.

Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid And such appeared in hue, as when the force
The fiery surge, that from the precipice

Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder, Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage, Of thundering Ætna, whose combustible
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now And fuelled entrails thence conceiving fire,
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep. Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn, And leave a singed bottom all involved
Or satiate fury, yield it from our foe.

With stench and smoke: such resting found the
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, sole
The seat of desolation, void of light,

Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate, Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tent As gods, and by their own recovered strength, From off the tossing of these fiery waves;

Not by the sufferance of supernal power. There rest, if any rest can harbour there : “Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,” And, reassembling our afflicted powers, Said then the lost archangel, “this the seat Consult how we may henceforth most offend That we must change for Heaven; this mournful Our enemy; our own loss how repair;

gloom How overcome this dire calamity;

For that celestial light ? Be it so! since he What reinforcement we may gain from hope; Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid If not, what resolution from despair."

What shall be right: farthest from him is best, Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made suWith head uplift above the wave, and eyes

preme That sparkling blazed, his other parts beside Above his equals! Farewell, happy fields, Prone on the flood, extending long and large, Where joy for ever dwells. Hail, horrors! hail, Lay floating many a rood; in bulk as huge Infernal world! and thou, profoundest hell

, As whom the fables name of monstrous size, Receive thy new possessor! one who brings Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, A mind not to be changed by place or time: Bnareos or Typhon, whom the den

The mind is its own place, and in itself By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea beast Can make a Heaven of hell, a hell of Heaven. Leviathan, which God of all his works

What matter where if I be still the same, Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream: And what I should be, all but less than he Him, haply, slumb'ring on the Norway foam, Whom thunder hath made greater ? Here at least The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff We shall be free: the Almighty hath not built Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, Here for his envy; will not drive us hence: With fixed anchor in his scaly rind

Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice Moors by the side under the lee, while night To reign is worth ambition, though in hell: Invests the sea, and wished morn delays: Better to reign in hell, than serve in Heaven! So stretched out huge in length the arch fiend lay, But wherefore let we then our faithful friends, Chained on the burning lake: nor ever thence Th' associates and copartners of our loss, Had risen or heaved his head, but that the will Lie thus astonished on th' oblivious pool And high permission of all-ruling Heaven

And call them not to share with us their part Left him at large to his own dark designs; In this unhappy mansion; or once more That with reiterated crime she might

With rallied arms to try what may be yet Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in hell ?" Evil to others; and, enraged, might see

So Satan spake, and him Beelezebub How all his malice served but to bring forth Thus answered. “Leader of those armies bright, Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shown Which but th' Omnipotent none could have foiled! On man by him seduced, but on himself If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured. Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge His mighty stature; on each hand the flames, Of battle when it raged, in all assaults Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and Their surest signal, they will soon resume rolled

New courage and revive, though now they lie In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale. Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire, Then with expanded wings he steers his flight As we erewhile, astounded and amazed; Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air

No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height.” That felt unusual weight; till on dry land He scarce had ceased, when the superior fiend He lights, if it were land that ever burned Was moving toward the shore: his pond'rous With solid, as the lake with liquid fire;

shield,

Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Ilung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile:
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views So numberless were those bad angels seen,
At evening from the top of Fesolé,

Hovering on wing under the cope of hell,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,

'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires; Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe.

Till, as a signal given, th’ uplifted spear His spear, to equal which the tallest pine Of their great sultan waving to direct Hewn in Norwegian hills to be the mast Their

course, in even balance down they light
Of some great admiral, were but a wand, On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain;
He walked with, to support uneasy steps A multitude, like which the populous north
Over the burning marle, not like those steps Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass
On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime Rhene or the Danaw, when her barb'rous sons
Smote on him sore beside, vaulted with fire : Came like a deluge on the south, and spread
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach, Beneath Gibraltar to the Lybian sands.
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called Forthwith from every squadron and each band
His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced The heads and leaders thither haste where siood

Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks Their great commander; godlike shapes, and forms
In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades, Excelling human; princely dignities,
High over-arch’d, embower; or scattered sedge And powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed Though of their names in heavenly records now
Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves Be no memorial, blotted out and razed
o'erthrew

By their rebellion from the books of life.
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve While with perfidious hatred they pursued Got them new names, till, wand'ring o'er the earth, The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld

Through God's high suff”rance for the trial of man, From the safe shore their floating carcasses By falsities and lies the greatest part And broken chariot wheels: so thick bestrown, Of mankind they corrupted to forsake Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood, God their Creator, and th' invisible Under amazement of their hideous change. Glory of him that made them to transform He called so loud, that all the hollow deep Oft to the image of a brute, adorned Of hell resounded. “Princes, potentates, With gay religions full of pomp and gold, Warriors, the flower of Heaven! once yours, now And devils to adore for deities: lost!

Then were they known to men by various names, If such astonishment as this can seize

And various idols through the heathen world. Eternal spirits; or have ye chosen this place Say, Muse, their names then known; who first, After the toil of battle to repose

who last, Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find Roused from the slumber, on that fiery couch, To slumber here, as in the vales of heaven? At their great emperor's call, as next in worth Or in this abject posture have ye sworn Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, T'adoi the conqueror? who now beholds

While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof. Cherub and seraph rolling in the flood,

The chief were those, who, from the pit of hell With scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix His swift pursuers from heaven gates discern Their seats long after next the seat of God, Th’advantage, and descending, tread us down Their altars by his altars; gods adored Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts Among the nations round; and durst abide Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.

Jehovah thund'ring out of Sion, throned Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"

Between the Cherubim, yea, often placed They heard, and were abashed, and up they Within his sanctuary itself their shrines, sprung

Abominations; and with cursed things Upon the wing; as when men wont to watch His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned, On duty, sleeping found, by whom they dread, And with their darkness durst affront his light. Rouse, and bestir themselves ere well awake. First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood Nor did they not perceive the evil plight

Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears, In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Though for the noise of drums andtimbrels loud Yet to their general's voice they soon obeyed, Their children's cries unheard, that passed through Innumerable. As when the potent rod

fire Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,

To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain,

in Argob and in Basan, to the stream Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,
Of utmost Arnon; nor content with such His eye surveyed the dark idolatries
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart Of alienated Judah. Next came one
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark
His temple right against the temple of God Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off
On that opprobrious hill; and made his grove In his own temple, on the grunsel edge,
The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers.
And black Gehenna called, the type of hell. Dagon his name, sea monster, upward man
Next, Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons, And downward fish: yet had his temple high
From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild

Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast Of southmost Abarim: in Hesebon

Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon, And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond

And Accaron, and Gaza's frontier bounds. The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines, Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat And Előalé to th’ Asphaltic pool.

Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Peor his other name, when he enticed

Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile, He also against the house of God was bold: To do him wanton rites, which cost them wo. A leper once he lost, and gained a king, Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged

Ahaz, his sottish conqu’ror, whom he drew E'en to that bill of scandal, by the grove

God's altar to disparage, and displace Of Moloch homicide; lust hard by hate; For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn Till good Josiah drove them thence to hell. His odious offerings, and adore the gods With these came they, who, from the bord’ring Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared flood

A crew, who, under names of old renown, Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train, Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused Of Baälim and Ashtaroth, those male,

Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek These feminine: for spirits, when they please, Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms Can either sex assume, or both; so soft

Rather than human. Nor did Israel 'scape And uncompounded is their essence pure, Th’infection, when their borrowed gold composed Not tied or manacied with joint or limb, The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones, Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they Likening his Maker to the grazed ox, choose,

Jehovah, who in one night, when he passed Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure, From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke Can execute their airy purposes,

Both her first-born and all her bleating gods. And works of love or enmity fulfil.

Belial came last, than whom a Spirit more lewd For those the race of Israel oft forsook

Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love
Their living strength, and unfrequented left Vice for itself; to him no temple stood,
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down Or altar smoked: yet who more oft than he
To bestial gods; for which their heads as low In temples and at altars, when the priest
Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who filled
Of despicable foes. With these in troop With lust and violence the house of God?
Came Astoreth, whom the Phænicians called In courts and palaces he also reigns,
Astarte, queen of Heav'n, with crescent horns : And in luxurious cities, where the noise
To whose bright image nightly by the moon Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs; And injury, and outrage : and when night
In Sion also not unsung, where stood

Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
Her temple on the offensive mountain, built Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large, Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

In Gibeah, when the hospitable door To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind, Exposed a matron to avoid worse rape. Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

These were the prime in order and in might; The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

The rest were long to tell, though far renowned, In amorous ditties all a summer's day,

Th’ Ionian Gods, of Javan's issue; held While stooth Adonis from his native rock Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth, Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Their boasted parents: Titan, Heaven's first-born, Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale With his enormous brood, and birthright seized Infected Sion's daughters with like heat, By younger Saturn; he from mightier Jove, Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch His own and Rhea's son, like measure found;

D

So Jove usurping reigned: these first in Crete Their visages and stature as of gods;
And Ida known, thence on the snowy top

Their number last he sums. And now his heart Of cold Olympus, ruled the middle air,

Distends with pride, and, hard'ning, in his Their highest Heaven; or on the Delphian cliff, strength Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds Glories: for never since created man, Of Doric land; or who with Saturn old

Met such embodied force, as, named with these, Fled over Adra to th' Hesperian field

Could merit more than that small infantry And o'er the Celtic roamed the utmost isles. Warred on by cranes; though all the giant brood All these and more came flocking; but with Of Phlegra with th' heroic race were joined looks

That fought at Thebes and llium, on each side Downcast and damp; yet such wherein appeared Mix'd with auxiliar gods; and what resounds Obscure some glimpse of joy, to have found their In fable or romance of Uther's son. chief

Begirt with British and Armoric knights; Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost And all who since, baptized or infidel, In loss itself; which on his count'nance cast Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban, Like doubtful hue : but he, his wonted pride Damasco, or Morocco, or Trebisond, Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore, Semblance of worth, not substance, gently raised When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears. By Fontarabia. Thus far these beyond Then straight commands that at the warlike sound Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed Of trumpets loud and clarions be upreared Their dread commander: he, above the rest His mighty standard : that proud honour claimed In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Azazel as his right, a cherub tall;

Stood like a tower: his form had not yet lost Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled All her original brightness, nor appeared Th' imperial ensign, which, full high advanced, Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind, Of glory obscured: as when the sun, new risen, With gems and golden lustre rich emblazed, Looks through the horizontal misty air Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon, Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds: In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds At which the universal host upsent

On half the nations, and with fear of change A shout, that tore hell's concave, and beyond Perplexes monarch. Darkened so, yet shone Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night. Above them all th' archangel: but his face All in a moment through the gloom were seen Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care Ten thousand banners rise into the air,

Sat on his faded cheeks, but under brows With orient colours waving: with them rose Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms Waiting revenge: cruel his eye, but cast Appeared, and serried shields in thick array, Signs of remorse and passion to behold Of depth immeasurable: anon they move The fellows of his crime, the followers rather, In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood

(Far other once beheld in bliss,) condemned Of flutes and soft recorders; such as raised For ever now to have their lot in pain, To height of noblest temper heroes old

Millions of spirits for his fault amerced Arming to battle; and, instead of rage,

Of Heaven, and from eternal splendours flung Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved For his revolt, yet faithful how they stood, With dread of death to flight or foul retreat; Their glory withered: as when Heaven's fire Nor wanting power to mitigate and 'swage Hath scathed the forest oaks, or mountain pines, With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chase with singed top their stately growth, though bare, Anguish, and doubt, and fear, and sorrow, and Stands on the blasted heath. He now prepared pain,

To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they, From wing to wing, and half enclose him round Breathing united force, with fixed thought, With all his peers: attention held them mute. Moved on in silence to soft pipes, that charmed Thrice he assayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn, Their painful steps o'er the burnt soil: and now Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth! at last Advanced in view they stand, a horriù front Words, interwove with sighs, found out their way Of dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guise “O myriads of immortal spirits! O powers Of warriors old with ordered spear and shield, Matchless, but with th' Almighty! and that strifo Awaiting what command their mighty chief Was not inglorious, though th' event was dire, Had to impose: he through the armed files As this place testifies, and this dire change, Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse Hateful to utter! but what power of mind, The whole battalion views, their order due, Foreseeing or presaging, from the depth

Of knowledge past or present, could have feared In vision beatific; by him first
How such united force of gods, how such Men also, and by his suggestion taught,
As stood like these, could ever know repulse? Ransacked the centre, and with impious hands
For who can yet believe, though after loss, Rifled the bowels of their mother earth
That all these puissant legions, whose exile For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew
Hath emptied heaven, shall fail to reascend, Opened into the hill a spacious wound,
Self-raised, and repossess their native seat? And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire
For me, be witness all the host of heaven, That riches grow in hell; that soil may best
If counsels different, or dangers shunned Deserve the precious bane. And here let those,
By me, have lost our hopes. But he, who reigns Who boast in mortal things, and, wond’ring, tell
Monarch in heaven, till then as one secure Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings,
Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,

Learn how their greatest monuments of fame, Consent or custom, and his regal state

And strength, and art, are easily outdone Put forth at full, but still his strength concealed, By spirits reprobate, and in an hour Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our What in an age they, with incessant toil fall.

And hands innumerable, scarce perform. Henceforth his might we know, and know our Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared, own,

That underneath had veins of liquid fire So as not either to provoke, or dread

Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude New war, provoked ! our better part remains With wondrous art founded the massy ore, To work in close design, by fraud or guile, Severing each kind, and scuinmed the bullion What force effected not! that he no less

dross: At length from us may find, zho overcomes A third as soon had formed within the ground By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

A various mould, and from the boiling cells Space may produce new worlds; whereof so rife By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook: There went a fame in heaven that he ere long As in an organ, from one blast of wind, Intended to create, and therein plant

To many a row of pipes the soundboard breathes. A generation, whom his choice regard

Anon out of the earth a fabric huge Should favour equal to the sons of Heaven; Rose like an exhalation, with the sound Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps

Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet, Our first eruption, thither or elsewhere:

Built like a temple, where pilasters round For this infernal pit shall never hold

Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid Celestial spirits in bondage, nor th’abyss With golden architrave; nor did they want Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven; Full counsel must mature: peace is despaired;

The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon, For who can think submission ? War then, war Nor great Alcairo, such magnificence Open or understood, must be resolved.”

Equalled in all their glories, to enshrine He spake: and, to confirm his words, out flew Belus or Serapis, their gods, or seat Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove Of mighty cherubim; the sudden blaze In wealth and luxury. Th’ascending pile Far round illumined hell: highly they raged Stood fixed her stately height; and straight the Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms doors, Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war, Opening their brazen folds, discover wide Hurling defiance toward the vaults of heaven. Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth

There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top And level pavement; from the arched roof, Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire

Pendent by subtle magic, many a row Shone with a glossy scurf, undoubted sign Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed That in his womb was hid metallic ore, With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light The work of sulphur. Thither, winged with speed, As from a sky. The hasty multitude A num'rous brigade hastened: as when bands Admiring entered; and the work some praise, Of pioneers, with spade and pick-axe armed And some the architect: his hand was known Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field, In Heaven by many a towered structure high, Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them; Where sceptered angels held their residence, Mammon, the least erected spirit that sell And sat as princes, whom the supreme King From heaven; for e'en in heaven his looks and Exalted to such power, and gave to rule, thoughts

Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright. Were always downward bent, admiring more Nor was his name unheard or unadored The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land Than ought divine or holy else enjoyed Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell