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There rest, if any rest can harbor there;
And, reassembling 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 blazed; his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, 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 the ocean stream:
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixéd anchor in his scaly rind
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wishéd 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 heaved 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, enraged, might see
How all his malice served but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shown
On man, by him seduced; but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance pour'd.
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames,

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Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, roll'd In billows, leave i' the 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

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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 thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuell'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singéd bottom all involved

With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole 237
Of unblest feet. Him follow'd his next mate;
Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood
As gods, and by their own recover'd 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 mournfu. gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so! since he
Who now is Sov'reign can dispose and bid

What shall be right: farthest from him is best.

Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme 248
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! And thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
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,
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 copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd on the oblivious 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
Regain'd in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"
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So Satan spake; and him Beëlzebub

Thus answer'd. "Leader of those armies bright,
Which but the Omnipotent none could have foil'd!
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
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:
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height."

He scarce had ceased, when the superior Fiend

Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Fesolé,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire:
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflaméd sea he stood, and call'd
His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High overarch'd imbower; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd

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Hath vex'd the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued

The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld

From the safe shore their floating carcases

And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrown,

Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.

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He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded. "Princes, Potentates,

Warriors, the flower of Heaven, once yours, now lost,
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 scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping; or with linkéd thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.
Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!"

They heard, and were abash'd, and up they sprung
Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch
On duty, sleeping 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 soon obey'd
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,
Waved round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, 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 surrounding fires;
Till, at 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
Pour'd never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
Forthwith from every squadron and each band

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The heads and leaders thither haste where stood
Their great commander; godlike shapes, and forms
Excelling human; princely Dignities;

And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased

By their rebellion from the books of life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

Got them new names; till, wandering o'er the earth,
Through God's high sufferance, for the trial of man, 360
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, 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.

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Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last, 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 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 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. First, Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;

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Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud, Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

Worshipp'd in Rabba and her watery plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon: nor content with such

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