{"id":195,"date":"2015-06-24T18:17:01","date_gmt":"2015-06-24T18:17:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.candelalearning.com\/americanlit1x22x1\/?post_type=chapter&p=195"},"modified":"2015-06-24T18:17:51","modified_gmt":"2015-06-24T18:17:51","slug":"book-iv","status":"web-only","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-britlit1\/chapter\/book-iv\/","title":{"raw":"Book IV","rendered":"Book IV"},"content":{"raw":"[caption id=\"attachment_196\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"265\"]\"Black<\/a> Satan, as drawn by Gustave Dor\u00e9, in John Milton's Paradise Lost[\/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nO, for that warning voice, which he, who saw\r\nThe Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud,\r\nThen when the Dragon, put to second rout,\r\nCame furious down to be revenged on men,\r\nWoe to the inhabitants on earth! that now,\r\nWhile time was, our first parents had been warned\r\nThe coming of their secret foe, and 'scaped,\r\nHaply so 'scaped his mortal snare: For now\r\nSatan, now first inflamed with rage, came down,\r\nThe tempter ere the accuser of mankind,\r\nTo wreak on innocent frail Man his loss\r\nOf that first battle, and his flight to Hell:\r\nYet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold\r\nFar off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,\r\nBegins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth\r\nNow rolling boils in his tumultuous breast,\r\nAnd like a devilish engine back recoils\r\nUpon himself; horrour and doubt distract\r\nHis troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir\r\nThe Hell within him; for within him Hell\r\nHe brings, and round about him, nor from Hell\r\nOne step, no more than from himself, can fly\r\nBy change of place: Now conscience wakes despair,\r\nThat slumbered; wakes the bitter memory\r\nOf what he was, what is, and what must be\r\nWorse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.\r\nSometimes towards Eden, which now in his view\r\nLay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;\r\nSometimes towards Heaven, and the full-blazing sun,\r\nWhich now sat high in his meridian tower:\r\nThen, much revolving, thus in sighs began.\r\nO thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned,\r\nLookest from thy sole dominion like the God\r\nOf this new world; at whose sight all the stars\r\nHide their diminished heads; to thee I call,\r\nBut with no friendly voice, and add thy name,\r\nOf Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,\r\nThat bring to my remembrance from what state\r\nI fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;\r\nTill pride and worse ambition threw me down\r\nWarring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King:\r\nAh, wherefore! he deserved no such return\r\nFrom me, whom he created what I was\r\nIn that bright eminence, and with his good\r\nUpbraided none; nor was his service hard.\r\nWhat could be less than to afford him praise,\r\nThe easiest recompence, and pay him thanks,\r\nHow due! yet all his good proved ill in me,\r\nAnd wrought but malice; lifted up so high\r\nI 'sdeined subjection, and thought one step higher\r\nWould set me highest, and in a moment quit\r\nThe debt immense of endless gratitude,\r\nSo burdensome still paying, still to owe,\r\nForgetful what from him I still received,\r\nAnd understood not that a grateful mind\r\nBy owing owes not, but still pays, at once\r\nIndebted and discharged; what burden then\r\nO, had his powerful destiny ordained\r\nMe some inferiour Angel, I had stood\r\nThen happy; no unbounded hope had raised\r\nAmbition! Yet why not some other Power\r\nAs great might have aspired, and me, though mean,\r\nDrawn to his part; but other Powers as great\r\nFell not, but stand unshaken, from within\r\nOr from without, to all temptations armed.\r\nHadst thou the same free will and power to stand?\r\nThou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse,\r\nBut Heaven's free love dealt equally to all?\r\nBe then his love accursed, since love or hate,\r\nTo me alike, it deals eternal woe.\r\nNay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will\r\nChose freely what it now so justly rues.\r\nMe miserable! which way shall I fly\r\nInfinite wrath, and infinite despair?\r\nWhich way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;\r\nAnd, in the lowest deep, a lower deep\r\nStill threatening to devour me opens wide,\r\nTo which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.\r\nO, then, at last relent: Is there no place\r\nLeft for repentance, none for pardon left?\r\nNone left but by submission; and that word\r\nDisdain forbids me, and my dread of shame\r\nAmong the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced\r\nWith other promises and other vaunts\r\nThan to submit, boasting I could subdue\r\nThe Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know\r\nHow dearly I abide that boast so vain,\r\nUnder what torments inwardly I groan,\r\nWhile they adore me on the throne of Hell.\r\nWith diadem and scepter high advanced,\r\nThe lower still I fall, only supreme\r\nIn misery: Such joy ambition finds.\r\nBut say I could repent, and could obtain,\r\nBy act of grace, my former state; how soon\r\nWould highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay\r\nWhat feigned submission swore? Ease would recant\r\nVows made in pain, as violent and void.\r\nFor never can true reconcilement grow,\r\nWhere wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:\r\nWhich would but lead me to a worse relapse\r\nAnd heavier fall: so should I purchase dear\r\nShort intermission bought with double smart.\r\nThis knows my Punisher; therefore as far\r\nFrom granting he, as I from begging, peace;\r\nAll hope excluded thus, behold, instead\r\nOf us out-cast, exil'd, his new delight,\r\nMankind created, and for him this world.\r\nSo farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear;\r\nFarewell, remorse! all good to me is lost;\r\nEvil, be thou my good; by thee at least\r\nDivided empire with Heaven's King I hold,\r\nBy thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;\r\nAs Man ere long, and this new world, shall know.\r\nThus while he spake, each passion dimmed his face\r\nThrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair;\r\nWhich marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed\r\nHim counterfeit, if any eye beheld.\r\nFor heavenly minds from such distempers foul\r\nAre ever clear. Whereof he soon aware,\r\nEach perturbation smoothed with outward calm,\r\nArtificer of fraud; and was the first\r\nThat practised falsehood under saintly show,\r\nDeep malice to conceal, couched with revenge:\r\nYet not enough had practised to deceive\r\nUriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down\r\nThe way he went, and on the Assyrian mount\r\nSaw him disfigured, more than could befall\r\nSpirit of happy sort; his gestures fierce\r\nHe marked and mad demeanour, then alone,\r\nAs he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.\r\nSo on he fares, and to the border comes\r\nOf Eden, where delicious Paradise,\r\nNow nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,\r\nAs with a rural mound, the champaign head\r\nOf a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides\r\nWith thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,\r\nAccess denied; and overhead upgrew\r\nInsuperable height of loftiest shade,\r\nCedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,\r\nA sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend,\r\nShade above shade, a woody theatre\r\nOf stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops\r\nThe verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung;\r\nWhich to our general sire gave prospect large\r\nInto his nether empire neighbouring round.\r\nAnd higher than that wall a circling row\r\nOf goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,\r\nBlossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,\r\nAppeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed:\r\nOn which the sun more glad impressed his beams\r\nThan in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,\r\nWhen God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed\r\nThat landskip: And of pure now purer air\r\nMeets his approach, and to the heart inspires\r\nVernal delight and joy, able to drive\r\nAll sadness but despair: Now gentle gales,\r\nFanning their odoriferous wings, dispense\r\nNative perfumes, and whisper whence they stole\r\nThose balmy spoils. As when to them who fail\r\nBeyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past\r\nMozambick, off at sea north-east winds blow\r\nSabean odours from the spicy shore\r\nOf Araby the blest; with such delay\r\nWell pleased they slack their course, and many a league\r\nCheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:\r\nSo entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend,\r\nWho came their bane; though with them better pleased\r\nThan Asmodeus with the fishy fume\r\nThat drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse\r\nOf Tobit's son, and with a vengeance sent\r\nFrom Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.\r\nNow to the ascent of that steep savage hill\r\nSatan had journeyed on, pensive and slow;\r\nBut further way found none, so thick entwined,\r\nAs one continued brake, the undergrowth\r\nOf shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed\r\nAll path of man or beast that passed that way.\r\nOne gate there only was, and that looked east\r\nOn the other side: which when the arch-felon saw,\r\nDue entrance he disdained; and, in contempt,\r\nAt one flight bound high over-leaped all bound\r\nOf hill or highest wall, and sheer within\r\nLights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,\r\nWhom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,\r\nWatching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve\r\nIn hurdled cotes amid the field secure,\r\nLeaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold:\r\nOr as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash\r\nOf some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,\r\nCross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault,\r\nIn at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles:\r\nSo clomb this first grand thief into God's fold;\r\nSo since into his church lewd hirelings climb.\r\nThence up he flew, and on the tree of life,\r\nThe middle tree and highest there that grew,\r\nSat like a cormorant; yet not true life\r\nThereby regained, but sat devising death\r\nTo them who lived; nor on the virtue thought\r\nOf that life-giving plant, but only used\r\nFor prospect, what well used had been the pledge\r\nOf immortality. So little knows\r\nAny, but God alone, to value right\r\nThe good before him, but perverts best things\r\nTo worst abuse, or to their meanest use.\r\nBeneath him with new wonder now he views,\r\nTo all delight of human sense exposed,\r\nIn narrow room, Nature's whole wealth, yea more,\r\nA Heaven on Earth: For blissful Paradise\r\nOf God the garden was, by him in the east\r\nOf Eden planted; Eden stretched her line\r\nFrom Auran eastward to the royal towers\r\nOf great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,\r\nOr where the sons of Eden long before\r\nDwelt in Telassar: In this pleasant soil\r\nHis far more pleasant garden God ordained;\r\nOut of the fertile ground he caused to grow\r\nAll trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;\r\nAnd all amid them stood the tree of life,\r\nHigh eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit\r\nOf vegetable gold; and next to life,\r\nOur death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by,\r\nKnowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.\r\nSouthward through Eden went a river large,\r\nNor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill\r\nPassed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown\r\nThat mountain as his garden-mould high raised\r\nUpon the rapid current, which, through veins\r\nOf porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,\r\nRose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill\r\nWatered the garden; thence united fell\r\nDown the steep glade, and met the nether flood,\r\nWhich from his darksome passage now appears,\r\nAnd now, divided into four main streams,\r\nRuns diverse, wandering many a famous realm\r\nAnd country, whereof here needs no account;\r\nBut rather to tell how, if Art could tell,\r\nHow from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,\r\nRolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,\r\nWith mazy errour under pendant shades\r\nRan nectar, visiting each plant, and fed\r\nFlowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art\r\nIn beds and curious knots, but Nature boon\r\nPoured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,\r\nBoth where the morning sun first warmly smote\r\nThe open field, and where the unpierced shade\r\nImbrowned the noontide bowers: Thus was this place\r\nA happy rural seat of various view;\r\nGroves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,\r\nOthers whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,\r\nHung amiable, Hesperian fables true,\r\nIf true, here only, and of delicious taste:\r\nBetwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks\r\nGrazing the tender herb, were interposed,\r\nOr palmy hillock; or the flowery lap\r\nOf some irriguous valley spread her store,\r\nFlowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose:\r\nAnother side, umbrageous grots and caves\r\nOf cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine\r\nLays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps\r\nLuxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall\r\nDown the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake,\r\nThat to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned\r\nHer crystal mirrour holds, unite their streams.\r\nThe birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,\r\nBreathing the smell of field and grove, attune\r\nThe trembling leaves, while universal Pan,\r\nKnit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,\r\nLed on the eternal Spring. Not that fair field\r\nOf Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers,\r\nHerself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis\r\nWas gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain\r\nTo seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove\r\nOf Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired\r\nCastalian spring, might with this Paradise\r\nOf Eden strive; nor that Nyseian isle\r\nGirt with the river Triton, where old Cham,\r\nWhom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove,\r\nHid Amalthea, and her florid son\r\nYoung Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea's eye;\r\nNor where Abassin kings their issue guard,\r\nMount Amara, though this by some supposed\r\nTrue Paradise under the Ethiop line\r\nBy Nilus' head, enclosed with shining rock,\r\nA whole day's journey high, but wide remote\r\nFrom this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend\r\nSaw, undelighted, all delight, all kind\r\nOf living creatures, new to sight, and strange\r\nTwo of far nobler shape, erect and tall,\r\nGodlike erect, with native honour clad\r\nIn naked majesty seemed lords of all:\r\nAnd worthy seemed; for in their looks divine\r\nThe image of their glorious Maker shone,\r\nTruth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure,\r\n(Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,)\r\nWhence true authority in men; though both\r\nNot equal, as their sex not equal seemed;\r\nFor contemplation he and valour formed;\r\nFor softness she and sweet attractive grace;\r\nHe for God only, she for God in him:\r\nHis fair large front and eye sublime declared\r\nAbsolute rule; and hyacinthine locks\r\nRound from his parted forelock manly hung\r\nClustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:\r\nShe, as a veil, down to the slender waist\r\nHer unadorned golden tresses wore\r\nDishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved\r\nAs the vine curls her tendrils, which implied\r\nSubjection, but required with gentle sway,\r\nAnd by her yielded, by him best received,\r\nYielded with coy submission, modest pride,\r\nAnd sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.\r\nNor those mysterious parts were then concealed;\r\nThen was not guilty shame, dishonest shame\r\nOf nature's works, honour dishonourable,\r\nSin-bred, how have ye troubled all mankind\r\nWith shows instead, mere shows of seeming pure,\r\nAnd banished from man's life his happiest life,\r\nSimplicity and spotless innocence!\r\nSo passed they naked on, nor shunned the sight\r\nOf God or Angel; for they thought no ill:\r\nSo hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair,\r\nThat ever since in love's embraces met;\r\nAdam the goodliest man of men since born\r\nHis sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.\r\nUnder a tuft of shade that on a green\r\nStood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain side\r\nThey sat them down; and, after no more toil\r\nOf their sweet gardening labour than sufficed\r\nTo recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease\r\nMore easy, wholesome thirst and appetite\r\nMore grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell,\r\nNectarine fruits which the compliant boughs\r\nYielded them, side-long as they sat recline\r\nOn the soft downy bank damasked with flowers:\r\nThe savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind,\r\nStill as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream;\r\nNor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles\r\nWanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems\r\nFair couple, linked in happy nuptial league,\r\nAlone as they. About them frisking played\r\nAll beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase\r\nIn wood or wilderness, forest or den;\r\nSporting the lion ramped, and in his paw\r\nDandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,\r\nGambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant,\r\nTo make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed\r\nHis lithe proboscis; close the serpent sly,\r\nInsinuating, wove with Gordian twine\r\nHis braided train, and of his fatal guile\r\nGave proof unheeded; others on the grass\r\nCouched, and now filled with pasture gazing sat,\r\nOr bedward ruminating; for the sun,\r\nDeclined, was hasting now with prone career\r\nTo the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale\r\nOf Heaven the stars that usher evening rose:\r\nWhen Satan still in gaze, as first he stood,\r\nScarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad.\r\nO Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!\r\nInto our room of bliss thus high advanced\r\nCreatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps,\r\nNot Spirits, yet to heavenly Spirits bright\r\nLittle inferiour; whom my thoughts pursue\r\nWith wonder, and could love, so lively shines\r\nIn them divine resemblance, and such grace\r\nThe hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.\r\nAh! gentle pair, ye little think how nigh\r\nYour change approaches, when all these delights\r\nWill vanish, and deliver ye to woe;\r\nMore woe, the more your taste is now of joy;\r\nHappy, but for so happy ill secured\r\nLong to continue, and this high seat your Heaven\r\nIll fenced for Heaven to keep out such a foe\r\nAs now is entered; yet no purposed foe\r\nTo you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,\r\nThough I unpitied: League with you I seek,\r\nAnd mutual amity, so strait, so close,\r\nThat I with you must dwell, or you with me\r\nHenceforth; my dwelling haply may not please,\r\nLike this fair Paradise, your sense; yet such\r\nAccept your Maker's work; he gave it me,\r\nWhich I as freely give: Hell shall unfold,\r\nTo entertain you two, her widest gates,\r\nAnd send forth all her kings; there will be room,\r\nNot like these narrow limits, to receive\r\nYour numerous offspring; if no better place,\r\nThank him who puts me loth to this revenge\r\nOn you who wrong me not for him who wronged.\r\nAnd should I at your harmless innocence\r\nMelt, as I do, yet publick reason just,\r\nHonour and empire with revenge enlarged,\r\nBy conquering this new world, compels me now\r\nTo do what else, though damned, I should abhor.\r\nSo spake the Fiend, and with necessity,\r\nThe tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.\r\nThen from his lofty stand on that high tree\r\nDown he alights among the sportful herd\r\nOf those four-footed kinds, himself now one,\r\nNow other, as their shape served best his end\r\nNearer to view his prey, and, unespied,\r\nTo mark what of their state he more might learn,\r\nBy word or action marked. About them round\r\nA lion now he stalks with fiery glare;\r\nThen as a tiger, who by chance hath spied\r\nIn some purlieu two gentle fawns at play,\r\nStraight couches close, then, rising, changes oft\r\nHis couchant watch, as one who chose his ground,\r\nWhence rushing, he might surest seize them both,\r\nGriped in each paw: when, Adam first of men\r\nTo first of women Eve thus moving speech,\r\nTurned him, all ear to hear new utterance flow.\r\nSole partner, and sole part, of all these joys,\r\nDearer thyself than all; needs must the Power\r\nThat made us, and for us this ample world,\r\nBe infinitely good, and of his good\r\nAs liberal and free as infinite;\r\nThat raised us from the dust, and placed us here\r\nIn all this happiness, who at his hand\r\nHave nothing merited, nor can perform\r\nAught whereof he hath need; he who requires\r\nFrom us no other service than to keep\r\nThis one, this easy charge, of all the trees\r\nIn Paradise that bear delicious fruit\r\nSo various, not to taste that only tree\r\nOf knowledge, planted by the tree of life;\r\nSo near grows death to life, whate'er death is,\r\nSome dreadful thing no doubt; for well thou knowest\r\nGod hath pronounced it death to taste that tree,\r\nThe only sign of our obedience left,\r\nAmong so many signs of power and rule\r\nConferred upon us, and dominion given\r\nOver all other creatures that possess\r\nEarth, air, and sea. Then let us not think hard\r\nOne easy prohibition, who enjoy\r\nFree leave so large to all things else, and choice\r\nUnlimited of manifold delights:\r\nBut let us ever praise him, and extol\r\nHis bounty, following our delightful task,\r\nTo prune these growing plants, and tend these flowers,\r\nWhich were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet.\r\nTo whom thus Eve replied. O thou for whom\r\nAnd from whom I was formed, flesh of thy flesh,\r\nAnd without whom am to no end, my guide\r\nAnd head! what thou hast said is just and right.\r\nFor we to him indeed all praises owe,\r\nAnd daily thanks; I chiefly, who enjoy\r\nSo far the happier lot, enjoying thee\r\nPre-eminent by so much odds, while thou\r\nLike consort to thyself canst no where find.\r\nThat day I oft remember, when from sleep\r\nI first awaked, and found myself reposed\r\nUnder a shade on flowers, much wondering where\r\nAnd what I was, whence thither brought, and how.\r\nNot distant far from thence a murmuring sound\r\nOf waters issued from a cave, and spread\r\nInto a liquid plain, then stood unmoved\r\nPure as the expanse of Heaven; I thither went\r\nWith unexperienced thought, and laid me down\r\nOn the green bank, to look into the clear\r\nSmooth lake, that to me seemed another sky.\r\nAs I bent down to look, just opposite\r\nA shape within the watery gleam appeared,\r\nBending to look on me: I started back,\r\nIt started back; but pleased I soon returned,\r\nPleased it returned as soon with answering looks\r\nOf sympathy and love: There I had fixed\r\nMine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,\r\nHad not a voice thus warned me; \"What thou seest,\r\nWhat there thou seest, fair Creature, is thyself;\r\nWith thee it came and goes: but follow me,\r\nAnd I will bring thee where no shadow stays\r\nThy coming, and thy soft embraces, he\r\nWhose image thou art; him thou shalt enjoy\r\nInseparably thine, to him shalt bear\r\nMultitudes like thyself, and thence be called\r\nMother of human race.\" What could I do,\r\nBut follow straight, invisibly thus led?\r\nTill I espied thee, fair indeed and tall,\r\nUnder a platane; yet methought less fair,\r\nLess winning soft, less amiably mild,\r\nThan that smooth watery image: Back I turned;\r\nThou following cryedst aloud, \"Return, fair Eve;\r\nWhom flyest thou? whom thou flyest, of him thou art,\r\nHis flesh, his bone; to give thee being I lent\r\nOut of my side to thee, nearest my heart,\r\nSubstantial life, to have thee by my side\r\nHenceforth an individual solace dear;\r\nPart of my soul I seek thee, and thee claim\r\nMy other half:\" With that thy gentle hand\r\nSeised mine: I yielded; and from that time see\r\nHow beauty is excelled by manly grace,\r\nAnd wisdom, which alone is truly fair.\r\nSo spake our general mother, and with eyes\r\nOf conjugal attraction unreproved,\r\nAnd meek surrender, half-embracing leaned\r\nOn our first father; half her swelling breast\r\nNaked met his, under the flowing gold\r\nOf her loose tresses hid: he in delight\r\nBoth of her beauty, and submissive charms,\r\nSmiled with superiour love, as Jupiter\r\nOn Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds\r\nThat shed Mayflowers; and pressed her matron lip\r\nWith kisses pure: Aside the Devil turned\r\nFor envy; yet with jealous leer malign\r\nEyed them askance, and to himself thus plained.\r\nSight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two,\r\nImparadised in one another's arms,\r\nThe happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill\r\nOf bliss on bliss; while I to Hell am thrust,\r\nWhere neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,\r\nAmong our other torments not the least,\r\nStill unfulfilled with pain of longing pines.\r\nYet let me not forget what I have gained\r\nFrom their own mouths: All is not theirs, it seems;\r\nOne fatal tree there stands, of knowledge called,\r\nForbidden them to taste: Knowledge forbidden\r\nSuspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord\r\nEnvy them that? Can it be sin to know?\r\nCan it be death? And do they only stand\r\nBy ignorance? Is that their happy state,\r\nThe proof of their obedience and their faith?\r\nO fair foundation laid whereon to build\r\nTheir ruin! hence I will excite their minds\r\nWith more desire to know, and to reject\r\nEnvious commands, invented with design\r\nTo keep them low, whom knowledge might exalt\r\nEqual with Gods: aspiring to be such,\r\nThey taste and die: What likelier can ensue\r\nBut first with narrow search I must walk round\r\nThis garden, and no corner leave unspied;\r\nA chance but chance may lead where I may meet\r\nSome wandering Spirit of Heaven by fountain side,\r\nOr in thick shade retired, from him to draw\r\nWhat further would be learned. Live while ye may,\r\nYet happy pair; enjoy, till I return,\r\nShort pleasures, for long woes are to succeed!\r\nSo saying, his proud step he scornful turned,\r\nBut with sly circumspection, and began\r\nThrough wood, through waste, o'er hill, o'er dale, his roam\r\nMean while in utmost longitude, where Heaven\r\nWith earth and ocean meets, the setting sun\r\nSlowly descended, and with right aspect\r\nAgainst the eastern gate of Paradise\r\nLevelled his evening rays: It was a rock\r\nOf alabaster, piled up to the clouds,\r\nConspicuous far, winding with one ascent\r\nAccessible from earth, one entrance high;\r\nThe rest was craggy cliff, that overhung\r\nStill as it rose, impossible to climb.\r\nBetwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat,\r\nChief of the angelick guards, awaiting night;\r\nAbout him exercised heroick games\r\nThe unarmed youth of Heaven, but nigh at hand\r\nCelestial armoury, shields, helms, and spears,\r\nHung high with diamond flaming, and with gold.\r\nThither came Uriel, gliding through the even\r\nOn a sun-beam, swift as a shooting star\r\nIn autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired\r\nImpress the air, and shows the mariner\r\nFrom what point of his compass to beware\r\nImpetuous winds: He thus began in haste.\r\nGabriel, to thee thy course by lot hath given\r\nCharge and strict watch, that to this happy place\r\nNo evil thing approach or enter in.\r\nThis day at highth of noon came to my sphere\r\nA Spirit, zealous, as he seemed, to know\r\nMore of the Almighty's works, and chiefly Man,\r\nGod's latest image: I described his way\r\nBent all on speed, and marked his aery gait;\r\nBut in the mount that lies from Eden north,\r\nWhere he first lighted, soon discerned his looks\r\nAlien from Heaven, with passions foul obscured:\r\nMine eye pursued him still, but under shade\r\nLost sight of him: One of the banished crew,\r\nI fear, hath ventured from the deep, to raise\r\nNew troubles; him thy care must be to find.\r\nTo whom the winged warriour thus returned.\r\nUriel, no wonder if thy perfect sight,\r\nAmid the sun's bright circle where thou sitst,\r\nSee far and wide: In at this gate none pass\r\nThe vigilance here placed, but such as come\r\nWell known from Heaven; and since meridian hour\r\nNo creature thence: If Spirit of other sort,\r\nSo minded, have o'er-leaped these earthly bounds\r\nOn purpose, hard thou knowest it to exclude\r\nSpiritual substance with corporeal bar.\r\nBut if within the circuit of these walks,\r\nIn whatsoever shape he lurk, of whom\r\nThou tellest, by morrow dawning I shall know.\r\nSo promised he; and Uriel to his charge\r\nReturned on that bright beam, whose point now raised\r\nBore him slope downward to the sun now fallen\r\nBeneath the Azores; whether the prime orb,\r\nIncredible how swift, had thither rolled\r\nDiurnal, or this less volubil earth,\r\nBy shorter flight to the east, had left him there\r\nArraying with reflected purple and gold\r\nThe clouds that on his western throne attend.\r\nNow came still Evening on, and Twilight gray\r\nHad in her sober livery all things clad;\r\nSilence accompanied; for beast and bird,\r\nThey to their grassy couch, these to their nests\r\nWere slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;\r\nShe all night long her amorous descant sung;\r\nSilence was pleased: Now glowed the firmament\r\nWith living sapphires: Hesperus, that led\r\nThe starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,\r\nRising in clouded majesty, at length\r\nApparent queen unveiled her peerless light,\r\nAnd o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.\r\nWhen Adam thus to Eve. Fair Consort, the hour\r\nOf night, and all things now retired to rest,\r\nMind us of like repose; since God hath set\r\nLabour and rest, as day and night, to men\r\nSuccessive; and the timely dew of sleep,\r\nNow falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines\r\nOur eye-lids: Other creatures all day long\r\nRove idle, unemployed, and less need rest;\r\nMan hath his daily work of body or mind\r\nAppointed, which declares his dignity,\r\nAnd the regard of Heaven on all his ways;\r\nWhile other animals unactive range,\r\nAnd of their doings God takes no account.\r\nTo-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east\r\nWith first approach of light, we must be risen,\r\nAnd at our pleasant labour, to reform\r\nYon flowery arbours, yonder alleys green,\r\nOur walk at noon, with branches overgrown,\r\nThat mock our scant manuring, and require\r\nMore hands than ours to lop their wanton growth:\r\nThose blossoms also, and those dropping gums,\r\nThat lie bestrown, unsightly and unsmooth,\r\nAsk riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;\r\nMean while, as Nature wills, night bids us rest.\r\nTo whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorned\r\nMy Author and Disposer, what thou bidst\r\nUnargued I obey: So God ordains;\r\nGod is thy law, thou mine: To know no more\r\nIs woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.\r\nWith thee conversing I forget all time;\r\nAll seasons, and their change, all please alike.\r\nSweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet,\r\nWith charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun,\r\nWhen first on this delightful land he spreads\r\nHis orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,\r\nGlistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth\r\nAfter soft showers; and sweet the coming on\r\nOf grateful Evening mild; then silent Night,\r\nWith this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,\r\nAnd these the gems of Heaven, her starry train:\r\nBut neither breath of Morn, when she ascends\r\nWith charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun\r\nOn this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,\r\nGlistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;\r\nNor grateful Evening mild; nor silent Night,\r\nWith this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,\r\nOr glittering star-light, without thee is sweet.\r\nBut wherefore all night long shine these? for whom\r\nThis glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?\r\nTo whom our general ancestor replied.\r\nDaughter of God and Man, accomplished Eve,\r\nThese have their course to finish round the earth,\r\nBy morrow evening, and from land to land\r\nIn order, though to nations yet unborn,\r\nMinistring light prepared, they set and rise;\r\nLest total Darkness should by night regain\r\nHer old possession, and extinguish life\r\nIn Nature and all things; which these soft fires\r\nNot only enlighten, but with kindly heat\r\nOf various influence foment and warm,\r\nTemper or nourish, or in part shed down\r\nTheir stellar virtue on all kinds that grow\r\nOn earth, made hereby apter to receive\r\nPerfection from the sun's more potent ray.\r\nThese then, though unbeheld in deep of night,\r\nShine not in vain; nor think, though men were none,\r\nThat Heaven would want spectators, God want praise:\r\nMillions of spiritual creatures walk the earth\r\nUnseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep:\r\nAll these with ceaseless praise his works behold\r\nBoth day and night: How often from the steep\r\nOf echoing hill or thicket have we heard\r\nCelestial voices to the midnight air,\r\nSole, or responsive each to others note,\r\nSinging their great Creator? oft in bands\r\nWhile they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,\r\nWith heavenly touch of instrumental sounds\r\nIn full harmonick number joined, their songs\r\nDivide the night, and lift our thoughts to Heaven.\r\nThus talking, hand in hand alone they passed\r\nOn to their blissful bower: it was a place\r\nChosen by the sovran Planter, when he framed\r\nAll things to Man's delightful use; the roof\r\nOf thickest covert was inwoven shade\r\nLaurel and myrtle, and what higher grew\r\nOf firm and fragrant leaf; on either side\r\nAcanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub,\r\nFenced up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower,\r\nIris all hues, roses, and jessamin,\r\nReared high their flourished heads between, and wrought\r\nMosaick; underfoot the violet,\r\nCrocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay\r\nBroidered the ground, more coloured than with stone\r\nOf costliest emblem: Other creature here,\r\nBird, beast, insect, or worm, durst enter none,\r\nSuch was their awe of Man. In shadier bower\r\nMore sacred and sequestered, though but feigned,\r\nPan or Sylvanus never slept, nor Nymph\r\nNor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess,\r\nWith flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs,\r\nEspoused Eve decked first her nuptial bed;\r\nAnd heavenly quires the hymenaean sung,\r\nWhat day the genial Angel to our sire\r\nBrought her in naked beauty more adorned,\r\nMore lovely, than Pandora, whom the Gods\r\nEndowed with all their gifts, and O! too like\r\nIn sad event, when to the unwiser son\r\nOf Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared\r\nMankind with her fair looks, to be avenged\r\nOn him who had stole Jove's authentick fire.\r\nThus, at their shady lodge arrived, both stood,\r\nBoth turned, and under open sky adored\r\nThe God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven,\r\nWhich they beheld, the moon's resplendent globe,\r\nAnd starry pole: Thou also madest the night,\r\nMaker Omnipotent, and thou the day,\r\nWhich we, in our appointed work employed,\r\nHave finished, happy in our mutual help\r\nAnd mutual love, the crown of all our bliss\r\nOrdained by thee; and this delicious place\r\nFor us too large, where thy abundance wants\r\nPartakers, and uncropt falls to the ground.\r\nBut thou hast promised from us two a race\r\nTo fill the earth, who shall with us extol\r\nThy goodness infinite, both when we wake,\r\nAnd when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.\r\nThis said unanimous, and other rites\r\nObserving none, but adoration pure\r\nWhich God likes best, into their inmost bower\r\nHanded they went; and, eased the putting off\r\nThese troublesome disguises which we wear,\r\nStraight side by side were laid; nor turned, I ween,\r\nAdam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the rites\r\nMysterious of connubial love refused:\r\nWhatever hypocrites austerely talk\r\nOf purity, and place, and innocence,\r\nDefaming as impure what God declares\r\nPure, and commands to some, leaves free to all.\r\nOur Maker bids encrease; who bids abstain\r\nBut our Destroyer, foe to God and Man?\r\nHail, wedded Love, mysterious law, true source\r\nOf human offspring, sole propriety\r\nIn Paradise of all things common else!\r\nBy thee adulterous Lust was driven from men\r\nAmong the bestial herds to range; by thee\r\nFounded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,\r\nRelations dear, and all the charities\r\nOf father, son, and brother, first were known.\r\nFar be it, that I should write thee sin or blame,\r\nOr think thee unbefitting holiest place,\r\nPerpetual fountain of domestick sweets,\r\nWhose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced,\r\nPresent, or past, as saints and patriarchs used.\r\nHere Love his golden shafts employs, here lights\r\nHis constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,\r\nReigns here and revels; not in the bought smile\r\nOf harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared,\r\nCasual fruition; nor in court-amours,\r\nMixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,\r\nOr serenate, which the starved lover sings\r\nTo his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.\r\nThese, lulled by nightingales, embracing slept,\r\nAnd on their naked limbs the flowery roof\r\nShowered roses, which the morn repaired. Sleep on,\r\nBlest pair; and O! yet happiest, if ye seek\r\nNo happier state, and know to know no more.\r\nNow had night measured with her shadowy cone\r\nHalf way up hill this vast sublunar vault,\r\nAnd from their ivory port the Cherubim,\r\nForth issuing at the accustomed hour, stood armed\r\nTo their night watches in warlike parade;\r\nWhen Gabriel to his next in power thus spake.\r\nUzziel, half these draw off, and coast the south\r\nWith strictest watch; these other wheel the north;\r\nOur circuit meets full west. As flame they part,\r\nHalf wheeling to the shield, half to the spear.\r\nFrom these, two strong and subtle Spirits he called\r\nThat near him stood, and gave them thus in charge.\r\nIthuriel and Zephon, with winged speed\r\nSearch through this garden, leave unsearched no nook;\r\nBut chiefly where those two fair creatures lodge,\r\nNow laid perhaps asleep, secure of harm.\r\nThis evening from the sun's decline arrived,\r\nWho tells of some infernal Spirit seen\r\nHitherward bent (who could have thought?) escaped\r\nThe bars of Hell, on errand bad no doubt:\r\nSuch, where ye find, seise fast, and hither bring.\r\nSo saying, on he led his radiant files,\r\nDazzling the moon; these to the bower direct\r\nIn search of whom they sought: Him there they found\r\nSquat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,\r\nAssaying by his devilish art to reach\r\nThe organs of her fancy, and with them forge\r\nIllusions, as he list, phantasms and dreams;\r\nOr if, inspiring venom, he might taint\r\nThe animal spirits, that from pure blood arise\r\nLike gentle breaths from rivers pure, thence raise\r\nAt least distempered, discontented thoughts,\r\nVain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires,\r\nBlown up with high conceits ingendering pride.\r\nHim thus intent Ithuriel with his spear\r\nTouched lightly; for no falshood can endure\r\nTouch of celestial temper, but returns\r\nOf force to its own likeness: Up he starts\r\nDiscovered and surprised. As when a spark\r\nLights on a heap of nitrous powder, laid\r\nFit for the tun some magazine to store\r\nAgainst a rumoured war, the smutty grain,\r\nWith sudden blaze diffused, inflames the air;\r\nSo started up in his own shape the Fiend.\r\nBack stept those two fair Angels, half amazed\r\nSo sudden to behold the grisly king;\r\nYet thus, unmoved with fear, accost him soon.\r\nWhich of those rebel Spirits adjudged to Hell\r\nComest thou, escaped thy prison? and, transformed,\r\nWhy sat'st thou like an enemy in wait,\r\nHere watching at the head of these that sleep?\r\nKnow ye not then said Satan, filled with scorn,\r\nKnow ye not me? ye knew me once no mate\r\nFor you, there sitting where ye durst not soar:\r\nNot to know me argues yourselves unknown,\r\nThe lowest of your throng; or, if ye know,\r\nWhy ask ye, and superfluous begin\r\nYour message, like to end as much in vain?\r\nTo whom thus Zephon, answering scorn with scorn.\r\nThink not, revolted Spirit, thy shape the same,\r\nOr undiminished brightness to be known,\r\nAs when thou stoodest in Heaven upright and pure;\r\nThat glory then, when thou no more wast good,\r\nDeparted from thee; and thou resemblest now\r\nThy sin and place of doom obscure and foul.\r\nBut come, for thou, be sure, shalt give account\r\nTo him who sent us, whose charge is to keep\r\nThis place inviolable, and these from harm.\r\nSo spake the Cherub; and his grave rebuke,\r\nSevere in youthful beauty, added grace\r\nInvincible: Abashed the Devil stood,\r\nAnd felt how awful goodness is, and saw\r\nVirtue in her shape how lovely; saw, and pined\r\nHis loss; but chiefly to find here observed\r\nHis lustre visibly impaired; yet seemed\r\nUndaunted. If I must contend, said he,\r\nBest with the best, the sender, not the sent,\r\nOr all at once; more glory will be won,\r\nOr less be lost. Thy fear, said Zephon bold,\r\nWill save us trial what the least can do\r\nSingle against thee wicked, and thence weak.\r\nThe Fiend replied not, overcome with rage;\r\nBut, like a proud steed reined, went haughty on,\r\nChamping his iron curb: To strive or fly\r\nHe held it vain; awe from above had quelled\r\nHis heart, not else dismayed. Now drew they nigh\r\nThe western point, where those half-rounding guards\r\nJust met, and closing stood in squadron joined,\r\nA waiting next command. To whom their Chief,\r\nGabriel, from the front thus called aloud.\r\nO friends! I hear the tread of nimble feet\r\nHasting this way, and now by glimpse discern\r\nIthuriel and Zephon through the shade;\r\nAnd with them comes a third of regal port,\r\nBut faded splendour wan; who by his gait\r\nAnd fierce demeanour seems the Prince of Hell,\r\nNot likely to part hence without contest;\r\nStand firm, for in his look defiance lours.\r\nHe scarce had ended, when those two approached,\r\nAnd brief related whom they brought, where found,\r\nHow busied, in what form and posture couched.\r\nTo whom with stern regard thus Gabriel spake.\r\nWhy hast thou, Satan, broke the bounds prescribed\r\nTo thy transgressions, and disturbed the charge\r\nOf others, who approve not to transgress\r\nBy thy example, but have power and right\r\nTo question thy bold entrance on this place;\r\nEmployed, it seems, to violate sleep, and those\r\nWhose dwelling God hath planted here in bliss!\r\nTo whom thus Satan with contemptuous brow.\r\nGabriel? thou hadst in Heaven the esteem of wise,\r\nAnd such I held thee; but this question asked\r\nPuts me in doubt. Lives there who loves his pain!\r\nWho would not, finding way, break loose from Hell,\r\nThough thither doomed! Thou wouldst thyself, no doubt\r\nAnd boldly venture to whatever place\r\nFarthest from pain, where thou mightst hope to change\r\nTorment with ease, and soonest recompense\r\nDole with delight, which in this place I sought;\r\nTo thee no reason, who knowest only good,\r\nBut evil hast not tried: and wilt object\r\nHis will who bounds us! Let him surer bar\r\nHis iron gates, if he intends our stay\r\nIn that dark durance: Thus much what was asked.\r\nThe rest is true, they found me where they say;\r\nBut that implies not violence or harm.\r\nThus he in scorn. The warlike Angel moved,\r\nDisdainfully half smiling, thus replied.\r\nO loss of one in Heaven to judge of wise\r\nSince Satan fell, whom folly overthrew,\r\nAnd now returns him from his prison 'scaped,\r\nGravely in doubt whether to hold them wise\r\nOr not, who ask what boldness brought him hither\r\nUnlicensed from his bounds in Hell prescribed;\r\nSo wise he judges it to fly from pain\r\nHowever, and to 'scape his punishment!\r\nSo judge thou still, presumptuous! till the wrath,\r\nWhich thou incurrest by flying, meet thy flight\r\nSevenfold, and scourge that wisdom back to Hell,\r\nWhich taught thee yet no better, that no pain\r\nCan equal anger infinite provoked.\r\nBut wherefore thou alone? wherefore with thee\r\nCame not all hell broke loose? or thou than they\r\nLess hardy to endure? Courageous Chief!\r\nThe first in flight from pain! hadst thou alleged\r\nTo thy deserted host this cause of flight,\r\nThou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.\r\nTo which the Fiend thus answered, frowning stern.\r\nNot that I less endure, or shrink from pain,\r\nInsulting Angel! well thou knowest I stood\r\nThy fiercest, when in battle to thy aid\r\nThe blasting vollied thunder made all speed,\r\nAnd seconded thy else not dreaded spear.\r\nBut still thy words at random, as before,\r\nArgue thy inexperience what behoves\r\nFrom hard assays and ill successes past\r\nA faithful leader, not to hazard all\r\nThrough ways of danger by himself untried:\r\nI, therefore, I alone first undertook\r\nTo wing the desolate abyss, and spy\r\nThis new created world, whereof in Hell\r\nFame is not silent, here in hope to find\r\nBetter abode, and my afflicted Powers\r\nTo settle here on earth, or in mid air;\r\nThough for possession put to try once more\r\nWhat thou and thy gay legions dare against;\r\nWhose easier business were to serve their Lord\r\nHigh up in Heaven, with songs to hymn his throne,\r\nAnd practised distances to cringe, not fight,\r\nTo whom the warriour Angel soon replied.\r\nTo say and straight unsay, pretending first\r\nWise to fly pain, professing next the spy,\r\nArgues no leader but a liar traced,\r\nSatan, and couldst thou faithful add? O name,\r\nO sacred name of faithfulness profaned!\r\nFaithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew?\r\nArmy of Fiends, fit body to fit head.\r\nWas this your discipline and faith engaged,\r\nYour military obedience, to dissolve\r\nAllegiance to the acknowledged Power supreme?\r\nAnd thou, sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem\r\nPatron of liberty, who more than thou\r\nOnce fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored\r\nHeaven's awful Monarch? wherefore, but in hope\r\nTo dispossess him, and thyself to reign?\r\nBut mark what I arreed thee now, Avant;\r\nFly neither whence thou fledst! If from this hour\r\nWithin these hallowed limits thou appear,\r\nBack to the infernal pit I drag thee chained,\r\nAnd seal thee so, as henceforth not to scorn\r\nThe facile gates of Hell too slightly barred.\r\nSo threatened he; but Satan to no threats\r\nGave heed, but waxing more in rage replied.\r\nThen when I am thy captive talk of chains,\r\nProud limitary Cherub! but ere then\r\nFar heavier load thyself expect to feel\r\nFrom my prevailing arm, though Heaven's King\r\nRide on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,\r\nUs'd to the yoke, drawest his triumphant wheels\r\nIn progress through the road of Heaven star-paved.\r\nWhile thus he spake, the angelick squadron bright\r\nTurned fiery red, sharpening in mooned horns\r\nTheir phalanx, and began to hem him round\r\nWith ported spears, as thick as when a field\r\nOf Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends\r\nHer bearded grove of ears, which way the wind\r\nSways them; the careful plowman doubting stands,\r\nLeft on the threshing floor his hopeless sheaves\r\nProve chaff. On the other side, Satan, alarmed,\r\nCollecting all his might, dilated stood,\r\nLike Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved:\r\nHis stature reached the sky, and on his crest\r\nSat Horrour plumed; nor wanted in his grasp\r\nWhat seemed both spear and shield: Now dreadful deeds\r\nMight have ensued, nor only Paradise\r\nIn this commotion, but the starry cope\r\nOf Heaven perhaps, or all the elements\r\nAt least had gone to wrack, disturbed and torn\r\nWith violence of this conflict, had not soon\r\nThe Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,\r\nHung forth in Heaven his golden scales, yet seen\r\nBetwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,\r\nWherein all things created first he weighed,\r\nThe pendulous round earth with balanced air\r\nIn counterpoise, now ponders all events,\r\nBattles and realms: In these he put two weights,\r\nThe sequel each of parting and of fight:\r\nThe latter quick up flew, and kicked the beam,\r\nWhich Gabriel spying, thus bespake the Fiend.\r\nSatan, I know thy strength, and thou knowest mine;\r\nNeither our own, but given: What folly then\r\nTo boast what arms can do? since thine no more\r\nThan Heaven permits, nor mine, though doubled now\r\nTo trample thee as mire: For proof look up,\r\nAnd read thy lot in yon celestial sign;\r\nWhere thou art weighed, and shown how light, how weak,\r\nIf thou resist. The Fiend looked up, and knew\r\nHis mounted scale aloft: Nor more; but fled\r\nMurmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.","rendered":"
\"Black<\/a><\/p>\n

Satan, as drawn by Gustave Dor\u00e9, in John Milton’s Paradise Lost<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

O, for that warning voice, which he, who saw
\nThe Apocalypse, heard cry in Heaven aloud,
\nThen when the Dragon, put to second rout,
\nCame furious down to be revenged on men,
\nWoe to the inhabitants on earth! that now,
\nWhile time was, our first parents had been warned
\nThe coming of their secret foe, and ‘scaped,
\nHaply so ‘scaped his mortal snare: For now
\nSatan, now first inflamed with rage, came down,
\nThe tempter ere the accuser of mankind,
\nTo wreak on innocent frail Man his loss
\nOf that first battle, and his flight to Hell:
\nYet, not rejoicing in his speed, though bold
\nFar off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,
\nBegins his dire attempt; which nigh the birth
\nNow rolling boils in his tumultuous breast,
\nAnd like a devilish engine back recoils
\nUpon himself; horrour and doubt distract
\nHis troubled thoughts, and from the bottom stir
\nThe Hell within him; for within him Hell
\nHe brings, and round about him, nor from Hell
\nOne step, no more than from himself, can fly
\nBy change of place: Now conscience wakes despair,
\nThat slumbered; wakes the bitter memory
\nOf what he was, what is, and what must be
\nWorse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.
\nSometimes towards Eden, which now in his view
\nLay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;
\nSometimes towards Heaven, and the full-blazing sun,
\nWhich now sat high in his meridian tower:
\nThen, much revolving, thus in sighs began.
\nO thou, that, with surpassing glory crowned,
\nLookest from thy sole dominion like the God
\nOf this new world; at whose sight all the stars
\nHide their diminished heads; to thee I call,
\nBut with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
\nOf Sun! to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
\nThat bring to my remembrance from what state
\nI fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
\nTill pride and worse ambition threw me down
\nWarring in Heaven against Heaven’s matchless King:
\nAh, wherefore! he deserved no such return
\nFrom me, whom he created what I was
\nIn that bright eminence, and with his good
\nUpbraided none; nor was his service hard.
\nWhat could be less than to afford him praise,
\nThe easiest recompence, and pay him thanks,
\nHow due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
\nAnd wrought but malice; lifted up so high
\nI ‘sdeined subjection, and thought one step higher
\nWould set me highest, and in a moment quit
\nThe debt immense of endless gratitude,
\nSo burdensome still paying, still to owe,
\nForgetful what from him I still received,
\nAnd understood not that a grateful mind
\nBy owing owes not, but still pays, at once
\nIndebted and discharged; what burden then
\nO, had his powerful destiny ordained
\nMe some inferiour Angel, I had stood
\nThen happy; no unbounded hope had raised
\nAmbition! Yet why not some other Power
\nAs great might have aspired, and me, though mean,
\nDrawn to his part; but other Powers as great
\nFell not, but stand unshaken, from within
\nOr from without, to all temptations armed.
\nHadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
\nThou hadst: whom hast thou then or what to accuse,
\nBut Heaven’s free love dealt equally to all?
\nBe then his love accursed, since love or hate,
\nTo me alike, it deals eternal woe.
\nNay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will
\nChose freely what it now so justly rues.
\nMe miserable! which way shall I fly
\nInfinite wrath, and infinite despair?
\nWhich way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
\nAnd, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
\nStill threatening to devour me opens wide,
\nTo which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
\nO, then, at last relent: Is there no place
\nLeft for repentance, none for pardon left?
\nNone left but by submission; and that word
\nDisdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
\nAmong the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced
\nWith other promises and other vaunts
\nThan to submit, boasting I could subdue
\nThe Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know
\nHow dearly I abide that boast so vain,
\nUnder what torments inwardly I groan,
\nWhile they adore me on the throne of Hell.
\nWith diadem and scepter high advanced,
\nThe lower still I fall, only supreme
\nIn misery: Such joy ambition finds.
\nBut say I could repent, and could obtain,
\nBy act of grace, my former state; how soon
\nWould highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
\nWhat feigned submission swore? Ease would recant
\nVows made in pain, as violent and void.
\nFor never can true reconcilement grow,
\nWhere wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:
\nWhich would but lead me to a worse relapse
\nAnd heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
\nShort intermission bought with double smart.
\nThis knows my Punisher; therefore as far
\nFrom granting he, as I from begging, peace;
\nAll hope excluded thus, behold, instead
\nOf us out-cast, exil’d, his new delight,
\nMankind created, and for him this world.
\nSo farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear;
\nFarewell, remorse! all good to me is lost;
\nEvil, be thou my good; by thee at least
\nDivided empire with Heaven’s King I hold,
\nBy thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;
\nAs Man ere long, and this new world, shall know.
\nThus while he spake, each passion dimmed his face
\nThrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair;
\nWhich marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed
\nHim counterfeit, if any eye beheld.
\nFor heavenly minds from such distempers foul
\nAre ever clear. Whereof he soon aware,
\nEach perturbation smoothed with outward calm,
\nArtificer of fraud; and was the first
\nThat practised falsehood under saintly show,
\nDeep malice to conceal, couched with revenge:
\nYet not enough had practised to deceive
\nUriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down
\nThe way he went, and on the Assyrian mount
\nSaw him disfigured, more than could befall
\nSpirit of happy sort; his gestures fierce
\nHe marked and mad demeanour, then alone,
\nAs he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.
\nSo on he fares, and to the border comes
\nOf Eden, where delicious Paradise,
\nNow nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
\nAs with a rural mound, the champaign head
\nOf a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
\nWith thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
\nAccess denied; and overhead upgrew
\nInsuperable height of loftiest shade,
\nCedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
\nA sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend,
\nShade above shade, a woody theatre
\nOf stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
\nThe verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung;
\nWhich to our general sire gave prospect large
\nInto his nether empire neighbouring round.
\nAnd higher than that wall a circling row
\nOf goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
\nBlossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
\nAppeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed:
\nOn which the sun more glad impressed his beams
\nThan in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
\nWhen God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed
\nThat landskip: And of pure now purer air
\nMeets his approach, and to the heart inspires
\nVernal delight and joy, able to drive
\nAll sadness but despair: Now gentle gales,
\nFanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
\nNative perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
\nThose balmy spoils. As when to them who fail
\nBeyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
\nMozambick, off at sea north-east winds blow
\nSabean odours from the spicy shore
\nOf Araby the blest; with such delay
\nWell pleased they slack their course, and many a league
\nCheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:
\nSo entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend,
\nWho came their bane; though with them better pleased
\nThan Asmodeus with the fishy fume
\nThat drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse
\nOf Tobit’s son, and with a vengeance sent
\nFrom Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.
\nNow to the ascent of that steep savage hill
\nSatan had journeyed on, pensive and slow;
\nBut further way found none, so thick entwined,
\nAs one continued brake, the undergrowth
\nOf shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed
\nAll path of man or beast that passed that way.
\nOne gate there only was, and that looked east
\nOn the other side: which when the arch-felon saw,
\nDue entrance he disdained; and, in contempt,
\nAt one flight bound high over-leaped all bound
\nOf hill or highest wall, and sheer within
\nLights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,
\nWhom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
\nWatching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve
\nIn hurdled cotes amid the field secure,
\nLeaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold:
\nOr as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash
\nOf some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,
\nCross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault,
\nIn at the window climbs, or o’er the tiles:
\nSo clomb this first grand thief into God’s fold;
\nSo since into his church lewd hirelings climb.
\nThence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
\nThe middle tree and highest there that grew,
\nSat like a cormorant; yet not true life
\nThereby regained, but sat devising death
\nTo them who lived; nor on the virtue thought
\nOf that life-giving plant, but only used
\nFor prospect, what well used had been the pledge
\nOf immortality. So little knows
\nAny, but God alone, to value right
\nThe good before him, but perverts best things
\nTo worst abuse, or to their meanest use.
\nBeneath him with new wonder now he views,
\nTo all delight of human sense exposed,
\nIn narrow room, Nature’s whole wealth, yea more,
\nA Heaven on Earth: For blissful Paradise
\nOf God the garden was, by him in the east
\nOf Eden planted; Eden stretched her line
\nFrom Auran eastward to the royal towers
\nOf great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,
\nOr where the sons of Eden long before
\nDwelt in Telassar: In this pleasant soil
\nHis far more pleasant garden God ordained;
\nOut of the fertile ground he caused to grow
\nAll trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;
\nAnd all amid them stood the tree of life,
\nHigh eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
\nOf vegetable gold; and next to life,
\nOur death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by,
\nKnowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.
\nSouthward through Eden went a river large,
\nNor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
\nPassed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown
\nThat mountain as his garden-mould high raised
\nUpon the rapid current, which, through veins
\nOf porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,
\nRose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
\nWatered the garden; thence united fell
\nDown the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
\nWhich from his darksome passage now appears,
\nAnd now, divided into four main streams,
\nRuns diverse, wandering many a famous realm
\nAnd country, whereof here needs no account;
\nBut rather to tell how, if Art could tell,
\nHow from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
\nRolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
\nWith mazy errour under pendant shades
\nRan nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
\nFlowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art
\nIn beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
\nPoured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
\nBoth where the morning sun first warmly smote
\nThe open field, and where the unpierced shade
\nImbrowned the noontide bowers: Thus was this place
\nA happy rural seat of various view;
\nGroves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,
\nOthers whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,
\nHung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
\nIf true, here only, and of delicious taste:
\nBetwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
\nGrazing the tender herb, were interposed,
\nOr palmy hillock; or the flowery lap
\nOf some irriguous valley spread her store,
\nFlowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose:
\nAnother side, umbrageous grots and caves
\nOf cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine
\nLays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
\nLuxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall
\nDown the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake,
\nThat to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned
\nHer crystal mirrour holds, unite their streams.
\nThe birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,
\nBreathing the smell of field and grove, attune
\nThe trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
\nKnit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
\nLed on the eternal Spring. Not that fair field
\nOf Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers,
\nHerself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis
\nWas gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain
\nTo seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove
\nOf Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired
\nCastalian spring, might with this Paradise
\nOf Eden strive; nor that Nyseian isle
\nGirt with the river Triton, where old Cham,
\nWhom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove,
\nHid Amalthea, and her florid son
\nYoung Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea’s eye;
\nNor where Abassin kings their issue guard,
\nMount Amara, though this by some supposed
\nTrue Paradise under the Ethiop line
\nBy Nilus’ head, enclosed with shining rock,
\nA whole day’s journey high, but wide remote
\nFrom this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend
\nSaw, undelighted, all delight, all kind
\nOf living creatures, new to sight, and strange
\nTwo of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
\nGodlike erect, with native honour clad
\nIn naked majesty seemed lords of all:
\nAnd worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
\nThe image of their glorious Maker shone,
\nTruth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure,
\n(Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,)
\nWhence true authority in men; though both
\nNot equal, as their sex not equal seemed;
\nFor contemplation he and valour formed;
\nFor softness she and sweet attractive grace;
\nHe for God only, she for God in him:
\nHis fair large front and eye sublime declared
\nAbsolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
\nRound from his parted forelock manly hung
\nClustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:
\nShe, as a veil, down to the slender waist
\nHer unadorned golden tresses wore
\nDishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved
\nAs the vine curls her tendrils, which implied
\nSubjection, but required with gentle sway,
\nAnd by her yielded, by him best received,
\nYielded with coy submission, modest pride,
\nAnd sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.
\nNor those mysterious parts were then concealed;
\nThen was not guilty shame, dishonest shame
\nOf nature’s works, honour dishonourable,
\nSin-bred, how have ye troubled all mankind
\nWith shows instead, mere shows of seeming pure,
\nAnd banished from man’s life his happiest life,
\nSimplicity and spotless innocence!
\nSo passed they naked on, nor shunned the sight
\nOf God or Angel; for they thought no ill:
\nSo hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair,
\nThat ever since in love’s embraces met;
\nAdam the goodliest man of men since born
\nHis sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.
\nUnder a tuft of shade that on a green
\nStood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain side
\nThey sat them down; and, after no more toil
\nOf their sweet gardening labour than sufficed
\nTo recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease
\nMore easy, wholesome thirst and appetite
\nMore grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell,
\nNectarine fruits which the compliant boughs
\nYielded them, side-long as they sat recline
\nOn the soft downy bank damasked with flowers:
\nThe savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind,
\nStill as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream;
\nNor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles
\nWanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems
\nFair couple, linked in happy nuptial league,
\nAlone as they. About them frisking played
\nAll beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase
\nIn wood or wilderness, forest or den;
\nSporting the lion ramped, and in his paw
\nDandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,
\nGambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant,
\nTo make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed
\nHis lithe proboscis; close the serpent sly,
\nInsinuating, wove with Gordian twine
\nHis braided train, and of his fatal guile
\nGave proof unheeded; others on the grass
\nCouched, and now filled with pasture gazing sat,
\nOr bedward ruminating; for the sun,
\nDeclined, was hasting now with prone career
\nTo the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale
\nOf Heaven the stars that usher evening rose:
\nWhen Satan still in gaze, as first he stood,
\nScarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad.
\nO Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!
\nInto our room of bliss thus high advanced
\nCreatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps,
\nNot Spirits, yet to heavenly Spirits bright
\nLittle inferiour; whom my thoughts pursue
\nWith wonder, and could love, so lively shines
\nIn them divine resemblance, and such grace
\nThe hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.
\nAh! gentle pair, ye little think how nigh
\nYour change approaches, when all these delights
\nWill vanish, and deliver ye to woe;
\nMore woe, the more your taste is now of joy;
\nHappy, but for so happy ill secured
\nLong to continue, and this high seat your Heaven
\nIll fenced for Heaven to keep out such a foe
\nAs now is entered; yet no purposed foe
\nTo you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,
\nThough I unpitied: League with you I seek,
\nAnd mutual amity, so strait, so close,
\nThat I with you must dwell, or you with me
\nHenceforth; my dwelling haply may not please,
\nLike this fair Paradise, your sense; yet such
\nAccept your Maker’s work; he gave it me,
\nWhich I as freely give: Hell shall unfold,
\nTo entertain you two, her widest gates,
\nAnd send forth all her kings; there will be room,
\nNot like these narrow limits, to receive
\nYour numerous offspring; if no better place,
\nThank him who puts me loth to this revenge
\nOn you who wrong me not for him who wronged.
\nAnd should I at your harmless innocence
\nMelt, as I do, yet publick reason just,
\nHonour and empire with revenge enlarged,
\nBy conquering this new world, compels me now
\nTo do what else, though damned, I should abhor.
\nSo spake the Fiend, and with necessity,
\nThe tyrant’s plea, excused his devilish deeds.
\nThen from his lofty stand on that high tree
\nDown he alights among the sportful herd
\nOf those four-footed kinds, himself now one,
\nNow other, as their shape served best his end
\nNearer to view his prey, and, unespied,
\nTo mark what of their state he more might learn,
\nBy word or action marked. About them round
\nA lion now he stalks with fiery glare;
\nThen as a tiger, who by chance hath spied
\nIn some purlieu two gentle fawns at play,
\nStraight couches close, then, rising, changes oft
\nHis couchant watch, as one who chose his ground,
\nWhence rushing, he might surest seize them both,
\nGriped in each paw: when, Adam first of men
\nTo first of women Eve thus moving speech,
\nTurned him, all ear to hear new utterance flow.
\nSole partner, and sole part, of all these joys,
\nDearer thyself than all; needs must the Power
\nThat made us, and for us this ample world,
\nBe infinitely good, and of his good
\nAs liberal and free as infinite;
\nThat raised us from the dust, and placed us here
\nIn all this happiness, who at his hand
\nHave nothing merited, nor can perform
\nAught whereof he hath need; he who requires
\nFrom us no other service than to keep
\nThis one, this easy charge, of all the trees
\nIn Paradise that bear delicious fruit
\nSo various, not to taste that only tree
\nOf knowledge, planted by the tree of life;
\nSo near grows death to life, whate’er death is,
\nSome dreadful thing no doubt; for well thou knowest
\nGod hath pronounced it death to taste that tree,
\nThe only sign of our obedience left,
\nAmong so many signs of power and rule
\nConferred upon us, and dominion given
\nOver all other creatures that possess
\nEarth, air, and sea. Then let us not think hard
\nOne easy prohibition, who enjoy
\nFree leave so large to all things else, and choice
\nUnlimited of manifold delights:
\nBut let us ever praise him, and extol
\nHis bounty, following our delightful task,
\nTo prune these growing plants, and tend these flowers,
\nWhich were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet.
\nTo whom thus Eve replied. O thou for whom
\nAnd from whom I was formed, flesh of thy flesh,
\nAnd without whom am to no end, my guide
\nAnd head! what thou hast said is just and right.
\nFor we to him indeed all praises owe,
\nAnd daily thanks; I chiefly, who enjoy
\nSo far the happier lot, enjoying thee
\nPre-eminent by so much odds, while thou
\nLike consort to thyself canst no where find.
\nThat day I oft remember, when from sleep
\nI first awaked, and found myself reposed
\nUnder a shade on flowers, much wondering where
\nAnd what I was, whence thither brought, and how.
\nNot distant far from thence a murmuring sound
\nOf waters issued from a cave, and spread
\nInto a liquid plain, then stood unmoved
\nPure as the expanse of Heaven; I thither went
\nWith unexperienced thought, and laid me down
\nOn the green bank, to look into the clear
\nSmooth lake, that to me seemed another sky.
\nAs I bent down to look, just opposite
\nA shape within the watery gleam appeared,
\nBending to look on me: I started back,
\nIt started back; but pleased I soon returned,
\nPleased it returned as soon with answering looks
\nOf sympathy and love: There I had fixed
\nMine eyes till now, and pined with vain desire,
\nHad not a voice thus warned me; “What thou seest,
\nWhat there thou seest, fair Creature, is thyself;
\nWith thee it came and goes: but follow me,
\nAnd I will bring thee where no shadow stays
\nThy coming, and thy soft embraces, he
\nWhose image thou art; him thou shalt enjoy
\nInseparably thine, to him shalt bear
\nMultitudes like thyself, and thence be called
\nMother of human race.” What could I do,
\nBut follow straight, invisibly thus led?
\nTill I espied thee, fair indeed and tall,
\nUnder a platane; yet methought less fair,
\nLess winning soft, less amiably mild,
\nThan that smooth watery image: Back I turned;
\nThou following cryedst aloud, “Return, fair Eve;
\nWhom flyest thou? whom thou flyest, of him thou art,
\nHis flesh, his bone; to give thee being I lent
\nOut of my side to thee, nearest my heart,
\nSubstantial life, to have thee by my side
\nHenceforth an individual solace dear;
\nPart of my soul I seek thee, and thee claim
\nMy other half:” With that thy gentle hand
\nSeised mine: I yielded; and from that time see
\nHow beauty is excelled by manly grace,
\nAnd wisdom, which alone is truly fair.
\nSo spake our general mother, and with eyes
\nOf conjugal attraction unreproved,
\nAnd meek surrender, half-embracing leaned
\nOn our first father; half her swelling breast
\nNaked met his, under the flowing gold
\nOf her loose tresses hid: he in delight
\nBoth of her beauty, and submissive charms,
\nSmiled with superiour love, as Jupiter
\nOn Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds
\nThat shed Mayflowers; and pressed her matron lip
\nWith kisses pure: Aside the Devil turned
\nFor envy; yet with jealous leer malign
\nEyed them askance, and to himself thus plained.
\nSight hateful, sight tormenting! thus these two,
\nImparadised in one another’s arms,
\nThe happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill
\nOf bliss on bliss; while I to Hell am thrust,
\nWhere neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,
\nAmong our other torments not the least,
\nStill unfulfilled with pain of longing pines.
\nYet let me not forget what I have gained
\nFrom their own mouths: All is not theirs, it seems;
\nOne fatal tree there stands, of knowledge called,
\nForbidden them to taste: Knowledge forbidden
\nSuspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
\nEnvy them that? Can it be sin to know?
\nCan it be death? And do they only stand
\nBy ignorance? Is that their happy state,
\nThe proof of their obedience and their faith?
\nO fair foundation laid whereon to build
\nTheir ruin! hence I will excite their minds
\nWith more desire to know, and to reject
\nEnvious commands, invented with design
\nTo keep them low, whom knowledge might exalt
\nEqual with Gods: aspiring to be such,
\nThey taste and die: What likelier can ensue
\nBut first with narrow search I must walk round
\nThis garden, and no corner leave unspied;
\nA chance but chance may lead where I may meet
\nSome wandering Spirit of Heaven by fountain side,
\nOr in thick shade retired, from him to draw
\nWhat further would be learned. Live while ye may,
\nYet happy pair; enjoy, till I return,
\nShort pleasures, for long woes are to succeed!
\nSo saying, his proud step he scornful turned,
\nBut with sly circumspection, and began
\nThrough wood, through waste, o’er hill, o’er dale, his roam
\nMean while in utmost longitude, where Heaven
\nWith earth and ocean meets, the setting sun
\nSlowly descended, and with right aspect
\nAgainst the eastern gate of Paradise
\nLevelled his evening rays: It was a rock
\nOf alabaster, piled up to the clouds,
\nConspicuous far, winding with one ascent
\nAccessible from earth, one entrance high;
\nThe rest was craggy cliff, that overhung
\nStill as it rose, impossible to climb.
\nBetwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat,
\nChief of the angelick guards, awaiting night;
\nAbout him exercised heroick games
\nThe unarmed youth of Heaven, but nigh at hand
\nCelestial armoury, shields, helms, and spears,
\nHung high with diamond flaming, and with gold.
\nThither came Uriel, gliding through the even
\nOn a sun-beam, swift as a shooting star
\nIn autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired
\nImpress the air, and shows the mariner
\nFrom what point of his compass to beware
\nImpetuous winds: He thus began in haste.
\nGabriel, to thee thy course by lot hath given
\nCharge and strict watch, that to this happy place
\nNo evil thing approach or enter in.
\nThis day at highth of noon came to my sphere
\nA Spirit, zealous, as he seemed, to know
\nMore of the Almighty’s works, and chiefly Man,
\nGod’s latest image: I described his way
\nBent all on speed, and marked his aery gait;
\nBut in the mount that lies from Eden north,
\nWhere he first lighted, soon discerned his looks
\nAlien from Heaven, with passions foul obscured:
\nMine eye pursued him still, but under shade
\nLost sight of him: One of the banished crew,
\nI fear, hath ventured from the deep, to raise
\nNew troubles; him thy care must be to find.
\nTo whom the winged warriour thus returned.
\nUriel, no wonder if thy perfect sight,
\nAmid the sun’s bright circle where thou sitst,
\nSee far and wide: In at this gate none pass
\nThe vigilance here placed, but such as come
\nWell known from Heaven; and since meridian hour
\nNo creature thence: If Spirit of other sort,
\nSo minded, have o’er-leaped these earthly bounds
\nOn purpose, hard thou knowest it to exclude
\nSpiritual substance with corporeal bar.
\nBut if within the circuit of these walks,
\nIn whatsoever shape he lurk, of whom
\nThou tellest, by morrow dawning I shall know.
\nSo promised he; and Uriel to his charge
\nReturned on that bright beam, whose point now raised
\nBore him slope downward to the sun now fallen
\nBeneath the Azores; whether the prime orb,
\nIncredible how swift, had thither rolled
\nDiurnal, or this less volubil earth,
\nBy shorter flight to the east, had left him there
\nArraying with reflected purple and gold
\nThe clouds that on his western throne attend.
\nNow came still Evening on, and Twilight gray
\nHad in her sober livery all things clad;
\nSilence accompanied; for beast and bird,
\nThey to their grassy couch, these to their nests
\nWere slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
\nShe all night long her amorous descant sung;
\nSilence was pleased: Now glowed the firmament
\nWith living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
\nThe starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
\nRising in clouded majesty, at length
\nApparent queen unveiled her peerless light,
\nAnd o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.
\nWhen Adam thus to Eve. Fair Consort, the hour
\nOf night, and all things now retired to rest,
\nMind us of like repose; since God hath set
\nLabour and rest, as day and night, to men
\nSuccessive; and the timely dew of sleep,
\nNow falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines
\nOur eye-lids: Other creatures all day long
\nRove idle, unemployed, and less need rest;
\nMan hath his daily work of body or mind
\nAppointed, which declares his dignity,
\nAnd the regard of Heaven on all his ways;
\nWhile other animals unactive range,
\nAnd of their doings God takes no account.
\nTo-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
\nWith first approach of light, we must be risen,
\nAnd at our pleasant labour, to reform
\nYon flowery arbours, yonder alleys green,
\nOur walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
\nThat mock our scant manuring, and require
\nMore hands than ours to lop their wanton growth:
\nThose blossoms also, and those dropping gums,
\nThat lie bestrown, unsightly and unsmooth,
\nAsk riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;
\nMean while, as Nature wills, night bids us rest.
\nTo whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorned
\nMy Author and Disposer, what thou bidst
\nUnargued I obey: So God ordains;
\nGod is thy law, thou mine: To know no more
\nIs woman’s happiest knowledge, and her praise.
\nWith thee conversing I forget all time;
\nAll seasons, and their change, all please alike.
\nSweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet,
\nWith charm of earliest birds: pleasant the sun,
\nWhen first on this delightful land he spreads
\nHis orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
\nGlistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
\nAfter soft showers; and sweet the coming on
\nOf grateful Evening mild; then silent Night,
\nWith this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
\nAnd these the gems of Heaven, her starry train:
\nBut neither breath of Morn, when she ascends
\nWith charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
\nOn this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
\nGlistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
\nNor grateful Evening mild; nor silent Night,
\nWith this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
\nOr glittering star-light, without thee is sweet.
\nBut wherefore all night long shine these? for whom
\nThis glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?
\nTo whom our general ancestor replied.
\nDaughter of God and Man, accomplished Eve,
\nThese have their course to finish round the earth,
\nBy morrow evening, and from land to land
\nIn order, though to nations yet unborn,
\nMinistring light prepared, they set and rise;
\nLest total Darkness should by night regain
\nHer old possession, and extinguish life
\nIn Nature and all things; which these soft fires
\nNot only enlighten, but with kindly heat
\nOf various influence foment and warm,
\nTemper or nourish, or in part shed down
\nTheir stellar virtue on all kinds that grow
\nOn earth, made hereby apter to receive
\nPerfection from the sun’s more potent ray.
\nThese then, though unbeheld in deep of night,
\nShine not in vain; nor think, though men were none,
\nThat Heaven would want spectators, God want praise:
\nMillions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
\nUnseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep:
\nAll these with ceaseless praise his works behold
\nBoth day and night: How often from the steep
\nOf echoing hill or thicket have we heard
\nCelestial voices to the midnight air,
\nSole, or responsive each to others note,
\nSinging their great Creator? oft in bands
\nWhile they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,
\nWith heavenly touch of instrumental sounds
\nIn full harmonick number joined, their songs
\nDivide the night, and lift our thoughts to Heaven.
\nThus talking, hand in hand alone they passed
\nOn to their blissful bower: it was a place
\nChosen by the sovran Planter, when he framed
\nAll things to Man’s delightful use; the roof
\nOf thickest covert was inwoven shade
\nLaurel and myrtle, and what higher grew
\nOf firm and fragrant leaf; on either side
\nAcanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub,
\nFenced up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower,
\nIris all hues, roses, and jessamin,
\nReared high their flourished heads between, and wrought
\nMosaick; underfoot the violet,
\nCrocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay
\nBroidered the ground, more coloured than with stone
\nOf costliest emblem: Other creature here,
\nBird, beast, insect, or worm, durst enter none,
\nSuch was their awe of Man. In shadier bower
\nMore sacred and sequestered, though but feigned,
\nPan or Sylvanus never slept, nor Nymph
\nNor Faunus haunted. Here, in close recess,
\nWith flowers, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs,
\nEspoused Eve decked first her nuptial bed;
\nAnd heavenly quires the hymenaean sung,
\nWhat day the genial Angel to our sire
\nBrought her in naked beauty more adorned,
\nMore lovely, than Pandora, whom the Gods
\nEndowed with all their gifts, and O! too like
\nIn sad event, when to the unwiser son
\nOf Japhet brought by Hermes, she ensnared
\nMankind with her fair looks, to be avenged
\nOn him who had stole Jove’s authentick fire.
\nThus, at their shady lodge arrived, both stood,
\nBoth turned, and under open sky adored
\nThe God that made both sky, air, earth, and heaven,
\nWhich they beheld, the moon’s resplendent globe,
\nAnd starry pole: Thou also madest the night,
\nMaker Omnipotent, and thou the day,
\nWhich we, in our appointed work employed,
\nHave finished, happy in our mutual help
\nAnd mutual love, the crown of all our bliss
\nOrdained by thee; and this delicious place
\nFor us too large, where thy abundance wants
\nPartakers, and uncropt falls to the ground.
\nBut thou hast promised from us two a race
\nTo fill the earth, who shall with us extol
\nThy goodness infinite, both when we wake,
\nAnd when we seek, as now, thy gift of sleep.
\nThis said unanimous, and other rites
\nObserving none, but adoration pure
\nWhich God likes best, into their inmost bower
\nHanded they went; and, eased the putting off
\nThese troublesome disguises which we wear,
\nStraight side by side were laid; nor turned, I ween,
\nAdam from his fair spouse, nor Eve the rites
\nMysterious of connubial love refused:
\nWhatever hypocrites austerely talk
\nOf purity, and place, and innocence,
\nDefaming as impure what God declares
\nPure, and commands to some, leaves free to all.
\nOur Maker bids encrease; who bids abstain
\nBut our Destroyer, foe to God and Man?
\nHail, wedded Love, mysterious law, true source
\nOf human offspring, sole propriety
\nIn Paradise of all things common else!
\nBy thee adulterous Lust was driven from men
\nAmong the bestial herds to range; by thee
\nFounded in reason, loyal, just, and pure,
\nRelations dear, and all the charities
\nOf father, son, and brother, first were known.
\nFar be it, that I should write thee sin or blame,
\nOr think thee unbefitting holiest place,
\nPerpetual fountain of domestick sweets,
\nWhose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced,
\nPresent, or past, as saints and patriarchs used.
\nHere Love his golden shafts employs, here lights
\nHis constant lamp, and waves his purple wings,
\nReigns here and revels; not in the bought smile
\nOf harlots, loveless, joyless, unendeared,
\nCasual fruition; nor in court-amours,
\nMixed dance, or wanton mask, or midnight ball,
\nOr serenate, which the starved lover sings
\nTo his proud fair, best quitted with disdain.
\nThese, lulled by nightingales, embracing slept,
\nAnd on their naked limbs the flowery roof
\nShowered roses, which the morn repaired. Sleep on,
\nBlest pair; and O! yet happiest, if ye seek
\nNo happier state, and know to know no more.
\nNow had night measured with her shadowy cone
\nHalf way up hill this vast sublunar vault,
\nAnd from their ivory port the Cherubim,
\nForth issuing at the accustomed hour, stood armed
\nTo their night watches in warlike parade;
\nWhen Gabriel to his next in power thus spake.
\nUzziel, half these draw off, and coast the south
\nWith strictest watch; these other wheel the north;
\nOur circuit meets full west. As flame they part,
\nHalf wheeling to the shield, half to the spear.
\nFrom these, two strong and subtle Spirits he called
\nThat near him stood, and gave them thus in charge.
\nIthuriel and Zephon, with winged speed
\nSearch through this garden, leave unsearched no nook;
\nBut chiefly where those two fair creatures lodge,
\nNow laid perhaps asleep, secure of harm.
\nThis evening from the sun’s decline arrived,
\nWho tells of some infernal Spirit seen
\nHitherward bent (who could have thought?) escaped
\nThe bars of Hell, on errand bad no doubt:
\nSuch, where ye find, seise fast, and hither bring.
\nSo saying, on he led his radiant files,
\nDazzling the moon; these to the bower direct
\nIn search of whom they sought: Him there they found
\nSquat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve,
\nAssaying by his devilish art to reach
\nThe organs of her fancy, and with them forge
\nIllusions, as he list, phantasms and dreams;
\nOr if, inspiring venom, he might taint
\nThe animal spirits, that from pure blood arise
\nLike gentle breaths from rivers pure, thence raise
\nAt least distempered, discontented thoughts,
\nVain hopes, vain aims, inordinate desires,
\nBlown up with high conceits ingendering pride.
\nHim thus intent Ithuriel with his spear
\nTouched lightly; for no falshood can endure
\nTouch of celestial temper, but returns
\nOf force to its own likeness: Up he starts
\nDiscovered and surprised. As when a spark
\nLights on a heap of nitrous powder, laid
\nFit for the tun some magazine to store
\nAgainst a rumoured war, the smutty grain,
\nWith sudden blaze diffused, inflames the air;
\nSo started up in his own shape the Fiend.
\nBack stept those two fair Angels, half amazed
\nSo sudden to behold the grisly king;
\nYet thus, unmoved with fear, accost him soon.
\nWhich of those rebel Spirits adjudged to Hell
\nComest thou, escaped thy prison? and, transformed,
\nWhy sat’st thou like an enemy in wait,
\nHere watching at the head of these that sleep?
\nKnow ye not then said Satan, filled with scorn,
\nKnow ye not me? ye knew me once no mate
\nFor you, there sitting where ye durst not soar:
\nNot to know me argues yourselves unknown,
\nThe lowest of your throng; or, if ye know,
\nWhy ask ye, and superfluous begin
\nYour message, like to end as much in vain?
\nTo whom thus Zephon, answering scorn with scorn.
\nThink not, revolted Spirit, thy shape the same,
\nOr undiminished brightness to be known,
\nAs when thou stoodest in Heaven upright and pure;
\nThat glory then, when thou no more wast good,
\nDeparted from thee; and thou resemblest now
\nThy sin and place of doom obscure and foul.
\nBut come, for thou, be sure, shalt give account
\nTo him who sent us, whose charge is to keep
\nThis place inviolable, and these from harm.
\nSo spake the Cherub; and his grave rebuke,
\nSevere in youthful beauty, added grace
\nInvincible: Abashed the Devil stood,
\nAnd felt how awful goodness is, and saw
\nVirtue in her shape how lovely; saw, and pined
\nHis loss; but chiefly to find here observed
\nHis lustre visibly impaired; yet seemed
\nUndaunted. If I must contend, said he,
\nBest with the best, the sender, not the sent,
\nOr all at once; more glory will be won,
\nOr less be lost. Thy fear, said Zephon bold,
\nWill save us trial what the least can do
\nSingle against thee wicked, and thence weak.
\nThe Fiend replied not, overcome with rage;
\nBut, like a proud steed reined, went haughty on,
\nChamping his iron curb: To strive or fly
\nHe held it vain; awe from above had quelled
\nHis heart, not else dismayed. Now drew they nigh
\nThe western point, where those half-rounding guards
\nJust met, and closing stood in squadron joined,
\nA waiting next command. To whom their Chief,
\nGabriel, from the front thus called aloud.
\nO friends! I hear the tread of nimble feet
\nHasting this way, and now by glimpse discern
\nIthuriel and Zephon through the shade;
\nAnd with them comes a third of regal port,
\nBut faded splendour wan; who by his gait
\nAnd fierce demeanour seems the Prince of Hell,
\nNot likely to part hence without contest;
\nStand firm, for in his look defiance lours.
\nHe scarce had ended, when those two approached,
\nAnd brief related whom they brought, where found,
\nHow busied, in what form and posture couched.
\nTo whom with stern regard thus Gabriel spake.
\nWhy hast thou, Satan, broke the bounds prescribed
\nTo thy transgressions, and disturbed the charge
\nOf others, who approve not to transgress
\nBy thy example, but have power and right
\nTo question thy bold entrance on this place;
\nEmployed, it seems, to violate sleep, and those
\nWhose dwelling God hath planted here in bliss!
\nTo whom thus Satan with contemptuous brow.
\nGabriel? thou hadst in Heaven the esteem of wise,
\nAnd such I held thee; but this question asked
\nPuts me in doubt. Lives there who loves his pain!
\nWho would not, finding way, break loose from Hell,
\nThough thither doomed! Thou wouldst thyself, no doubt
\nAnd boldly venture to whatever place
\nFarthest from pain, where thou mightst hope to change
\nTorment with ease, and soonest recompense
\nDole with delight, which in this place I sought;
\nTo thee no reason, who knowest only good,
\nBut evil hast not tried: and wilt object
\nHis will who bounds us! Let him surer bar
\nHis iron gates, if he intends our stay
\nIn that dark durance: Thus much what was asked.
\nThe rest is true, they found me where they say;
\nBut that implies not violence or harm.
\nThus he in scorn. The warlike Angel moved,
\nDisdainfully half smiling, thus replied.
\nO loss of one in Heaven to judge of wise
\nSince Satan fell, whom folly overthrew,
\nAnd now returns him from his prison ‘scaped,
\nGravely in doubt whether to hold them wise
\nOr not, who ask what boldness brought him hither
\nUnlicensed from his bounds in Hell prescribed;
\nSo wise he judges it to fly from pain
\nHowever, and to ‘scape his punishment!
\nSo judge thou still, presumptuous! till the wrath,
\nWhich thou incurrest by flying, meet thy flight
\nSevenfold, and scourge that wisdom back to Hell,
\nWhich taught thee yet no better, that no pain
\nCan equal anger infinite provoked.
\nBut wherefore thou alone? wherefore with thee
\nCame not all hell broke loose? or thou than they
\nLess hardy to endure? Courageous Chief!
\nThe first in flight from pain! hadst thou alleged
\nTo thy deserted host this cause of flight,
\nThou surely hadst not come sole fugitive.
\nTo which the Fiend thus answered, frowning stern.
\nNot that I less endure, or shrink from pain,
\nInsulting Angel! well thou knowest I stood
\nThy fiercest, when in battle to thy aid
\nThe blasting vollied thunder made all speed,
\nAnd seconded thy else not dreaded spear.
\nBut still thy words at random, as before,
\nArgue thy inexperience what behoves
\nFrom hard assays and ill successes past
\nA faithful leader, not to hazard all
\nThrough ways of danger by himself untried:
\nI, therefore, I alone first undertook
\nTo wing the desolate abyss, and spy
\nThis new created world, whereof in Hell
\nFame is not silent, here in hope to find
\nBetter abode, and my afflicted Powers
\nTo settle here on earth, or in mid air;
\nThough for possession put to try once more
\nWhat thou and thy gay legions dare against;
\nWhose easier business were to serve their Lord
\nHigh up in Heaven, with songs to hymn his throne,
\nAnd practised distances to cringe, not fight,
\nTo whom the warriour Angel soon replied.
\nTo say and straight unsay, pretending first
\nWise to fly pain, professing next the spy,
\nArgues no leader but a liar traced,
\nSatan, and couldst thou faithful add? O name,
\nO sacred name of faithfulness profaned!
\nFaithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew?
\nArmy of Fiends, fit body to fit head.
\nWas this your discipline and faith engaged,
\nYour military obedience, to dissolve
\nAllegiance to the acknowledged Power supreme?
\nAnd thou, sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem
\nPatron of liberty, who more than thou
\nOnce fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored
\nHeaven’s awful Monarch? wherefore, but in hope
\nTo dispossess him, and thyself to reign?
\nBut mark what I arreed thee now, Avant;
\nFly neither whence thou fledst! If from this hour
\nWithin these hallowed limits thou appear,
\nBack to the infernal pit I drag thee chained,
\nAnd seal thee so, as henceforth not to scorn
\nThe facile gates of Hell too slightly barred.
\nSo threatened he; but Satan to no threats
\nGave heed, but waxing more in rage replied.
\nThen when I am thy captive talk of chains,
\nProud limitary Cherub! but ere then
\nFar heavier load thyself expect to feel
\nFrom my prevailing arm, though Heaven’s King
\nRide on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,
\nUs’d to the yoke, drawest his triumphant wheels
\nIn progress through the road of Heaven star-paved.
\nWhile thus he spake, the angelick squadron bright
\nTurned fiery red, sharpening in mooned horns
\nTheir phalanx, and began to hem him round
\nWith ported spears, as thick as when a field
\nOf Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends
\nHer bearded grove of ears, which way the wind
\nSways them; the careful plowman doubting stands,
\nLeft on the threshing floor his hopeless sheaves
\nProve chaff. On the other side, Satan, alarmed,
\nCollecting all his might, dilated stood,
\nLike Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved:
\nHis stature reached the sky, and on his crest
\nSat Horrour plumed; nor wanted in his grasp
\nWhat seemed both spear and shield: Now dreadful deeds
\nMight have ensued, nor only Paradise
\nIn this commotion, but the starry cope
\nOf Heaven perhaps, or all the elements
\nAt least had gone to wrack, disturbed and torn
\nWith violence of this conflict, had not soon
\nThe Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,
\nHung forth in Heaven his golden scales, yet seen
\nBetwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,
\nWherein all things created first he weighed,
\nThe pendulous round earth with balanced air
\nIn counterpoise, now ponders all events,
\nBattles and realms: In these he put two weights,
\nThe sequel each of parting and of fight:
\nThe latter quick up flew, and kicked the beam,
\nWhich Gabriel spying, thus bespake the Fiend.
\nSatan, I know thy strength, and thou knowest mine;
\nNeither our own, but given: What folly then
\nTo boast what arms can do? since thine no more
\nThan Heaven permits, nor mine, though doubled now
\nTo trample thee as mire: For proof look up,
\nAnd read thy lot in yon celestial sign;
\nWhere thou art weighed, and shown how light, how weak,
\nIf thou resist. The Fiend looked up, and knew
\nHis mounted scale aloft: Nor more; but fled
\nMurmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\t

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Candela Citations<\/h3>\n\t\t\t\t\t
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Public domain content<\/div>