With vain attempt, Him the Almighty power
Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky, 45
With hideous ruin and combustion, down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.
Nine times the space that measures day and night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
Lay vanquish'd rolling in the fiery gulf,
Confounded though immortal! But his doom
Reserv'd him to more wrath: for now the thought
Both of lost happiness, and lasting pain,
Torments him. Round he throws his baleful eyes,
That witness'd huge affliction and dismay,
Mix'd with obdurate pride, and steadfast hate,
At once, as far as angels' ken, he views
The dismal situation waste and wild :
A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,
As one great furnace, flam'd: yet from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible,
Serv'd only to discover sights of wo,
Regions of sorrow! doleful shades! where peace 65
And rest can never dwell! hope never comes,
That comes to all: but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed
With ever-burning sulphur unconsum'd!
Such place eternal justice had prepar'd
For those rebellious; here their prison ordain'd,
In utter darkness; and their portion set
As far removed from God, and light of heaven,
As from the centre thrice to th' utmost pole.
O how unlike the place from which they fell!
There the companions of his fall, o'erwhelm'd
With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,
He soon discerns: and welt'ring by his side
One next himself in power, and next in crime,
Long after known in Palestine, and nam'd
Beelzebub: To whom the arch-enemy,
(And thence in heaven called Satan,) with bold words,
Breaking the horrid silence thus began:
"If thou beest he-But O how fall'n! how chang'd From him, who in the happy realms of light Cloth'd with transcendant brightness, didst outshine Myriads though bright! If he, whom mutual league,
United thoughts and counsels, equal hope,
And hazard in the glorious enterprise,
Join'd with me once, now misery hath join'd
In equal ruin! Into what pit thou seest,
From what height fallen; so much the stronger prov
He with his thunder! and till then who knew
The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,
Nor what the potent Victor in his rage
Can else inflict, do I repent or change
(Though chang'd in outward lustre) that fix'd mind
And high disdain from sense of injur'd merit,
That with the Mightiest rais'd me to contend:
And to the fierce contention brought along
Innumerable force of spirits arm❜d,
That durst dislike his reign: and me preferring
His utmost power with adverse power oppos'd,
In dubious battle on the plains of heaven,
And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield;
(And what is else not to be overcome?)
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me, to bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power,
Who from the terror of his arm so late
Doubted his empire. That were low indeed!
That were an ignominy and shame beneath
This downfall! since (by fate) the strength of gods,
And this empyreal substance cannot fail;
Since through experience of this great event,
(In arms not worse, in foresight much advanc'd,)
We may, with more successful hope, resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcileable to our grand foe,
Who now triumphs, and in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning, holds the tyranny of heaven."
So spake the apostate angel, though in pain; 125 Vaunting aloud, but rack'd with deep despair: And him thus answer'd soon his bold compeer :
"O Prince! O chief of many throned powers, That led th' embattled seraphím to war Under thy conduct! and in dreadful deeds
Fearless, endanger'd heaven's perpetual King
And put to proof his high supremacy:
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate,
Too well I see and rue the dire event,
That with sad overthrow and foul defeat,
Hath lost us heaven: and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as gods, and heavenly essences,
Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains
Invincible, and vigor soon returns,
Though all our glory extinct, and happy state,
Here swallow'd up in endless misery!
But what if he our conqueror (whom I now
Of force believe Almighty, since no less
Than such could have o'erpower'd such force as ours)
Have left us this our spirit and strength entire, 146
Strongly to suffer and support our pains;
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
Or do him mightier service, as his thralls
By right of war, whate'er his business be,
Here in the heart of hell to work in fire,
Or do his errands in the gloomy deep?
What can it then avail, though yet we feel
Strength undiminish'd, or eternal being,
To undergo eternal punishment?"
Whereto with speedy words th' arch-fiend replied:
"Fallen Cherub! to be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering: but of this be sure,
To do ought good never will be our task;
But ever to do ill our sole delight:
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil :
Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from their destin'd aim.
But see! the angry Victor hath recall'd
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit,
Back to the gates of heaven: the sulph'rous hail
Shot after us in storm, o'er-blown, hath laid
The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of heaven receiv'd us falling: and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage, 175
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn,
Or satiate fury, yield it from our foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, 180
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;.
There rest, if any rest can harbour there:
And re-assembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy; our own loss how repair;
How overcome this dire calamity;
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair."
Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate,.
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blaz'd; his other parts besides
Prone on the food, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood: in bulk as huge,
As whom the fables name, of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove,
Briareus, or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream:
(Him, haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.)
So stretch'd out huge in length the arch-fiend lay,
Chain'd on the burning lake: nor ever thence
Had risen, or heav'd his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven,
Left him at large to his own dark designs:
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others; and enrag'd might see,
How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy shown
On man by him seduc'd; but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance pour'd. 220
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames
Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and roll'd
In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight: till on dry land
He lights, if it were land that ever burn'd
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire:
And such appear'd in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thund'ring Etna, whose combustible
And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublim'd with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involv'd
With stench and smoke; such resting found the sole
Of unbless'd feet! Him follow'd his next mate,
Both glorying to have 'scap'd the Stygian flood,
As gods, and by their own recover'd strength; 240
Not by the suff'rance of supernal power.
"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," Said then the lost archangel, "this the seat, That we must change for heaven? this mournful gloom For that celestial light? be it so! since he Who now is sovereign can dispose, and bid What shall be right farthest from him is best, Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! hail, horrors! hail, 250
Infernal world! and thou profoundest hell
Receive thy new possessor! One, who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy; will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell;
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