot down direct his servid Raies to warme Earths inmost womb more warmth then Adam needs And Eve within due at her hour prepar'd For dinner savourie fruits of taste to please True appetite and not disrelish thirst Of nectarous draughts between from milkie stream Berrie or Grape to whom thus Adam call'd Haste hither Eve and worth thy sight behold Eastward among those Trees what glorious shape Comes this way moving seems another Morn Ris'n on mid-noon som great behest from Heav'n To us perhaps he brings and will voutsafe This day to be our Guest But goe with speed And what thy stores contain bring forth and poure Abundance fit to honour and receive Our Heav'nly stranger well we may afford Our givers thir own gifts and large bestow From large bestowd where Nature multiplies Her fertil growth and by disburd'ning grows More fruitful which instructs us not to spare To whom thus Eve Adam earths hallowd mould Of God inspir'd small store will serve where store All seasons ripe for use hangs on the stalk Save what by frugal storing firmness gains To nourish and superfluous moist consumes But I will haste and from each bough and break Each Plant and juciest Gourd will pluck such choice To entertain our Angel guest as hee Beholding shall confess that here on Earth God hath dispenst his bounties as in Heav'n So saying with dispatchful looks in haste She turns on hospitable thoughts intent What choice to chuse for delicacie best What order so contriv'd as not to mix Tastes not well joynd inelegant but bring Taste after taste upheld with kindliest change Bestirs her then and from each tender stalk Whatever Earth all-bearing Mother yields In India East or West or middle shoare In Pontus or the Punic Coast or where Alcinous reign'd fruit of all kindes in coate Rough or smooth rin'd or bearded husk or shell She gathers Tribute large and on the board Heaps with unsparing hand for drink the Grape She crushes inoffensive moust and meathes From many a berrie and from sweet kernels preft She tempers dulcet creams nor these to hold Wants her fit vessels pure then strews the ground With Rose and Odours from the shrub unfum'd Mean while our Primitive great Sire to meet His god-like Guest walks forth without more train Accompani'd then with his own compleat Perfections in himself was all his state More solemn then the tedious pomp that waits On Princes when thir rich Retinue long Of Horses led and Grooms besmeard with Gold Dazles the croud and sets them all agape Neerer his presence Adam though not awd Yet with submiss approach and reverence meek As to a superior Nature bowing low Thus said Native of Heav'n for other place None can then Heav'n such glorious shape contain Since by descending from the Thrones above Those happie places thou hast deignd a while To want and honour these voutsafe with us Two onely who yet by sov'ran gift possess This spacious ground in yonder shadie Bowre To rest and what the Garden choicest bears To sit and taste till this meridian heat Be over and the Sun more coole decline Whom thus the Angelic Vertue answerd milde Adam I therefore came nor art thou such Created or such place hast here to dwell As may not oft invite though Spirits of Heav'n To visit thee lead on then where thy Bowre Oreshades for these mid-hours till Eevning rise I have at will So to the Silvan Lodge They came that like Pomona's Arbour smil'd With flourets deck't and fragrant smells but Eve Undeckt save with her self more lovely fair Then Wood-Nymph or the fairest Goddess feign'd Of three that in Mount Ida naked strove Stood to entertain her guest from Heav'n no vaile Shee needed Venue-proof no thought infirme Alterd her cheek On whom the Angel Haile Bestowd the holy salutation us'd Long after to blest Marie second Eve Haile Mother of Mankind whose fruitful Womb Shall fill the World more numerous with thy Sons Then with these various fruits the Trees of God Have heap'd this Table Rais'd of grassie terf Thir Table was and mossile seats had round And on her ample Square from side to side All Autumn pil'd though Spring and Autumn here Danc'd hand in hand A while discourse they hold No fear lest Dinner coole when thus began Our Authour Heav'nly stranger please to taste These bounties which our Nourisher from whom All perfet good unmeasur'd out
descends To us for food and for delight hath caus'd The Earth to yield unsavourie food perhaps To spiritual Natures only this I know That one Celestial Father gives to all To whom the Angel Therefore what he gives Whose praise be ever sung to man in part Spiritual may of purest Spirits be found No ingrateful food and food alike those pure Intelligential substances require As doth your Rational and both contain Within them every lower facultie Of sense whereby they hear see smell touch taste Tasting concoct digest assimilate And corporeal to incorporeal turn For know whatever was created needs To be sustaind and fed of Elements The grosser feeds the purer Earth the Sea Earth and the Sea feed Air the Air those Fires Ethereal and as lowest first the Moon Whence in her visage round those spots unpurg'd Vapours not yet into her substance turnd Nor doth the Moon no nourishment exhale From her moist Continent to higher Orbes The Sun that light imparts to all receives From all his alimental recompence In humid exhalations and at Even Sups with the Ocean though in Heav'n the Trees Of life ambrosial frutage bear and vines Yield Nectar though from off the boughs each Morn We brush mellifluous Dewes and find the ground Cover'd with pearly grain yet God hath here Varied his bounty so with new delights As may compare with Heaven and to taste Think not I shall be nice So down they sat And to thir viands fell nor seemingly The Angel nor in mist the common gloss Of Theologians but with keen dispatch Of real hunger and concoctive heate To transubstantiate what redounds transpires Through Spirits with ease nor wonder if by fire Of sooty coal the Empiric Alchimist Can turn or holds it possible to turn Metals of drossiest Ore to perfet Gold As from the Mine Mean while at Table Eve Ministerd naked and thir flowing cups With pleasant liquors crown'd O innocence Deserving Paradise if ever then Then had the Sons of God excuse to have bin Enamour'd at that sight but in those hearts Love unlibidinous reign'd nor jealousie Was understood the injur'd Lovers Hell Thus when with meats and drinks they had suffic'd Not burd'nd Nature sudden mind arose In Adam not to let th' occasion pass Given him by this great Conference to know Of things above his World and of thir being Who dwell in Heav'n whose excellence he saw Transcend his own so farr whose radiant forms Divine effulgence whose high Power so far Exceeded human and his wary speech Thus to th' Empyreal Minister he fram'd Inhabitant with God now know I well Thy favour in this honour done to man Under whose lowly roof thou hast voutsaf't To enter and these earthly fruits to taste Food not of Angels yet accepted so As that more willingly thou couldst not seem At Heav'ns high feasts to have fed yet what compare To whom the winged Hierarch repli'd O Adam one Almightie is from whom All things proceed and up to him return If not deprav'd from good created all Such to perfection one first matter all Indu'd with various forms various degrees Of substance and in things that live of life But more refin'd more spiritous and pure As neerer to him plac't or neerer tending Each in thir several active Sphears assignd Till body up to spirit work in bounds Proportiond to each kind So from the root Springs lighter the green stalk from thence the leaves More aerie last the bright consummate floure Spirits odorous breathes flours and thir fruit Mans nourishment by gradual scale sublim'd To vital Spirits aspire to animal To intellectual give both life and sense Fansie and undemanding whence the Soule Reason receives and reason is her being Discursive or Intuitive discourse Is oftest yours the latter most is ours Differing but in degree of kind the same Wonder not then what God for you saw good If I refuse not but convert as you To proper substance time may come when men With Angels may participate and find No inconvenient Diet nor too light Fare And from these corporal nutriments perhaps Your bodies may at last turn all to Spirit Improv'd by tract of time and wingd ascend Ethereal as wee or may at choice Here or in Heav'nly Paradises dwell If ye be found obedient and retain Unalterably firm his love entire Whose progenie you are Mean while enjoy Your fill what happiness this happie state Can comprehend incapable of more To whom the Patriarch of mankind repli'd O favourable spirit propitious guest Well hast thou taught the way that might direct Our knowledge and the scale of Nature set From center to circumference whereon In contemplation of created things By steps we may ascend to God But say What meant that caution joind if ye be found Obedient can we want obedience then To him or possibly his love desert Who formd us from the dust and plac'd us here Full to the utmost measure of what bliss Human desires can seek or apprehend To whom the Angel Son of Heav'n and Earth Attend That thou art happie owe to God That thou continu'st such owe to thy self That is to thy obedience therein stand This was that caution giv'n thee be advis'd God made thee perfet not immutable And good he made thee but to persevere He left it in thy power ordaind thy will By nature free not over-rul'd by Fate Inextricable or strict necessity Our voluntarie service he requires Not our necessitated such with him Findes no acceptance nor can find for how Can hearts not free be tri'd whether they serve Willing or no who will but what they must By Destinie and can no other choose My self and all th' Angelic Host that stand In sight of God enthron'd our happie state Hold as you yours while our obedience holds On other surety none freely we serve Because wee freely love as in our will To love or not in this we stand or fall And som are fall'n to disobedience fall'n And so from Heav'n to deepest Hell O fall From what high state of bliss into what woe To whom our great Progenitor Thy words Attentive and with more delighted eare Divine instructer I have heard then when Cherubic Songs by night from neighbouring Hills Aereal Music send nor knew I not To be both will and deed created free Yet that we never shall forget to love Our maker and obey him whose command Single is yet so just my constant thoughts Assur'd me and still assure though what thou tellst Hath past in Heav'n som doubt within me move But more desire to hear if thou consent The full relation which must needs be strange Worthy of Sacred silence to be heard And we have yet large day for scarce the Sun Hath finisht half his journey and scarce begins His other half in the great Zone of Heav'n Thus Adam made request and Raphael After short pause assenting thus began High matter thou injoinst me O prime of men Sad task and hard for how shall I relate To human sense th'
Most reason is that Reason overcome So pondering and from his armed Peers Forth stepping opposite half way he met His daring foe at this prevention more Incens't and thus securely him defi'd Proud art thou met thy hope was to have reacht The highth of thy aspiring unoppos'd The Throne of God unguarded and his side Abandond at the terror of thy Power Or potent tongue fool not to think how vain Against th' Omnipotent to rise in Arms Who out of smallest things could without end Have rais'd incessant Armies to defeat Thy folly or with solitarie hand Reaching beyond all limit at one blow Unaided could have finisht thee and whelmd Thy Legions under darkness but thou seest All are not of thy Train there be who Faith Prefer and Pietie to God though then To thee not visible when I alone Seemd in thy World erroneous to dissent From all my Sect thou seest now learn too late How few somtimes may know when thousands err Whom the grand foe with scornful eye askance Thus answerd Ill for thee but in wisht houre Of my revenge first sought for thou returnst From flight seditious Angel to receave Thy merited reward the first assay Of this right hand provok't since first that tongue Inspir'd with contradiction durst oppose A third part of the Gods in Synod met Thir Deities ro assert who while they feel Vigour Divine within them can allow Omnipotence to none But well thou comst Before thy fellows ambitious to win From me som Plume that thy success may show Destruction to the rest this pause between Unanswerd least thou boast to let thee know At first I thought that Libertie and Heav'n To heav'nly Soules had bin all one but now I see that most through sloth had rather serve Ministring Spirits traind up in Feast and Song Such hast thou arm'd the Minstrelfie of Heav'n Servilitie with freedom to contend As both thir deeds compar'd this day shall prove To whom in brief thus Abdiel stern repli'd Apostat still thou errst nor end wilt find Of erring from the path of truth remote Unjustly thou deprav'st it with the name Of Servitude to serve whom God ordains Or Nature God and Nature bid the same When he who rules is worthiest and excells Them whom he governs This is servitude To serve th' unwise or him who hath rebelld Against his worthier as thine now serve thee Thy self not free but to thy self enthrall'd Yet leudly dar'st our ministring upbraid Reign thou in Hell thy Kingdom let mee serve In Heav'n God ever blest and his Divine Behests obey worthiest to be obey'd Yet Chains in Hell not Realms expect mean while From mee returnd as erst thou saidst from flight This greeting on thy impious Crest receive So saying a noble stroke he lifted high Which hung not but so swift with tempest fell On the proud Crest of Satan that no sight Nor motion of swift thought less could his Shield Such ruin intercept ten paces huge He back recoild the tenth on bended knee His massie Spear upstaid as if on Earth Winds under ground or waters forcing way Sidelong had push't a Mountain from his feat Half sunk with all his Pines Amazement seis'd The Rebel Thrones but greater rage to see Thus foil'd thir mightiest ours joy filld and shout Presage of Victorie and fierce desire Of Battel whereat Michael bid sound Th' Arch-Angel trumpet through the vast of Heaven It sounded and the faithful Armies rung Hosanna to the Highest nor stood at gaze The adverse Lęgions nor less hideous joyn'd The horrid shock now storming furie rose And clamour such as heard in Heav'n till now Was never Arms on Armour clashing bray'd Horrible discord and the madding Wheeles Of brazen Chariots rag'd dire was the noise Of conflict over head the dismal hiss Of fiery Darts in flaming volies flew And flying vaulted either Host with fire So under fierie Cope together rush'd Both Battels maine with ruinous assault And inextinguishable rage all Heav'n Resounded and had Earth bin then all Earth Had to her Center shook What wonder when Millions of fierce encountring Angels fought On either side the least of whom could weild These Elements and arm him with the force Of all thir Regions how much more of Power Armie against Armie number less to raise Dreadful combustion warring and disturb Though not destroy thir happie Native seat Had not th' Eternal King Omnipotent From his strong hold of Heav'n high over-rul'd And limited thir might though numberd such As each divided Legion might have seemd A numerous Host in strength each armed hand A Legion led in fight yet Leader seemd Each Warriour single as in Chief expert When to advance or stand or turn the sway Of Battel open when and when to close The ridges of grim Warr no thought of flight None of retreat no unbecoming deed That argu'd fear each on himself reli'd As onely in his arm the moment lay Of victorie deeds of eternal fame Were don but infinite for wide was spred That Warr and various somtimes on firm ground A standing fight then soaring on main wing Tormented all the Air all Air seemd then Conflicting Fire long time in eeven scale The Battel hung till Satan who that day Prodigious power had shewn and met in Armes No equal raunging through the dire attack Of fighting Seraphim confus'd at length Saw where the Sword of Michael smote and fell'd Squadrons at once with huge two-handed sway Brandisht aloft the horrid edge came down Wide wasting such destruction to withstand He hasted and oppos'd the rockie Orb Of tenfold Adamant his ample Shield A vast circumference At his approach The great Arch-Angel from his warlike toile Surceas'd and glad as hoping here to end Intestine War in Heav'n the arch foe subdu'd Or Captive drag'd in Chains with hostile frown And visage all enflam'd first thus began Author of evil unknown till thy revolt Unnam'd in Heav'n now plenteous as thou seest These Acts of hateful strife hateful to all Though heaviest by just measure on thy self And thy adherents how hast thou disturb'd Heav'ns blessed peace and into Nature brought Miserie uncreated till the crime Of thy Rebellion how hast thou instill'd Thy malice into thousands once upright And faithful now prov'd false But think not here To trouble Holy Rest Heav'n casts thee out From all her Confines Heav'n the seat of bliss Brooks not the works of violence and Warr. Hence then and evil go with thee along Thy ofspring to the place of evil Hell Thou and thy wicked crew there mingle broiles Ere this avenging Sword begin thy doome Or som more sudden vengeance wing'd from God Precipitate thee with augmented paine So spake the Prince of Angels to whom thus The Adversarie Nor think thou with wind Of airie threats to aw whom yet with deeds Thou canst not Hast thou turnd the least of these To flight or if to fall but that they rise Unvanquisht easier to transact with mee That thou shouldst hope imperious and with threats
by Angels born his Sign in Heav'n Under whose conduct Michael soon reduc'd His Armie circumfus'd on either Wing Under thir Head imbodied all in one Before him Power Divine his way prepar'd At his command the uprooted Hills retir'd Each to his place they heard his voice and went Obsequious Heav'n his wonted face renewd And with fresh Flourets Hill and Valley smil'd This saw his hapless Foes but stood obdur'd And to rebellious fight rallied thir Powers Insensate hope conceiving from despair In heav'nly Spirits could such perverseness dwell But to convince the proud what Signs availe Or Wonders move th' obdurate to relent They hard'nd more by what might most reclame Grieving to see his Glorie at the sight Took envie and aspiring to his highth Stood reimbattell'd fierce by force or fraud Weening to prosper and at length prevaile Against God and Messiah or to fall In universal ruin last and now To final Battel drew disdaining flight Or faint retreat when the great Son of God To all his Host on either hand thus spake Stand still in bright array ye Saints here stand Ye Angels arm'd this day from Battel rest Faithful hath been your warfare and of God Accepted fearless in his righteous Cause And as ye have receivd so have ye don Invincibly but of this cursed crew The punishment to other hand belongs Vengeance is his or whose he sole appoints Number to this dayes work is not ordain'd Nor multitude stand onely and behold Gods indignation on these Godless pourd By mee not you but mee they have despis'd Yet envied against mee is all thir rage Because the Father t' whom in Heav'n supream Kingdom and Power and Glorie appertains Hath honourd me according to his will Therefore to mee thir doom he hath assig'n'd That they may have thir wish to trie with mee In Battel which the stronger proves they all Or I alone against them since by strength They measure all of other excellence Not emulous nor care who them excells Nor other strife with them do I voutsafe So spake the Son and into terrour chang'd His count'nance too severe to be beheld And full of wrauth bent on his Enemies At once the Four spred out thir Starrie wings With dreadful shade contiguous and the Orbes Of his fierce Chariot rowld as with the sound Of torrent Floods or of a numerous Host Hee on his impious Foes right onward drove Gloomie as Night under his burning Wheeles The stedfast Empyrean shook throughout All but the Throne it self of God Full soon Among them he arriv'd in his right hand Grasping ten thousand Thunders which he sent Before him such as in thir Soules infix'd Plagues they astonisht all resistance lost All courage down thir idle weapons drop'd O're Shields and Helmes and helmed heads he rode Of Thrones and mighty Seraphim prostrate That wisht the Mountains now might be again Thrown on them as a shelter from his ire Nor less on either side tempestuous fell His arrows from the fourfold-visag'd Foure Distinct with eyes and from the living Wheels Distinct alike with multitude of eyes One Spirit in them rul'd and every eye Glar'd lightning and shot forth pernicious fire Among th' accurst that witherd all thir strength And of thir wonted vigour lest them draind Exhausted spiritless afflicted fall'n Yet half his strength he put not forth but check'd His Thunder in mid Volie for he meant Not to destroy but root them out of Heav'n The overthrown he rais'd and as a Heard Of Goats or timerous flock together throngd Drove them before him Thunder-struck pursu'd With terrors and with furies to the bounds And Chrystal wall of Heav'n which op'ning wide Rowld inward and a spacious Gap disclos'd Into the wastful Deep the monstrous sight Strook them with horror backward but far worse Urg'd them behind headlong themselves they threw Down from the verge of Heav'n Eternal wrauth Burnt after them to the bottomless pit Hell heard th' unsufferable noise Hell saw Heav'n ruining from Heav'n and would have fled Affrighted but strict Fate had cast too deep Her dark foundations and too fast had bound Nine dayes they fell confounded Chaos roard And felt tenfold confusion in thir fall Through his wilde Anarchie so huge a rout Incumberd him with ruin Hell at last Yawning receavd them whole and on them clos'd Hell thir fit habitation fraught with fire Unquenchable the house of woe and paine Disburd'nd Heav'n rejoic'd and soon repaird Her mural breach returning whence it rowld Sole Victor from th' expulsion of his Foes Messiah his triumphal Chariot turnd To meet him all his Saints who silent stood Eye witnesses of his Almightie Acts With Jubilie advanc'd and as they went Shaded with branching Palme each order bright Sung Triumph and him sung Victorious King Son Heir and Lord to him Dominion giv'n Worthiest to Reign he celebrated rode Triumphant through mid Heav'n into the Courts And Temple of his mightie Father Thron'd On high who into Glorie him receav'd Where now he sits at the right hand of bliss Thus measuring things in Heav'n by things on Earth At thy request and that thou maist beware By what is past to thee I have reveal'd What might have else to human Race bin hid The discord which befel and Warr in Heav'n Among th' Angelic Powers and the deep fall Of those too high aspiring who rebelld With Satan hee who envies now thy state Who now is plotting how he may seduce Thee also from obedience that with him Bereavd of happiness thou maist partake His punishment Eternal miserie Which would be all his solace and revenge As a despite don against the most High Thee once to gaine Companion of his woe But list'n not to his Temptations warne Thy weaker let it profit thee to have heard By terrible Example the reward Of disobedience firm they might have stood Yet fell remember and fear to transgress The End of the Sixth Book Paradise Lost BOOK VII THE ARGUMENT Raphael at the request of Adam relates how and wherefore this world was first created that God after the expelling of Satan and his Angels out of Heaven declar'd his pleasure to create another World and other Creatures to dwell therein sends his Son with Glory and attendance of Angels to perform the work of Creation in six dayes the Angels celebrate with Hymns the performance thereof and his reascention into Heaven DEscend from Heav'n Vrania by that name If rightly thou art call'd whose Voice divine Following above th' Olympian Hill I soare Above the flight of Pegasean wing The meaning not the Name I call for thou Nor of the Muses nine nor on the top Of old Olympus dwell'st but Heav'nlie borne Before the Hills appeerd or Fountain flow'd Thou with Eternal wisdom didst converse Wisdom thy Sister and with her didst play In presence of th' Almightie Father pleas'd With thy Celestial Song Up led by thee Into the Heav'n of Heav'ns I have presum'd An Earthlie Guest and drawn Empyreal Aire Thy tempring with like
safetie guided down Return me to my Native Element Least from this flying Steed unrein'd as once Bellerophon though from a lower Clime Dismounted on th' Aleian Field I fall Erroneous there to wander and forlorne Half yet remaines unsung but narrower bound Within the visible Diurnal Spheare Standing on Earth not rapt above the Pole More safe I Sing with mortal voice unchang'd To hoarce or mute though fall'n on evil dayes On evil dayes though fall'n and evil tongues In darkness and with dangers compast round And solitude yet not alone while thou Visit'st my slumbers Nightly or when Morn Purples the East still govern thou my Song Vrania and fit audience find though few But drive farr off the barbarous dissonance Of Bacchus and his revellers the Race Of that wilde Rout that tore the Thracian Bard In Rhodope where Woods and Rocks had Eares To rapture till the savage clamor dround Both Harp and Voice nor could the Muse defend Her Son So fail not thou who thee implores For thou art Heav'nlie shee an empty dreame Say Goddess what ensu'd when Raphael The affable Arch-Angel had forewarn'd Adam by dire example to beware Apostasie by what befell in Heaven To those Apostates least the like befall In Paradise to Adam or his Race Charg'd not to touch the interdicted Tree If they transgress and slight that sole command So easily obeyd amid the choice Of all tastes else to please thir appetite Though wandring He with his consorted Eve The storie heard attentive and was fill'd With admiration and deep Muse to heare Of things so high and strange things to thir thought So unimaginable as hate in Heav'n And Warr so neer the Peace of God in bliss With such confusion but the evil soon Driv'n back redounded as a flood on those From whom it sprung impossible to mix With Blessedness Whence Adam soon repeal'd The doubts that in his heart arose and now Led on yet sinless with desire to know What neerer might concern him how this World Of Heav'n and Earth conspicious first began When and whereof created for what cause What within Eden or without was done Before his memorie as one whose drouth Yet scarce allay'd still eyes the current streame Whose liquid murmur heard new thirst excites Proceeded thus to ask his Heav'nly Guest Great things and full of wonder in our eares Farr differing from this World thou hast reveal'd Divine interpreter by favour sent Down from the Empyrean to forewarne Us timely of what might else have bin our loss Unknown which human knowledg could not reach For which to the infinitly Good we owe Immortal thanks and his admonishment Receave with solemne purpose to observe Immutably his sovran will the end Of what we are But since thou hast voutsaf't Gently for our instruction to impart Things above Earthly thought which yet concernd Our knowing as to highest wisdom seemd Deign to descend now lower and relate What may no less perhaps availe us known How first began this Heav'n which we behold Distant so high with moving Fires adornd Innumerable and this which yeelds or fills All space the ambient Aire wide interfus'd Imbracing round this florid Earth what cause Mov'd the Creator in his holy Rest Through all Eternitie so late to build In Chaos and the work begun how soon Absolv'd if unforbid thou maist unfould What wee not to explore the secrets aske Of his Eternal Empire but the more To magnifie his works the more we know And the great Light of Day yet wants to run Much of his Race though steep suspens in Heav'n Held by thy voice thy potent voice he heares And longer will delay to heare thee tell His Generation and the rising Birth Of Nature from the unapparent Deep Or if the Starr of Eevning and the Moon Haste to thy audience Night with her will bring Silence and Sleep listning to thee will watch Or we can bid his absence till thy Song End and dismiss thee ere the Morning shine Thus Adam his illustrious Guest besought And thus the Godlike Angel answerd milde This also thy request with caution askt Obtaine thought to recount Almightie works What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice Or heart of man suffice to comprehend Yet what thou canst attain which best may serve To glorifie the Maker and inferr Thee also happier shall not be withheld Thy hearing such Commission from above I have receav'd to answer thy desire Of knowledge within bounds beyond abstain To ask nor let thine own inventions hope Things not reveal'd which th' invisible King Onely Omniscient hath supprest in Night To none communicable in Earth or Heaven Anough is left besides to search and know But Knowledge is as food and needs no less Her Temperance over Appetite to know In measure what the mind may well contain Oppresses else with Surfet and soon turns Wisdom to Folly as Nourishment to Winde Know then that after Lucifer from Heav'n So call him brighter once amidst the Host Of Angels then that Starr the Starrs among Fell with his flaming Legions through the Deep Into his place and the great Son returnd Victorious with his Saints th' Omnipotent Eternal Father from his Throne beheld Thir multitude and to his Son thus spake At least our envious Foe hath fail'd who thought All like himself rebellious by whose aid This inaccessible high strength the seat Of Deitie supream us dispossest He trusted to have seis'd and into fraud Drew many whom thir place knows here no more Yet farr the greater part have kept I see Thir station Heav'n yet populous retaines Number sufficient to possess her Realmes Though wide and this high Temple to frequent With Ministeries due and solemn Rites But least his heart exalt him in the harme Already done to have dispeopl'd Heav'n My damage fondly deem'd I can repaire That detriment if such it be to lose Self-lost and in a moment will create Another World out of one man a Race Of men innumerable there to dwell Not here till by degrees of merit rais'd They open to themselves at length the way Up hither under long obedience tri'd And Earth be chang'd to Heav'n Heav'n to Earth One Kingdom Joy and Union without end Mean while inhabit laxe ye Powers of Heav'n And thou my Word begotten Son by thee This I perform speak thou and be it don My overshadowing Spirit and might with thee I send along ride forth and bid the Deep Within appointed bounds be Heav'n and Earth Boundless the Deep because I am who fill Infinitude nor vacuous the space Though I uncircumscrib'd ray self retire And put not forth my goodness which is free To act or not Necessitie and Chance Approach not mee and what I will is Fate So spake th' Almightie and to what he spake His Word the filial Godhead gave effect Immediate are the Acts of God more swift Then time or motion but to human ears Cannot without process of speech be told So told as earthly notion can receave Great triumph
Day from Night and let them be for Signes For Seasons and for Dayes and circling Years And let them be for Lights as I ordaine Thir Office in the Firmament of Heav'n To give Light on the Earth and it was so And God made two great Lights great for thir use To Man the greater to have rule by Day The less by Night alterne and made the Starrs And set them in the Firmament of Heav'n To illuminate the Earth and rule the Day In thir vicissitude and rule the Night And Light from Darkness to divide God saw Surveying his great Work that it was good For of Celestial Bodies first the Sun A mightie Spheare he fram'd unlightsom first Though of Ethereal Mould then form'd the Moon Globose and every magnitude of Starrs And sowd with Starrs the Heav'n thick as a field Of Light by farr the greater part he took Transplanted from her cloudie Shrine and plac'd In the Suns Orb made porous to receive And drink the liquid Light firm to retaine Her gather'd beams great Palace now of Light Hither as to thir Fountain other Starrs Repairing in thir gold'n Urns draw Light And hence the Morning Planet guilds her horns By tincture or reflection they augment Thir small peculiar though from human sight So farr remote with diminution seen First in his East the glorious Lamp was seen Regent of Day and all th' Horizon round Invested with bright Rayes jocond to run His Longitude through Heav'ns high rode the gray Dawn and the Pleiades before him danc'd Shedding sweet influence less bright the Moon But opposite in leveld West was set His mirror with full face borrowing her Light From him for other light she needed none In that aspect and still that distance keepes Till night then in the East her turn she shines Revolvd on Heav'ns great Axle and her Reign With thousand lesser Lights dividual holds With thousand thousand Starres that then appeer'd Spangling the Hemisphere then first adornd With thir bright Luminaries that Set and Rose Glad Eevning and glad Morn crownd the fourth day And God said let the Waters generate Reptil with Spawn abundant living Soule And let Fowle flie above the Earth with wings Displayd on the op'n Firmament of Heav'n And God created the great Whales and each Soul living each that crept which plenteously The waters generated by thir kindes And every Bird of wing after his kinde And saw that it was good and bless'd them saying Be fruitful multiply and in the Seas And Lakes and running Streams the waters fill And let the Fowle be multiply'd on the Earth Forthwith the Sounds and Seas each Creek and Bay With Frie innumerable swarme and Shoales Of Fish that with thir Finns and shining Scales Glide under the green Wave in Sculles that oft Bank the mid Sea part single or with mate Graze the Sea weed thir pasture and through Groves Of Coral stray or sporting with quick glance Show to the Sun thir wav'd coats dropt with Gold Or in thir Pearlie shells at ease attend Moist nutriment or under Rocks thir food In jointed Armour watch on smooth the Seale And bended Dolphins play part huge of bulk Wallowing unweildie enormous in thir Gate Tempest the Ocean there Leviathan Hugest of living Creatures on the Deep Stretcht like a Promontorie sleeps or swimmes And seems a moving Land and at his Gilles Draws in and at his Trunck spouts our a Sea Mean while the tepid Caves and Fens and shoares Thir Brood as numerous hatch from the Egg that soon Bursting with kindly rupture forth disclos'd Thir callow young but featherd soon and fledge They summ'd thir Penns and soaring th' air sublime With clang despis'd the ground under a cloud In prospect there the Eagle and the Stork On Cliffs and Cedar tops thir Eyries build Part loosly wing the Region part more wise In common rang'd in figure wedge thir way Intelligent of seasons and set forth Thir Aierie Caravan high over Sea's Flying and over Lands with mutual wing Easing thir flight so stears the prudent Craneâ— Her annual Voiage born on Windes the Aire Floats as they pass fann'd with unnumber'd plumes From Branch to Branch the smaller Birds with song Solac'd the Woods and spred thir painted wings Till Ev'n nor then the solemn Nightingal Ceas'd warbling but all night tun'd her soft layes Others on Silver Lakes and Rivers Bath'd Thir downie Brest the Swan with Arched neck Between her white wings mantling proudly Rowes Her state with Oarie feet yet oft they quit The Dank and rising on stiff Pennons towre The mid Aereal Skie Others on ground Walk'd firm the crested Cock whose clarion sounds The silent hours and th' other whose gay Traine Adorns him colour'd with the Florid hue Of Rainbows and Starrie Eyes The Waters thus With Fish replenisht and the Aire with Fowle Ev'ning and Morn solemniz'd the Fift day The Sixt and of Creation last arose With Eevning Harps and Martin when God said Let th' Earth bring forth Foul living in her kinde Cattel and Creeping things and Beast of the Earth Each in their kinde The Earth obey'd and strait Op'ning her fertil Woomb teem'd at a Birth Innumerous living Creatures perfet formes Limb'd and full grown out of the ground up rose As from his Laire the wilde Beast where he wonns In Forrest wilde in Thicket Brake or Den Among the Trees in Pairs they rose they walk'd The Cattel in the Fields and Meddowes green Those rare and solitarie these in flocks Pasturing at once and in broad Herds upsprung The grassie Clods now Calv'd now half appeer'd The Tawnie Lion pawing to get free His hinder parts then springs as broke from Bonds And Rampant shakes his Brinded main the Ounce The Libbard and the Tyger as the Moale Rising the crumbl'd Earth above them threw In Hillocks the swift Stag from under ground Bore up his branching head scarse from his mould Behemoth biggest born of Earth upheav'd His vastness Fleec't the Flocks and bleating rose As Plants ambiguous between Sea and Land The River Horse and scalie Crocodile At once came forth whatever creeps the ground Insect or Worme those wav'd thir limber fans For wings and smallest Lineaments exact In all the Liveries dect of Summers pride With spots of Gold and Purple azure and green These as a line thir long dimension drew Streaking the ground with sinuous trace not all Minims of Nature some of Serpent kinde Wondrous in length and corpulence involv'd Thir Snakie foulds and added wings First crept The Parsimonious Emmet provident Of future in small room large heart enclos'd Pattern of just equalitie perhaps Hereafter join'd in her popular Tribes Of Commonaltie swarming next appeer'd The Female Bee that feeds her Husband Drone Deliciously and builds her waxen Cells With Honey stor'd the rest are numberless And thou thir Natures know'st gav'st them Names Needlest to thee repeated nor unknown The Serpent suttl'st Beast of all the field Of huge extent somtimes with brazen Eyes And hairie Main terrific though
and thy being Dream not of other Worlds what Creatures there Live in what state condition or degree Contented that thus farr hath been reveal'd Not of Earth onely but of highest Heav'n To whom thus Adam cleerd of doubt repli'd How fully hast thou satisfi'd mee pure Intelligence of Heav'n Angel serene And freed from intricacies taught to live The easiest way nor with perplexing thoughts To interrupt the sweet of Life from which God hath bid dwell farr off all anxious cares And not molest us unless we our selves Seek them with wandring thoughts and notions vain But apt the Mind or Fancie is to roave Uncheckt and of her roaving is no end Till warn'd or by experience taught she learne That not to know at large of things remote From use obscure and suttle but to know That which before us lies in daily life Is the prime Wisdom what is more is fume Or emptiness or fond impertinence And renders us in things that most concerne Unpractis'd unprepar'd and still to seek Therefore from this high pitch let us descend A lower flight and speak of things at hand Useful whence haply mention may arise Of somthing not unseasonable to ask By sufferance and thy wonted favour deign'd Thee I have heard relating what was don Ere my remembrance now hear mee relate My Storie which perhaps thou hast not heard And Day is yet not spent till then thou seest How suttly to detaine thee I devise Inviting thee to hear while I relate Fond were it not in hope of thy reply For while I sit with thee I seem in Heav'n And sweeter thy discourse is to my eare Then Fruits of Palm-tree pleasantest to thirst And hunger both from labour at the houre Of sweet repast they satiate and soon fill Though pleasant but thy words with Grace Divine Imbu'd bring to thir sweetness no satietie To whom thus Raphael answer'd heav'nly meek Nor are thy lips ungraceful Sire of men Nor tongue ineloquent for God on thee Abandantly his gifts hath also pour'd Inward and outward both his image faire Speaking or mute all comliness and grace Attends thee and each word each motion formes Nor less think wee in Heav'n of thee on Earth Then of our fellow servant and inquire Gladly into the wayes of God with Man For God we see hath honour'd thee and set On Man his Equal Love say therefore on For I that Day was absent as befell bound on a voyage uncouth and obscure Farr on excursion toward the Gates of Hell Squar'd in full Legion such command we had To see that none thence issu'd forth a spie Or enemie while God was in his work Least hee incenst at such eruption bold Destruction with Creation might have mixt Not that they durst without his leave attempt But us he sends upon his high behests For state as Sovran King and to enure Our prompt obedience Fast we found fast shut The dismal Gates and barricado'd strong But long ere our approaching heard within Noise other then the sound of Dance or Song Torment and loud lament and surious rage Glad we return'd up to the coasts of Light Ere Sabbath Eev'ning so we had in charge But thy relation now for I attend Pleas'd with thy words no less then thou with mine So spake the Godlike Power and thus our Sire For Man to tell how human Life began Is hard for who himself beginning knew Desire with thee still longer to converse Induc'd me As new wak't from soundest sleep Soft on the flourie herb I found me laid In Balmie Sweat which with his Beames the Sun Soon dri'd and on the reaking moisture fed Strait toward Heav'n my wondring Eyes I turnd And gaz'd a while the ample Skie till rais'd By quick instinctive motion up I sprung As thitherward endevoring and upright Stood on my feet about me round I saw Hill Dale and shadie Woods and sunnie Plaines And liquid Lapse of murmuring Streams by these Creatures that livd and movd and walk'd or flew Birds on the branches warbling all things smil'd With fragrance and with joy my heart oreflow'd My self I then perus'd and Limb by Limb Survey'd and sometimes went and sometimes ran With supple joints and lively vigour led But who I was or where or from what cause Knew not to speak I tri'd and forthwith spake My Tongue obey'd and readily could name What e're I saw Thou Sun said I faire Light And thou enlight'nd Earth so fresh and gay Ye Hills and Dales ye Rivers Woods and Plaines And ye that live and move fair Creatures tell Tell if ye saw how came I thus how here Not of my self by some great Maker then In goodness and in power praeeminent Tell me how may I know him how adore From whom I have that thus I move and live And feel that I am happier then I know While thus I call'd and stray'd I knew not whither From where I first drew Aire and first beheld This happie Light when answer none return'd On a green shadie Bank profuse of Flours Pensive I sate me down there gentle sleep First found me and with soft oppression seis'd My droused sense untroubl'd though I thought I then was passing to my former state Insensible and forthwith to dissolve When suddenly stood at my Head a dream Whose inward apparition gently mov'd My fancy to believe I yet had being And livd One came methought of shape Divine And said thy Mansion wants thee Adam rise First Man of Men innumerable ordain'd First Father call'd by thee I come thy Guide To the Garden of bliss thy seat prepar'd So saying by the hand he took me rais'd And over Fields and Waters as in Aire Smooth sliding without step last led me up A woodie Mountain whose high top was plaine A Circuit wide enclos'd with goodliest Trees Planted with Walks and Bowers that what I saw Of Earth before scarce pleasant seemd Each Tree Load'n with fairest Fruit that hung to the Eye Tempting stirr'd in me sudden appetite To pluck and eate whereat I wak'd and found Before mine Eyes all real as the dream Had lively shadowd Here had new begun My wandring had not hee who was my Guide Up hither from among the Trees appeer'd Presence Divine Rejoycing but with aw In adoration at his feet I fell Submiss he rear'd me and Whom thou soughtst I am Said mildely Author of all this thou seest Above or round about thee or beneath This Paradise I give thee count it thine To Till and keep and of the Fruit to eate Of every Tree that in the Garden growes Eate freely with glad heart fear here no dearth But of the Tree whose operation brings Knowledg of good and ill which I have set The Pledge of thy Obedience and thy Faith Amid the Garden by the Tree of Life Remember what I warne thee shun to taste And shun the bitter consequence for know The day thou eat'st thereof my sole command Transgrest inevitably thou shalt dye From that day mortal and this happie State
me Woman is her Name of Man Extracted for this cause he shall forgoe Father and Mother and to his Wife adhere And they shall be one Flesh one Heart one Soule She heard me thus and though divinely brought Yet Innocence and Virgin Modestie Her vertue and the conscience of her worth That would be woo'd and not unsought be won Not obvious not obtrusive but retir'd The more desirable or to say all Nature her self though pure of sinful thought Wrought in her so that seeing me she turn'd I follow'd her she what was Honour knew And with obsequious Majestie approv'd My pleaded reason To the Nuptial Bowre I led her blushing like the Morn all Heav'n And happie Constellations on that houre Shed thir selectest influence the Earth Gave sign of gratulation and each Hill Joyous the Birds fresh Gales and gentle Aires Whisper'd it to the Woods and from thir wings Flung Rose flung Odours from the spicie Shrub Disporting till the amorous Bird of Night Sung Spousal and bid haste the Eevning Starr On his Hill top to light the bridal Lamp Thus I have told thee all ray State and brought My Storie to the sum of earthly bliss Which I enjoy and must confess to find In all things else delight indeed but such As us'd or not works in the mind no change Nor vehement desire these delicacies I mean of Taste Sight Smell Herbs Fruits and Flours Walks and the melodie of Birds but here Fair otherwise transported I behold Transported touch here passion first I felt Commotion strange in all enjoyments else Superiour and unmov'd here onely weake Against the charm of Beauties powerful glance Or Nature faild in mee and left some part Not proof enough such Object to sustain Or from my side subducting took perhaps More then enough at least on her bestow'd Too much of Ornament in outward shew Elaborate of inward less exact For well I understand in the prime end Of Nature her th' inferiour in the mind And inward Faculties which most excell In outward also her resembling less His Image who made both and less expressing The character of that Dominion giv'n O're other Creatures yet when I approach Her loveliness so absolute she seems And in her self compleat so well to know Her own that what she wills to do or say Seems wisest vertuousest discreetest best All higher knowledge in her presence falls Degraded Wisdom in discourse with her Looses discount'nanc't and like folly shewes Authority and Reason on her waite As one intended first not after made Occasionally and to consummate all Greatness of mind and nobleness thir seat Build in her loveliest and create an awe About her as a guard Angelic plac't To whom the Angel with contracted brow Accuse not Nature she hath don her part Do thou but thine and be not diffident Of Wisdom she deserts thee not if thou Dismiss not her when most thou needst her nigh By attributing overmuch to things Less excellent as thou thy self perceav'st For what admir'st thou what transports thee so An outside fair no doubt and worthy well Thy cherishing thy honouring and thy love Not thy subjection weigh with her thy self Then value Oft times nothing profits more Then self esteem grounded on just and right Well manag'd of that skill the more thou know'st The more she will acknowledge thee her Head And to realities yield all her shows Made so adorn for thy delight the more So awful that with honour thou maist love Thy mate who sees when thou art seen least wise But if the sense of touch whereby mankind Is propagated seem such dear delight Beyond all other think the same voutsaf't To Cattel and each Beast which would not be To them made common and divulg'd if aught Therein enjoy'd were worthy to subdue The Soule of Man or passion in him move What higher in her societie thou findst Attractive human rational love still In loving thou dost well in passion not Wherein true Love consists not love refines The thoughts and heart enlarges hath his seat In Reason and is judicious is the scale By which to heav'nly Love thou maist ascend Not sunk in carnal pleasure for which cause Among the Beasts no Mate for thee was found To whom thus half abash't Adam repli'd Neither her out-side formd so fair nor aught In procreation common to all kindes Though higher of the genial Bed by far And with mysterious reverence I deem So much delights me as those graceful acts Those thousand decencies that daily flow From all her words and actions mixt with Love And sweet compliance which declare unfeign'd Union of Mind or in us both one Soule Harmonie to behold in wedded pair More grateful then harmonious sound to the eare Yet these subject not I to thee disclose What inward thence I feel not therefore foild Who meet with various objects from the sense Variously representing yet still free Approve the best and follow what I approve To love thou blam'st me not for love thou saist Leads up to Heav'n is both the way and guide Bear with me then if lawful what I ask Love not the heav'nly Spirits and how thir Love Express they by looks onely or do they mix Irradiance virtual or immediate touch To whom the Angel with a smile that glow'd Celestial rosie red Loves proper hue Answer'd Let it suffice thee that thou know'st Us happie and without Love no happiness Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy'st And pure thou wert created we enjoy In eminence and obstacle find none Of membrane joynt or limb exclusive barrs Easier then Air with Air if Spirits embrace Total they mix Union of Pure with Pure Desiring nor restrain'd conveyance need As Flesh to mix with Flesh or Soul with Soul But I can now no more the parting Sun Beyond the Earths green Cape and verdant Isles Hesperean sets my Signal to depart Be strong live happie and love but first of all Him whom to love is to obey and keep His great command take heed least Passion sway Thy Judgement to do aught which else free Will Would not admit thine and of all thy Sons The weal or woe in thee is plac't beware I in thy persevering shall rejoyce And all the Blest stand fast to stand or fall Free in thine own Arbitrement it lies Perfet within no outward aid require And all temptation to transgress repel So saying he arose whom Adam thus Follow'd with benediction Since to part Go heavenly Guest Ethereal Messenger Sent from whose sovran goodness I adore Gentle to me and affable hath been Thy condescension and shall be honour'd ever With grateful Memorie thou to mankind Be good and friendly still and oft return So parted they the Angel up to Heav'n From the thick shade and Adam to his Bowre The End of the Eighth Book Paradise Lost BOOK IX THE ARGUMENT Satan having compast the Earth with meditated guile returns as a mist by Night into Paradise enters into the Serpent sleeping Adam and Eve in the Morning go forth
This Flourie Plat the sweet recess of Eve Thus earlie thus alone her Heav'nly forme Angelic but more soft and Feminine Her graceful Innocence her every Aire Of gesture or lest action overawd His Malice and with rapine sweet bereav'd His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought That space the Evil one abstracted stood From his own evil and for the time remaind Stupidly good of enmitie disarm'd Of guile of hate of envie of revenge But the hot Hell that alwayes in him burnes Though in mid Heav'n soon ended his delight And tortures him now more the more he sees Of pleasure not for him ordain'd then soon Fierce hate he recollects and all his thoughts Of mischief gratulating thus excites Thoughts whither have ye led me with what sweet Compulsion thus transported to forget What hither brought us hate not love nor hope Of Paradise for Hell hope here to taste Of pleasure but all pleasure to destroy Save what is in destroying other joy To me is lost Then let me not let pass Occasion which now smiles behold alone The Woman opportune to all attempts Her Husband for I view far round not nigh Whose higher intellectual more I shun And strength of courage hautie and of limb Heroic built though of terrestrial mould Foe not informidable exempt from wound I not so much hath Hell debas'd and paine Infeebl'd me to what I was in Heav'n Shee fair divinely fair fit Love for Gods Not terrible though terrour be in Love And beautie not approacht by stronger hate Hate stronger under shew of Love well feign'd The way which to her ruin now I tend So spake the Enemie of Mankind enclos'd In Serpent Inmate bad and toward Eve Address'd his way not with indented wave Prone on the ground as since but on his reare Circular base of rising foulds that tour'd Fould above fould a surging Maze his Head Crested aloft and Carbuncle his Eyes With burnisht Neck of verdant Gold erect Amidst his circling Spires that on the grass Floted redundant pleasing was his shape And lovely never since of Serpent kind Lovelier not those that in Illyria chang'd Hermione and Cadmus or the God In Epidaurus nor to which transformd Ammonian Jove or Capitoline was seen Hee with Olympias this with her who bore Scipio the highth of Rome With tract oblique At first as one who sought access but feard To interrupt side-long he works his way As when a Ship by skilful Stearsman wrought Nigh Rivers mouth or Foreland where the Wind Veres oft as oft so steers and shifts her Saile So varied hee and of his tortuous Traine Curld many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve To lure her Eye shee busied heard the sound Of rusling Leaves but minded not as us'd To such disport before her through the Field From every Beast more duteous at her call Then at Circean call the Herd disguis'd Hee boulder now uncall'd before her stood But as in gaze admiring Oft he bowd His turret Crest and sleek enamel'd Neck Fawning and lick'd the ground whereon she trod His gentle dumb expression turnd at length The Eye of Eve to mark his play he glad Of her attention gaind with Serpent Tongue Organic or impulse of vocal Air His fraudulent temptation thus began Wonder not sovran Mistress if perhaps Thou canst who art sole Wonder much less arm Thy looks the Heav'n of mildness with disdain Displeas'd that I approach thee thus and gaze Infatiate I thus single nor have feard Thy awful brow more awful thus retir'd Fairest resemblance of thy Maker faire Thee all things living gaze on all things thine By gift and thy Celestial Beautie adore With ravishment beheld there best beheld Where universally admir'd but here In this enclosure wild these Beasts among Beholders rude and shallow to discerne Half what in thee is fair one man except Who sees thee and what is one who shouldst be seen A Goddess among Gods ador'd and serv'd By Angels numberless thy daily Train So gloz'd the Tempter and his Proem tun'd Into the Heart of Eve his words made way Though at the voice much marveling at length Not unamaz'd she thus in answer spake What may this mean Language of Man pronounc't By Tongue of Brute and human sense exprest The first at lest of these I thought deniâ—d To Beasts whom God on thir Creation-Day Created mute to all articulat sound The latter I demurre for in thir looks Much reason and in thir actions oft appeers Thee Serpent suttlest beast of all the field I knew but not with human voice endu'd Redouble then this miracle and say How cam'st thou speakable of mute and how To me so friendly grown above the rest Of brutal kind that daily are in sight Say for such wonder claims attention due To whom the guileful Tempter thus reply'd Empress of this fair World resplendent Eve Easie to mee it is to tell thee all What thou commandst and right thou shouldst be obeyd I was at first as other Beasts that graze The trodden Herb of abject thoughts and low As was my food nor aught but food discern'd Or Sex and apprehended nothing high Till on a day roaving the field I chanc'd A goodly Tree farr distant to behold Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mixt Ruddie and Gold I nearer drew to gaze When from the boughes a savorie odour blow'n Grateful to appetite more pleas'd my sense Then smell of sweetest Fenel or the Teats Of Ewe or Goat dropping with Milk at Eevn Unsuckt of Lamb or Kid that tend thir play To satisfie the sharp desire I had Of tasting those fair Apples I resolv'd Not to deferr hunger and thirst at once Powerful perswaders quick'nd at the scent Of that alluring fruit urg'd me so keene About the mossie Trunk I wound me soon For high from ground the branches would require Thy utmost reach or Adams Round the Tree All other Beasts that saw with like desire Longing and envying stood but could not reach Amid the Tree now got where plenty hung Tempting so nigh to pluck and eat my fill I spar'd not for such pleasure till that hour At Feed or Fountain never had I found Sated at length ere long I might perceave Strange alteration in me to degree Of Reason in my inward Powers and Speech Wanted not long though to this shape retain'd Thenceforth to Speculations high or deep I turnd my thoughts and with capacious mind Considerd all things visible in Heav'n Or Earth or Middle all things fair and good But all that fair and good in thy Divine Semblance and in thy Beauties heav'nly Ray United I beheld no Fair to thine Equivalent or second which compel'd Mee thus though importune perhaps to come And gaze and worship thee of right declar'd Sovran of Creatures universal Dame So talk'd the spirited sly Snake and Eve Yet more amaz'd unwarie thus reply'd Serpent thy overpraising leaves in doubt The vertue of that Fruit in thee first prov'd But say where grows the Tree from hence how far For
ignorance of good and Evil Of God or Death of Law or Penaltie Here grows the Cure of all this Fruit Divine Fair to the Eye inviting to the Taste Of vertue to make wise what hinders then To reach and feed at once both Bodie and Mind So saying her rash hand in evil hour Forth reaching to the Fruit she pluck'd she eat Earth felt the wound and Nature from her seat Sighing through all her Works gave signs of woe That all was lost Back to the Thicket slunk The guiltie Serpent and well might for Eve Intern now wholly on her taste naught else Regarded such delight till then as seemd In Fruit she never tasted whether true Or fansied so through expectation high Of knowledg nor was God-head from her thought Greedily she ingorg'd without restraint And knew not eating Death Satiate at length And hight'nd as with Wine jocond and boon Thus to her self she pleasingly began O Sovran vertuous precious of all Trees In Paradise of operation blest To Sapience hitherto obscur'd infam'd And thy fair Fruit let hang as to no end Created but henceforth my early care Not without Song each Morning and due praise Shall tend thee and the fertil burden ease Of thy full branches offer'd free to all Till dieted by thee I grow mature In knowledge as the Gods who all things know Though others envie what they cannot give For had the gift bin theirs it had not here Thus grown Experience next to thee I owe Best guide not following thee I had remaind In ignorance thou op'nst Wisdoms way And giv'st access though secret she retire And I perhaps am secret Heav'n is high High and remote to see from thence distinct Each thing on Earth and other care perhaps May have diverted from continual watch Our great Forbidder safe with all his Spies About him But to Adam in what sort Shall I appeer shall I to him make known As yet my change and give him to partake Full happiness with mee or rather not But keep the odds of Knowledge in my power Without Copartner so to add what wants In Femal Sex the more to draw his Love And render me more equal and perhaps A thing not undesireable somtime Superior for inferior who is free This may be well but what if God have seen And Death ensue then I shall be no more And Adam wedded to another Eve Shall live with her enjoying I extinct A death to think Confirm'd then I resolve Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe So dear I love him that with him all deaths I could endure without him Five no life So saying from the Tree her step she turnd But first low Reverence don as to the power That dwelt within whose presence had infus'd Into the plant sciential sap deriv'd From Nectar drink of Gods Adam the while Waiting desirous her return had wove Of choicest Flours a Garland to adorne Her Tresses and her rural labours crown As Reapers oft are wont thir Harvest Queen Great joy he promis'd to his thoughts and new Solace in her return so long delay'd Yet oft his heart divine of somthing ill Misgave him hee the faultring measure felt And forth to meet her went the way she took That Morn when first they parted by the Tree Of Knowledge he must pass there he her met Scarse from the Tree returning in her hand A bough of fairest fruit that downie smil'd New gatherd and ambrosial smell diffus'd To him she hasted in her face excuse Came Prologue and Apologie to prompt Which with bland words at will she thus addrest Hast thou not wonderd Adam at my stay Thee I have misst and thought it long depriv'd Thy presence agonie of love till now Not felt nor shall be twice for never more Mean I to trie what rash untri'd I sought The pain of absence from thy sight But strange Hath bin the cause and wonderful to heare This Tree is not as we are told a Tree Of danger tasted nor to evil unknown Op'ning the way but of Divine effect To open Eyes and make them Gods who taste And hath bin tasted such the Serpent wise Or not restraind as wee or not obeying Hath eat'n of the fruit and is become Not dead as we are threatn'd but thenceforth Endu'd with human voice and human sense Reasoning to admiration and with mee Perswasively hath so prevaild that I Have also tasted and have also found Th' effects to correspond opener mine Eyes Dimm erst dilated Spirits ampler Heart And growing up to Godhead which for thee Chiefly I sought without thee can despise For bliss as thou hast part to me is bliss Tedious unshar'd with thee and odious soon Thou therefore also taste that equal Lot May joyne us equal Joy as equal Love Least thou not tasting different degree Disjoyne us and I then too late renounce Deitie for thee when Fate will not permit Thus Eve with Countnance blithe her storie told But in her Cheek distemper flushing glowd On th' other side Adam soon as he heard The fatal Trespass don by Eve amaz'd Astonied stood and Blank while horror chill Ran through his veins and all his joynts relax'd From his slack hand the Garland wreath'd for Eve Down drop'd and all the faded Roses shed Speechless he stood and pale till thus at length First to himself he inward silence broke O fairest of Creation last and best Of all Gods works Creature in whom excell'd Whatever can to sight or thought be formd Holy divine good amiable or sweet How art thou lost how on a sudden lost Defac't deflourd and now to Death devote Rather how hast thou yeelded to transgress The strict forbiddance how to violate The sacred Fruit forbidd'n som cursed fraud Of Enemie hath be guil'd thee yet unknown And mee with thee hath ruind for with thee Certain my resolution is to Die How can I live without thee how forgoe Thy sweet Converse and Love so dearly joyn'd To live again in these wilde Woods forlorn Should God create another Eve and I Another Rib afford yet loss of thee Would never from my heart no no I feel The Link of Nature draw me Flesh of Flesh Bone of my Bone thou art and from thy State Mine never shall be parted bliss or woe So having said as one from sad dismay Recomforted and after thoughts disturbd Submitting to what seemd remediless Thus in calm mood his Words to Eve he turnd Bold deed thou hast presum'd adventrous Eve And peril great provok't who thus hath dar'd Had it been onely coveting to Eye That sacred Fruit sacred to abstinence Much more to taste it under banne to touch But past who can recall or don undoe Not God Omnipotent nor Fate yet so Perhaps thou shalt not Die perhaps the Fact Is not so hainous now foretasted Fruit Profan'd first by the Serpent by him first Made common and unhallowd ere our taste Nor yet on him found deadly he yet lives Lives as thou saidst and gaines to live as Man Higher
Earth arriv'd at Heaven Gate displeas'd All were who heard dim sadness did not spare That time Celestial visages yet mixt With pitie violated not thir bliss About the new-arriv'd in multitudes Th' ethereal People ran to hear and know How all befell they towards the Throne Supream Accountable made haste to make appear With righteous plea thir utmost vigilance And easily approv'd when the most High Eternal Father from his secret Cloud Amidst in Thunder utter'd thus his voice Assembl'd Angels and ye Powers return'd From unsuccessful charge be not dismaid Nor troubl'd at these tidings from the Earth Which your sincerest care could not prevent Foretold so lately what would come to pass When first this Tempter cross'd the Gulf from Hell I told ye then he should prevail and speed On his bad Errand Man should be seduc't And flatter'd out of all believing lies Against his Maker no Decree of mine Concurring to necessitate his Fall Or touch with lightest moment of impulse His free Will to her own inclining left In eevn scale But fall'n he is and now What rests but that the mortal Sentence pass On his transgression Death denounc't that day Which he presumes already vain and void Because not yet inflicted as he fear'd By some immediate stroak but soon shall find Forbearance no acquittance ere day end Justice shall not return as bountie scorn'd But whom send I to judge them whom but thee Vicegerent Son to thee I have transferr'd All Judgement whether in Heav'n or Earth or Hell Easie it might be seen that I intend Mercie collegue with Justice sending thee Mans Friend his Mediator his design'd Both Ransom and Redeemer voluntarie And destin'd Man himself to judge Man fall'n So spake the Father and unfoulding bright Toward the right hand his Glorie on the Son Blaz'd forth unclouded Deitie he full Resplendent all his Father manifest Express'd and thus divinely answer'd milde Father Eternal thine is to decree Mine both in Heav'n and Earth to do thy will Supream that thou in mee thy Son belov'd Mayst ever rest well pleas'd I go to judge On Earth these thy transgressors but thou knowst Whoever judg'd the worst on mee must light When time shall be for so I undertook Before thee and not repenting this obtaine Of right that I may mitigate thir doom On me deriv'd yet I shall temper so Justice with Mercie as may illustrate most Them fully satisfied and thee appease Attendance none shall need nor Train where none Are to behold the Judgment but the judg'd Those two the third best absent is condemn'd Convict by flight and Rebel to all Law Conviction to the Serpent none belongs Thus saying from his radiant Seat he rose Of high collateral glorie him Thrones and Powers Princedoms and Dominations ministrant Accompanied to Heaven Gate from whence Eden and all the Coast in prospect lay Down he descended strait the speed of Gods Time counts not though with swiftest minutes wing'd Now was the Sun in Western cadence low From Noon and gentle Aires due at thir hour To fan the Earth now wak'd and usher in The Eevning coole when he from wrauth more coole Came the mild Judge and Intercessor both To sentence Man the voice of God they heard Now walking in the Garden by soft windes Brought to thir Ears while day declin'd they heard And from his presence hid themselves among The thickest Trees both Man and Wife till God Approaching thus to Adam call'd aloud Where art thou Adam wont with joy to meet My coming seen far off I miss thee here Not pleas'd thus entertaind with solitude Where obvious dutie erewhile appear'd unsaught Or come I less conspicuous or what change Absents thee or what chance detains Come forth He came and with him Eve more loth though first To offend discount'nanc't both and discompos'd Love was not in thir looks either to God Or to each other but apparent guilt And shame and perturbation and despaire Anger and obstinacie and hate and guile Whence Adam faultring long thus answer'd brief I heard thee in the Garden and of thy voice Affraid being naked hid my self To whom The gracious Judge without revile repli'd My voice thou oft hast heard and hast not fear'd But still rejoyc't how is it now become So dreadful to thee that thou art naked who Hath told thee hast thou eaten of the Tree Whereof I gave thee charge thou shouldst not eat To whom thus Adam sore beset repli'd O Heav'n in evil strait this day I stand Before my Judge either to undergoe My self the total Crime or to accuse My other self the partner of my life Whose failing while her Faith to me remaines I should conceal and not expose to blame By my complaint but strict necessitie Subdues me and calamitous constraint Least on my head both sin and punishment However insupportable be all Devolv'd though should I hold my peace yet thou Wouldst easily detect what I conccale This Woman whom thou mad'st to be my help And gav'st me as thy perfet gift so good So fit so acceptable so Divine That from her hand I could suspect no ill And what she did whatever in it self Her doing seem'd to justifie the deed Shee gave me of the Tree and I did eate To whom the sovran Presence thus repli'd Was shee thy God that her thou didst obey Before his voice or was shee made thy guide Superior or but equal that to her Thou did'st resigne thy Manhood and the Place Wherein God set thee above her made of thee And for thee whose perfection farr excell'd Hers in all real dignitie Adornd Shee was indeed and lovely to attract Thy Love not thy Subjection and her Gifts Were such as under Government well seem'd Unseemly to beare rule which was thy part And person had'st thou known thy self aright So having said he thus to Eve in few Say Woman what is this which thou hast done To whom sad Eve with shame nigh overwhelm'd Confessing soon yet not before her Judge Bold or loquacious thus abasht repli'd The Serpent me beguil'd and I did eate Which when the Lord God heard without delay To Judgement he proceeded on th' accus'd Serpent though brute unable to transferre The Guilt on him who made him instrument Of mischief and polluted from the end Of his Creation justly then accurst As vitiated in Nature more to know Concern'd not Man since he no further knew Nor alter'd his offence yet God at last To Satan first in sin his doom apply'd Though in mysterious terms judg'd as then best And on the Serpent thus his curse let fall Because thou hast done this thou art accurst Above all Cattle each Beast of the Field Upon thy Belly groveling thou shalt goe And dust shalt eat all the dayes of thy Life Between Thee and the Woman I will put Enmitie and between thine and her Seed Her Seed shall bruse thy head thou bruise his heel So spake this Oracle then verifi'd When Jesus son of Mary second Eve Saw Satan fall
like Lightning down from Heav'n Prince of the Aire then rising from his Grave Spoild Principalities and Powers triumpht In open shew and with ascention bright Captivity led captive through the Aire The Realm it self of Satan long usurpt Whom he shall tread at last under our feet Eevn hee who now foretold his fatal bruise And to the Woman thus his Sentence turn'd Thy sorrow I will greatly multiplie By thy Conception Children thou shalt bring In sorrow forth and to thy Husbands will Thine shall submit hee over thee shall rule On Adam last thus judgement he pronounc'd Because thou hast heark'nd to the voice of thy Wife And eaten of the Tree concerning which I charg'd thee saying Thou shalt not eate thereof Curs'd is the ground for thy sake thou in sorrow Shalt eate thereof all the days of thy Life Thorns also and Thistles it shall bring thee forth Unbid and thou shalt eate th' Herb of th' Field In the sweat of thy Face shalt thou eat Bread Till thou return unto the ground for thou Out of the ground wast taken know thy Birth For dust thou art and shalt to dust returne So judg'd he Man both Judge and Saviour sent And thâ— instant stroke of Death denounc't that day Remov'd farr off then pittying how they stood Before him naked to the aire that now Must suffer change disdain'd not to begin Thenceforth the form of servant to assume As when he wash'd his servants feet so now As Father of his Familie he clad Thir nakedness with Skins of Beasts or slain Or as the Snake with youthful Coate repaid And thought not much to cloath his Enemies Nor hee thir outward onely with the Skins Of Beasts but inward nakedness much more Opprobrious with his Robe of righteousness Araying cover'd from his Fathers sight To him with swift ascent he up returnd Into his blissful bosom reassum'd In glory as of old to him appeas'd All though all-knowing what had past with Man Recounted mixing intercession sweet Meanwhile ere thus was sin'd and judg'd on Earth Within the Gates of Hell sate Sin and Death In counterview within the Gates that now Stood open wide belching outrageous flame Farr into Chaos since the Fiend pass'd through Sin opening who thus now to Death began O Son why sit we here each other viewing Idlely while Satan our great Author thrives In other Worlds and happier Seat provides For us his ofspring deare It cannot be But that success attends him if mishap Ere this he had return'd with fury driv'n By his Avengers since no place like this Can fit his punishment or their revenge Methinks I feel new strength within me rise Wings growing and Dominion giv'n me large Beyond this Deep whatever drawes me on Or sympathie or som connatural force Powerful at greatest distance to unite With secret amiry things of like kinde By secretest conveyance Thou my Shade Inseparable must with mee along For Death from Sin no power can separate But least the difficultie of passing back Stay his return perhaps over this Gulfe Impassable Impervious let us try Adventrous work yet to thy power and mine Not unagreeable to found a path Over this Maine from Hell to that new World Where Satan now prevailes a Monument Of merit high to all th' infernal Host Easing thir passage hence for intercourse Or transmigration as thir lot shall lead Nor can I miss the way so strongly drawn By this new felt attraction and instinct Whom thus the meager Shadow answerd soon Goe whither Fate and inclination strong Leads thee I shall not lag behinde nor erre The way thou leading suth a sent I draw Of carnage prey innumerable and taste The savour of Death from all things there that live Nor shall I to the work thou enterprisest Be wanting but afford thee equal aid So saying with delight he snuff'd the smell Of mortal change on Earth As when a flock Of ravenous Fowl though many a League remote Against the day of Battel to a Field Where Armies lie encampt come flying lur'd With sent of living Carcasses design'd For death the following day in bloodie fight So sented the grim Feature and upturn'd His Nostril wide into the murkie Air Sagacious of his Quarry from so farr Then Both from out Hell Gates into the waste Wide Anarchie of Chaos damp and dark Flew divers and with Power thir Power was great Hovering upon the Waters what they met Solid or slimie as in raging Sea Tost up and down together crowded drove From each side shoaling towards the mouth of Hell As when two Polar Winds blowing adverse Upon the Cronian Sea together drive Mountains of Ice that stop th' imagin'd way Beyond Petsora Eastward to the rich Cathaian Coast The aggregated Soyle Death with his Mace petrific cold and dry As with a Trident smote and fix't as firm As Delos floating once the rest his look bound with Gorgonian rigor not to move And with Asphaltic slime broad as the Gate Deep to the Roots of Hell the gather'd beach They fasten'd and the Mole immense wraught on Over the foaming deep high Archt a Bridge Of length prodigious joying to the Wall Immovable of this now fenceless world Forfeit to Death from hence a passage broad Smooth easie inoffensive down to Hell So if great thing to small may be compar'd Xerxes the Libertie of Greece to yoke From Susa his Momronian Palace high Came to the Sea and over Hellespont Bridging his way Europe with Asia joyn'd And scourg'd with many a stroak th' indignant waves Now had they brought the work by wondrous Art Pontifical a ridge of pendent Rock Over the vext Abyss following the track Of Satan to the self same place where hee First lighted from his Wing and landed safe From out of Chaos to the out side bare Of this round World with Pinns of Adamant And Chains they made all fast too fast they made And durable and now in little space The confines met of Empyrean Heav'n And of this World and on the left hand Hell With long reach interpos'd three sev'ral wayes In sight to each of these three places led And now thir way to Earth they had descri'd To Paradise first tending when behold Satan in likeness of an Angel bright Betwixt the Centaure and the Scorpion stearing His Zenith while the Sun in Aries rose Disguis'd he came but those his Children dear Thir Parent soon discern'd though in disguise Hee after Eve seduc't unminded slunk Into the Wood fast by and changing shape To observe the sequel saw his guileful act By Eve though all unweeting seconded Upon her Husband saw thir shame that sought Vain covertures but when he saw descend The Son of God to judge them terrifi'd Hee fled not hoping to escape but shun The present fearing guiltie what his wrauth Might suddenly inflict that past return'd By Night and listening where the hapless Paire Sate in thir sad discourse and various plaint Thence gatherd his own doom which understood Not instant but of future
time With joy And tidings fraught to Hell he now return'd And at the brink of Chaos neer the foot Of this new wondrous Pontifice unhop't Met who to meet him came his Ofspring dear Great joy was at thir meeting and at sight Of that stupendious Bridge his joy encreas'd Long hee admiring stood till Sin his faire Inchanting Daughter thus the silence broke O Parent these are thy magnific deeds Thy Trophies which thou view'st as not thine own Thou art thir Author and prime Architect For I no sooner in my Heart divin'd My Heart which by a secret harmonie Still moves with thine join'd in connexion sweet That thou on Earth hadst prosper'd which thy looks Now also evidence but straight I felt Though distant from thee Worlds between yet felt That I must after thee with this thy Son Such fatal consequence unites us three Hell could no longer hold us in her bounds Nor this unvoyageable Gulf obscure Detain from following thy illustrious track Thou hast atchiev'd our libertie confin'd Within Hell Gates till now thou us impow'rd To fortifie thus farr and overlay With this portentous Bridge the dark Abyss Thine now is an this World thy vertue hath won What thy hands builded not thy Wisdom gain'd With odds what Warr hath lost and fully aveng'd Our foile in Heav'n here thou shalt Monarch reign There didst not there let him still Victor sway As Battel hath adjudg'd from this new World Retiring by his own doom alienated And henceforth Monarchie with thee divide Of all things parted by th' Empyreal bounds His Quadrature from thy Orbicular World Or trie thee now more dang'rous to his Throne Whom thus the Prince of Darkness answerd glad Fair Daughter and thou Son and Grandchild both High proof ye now have giv'n to be the Race Of Satan for I glorie in the name Antagonist of Heav'ns Almightie King Amply have merited of me of all Th' infernal Empire that so neer Heav'ns dore Triumphal with triumphal act have met Mine with this glorious Work and made one Realm Hell and this World one Realm one Continent Of easie thorough-fare Therefore while I Descend through Darkness on your Rode with ease To my associate Powers them to acquaint With these successes and with them rejoyce You two this way among these numerous Orbs All yours right down to Paradise descend There dwell and Reign in bliss thence on the Earth Dominion exercise and in the Aire Chiefly on Man sole Lord of all declar'd Him first make sure your thrall and lastly kill My Substitutes I send ye and Create Plenipotent on Earth of matchless might Issuing from mee on your joynt vigor now My hold of this new Kingdom all depends Through Sin to Death expos'd by my exploit If your joynt power prevailes th' affaires of Hell No detriment need feare goe and be strong So saying he dismiss'd them they with speed Thir course through thickest Constellations held Spreading thir bane the blasted Starrs lookt wan And Planets Planet-strook real Eclips Then sufferd Th' other way Satan went down The Causey to Hell Gate on either side Disparted Chaos over built exclaimd And with rebounding surge the barrs assaild That scorn'd his indignation through the Gate Wide open and unguarded Satan pass'd And all about found desolate for those Appointed to sit there had left thir charge Flown to the upper World the rest were all Farr to the inland retir'd about the walls Of Pandaemonium Citie and proud seate Of Lucifer so by allusion calld Of that bright Starr to Satan paragond There kept thir Watch the Legions while the Grand In Council sate sollicitous what chance Might intercept thir Emperour sent so hee Departing gave command and they observ'd As when the Tartar from his Russian Foe By Astracan over the Snowie Plaines Retires or Bactriâ—â— Sophi from the hornes Of Turkish Crescent leaves all waste beyond The Realm of Aladule in his retreate To Tauris or Casbeen So these the late Heav'n-banisht Host left desert utmost Hell Many a dark League reduc't in careful Watch Round thir Metropolis and now expecting Each hour their great adventurer from the search Of Forrein Worlds he through the midst unmarkt In shew Plebeian Angel militant Of lowest order past and from the dore Of that Plutonian Hall invisible Ascended his high Throne which under state Of richest texture spred at th' upper end Was plac't in regal lustre Down a while He sate and round about him saw unseen At last as from a Cloud his fulgent head And shape Starr bright appeer'd or brighter clad With what permissive glory since his fall Was left him or false glitter All amaz'd At that so sudden blaze the Stygian throng Bent thir aspect and whom they wish'd beheld Thir mighty Chief returnd loud was th' acclaime Forth rush'd in haste the great consulting Peers Rais'd from thir Dark Divan and with like joy Congratulant approach'd him who with hand Silence and with these words attention won Thrones Dominations Princedoms Vertues Powers For in possession such not onely of right I call ye and declare ye now returnd Successful beyond hope to lead ye forth Triumphant out of this infernal Pit Abominable accurst the house of woe And Dungeon of our Tyrant Now possess As Lords a spacious World to our native Heaven Little inferiour by my adventure hard With peril great atchiev'd Long were to tell What I have don what sufferd with what paine Voyag'd th' unreal vast unbounded deep Of horrible confusion over which By Sin and Death a broad way now is pav'd To expedite your glorious march but I Toild out my uncouth passage forc't to ride Th' untraceable Abysse plung'd in the womb Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wilde That jealous of thir secrets fiercely oppos'd My journey strange with clamorous uproare Protesting Fate supreame thence how I found The new created World which same in Heav'n Long had foretold a Fabrick wonderful Of absolute perfection therein Man Plac't in a Paradise by our exile Made happie Him by fraud I have seduc'd From his Creator and the more to increase Your wonder with an Apple he thereat Offended worth your laughter hath giv'n up Both his beloved Man and all his World To Sin and Death a prey and so to us Without our hazard labour or allarme To range in and to dwell and over Man To rule as over all he should have rul'd True is mee also he hath judg'd or rather Mee not but the brute Serpent in whose shape Man I deceav'd that which to mee belongs Is enmity which he will put between Mee and Mankinde I am to bruise his heel His Seed when is not set shall bruise my head A World who would not purchase with a bruise Or much more grievous pain Ye have th' account Of my performance What remains ye Gods But up and enter now into full bliss So having said a while he stood expecting Thir universal shout and high applause To fill his eare when contrary he hears On all sides from
innumerable tongues A dismal universal hiss the sound Of public scorn he wonderd but not long Had leasure wondring at himself now more His Visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare His Armes clung to his Ribs his Leggs entwining Each other till supplanted down he fell A monstrous Serpent on his Belly prone Reluctant but in vaine a greater power Now rul'd him punisht in the shape he sin'd According to his doom he would have spoke But hiss for hiss returnd with forked tongue To forked tongue for now were all transform'd Alike to Serpents all as accessories To his bold Riot dreadful was the din Of hissing through the Hall thick swarming now With complicated monsters head and taile Scorpion and Asp and Amphisbaena dire Cerastes hornd Hydrus and Ellops drear And Dipsas not so thick swarm'd once the Soil Bedropt with blood of Gorgon or the Isle Ophiusa but still greatest hee the midst Now Dragon grown larger then whom the Sun Ingenderd in the Pythian Vale on slime Huge Python and his Power no less he seem'd Above the rest still to retain they all Him follow'd issuing forth to th' open Field Where all yet left of that revolted Rout Heav'n-fall'n in station stood or just array Sublime with expectation when to see In Triumph issuing forth thir glorious Chief They saw but other sight instead a crowd Of ugly Serpents horror on them fell And horrid sympathie for what they saw They felt themselvs now changing down thir arms Down fell both Spear and Shield down they as fast And the dire hiss renew'd and the dire form Catcht by Contagion like in punishment As in thir crime Thus was th' applause they meant Turnd to exploding hiss triumph to shame Cast on themselves from thir own mouths There stood A Grove hard by sprung up with this thir change His will who reigns above to aggravate Thir penance laden with Fruit like that Which grew in Paradise the bait of Eve Us'd by the Tempter on that prospect strange Thir earnest eyes they fix'd imagining For one forbidden Tree a multitude Now ris'n to work them furder woe or shame Yet parcht with scalding thurst and hunger fierce Though to delude them sent could not abstain But on thy rould in heaps and up the Trees Climbing sat thicker then the snakie locks That curld Megaera greedily they pluck'd The Frutage fair to sight like that which grew Neer that bituminous Lake where Sodom flam'd This more delusive not the touch but taste Deceav'd they fondly thinking to allay Thir appetite with gust instead of Fruit Chewd bitter Ashes which th' offended taste With spattering noise rejected oft they assayd Hunger and thirst constraining drugd as oft With hatefullest disrelish writh'd thir jaws With soot and cinders fill'd so oft they fell Into the same illusion not as Man Whom they triumph'd once lapst Thus were they plagu'd And worn with Famin long and ceasless hiss Till thir lost shape permitted they resum'd Yearly enjoynd some say to undergo This annual humbling certain number'd days To dash thir pride and joy for Man seduc't However some tradition they dispers'd Among the Heathen of thir purchase got And Fabl'd how the Serpent whom they calld Ophion with Eurynome the wide Encroaching Eve perhaps had first the rule Of high Olympus thence by Saturn driv'n And Ops ere yet Dictaen Jove was born Mean while in Paradise the hellish pair Too soon arriv'd Sin there in power before Once actual now in body and to dwell Habitual habitant behind her Death Close following pace for pace not mounted yet On his pale Horse to whom Sin thus began Second of Satan sprung all conquering Death What thinkst thou of our Empire now though earnd With travail difficult not better farr Then stil at Hels dark threshold to have sate watch Unnam'd undreaded and thy self half starv'd Whom thus the Sin-born Monster answerd soon To mee who with eternal Famin pine Alike is Hell or Paradise or Heaven There best where most with ravin I may meet Which here though plenteous all too little seems To stuff this Maw this vast unhide-bound Corps To whom th' incestuous Mother thus repli'd Thou therefore on these Herbs and Fruits and Flours Feed first on each Beast next and Fish and Fowle No homely morsels and whatever thing The Sithe of Time mowes down devour unspar'd Till I in Man residing through the Race His thoughts his looks words actions all infect And season him thy last and sweetest prey This said they both betook them several wayes Both to destroy or unimmortal make All kinds and for destruction to mature Sooner or later which th' Almightie seeing From his transcendent Seat the Saints among To those bright Orders utterd thus his voice See with what heat these Dogs of Hell advance To waste and havoc yonder World which I So fair and good created and had still Kept in that State had not the folly of Man Let in these wastful Furies who impute Folly to mee so doth the Prince of Hell And his Adherents that with so much ease I suffer them to enter and possess A place so heav'nly and conniving seem To gratifie my scornful Enemieâ— That laugh as if transported with some fit Of Passion I to them had quitted all At random yielded up to their misrule And know not that I call'd and drew them thither My Hell-hounds to lick up the draff and filth Which mans polluting Sin with taint hath shed On what was pure till cramm'd and gorg'd nigh burst With suckt and glutted offal at one sling Of thy victorious Arm well-pleasing Son Both Sin and Death and yawning Grave at last Through Chaos hurld obstruct the mouth of Hell For ever and seal up his ravenous Jawes Then Heav'n and Earth renewd shall be made pure To sanctitie that shall receive no staine Till then the Curse pronounc't on both precedes He ended and the heav'nly Audience loud Sung Halleluia as the sound of Seas Through multitude that sung Just are thy ways Righteous are thy Decrees on all thy Works Who can extenuate thee Next to the Son Destin'd restorer of Mankind by whom New Heav'n and Earth shall to the Ages rise Or down from Heav'n descend Such was thir song While the Creator calling forth by name His mightie Angels gave them several charge As sorted best with present things The Sun Had first his precept so to move so shine As might affect the Earth with cold and heat Scarce tollerable and from the North to call Decrepit Winter from the South to bring Solstitial summers heat To the blanc Moone Her office they prescrib'd to th' other five Thir planetarie motions and aspects In Sextile Square and Trine and Opposite Of noxious efficacie and when to joyne In Synod unbenigne and taught the fixt Thir influence malignant when to showre Which of them rising with the Sun or falling Should prove tempestuous To the Winds they set Thir corners when with bluster to confound Sea Aire and Shoar the Thunder when to
innocence Now therefore bend thine eare To supplication heare his sighs though mute Unskilful with what words to pray let mee Interpret for him mee his Advocate And propitiation all his works on mee Good or not good ingraft my Merit those Shall perfet and for these my Death shall pay Accept me and in mee from these receave The smell of peace toward Mankinde let him live Before thee reconcil'd at least his days Numberd though sad till Death his doom which I To mitigate thus plead not to reverse To better life shall yeeld him where with mee All my redeemd may dwell in joy and bliss Made one with me as I with thee am one To whom the Father without Cloud serene All thy request for Man accepted Son Obtain all thy request was my Decree But longer in that Paradise to dwell The Law I gave to Nature him forbids Those pure immortal Elements that know No gross no unharmoneous mixture foule Eject him tainted now and purge him off As a distemper gross to aire as gross And mortal food as may dispose him best For dissolution wrought by Sin that first Distemperd all things and of incorrupt Corrupted I at first with two fair gifts Created him endowd with Happiness And Immortalitie that fondly lost This other serv'd but to eternize woe Till I provided Death so Death becomes His final remedie and after Life Tri'd in sharp tribulation and refin'd By Faith and faithful works to second Life Wak't in the renovation of the just Resignes him up with Heav'n and Earth renewd But let us call to Synod all the Blest Through Heav'ns wide bounds from them I will not hide My judgments how with Mankind I proceed As how with peccant Angels late they saw And in thir state though firm stood more confirmd He ended and the Son gave signal high To the bright Minister that watchd hee blew His Trumpet heard in Oreb since perhaps When God descended and perhaps once more To sound at general Doom Th' Angelic blast Filld all the Regions from thir blissful Bowrs Of Amarantin Shade Fountain or Spring By the waters of Life where ere they sate In fellowships of joy the Sons of Light Hasted resorting to the Summons high And took thir Seats till from his Throne supream Th' Almighty thus pronouncd his sovran Will. O Sons like one of us Man is become To know both Good and Evil since his taste Of that defended Fruit but let him boast His knowledge of Good lost and Evil got Happier had it suffic'd him to have known Good by it self and Evil not at all He sorrows now repents and prayes contrite My motions in him longer then they move His heart I know how variable and vain Self-left Least therefore his now bolder hand Reach also of the Tree of Life and eat And live for ever dream at least to live For ever to remove him I decree And send him from the Garden forth to Till The Ground whence he was taken fitter soile Michael this my behest have thou in charge Take to thee from among the Cherubim Thy choice of flaming Warriours least the Fiend Or in behalf of Man or to invade Vacant possession som new trouble raise Hast thee and from the Paradise of God Without remorse drive out the sinful Pair From hallowd ground th' unholie and denounce To them and to thir Progenie from thence Perpetual banishment Yet least they faint At the sad Sentence rigorously urg'd For I behold them softn'd and with tears Bewailing thir excess all terror hide If patiently thy bidding they obey Dismiss them not disconsolate reveale To Adam what shall come in future dayes As I shall thee enlighten intermix My Cov'nant in the womans seed renewd So send them forth though sorrowing yet in peace And on the East side of the Garden place Where entrance up from Eden easiest climbes Cherubic watch and of a Sword the flame Wide waving all approach farr off to fright And guard all passage to the Tree of Life Least Paradise a receptacle prove To Spirits foule and all my Trees thir prey With whose stol'n Fruit Man once more to delude He ceas'd and th' Archangelic Power prepar'd For swift descent with him the Cohort bright Of watchful Cherubim four faces each Had like a double Janus all thir shape Spangl'd with eyes more numerous then those Of Argus and more wakeful then to drouze Charm'd with Arcadian Pipe the Pastoral Reed Of Hermes or his opiate Rod. Mean while To resalute the World with sacred Light Leucothea wak'd and with fresh dews imbalmd The Earth when Adam and first Matron Eve Had ended now thir Orisons and found Strength added from above new hope to spring Out of despaire joy but with fear yet linkt Which thus to Eve his welcome words renewd Eve easily may Faith admit that all The good which we enjoy from Heav'n descends But that from us ought should ascend to Heav'n So prevalent as to concerne the mind Of God high-blest or to incline his will Hard to belief may seem yet this will Prayer Or one short sigh of humane breath up-borne Ev'n to the Seat of God For since I saught By Prayer th' offended Deitie to appease Kneel'd and before him humbl'd all my heart Methought I saw him placable and mild Bending his eare perswasion in me grew That I was heard with favour peace returnd Home to my Brest and to my memorie His promise that thy Seed shall bruise our Foe Which then not minded in dismay yet now Assures me that the bitterness of death Is past and we shall live Whence Haile to thee Eve rightly call'd Mother of all Mankind Mother of all things living since by thee Man is to live and all things live for Man To whom thus Eve with sad demeanour meek Ill worthie I such title should belong To me transgressour who for thee ordaind A help became thy snare to mee reproach Rather belongs distrust and all dispraise But infinite in pardon was my Judge That I who first brought Death on all am grac't The sourse of life next favourable thou Who highly thus to entitle me voutsaf'st Farr other name deserving But the Field To labour calls us now with sweat impos'd Though after sleepless Night for see the Morn All unconcern'd with our unrest begins Her rosie progress smiling let us forth I never from thy side henceforth to stray Wherere our days work lies though now enjoind Laborious till day droop while here we dwell What can be toilsom in these pleasant Walkes Here let us live though in fall'n state content So spake so wish'd much-humblâ—d Eve but Fate Subscrib'd not Nature first gave Signs imprest On Bird Beast Aire Aire suddenly eclips'd After short blush of Morn nigh in her sight The Bird of Jove stoopt from his aerie tour Two Birds of gayest plume before him drove Down from a Hill the Beast that reigns in Woods First hunter then pursu'd a gentle brace Goodliest of all the Forrest Hart and Hinde Direct
to th' Eastern Gate was bent thir flight Adam observ'd and with his Eye the chase Pursuing not unmov'd to Eve thus spake O Eve some furder change awaits us nigh Which Heav'n by these mute signs in Nature shews Forerunners of his purpose or to warn Us haply too secure of our discharge From penaltie because from death releast Some days how long and what till then our life Who knows or more then this that we are dust And thither must return and be no more Why else this double object in our sight Of flight pursu'd in th' Air and ore the ground One way the self-same hour why in the East Darkness ere Dayes mid course and Morning light More orient in yon Western Cloud that draws O're the blew Firmament a radiant white And slow descends with somthing heav'nly fraught He err'd not for by this the heav'nly Bands Down from a Skie of Jasper lighted now In Paradise and on a Hill made alt A glorious Apparition had not doubt And carnal fear that day dimm'd Adams eye Not that more glorious when the Angels met Jacob in Mahanaim where he saw The field Pavilion'd with his Guardians bright Nor that which on the flaming Mount appeerd In Dothan cover'd with a Camp of Fire Against the Syrian King who to surprize One man Assassin-like had levied Warr Warr unproclam'd The Princely Hierarch In thir bright stand there left his Powers to seise Possession of the Garden hee alone To find where Adam shelterd took his way Not unperceav'd of Adam who to Eve While the great Visitant approachd thus spake Eve now expect great tidings which perhaps Of us will soon determin or impose New Laws to be observ'd for I descrie From yonder blazing Cloud that veils the Hill One of the heav'nly Host and by his Gate None of the meanest some great Potentate Or of the Thrones above such Majestie Invests him coming yet not terrible That I should fear nor sociably mild As Raphael that I should much confide But solemn and sublime whom not to offend With reverence I must meet and thou retire He ended and th' Arch-Angel soon drew nigh Not in his shape Celestial but as Man Clad to meet Man over his lucid Armes A militarie Vest of purple flowd Livelier then Meliboean or the graine Of Sarra worn by Kings and Hero's old In time of Truce Iris had dipt the wooff His starrie Helme unbuckl'd shew'd him prime In Manhood where Youth ended by his side As in a glistering Zodiac hung the Sword Satans dire dread and in his hand the Spear Adam bowd low hee Kingly from his State Inclin'd not but his coming thus declar'd Adam Heav'ns high behest no Preface needs Sufficient that thy Prayers are heard and Death Then due by sentence when thou didst transgress Defeated of his seisure many dayes Giv'n thee of Grace wherein thou may'st repent And one bad act with many deeds well done Mayst cover well may then thy Lord appeas'd Redeem thee quite from Deaths rapacious claime But longer in this Paradise to dwell Permits not to remove thee I am come And send thee from the Garden forth to till The ground whence thou wast tak'n fitter Soile He added not for Adam at the newes Heart-strook with chilling gripe of sorrow stood That all his senses bound Eve who unseen Yet all had heard with audible lament Discover'd soon the place of her retire O unexpected stroke worse then of Death Must I thus leave thee Paradise thus leave Thee Native Soile these happie Walks and Shades Fit haunt of Gods where I had hope to spend Quiet though sad the respit of that day That must be mortal to us both O flours That never will in other Climate grow My early visitation and my last At Eev'n which I bred up with tender hand From the first op'ning bud and gave ye Names Who now shall reare ye to the Sun or ranke Your Tribes and water from th' ambrosial Fount Thee lastly nuptial Bowre by mee adornd With what to sight or smell was sweet from thee How shall I part and whither wander down Into a lower World to this obscure And wilde how shall we breath in other Aire Less pure accustomd to immortal Fruits Whom thus the Angel interrupted milde Lament not Eve but patiently resigne What justly thou hast lost nor set thy heart Thus over-fond on that which is not thine Thy going is not lonely with thee goes Thy Husband him to follow thou art bound Where he abides think there thy native soile Adam by this from the cold sudden damp Recovering and his scatterd spirits returnd To Michael thus his humble words addressd Celestial whether among the Thrones or nam'd Of them the Highest for such of shape may seem Prince above Princes gently hast thou tould Thy message which might else in telling wound And in performing end us what besides Of sorrow and dejection and despair Our frailtie can sustain thy tidings bring Departure from this happy place our sweet Recess and onely consolation left Familiar to our eyes all places else Inhospitable appeer and desolate Nor knowing us nor known and if by prayer Incessant I could hope to change the will Of him who all things can I would not cease To wearie him with my assiduous cries But prayer against his absolute Decree No more availes then breath against the winde Blown stifling back on him that breaths it forth Therefore to his great bidding I submit This most afflicts me that departing hence As from his face I shall be hid deprivd His blessed count'nance here I could frequent With worship place by place where he voutsaf ' d Presence Divine and to my Sons relate On this Mount he appeerd under this Tree Stood visible among these Pines his voice I heard here with him at this Fountain talk'd So many grateful Altars I would reare Of grassie Terfe and pile up every Stone Of lustre from the brook in memorie Or monument to Ages and thereon Offer sweet smelling Gumms and Fruits and Flours In yonder nether World where shall I seek His bright appearances or foot step-trace For though I fled him angrie yet recall'd To life prolongd and promisd Race I now Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts Of glory and farr off his steps adore To whom thus Michael with regard benigne Adam thou know'st Heav'n his and all the Earth Not this Rock onely his Omnipresence fills Land Sea and Aire and every kinde that lives Fomented by his virtual power and warmd All th' Earth he gave thee to possess and rule No despicable gift surmise not then His presence to these narrow bounds confin'd Of Paradise or Eden this had been Perhaps thy Capital Seare from whence had spred All generations and had hither come From all the ends of th' Earth to celebrate And reverence thee thir great Progenitor But this praeeminence thou hast lost brought down To dwell on eeven ground now with thy Sons Yet doubt not but in Vallie and in plaine God
is as here and will be found alike Present and of his presence many a signe Still following thee still compassing thee round With goodness and paternal Love his Face Express and of his steps the track Divine Which that thou mayst beleeve and be confirmd Ere thou from hence depart know I am sent To shew thee what shall come in future dayes To thee and to thy Ofspring good with bad Expect to hear supernal Grace contending With sinfulness of Men thereby to learn True patience and to temper joy with fear And pious sorrow equally enur'd By moderation either state to beare Prosperous or adverse so shalt thou lead Safest thy life and best prepar'd endure Thy mortal passage when it comes Ascend This Hill let Eve for I have drencht her eyes Here sleep below while thou to foresight wak'st As once thou slepst while Shee to life was formd To whom thus Adam gratefully repli'd Ascend I follow thee safe Guide the path Thou lead'st me and to the hand of Heav'n submit However chast'ning to the evil turne My obvious breast arming to overcom By suffering and earne rest from labour won If so I may attain So both ascend In the Visions of God It was a Hill Of Paradise the highest from whose top The Hemisphere of Earth in cleerest Ken Stretcht out to the amplest reach of prospect lay Not higher that Hill nor wider looking round Whereon for different cause the Tempter set Our second Adam in the Wilderness To shew him all Earths Kingdomes and thir Glory His Eye might there command wherever stood City of old or modern Fame the Seat Of mightiest Empire from the destind Walls Of Cambalu seat of Cathaian Can And Samarchand by Oxus Temirs Throne To Paquin of Sinaean Kings and thence To Agra and Lahor of great Mogul Down to the golden Chersonese or where The Persian in Ecbatan sate or since In Hispahan or where the Russian Kfar In Mosco or the Sultan in Bizance Turchestan-born nor could his eye not ken Th' Empire of Negus to his utmost Port Ercoco and the less Maritim Kings Mombaza and Quiloa and Melind And Sofala thought Ophir to the Realme Of Congo and Angola fardest South Or thence from Niger Flood to Atlas Mount The Kingdoms of Almansor Fez and Sus Marocco and Algiers and Tremisen On Europe thence and where Rome was to sway The World in Spirit perhaps he also saw Rich Mexico the seat of Motezume And Cusco in Peru the richer seat Of Atabalipa and yet unspoil'd Guiana whose great Citie Geryons Sons Call El Dorado but to nobler sights Michael from Adams eyes the Filme remov'd Which that false Fruit that promis'd clearer sight Had bred then purg'd with Euphrasie and Rue The visual Nerve for he had much to see And from the Well of Life three drops instill'd So deep the power of these Ingredients pierc'd Eevn to the inmost seat of mental sight That Adam now enforc't to close his eyes Sunk down and all his Spirits became intranst But him the gentle Angel by the hand Soon rais'd and his attention thus recall'd Adam now ope thine eyes and first behold Th' effects which thy original crime hath wrought In some to spring from thee who never touch'd Th' excepted Tree nor with the Snake conspir'd Nor sinn'd thy sin yet from that derive Corruption to bring forth more violent deeds His eyes he op'nd and beheld a field Part arable and tilth whereon were Sheaves New reapt the other part sheep-walks and foulds i th' midst an Altar as the Land-mark stood Rustic of grassie sord thither anon A sweatie Reaper from his Tillage brought First Fruits the green Eare and the yellow Sheaf Uncull'd as came to hand a Shepherd next More meek came with the Firstlings of his Flock Choicest and best then sacrificing laid The Inwards and thir Fat with Incense strew'd On the cleft Wood and all due Rites perform'd His Offring soon propitious Fire from Heav'n Consum'd with nimble glance and grateful steame The others not for his was not sincere Whereat hee inlie rag'd and as they talk'd Smote him into the Midriff with a stone That beat out life he fell and deadly pale Groand out his Soul with gushing bloud effus'd Much at that sight was Adam in his heart Dismai'd and thus in haste to th' Angel cri'd O Teacher some great mischief hath befall'n To that meek man who well had sacrific'd Is Pietie thus and pure Devotion paid T' whom Michael thus hee also mov'd repli'd These two are Brethren Adam and to come Out of thy loyns th' unjust the just hath slain For envie that his Brothers Offering found From Heav'n acceptance but the bloodie Fact Will be aveng'd and th' others Faith approv'd Loose no reward though here thou see him die Rowling in dust and gore To which our Sire Alas both for the deed and for the cause But have I now seen Death Is this the way I must return to native dust O sight Of terrour foul and ugly to behold Horrid to think how horrible to feel To whom thus Michael Death thou hast seen In his first shape on man but many shapes Of Death and many are the wayes that lead To his grim Cave all dismal yet to sense More terrible at th' entrance then within Some as thou saw'st by violent stroke shall die By Fire Flood Famin by Intemperance more In Meats and Drinks which on the Earth shall bring Diseases dire of which a monstrous crew Before thee shall appear that thou mayst know What miserie th' inabstinence of Eve Shall bring on men Immediately a place Before his eyes appeard sad noysom dark A Lazar-house it seemd wherein were laid Numbers of all diseas'd all maladies Of gastly Spasm or racking torture qualmes Of heart-sick Agonic all feavorous kinds Convulsions Epilepsies fierce Catarrhs Intestin Stone and Ulcer Colic pangs Daemoniac Phrenzie moaping Melancholie And Moon-struck madness pining Atrophie Marasmus and wide-wasting Pestilence Dropsies and Asthma's and Joint-racking Rheums Dire was the tossing deep the groans despair Tended the sick busiest from Couch to Couch And over them triumphant Death his Dart Shook but delaid to strike though oft invok't With vows as thir chief good and final hope Sight so deform what heart of Rock could long Drie-ey'd behold Adam could not but wept Though not of Woman born compassion quell'd His best of Man and gave him up to tears A space till firmer thoughts restraind excess And scarce recovering words his plaint renew'd O miserable Mankind to what fall Degraded to what wretched state reserv'd Better end heer unborn Why is life giv'n To be thus wrested from us rather why Obtruded on us thus who if we knew What we receive would either not accept Life offer'd or soon beg to lay it down Glad to be so dismist in peace Can thus Th' Image of God in man created once So goodly and erect though faultie since To such unsightly sufferings be debas't Under inhuman pains Why should not Man Retaining still Divine
sit not and reproach us as unclean So counsel'd hee and both together went Into the thickest Wood there soon they chose The Figtree not that kind for Fruit renown'd But such as at this day to Indians known In Malabar or Decan spreds her Armes Braunching so broad and long that in the ground The bended Twigs take root and Daughters grow About the Mother Tree a Pillard shade High overarch't and echoing Walks between There oft the Indian Herdsman shunning heate Shelters in coole and tends his pasturing Herds At Loopholes cut through thiekest shade Those Leaves They gatherd broad as Amazonian Targe And with what skill they had together sowd To gird thir waste vain Covering if to hide Thir guilt and dreaded shame O how unlike To that first naked Glorie Such of late Columbus found th' American so girt With featherd Cincture naked else and wilde Among the Trees on lies and woodie Shores Thus fenc't and as they thought thir shame in part Coverd but not at rest or ease of Mind They sate them down to weep nor onely Teares Raind at thir Eyes but high Winds worse within Began to rise high Passions Anger Hate Mistrust Suspicion Discord and shook sore Thir inward State of Mind calm Region once And full of Peace now tost and turbulent For Understanding rul'd not and the Will Heard not her lore both in subjection now To sensual Appetite who from beneathe Usurping over sovran Reason claimd Superior sway from thus distemperd brest Adam estrang'd in look and alterd stile Speech intermitted thus to Eve renewd Would thou hadst heark'nd to my words and stai'd With me as I besought thee when that strange Desire of wandring this unhappie Morn I know not whence possessd thee we had then Remaind still happie not as now despoild Of all our good sham'd naked miserable Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve The Faith they owe when earnestly they seek Such proof conclude they then begin to faile To whom soon mov'd with touch of blame thus Eve What words have past thy Lips Adam severe Imput'st thou that to my default or will Of wandring as thou call'st it which who knows But might as ill have happ'nd thou being by Or to thy self perhaps hadst thou been there Or here th' attempt thou couldst not have discernd Fraud in the Serpent speaking as he spake No ground of enmitie between us known Why hee should mean me ill or seek to harme Was I to have never parted from thy side As good have grown there still a liveless Rib. Being as I am why didst not thou the Head Command me absolutely not to go Going into such danger as thou saidst Too facil then thou didst not much gainsay Nay didst permit approve and fair dismiss Hadst thou bin firm and fixt in thy dissent Neither had I transgress'd nor thou with mee To whom then first incenst Adam repli'd Is this the Love is this the recompence Of mine to thee ingrateful Eve exprest Immutable when thou wert lost not I Who might have liv'd and joyd immortal bliss Yet willingly chose rather Death with thee And am I now upbraided as the cause Of thy transgressing not enough severe It seems in thy restraint what could I more I warn'd thee I admonish'd thee foretold The danger and the lurking Enemie That lay in wait beyond this had bin force And force upon free will bath here no place But confidence then bore thee on secure Either to meet no danger or to finde Matter of glorious trial and perhaps I also err'd in overmuch admiring What seemd in thee so perfet that I thought No evil durst attempt thee but I rue That errour now which is become my crime And thou th' accuser Thus it shall befall Him who to worth in Women overtrusting Lets her will rule restraint she will not brook And left to her self if evil thence ensue Shee first his weak indulgence will accuse Thus they in mutual accusation spent The fruitless hours but neither self-condemning And of thir vain contest appeer'd no end The End of the Ninth Book Paradise Lost BOOK X. THE ARGUMENT Mans transgression known the Guardian Angels forsake Paradise and return up to Heaven to approve thir vigilance and are approv'd God declaring that The entrance of Satan could not be by them prevented He sends his Son to judge the Transgressors who descends and gives Sentence accordingly then in pity cloaths them both and reascends Sin and Death sitting till then at the Gates of Hell by wondrous sympathie feeling the success of Satan in this new World and the sin by Man there committed resolve to sit no longer confin'd in Hell but to follow Satan thir Sire up to the place of Man To make the way easier from Hell to this World to and fro they pave a broad High-way or Bridge over Chaos according to the Track that Satan first made then preparing for Earth they meet him proud of his success returning to Hell thir mutual gratulation Satan arrives at Pandemonium in full of assembly relates with boasting his success against Man instead of applause is entertained with a general hiss by all his audience transform'd with himself also suddenly into Serpents according to his doom giv'n in Paradise then deluded with a shew of the forbidden Tree springing up before them they greedily reaching to take of the Fruit chew dust and bitter ashes The proceedings of Sin and Death God foretels the final Victory of his Son over them and the renewing of all things but for the present commands his Angels to make several alterations in the Heavens and Elements Adam more and more perceiving his fall'n condition heavily bewailes rejects the condolement of Eve she persists and at length appeases him then to evade the Curse likely to fall on thir Ofspring proposes to Adam violent wayes which he approves not but conceiving better hope puts her in mind of the late Promise made them that her Seed should be reveng'd on the Serpent and exhorts her with him to seek Peace of the offended Deity by repentance and supplication MEanwhile the hainous and despightfull act Of Satan done in Paradise and how Hee in the Serpent had perverted Eve Her Husband shee to taste the fatall fruit Was known in Heav'n for what can scape the Eye Of God All-seeing or deceave his Heart Omniscient who in all things wise and just Hinder'd not Satan to attempt the minde Of Man with strength entire and free will arm'd Complete to have discover'd and repulst Whatever wiles of Foe or seeming Friend For still they knew and ought to have still remember'd The high Injunction not to taste that Fruit Whoever tempted which they not obeying Incurr'd what could they less the penaltie And manifold in sin deserv'd to fall Up into Heav'n from Paradise in haste Th' Angelic Guards ascended mute and sad For Man for of his state by this they knew Much wondring how the suttle Fiend had stoln Entrance unseen Soon as th' unwelcome news From