10 Paradife Regain'd. I BOOK. I. Who e're while the happy Garden fung, By one man's firm Obedience fully try'd Thou Spirit who ledit this glorious Eremite Into the Defart, his Victorious Field Against the Spiritual Foe, and brought'ft him thence By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, As thou art wont, my prompted Song else mute, And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds With profperous wing full fumm'd to tell of deeds Above Heroic, though in fecret done, And unrecorded left through many an Age, Now had the great Proclaimer with a voice With awe the Regions round, and with them came To the flood Jordan, came as then obscure, 40 O ancient Powers of Air and this wide world, years of Loft Paradise deceiv'd by me, though fince And now too foon for us the circling hours : This dreaded time have compaft, wherein we Muft bide the stroak of that long threatn'd wound, 60 At least if so we can, and by the head Broken be not intended all our power To be infring'd, our freedom and our being. In this fair Empire won of Earth and Air, sul For this ill news I bring, the Woman's feed Deftin'd to this, is late of Woman born, SASUT His Birth to our juft fear gave no fmall caufe, But his growth now to youth's full flow'r, displaying All vertue, grace, and wisdom to atchieve Things higheft, greateft, multiplies my fear. 70 Before him a great Prophet, to proclaim His coming, is fent Harbinger, who all Invites, and in the Confecrated stream Pretends to wash off fin, and fit them so Purified to receive him pure, or rather To do him honour as their King; all come, And he himself among them was Baptiz'd, Not thence to be more pure, but to receive The Testimony of Heaven, that who he is Thenceforth the Nations may not doubt; I faw 80 The Prophet do him reverence, on him rising Out of the Water, Heav'n above the Clouds. Unfold her Crystal Doors, thence on his head c A perfect Dove descend, what e're it meant, And out of Heav'n the Soveraign voice I hear This is my Son belov'd, in him am pleas'd; 362 His Mother then is mortal, but his Sire, He who obtains the Monarchy of Heav'n, L And what will he not do to advance his Son T His first-begot we know, and fore have felt,qa 90 When his fierce thunder drove us to the deep B Who |