To' adore the conqueror? who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift purfuers from Heav'n gates difcern
Th' advantage, and descending tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.
Awake, arife, or be for ever fall'n.

They heard, and were abash'd, and up they sprung
Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch
On duty, fleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight
In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel ;
Yet to their general's voice they foon obey'd
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's fon, in Egypt's evil day,
Wav'd round the coaft, up call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locufts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell
Twixt upper, nether, and furrounding fires;
Till, as a signal giv'n, th' up-lifted 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
Pour'd never from her frozen loins, to pass

Rhene

Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous fons
Came like a deluge on the south, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
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,
And Pow'rs that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;
Though of their names in heav'nly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and ras'd
By their rebellion from the books of life.
Nor had they yet among the fons of Eve
Got them new names, till wand'ring o'er the earth,
Through God's high sufferance for the tri'al of man
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and th' invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorn'd
With gay religions full of pomp and gold,
And Devils to adore for Deities:

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,
Rous'd from the slumber, on that fiery couch,
At their great emp'ror's call, as next in worth
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous croud stood yet aloof.
The chief were those who from the pit of Hell
Roaming to feek their prey on earth, durst fix
VOL. I.

Their

'Their feats long after next the feat of God,
Their altars by his altar, Gods ador'd
Among the nations round, and durst abide
Jehovah thund'ring out of Sion, thron'd
Between the Cherubim; yea, often plac'd
Within his fanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and folemn feasts profan'd,
And with their darkness durst affront his light.
First Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human facrifice, and parents tears,
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud
Their childrens cries unheard, that pafs'd through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipt in Rabba and her watry plain,
In Argob and in Bafan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with fuch
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple' of God
On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove
The pleasant valley' of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna call'd, the type of Hell.
Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moab's fons,
From Aroar to Nebo, and the wild
Of fouthmost Abarim; in Hefebon
And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond
The flow'ry dale of Sibma clad with vines,

And Eleälé to the Asphaltic pool.
Peor his other name, when he entic'd

i

Ifrael in Sittim on their march from Nile

To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.

Yet thence his lustful orgies he inlarg'd
Ev'n to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate;
Till good Jofiah drove them thence to Hell.
With these came they, who from the bord'ring flood

Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts
Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names
Of Baälim and Ashtaroth, those male,
These feminine. For Spirits when they please
Can either fex affume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their effence pure,
Not ty'd or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose
Dilated or condens'd, bright or obfcure,
Can execute their aery purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfil.
For those the race of Ifrael oft forsook
Their living strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down
To bestial Gods; for which their heads as low
Bow'd down in battel, funk before the spear
Of defpicable foes. With these in troop
Came Aftoreth, whom the Phœnicians call'd
Astarte, queen of Heav'n, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and fongs,
In Sion also not unfung, where stood

:

Her temple on th' offenfive mountain, built
By that uxorious king, whose heart though large,

Beguil'd by fair idolatresses, fell

To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate

In amorous ditties all a summer's day,
While fmooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, suppos'd with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sion's daughters with like heat,
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel faw, when by the vision led
His eye survey'd the dark idolatries
Of alienated Judah. Next came one
Who mourn'd in earnest, when the captive ark
Maim'd his brute image, head and hands lopt off
In his own temple, on the grunfel edge,
Where he fell flat, and sham'd his worshipers :
Dagon his name, sea monster, upward man
And downward fish: yet had his temple high
Rear'd in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Afcalon,
And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.
Him follow'd Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damafcus, on the fertil banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
He also' against the house of God was bold :
A leper once he loft, and gain'd a king,
Ahaz his sottish conqu'ror, whom he drew

A

God's