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النشر الإلكتروني

PARADISE LOST.

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IX.

O more of talk where God or Angel guest With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd To fit indulgent, and with him partake

Rural repast, permitting him the while

Venial difcourfe unblam'd: I now must change
Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach
Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,

And difobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,

Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her fhadow Death, and Mifery
Death's harbinger: Sad talk, yet argument
Not lefs but more heroic than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe purfu'd
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia difefpous'd,
Or Neptune's ire or Juno's, that fo long
Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's fon;
If anfwerable ftile I can obtain
Of my celeftial patronefs, who deigns
Her nightly vifitation unimplor'd
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And

And dictates to me flumb'ring, or inspires

Easy my unpremeditated verse :

Since first this fubject for heroic fong

Not fedulous by nature to indite

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Pleas'd me long choofing, and beginning late;

Wars, hitherto the only argument

Heroic deem'd, chief mast'ry to diffect

With long and tedious havoc fabled knights
In battels feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroic martyrdom
Unfung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd fhields,
Impreffes quaint, caparifons and steeds;
Bafes and tinfel trappings, gorgeous knights
At jouft and torneament; then marshal'd feaft
Serv'd up in hall with fewers, and fenefhals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,

Not that which justly gives heroic name
To perfon or to poem. Me of these
Nor skill'd nor ftudious, higher argument
Remains, fufficient of itself to raise

That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years damp my intended wing

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Deprefs'd, and much they may, if all be mine,

Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.

The fun was funk, and after him the star

Of Hefperus, whose office is to bring

Twilight upon the earth, fhort arbiter

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'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end Night's hemifphere had veil'd th' horizon round:

When

When Satan who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd

In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On Man's deftruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd.
By night he fled, and at midnight return'd
From compaffing the earth, cautious of day,
Since Uriel regent of the fun defcry'd

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His entrance, and forewarn'd the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of fev'n continued nights he rode
With darkness, thrice the equinoctial line
He circled, four times crofs'd the car of night
From pole to pole, travérsing each colúre;
On th' eighth return'd, and on the coast averse
From entrance or Cherubic watch, by stealth
Found unfufpected way. There was a place,
Now not, though fin, not time, firft wrought the change,
Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise

Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life;

In with the river funk, and with it rose
Satan involv'd in rifing mist, then fought
Where to lie hid; fea he had fearch'd and land
From Eden over Pontus, and the pool
Mæotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctic; and in length
Weft from Orontes to the ocean barr'd
At Darien, thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd
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With

With narrow fearch, and with inspection deep

Confider'd

every creature, which of all

Moft opportune might serve his wiles, and found 85 The Serpent fubtlest beast of all the field.

Him after long debate, irresolute

Of thoughts revolv'd, his final fentence chofe
Fit veffel, fitteft imp of fraud, in whom

To enter, and his dark fuggestions hide
From sharpeft fight: for in the wily snake,
Whatever fleights none would fufpicious mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety
Proceeding, which in other beafts obferv'd
Doubt might beget of diabolic power
Active within beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he refolv'd, but first from inward grief
His bursting paffion into plaints thus pour'd.

O Earth, how like to Heav'n, if not preferr'd
More justly, feat worthier of Gods, as built
With fecond thoughts, reforming what was old!
For what God after better worfe would build?
Terreftrial Heav'n, danc'd round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as feems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of facred influence! As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all, fo thou

Centring receiv'ft from all those orbs; in thee,

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Not in themselves, all their known virtue' appears 110 Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth

Of creatures animate with gradual life

Of

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Of growth, sense, reason, all fumm'd up in Man.
With what delight could I have walk'd thee round,
If I could joy in ought, fweet interchange
Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,
Now land, now fea, and fhores with forest crown'd,
Rocks, dens, and caves! but I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I fee
Pleasures about me, fo much more I feel
Torment within me', as from the hateful fiege
Of contraries; all good to me becomes

Bane, and in Heav'n much worse would be my
But neither here feek I, no nor in Heaven

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ftate.

To dwell, unless by maft'ring Heav'n's Supreme; 125
Nor hope to be myself less miferable

By what I feek, but others to make fuch
As I, though thereby worfe to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease

To my relentless thoughts; and him deftroy'd,
Or won to what may work his utter lofs,
For whom all this was made, all this will foon
Follow, as to him link'd in weal or woe;
In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory fole among

Th' infernal Pow'rs, in one day to have marr'd
What he Almighty ftil'd, fix nights and days
Continued making, and who knows how long
Before had been contriving, though perhaps
Not longer than fince I in one night freed
From fervitude inglorious well nigh half
Th' angelic name, and thinner left the throng

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