8

By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast 200
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, 205
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,

Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests 10 the sea, and wishèd morn delays.
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-
Fiend lay,

1 if I mistake not 2 its 3 blue-black go 5 injure 6cf. ll. 509 ff. 7 gigantic monsters of Greek mythology in Job xli: 1 the crocodile, but here the whale overtaken by night covers

10

Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; on each hand the flames Driven backward slope their pointing spires, ⚫and, rolled

In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
226
That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights—if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus,' or the shattered side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singèd bottom all involved
With stench and smoke: such resting found
the sole

231

236

Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate, Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood

239 As gods, and by their own recovered strength, Not by the sufferance 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 sovran can dispose and bid 246 What shall be right: farthest from him is best, Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made

A mind not to be changed 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, 256
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater?. Here at
least

We shall be free; the 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:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and co-partners of our loss, 265
Lie thus astonished on the oblivious3 pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in
Hell?"

270

So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub Thus answered: - "Leader of those armies bright

Which but the Omnipotent none could have foiled,

If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge

277

Of hope in fears and dangers-heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal - they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed: 281
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth!"

He scarce had ceased when the superior
Fiend

Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,

Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, 285 Behind him cast. The broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

yours, now lost,

once

316

322

If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon 325
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and descending tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!"

330

That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell, 345
'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear
Of their great Sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain :
A multitude like which the populous North
Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene1 or the Danaw,2 when her barbarous
sons 3

Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. 355
Forthwith, from every squadron and each
band,

The heads and leaders thither haste where stood

Their great Commander; godlike shapes, and forms

Excelling human, princely Dignities,

359

And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on

thrones;

Though of their names in Heavenly records

now

By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and the invisible
Glory of him that made them, to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned
With gay religions full of pomp and gold,
And devils to adore for deities:

371

Then were they known to men by various

names,

And various idols through the heathen world. Say, Muse, their names then known, who

first, who last, 376 Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch, At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth, Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof. The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell

381

1 Rhine 2 Danube 3 Vandals and other barbarians, who overran the Roman Empire south of " formerly religious rites

6

Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix
Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,
Their altars by his altar, gods adored
Among the nations round, and durst abide
Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned 386
Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed
Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,
And with their darkness durst affront his
light.
391

First Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood

Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears, Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,

Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire

395

To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God
On that opprobrious 1 hill, and made his grove
The pleasant valley of Hinnon, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.
Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's

sons,

From Aroar to Nebo and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond

401

406

411

The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Eleale to the Asphaltic pool.2
Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged 415
Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate,
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.
With these came they who, from the bordering
flood

Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts 420
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baälim and Ashtaroth those male,
These feminine. For Spirits, when they
please,

Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure, 425
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,

1 offensive 2 the Dead Sea

Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,

430

Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,
Can execute their aery purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfil.
For those the race of Israel oft forsook
Their living Strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down 434
To bestial gods; for which their heads as low
Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
Astarte, Queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood
Her temple on the offensive mountain, built
By that uxorious king1 whose heart, though
large,

Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

442

449

445 To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind, Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat, Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led, His eye surveyed the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah. Next came one Who mourned in earnest, when the captive

ark

455

Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off

465

In his own temple,3 on the grunsel-edge, 460
Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers:
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
And downward fish; yet had his temple high
Reared in Azotus,5 dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,
And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.
Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
He also against the house of God was bold: 470
A leper once he lost, and gained a king,
Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew
God's altar to disparage and displace
For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn
His odious offerings, and adore the gods 475

1 Solomon 2 Ezek. viii: 14 3 Cf. Ode on the Nativity, 1. 199 4 threshold 5 Ashdod 6 Naaman

Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared

A crew who, under names of old renown,
Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train,

480

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused
Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek
Their wandering gods disguised in brutish
forms

Rather than human. Nor did Israel 'scape The infection, when their borrowed gold composed

485

The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king
Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,
Likening his Maker to the grazed ox
Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed
From Egypt marching, equalled with one
stroke

Both her first-born and all her bleating gods. Belial came last, than whom a Spirit more lewd

Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love
Vice for itself. To him no temple stcod 492
Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he
In temples and at altars, when the priest
Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who filled
With lust and violence the house of God? 496
In courts and palaces he also reigns,
And in luxurious cities, where the noise
Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
And injury and outrage; and when night 500
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the

Their highest Heaven; or on the Delphian cliff,

Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds
Of Doric land; or who with Saturn old
Fled over Adria to the Hesperian fields,1 520
And o'er the Celtic roamed the utmost isles.
All these and more came flocking; but with
looks

Downcast and damp, yet such wherein appeared

Obscure some glimpse of joy, to have found their Chief

Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost 525 In loss itself; which on his countenance cast Like doubtful hue. But he, his wonted pride Soon recollecting,2 with high words that bore Semblance of worth, not substance, gently 3 raised

Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears: 530 Then straight commands that at the warlike sound

Of trumpets loud and clarions, be upreared His mighty standard. That proud honour claimed

Azazel as his right, a Cherub tall: Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled

535

545

A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.
All in a moment through the gloom were seen
Ten thousand banners rise into the air,
With orient colours waving; with them rose
A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms
Appeared, and serried shields in thick array
Of depth immeasurable. Anon they move
In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood 550
Of flutes and soft recorders - such as raised
To highth of noblest temper heroes old
Arming to battle, and instead of rage
Deliberate valour breathed, firm and unmoved
With dread of death to flight or foul retreat;
Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage,
With solemn touches, troubled thoughts, and
chase
557

6

2 resuming gallantly ornamented

5 music of the solemn Dorian mode 6 assuage