Paradise Lost

So scented the grim Feature, and upturn'd

His nostril wide into the murky air,

Sagacious of his quarry from so far.

Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye,

In every gesture dignity and love.

To know

That which before us lies in daily life

Is the prime wisdom.

For now I see

Peace to corrupt no less than war to waste.

Go in thy native innocence, rely

On what thou hast of virtue; summon all!

For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine.

The angel ended, and in Adam's ear

So charming left his voice that he awhile

Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear.

A pillar'd shade

High overarch'd, and echoing walks between.

So may'st thou live, till like ripe fruit thou drop

Into thy mother's lap.

In me is no delay; with thee to go,

Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,

Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me

Art all things under heaven, all places thou,

Who for my willful crime art banished hence.

Thus it shall befall

Him who, to worth in women overtrusting,

Lets her will rule; restraint she will not brook,

And, left to herself, if evil thence ensue,

She first his weak indulgence will accuse.

There swift return

Diurnal, merely to officiate light

Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot.

I feel

The link of nature draw me: flesh of flesh,

Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,

That would be wooed, and not unsought be won.

Death...on his pale horse.

How gladly would I meet

Mortality my sentence, and be earth

Insensible! how glad would lay me down

As in my mother's lap!

The sum of earthly bliss.

Smiles from reason flow,

To brute deny'd, and are of love the food.

Liquid lapse of murmuring streams.

Then purg'd with euphrasy and rue

The visual nerve, for he had much to see.

The work under our labour grows,

Luxurious by restraint.

A bevy of fair women.

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou liv'st

Live well; how long or short permit to Heaven.

Accuse not Nature: she hath done her part;

Do thou but thine.

My unpremeditated verse.

God so commanded, and left that command

Sole daughter of his voice; the rest, we live

Law to ourselves, our reason is our law.

Those graceful acts,

Those thousand decencies that daily flow

From all her words and actions.

With a smile that glow'd

Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue.

Henceforth I learn that to obey is best,

And love with fear the only God; to walk

As in his presence; ever to observe

His providence; and on him sole depend,

Merciful over all his works; with good

Still overcoming evil.

The evening star,

Love's harbinger.

Pandemonium, city and proud seat

Of Lucifer.

Moping melancholy

And moon-struck madness.

O fairest of creation! last and best

Of all God's works! creature in whom excelled

Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,

Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!

How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,

Defaced, deflowered, and now to Death devote?

The serpent subtlest beast of all the field.

She what was honour knew,

And with obsequious majesty approv'd

My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower

I led her blushing like the morn; all heaven

And happy constellations on that hour

Shed their selectest influence; the earth

Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill;

Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs

Whisper'd it to the woods, and from their wings

Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub.

Her rash hand in evil hour

Forth reaching to the fruit, she plucked, she eat:

Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,

Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe

That all was lost.

A dismal universal hiss, the sound

Of public scorn.

Hope elevates, and joy

Brightens his crest.

And over them triumphant Death his dart

Shook, but delay'd to strike, though oft invok'd.

Unless an age too late, or cold

Climate, or years, damp my intended wing.

In her face excuse

Came prologue, and apology too prompt.

I shall temper so

Justice with mercy.

Our state cannot be severed; we are one,

One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.

Among unequals what society

Can sort, what harmony, or true delight?

Ofttimes nothing profits more

Than self-esteem, grounded on just and right

Well managed.

Pleas'd me, long choosing and beginning late.

Some natural tears they dropp'd, but wip'd them soon;

The world was all before them, where to choose

Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:

They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow

Through Eden took their solitary way.

Her silent course advance

With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps

On her soft axle.

With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er,

Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb.

Revenge, at first though sweet,

Bitter ere long back on itself recoils.

The brazen throat of war.

And feel that I am happier than I know.

So gloz'd the tempter.

And touch'd by her fair tendance, gladlier grew.

At shut of evening flowers.

And grace that won who saw to wish her stay.

Be lowly wise:

Think only what concerns thee and thy being.

So dear I love him, that with him all deaths

I could endure, without him live no life.

So absolute she seems

And in herself complete, so well to know

Her own, that what she wills to do or say,

Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.

For solitude sometimes is best society,

And short retirement urges sweet return.

As one who long in populous city pent,

Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air.

Under his forming hands a creature grew,

Man-like, but different sex; so lovely fair,

That what seemed fair in all the world, seemed now

Mean, or in her summed up, in her contained

And in her looks; which from that time infused

Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before,

And into all things from her air inspired

The spirit of love and amorous delight.

Must I thus leave thee, Paradise?—thus leave

Thee, native soil, these happy walks and shades?

Not sedulous by Nature to indite

Warrs, hitherto the onely Argument

Heroic deem'd, chief maistrie to dissect

With long and tedious havoc fabl'd Knights

In Battels feign'd; the better fortitude

Of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom

Unsung

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To mould me Man? Did I solicit thee

From darkness to promote me?

Out of one man a race

Of men innumerable.

Heaven open'd wide

Her ever during gates, harmonious sound,

On golden hinges moving.

Spirits that live throughout,

Vital in every part, not as frail man,

In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,

Cannot but by annihilating die.

Now half appear'd

The tawny lion, pawing to get free

His hinder parts.

Satan; so call him now, his former name

Is heard no more in heaven.

Will ye submit your necks, and chuse to bend

The supple knee? ye will not, if I trust

To know ye right, or if ye know your selves

Natives and Sons of Heav'n possest before

By none, and if not equal all, yet free,

Equally free; for Orders and Degrees

Jarr not with liberty, but well consist.

Who can in reason then or right assume

Monarchie over such as live by right...

Nor jealousy

Was understood, the injured lover's hell.

On heav'nly ground they stood, and from the shore

They view'd the vast immeasurable Abyss

Outrageous as a Sea, dark, wasteful, wilde,

Up from the bottom turn'd by furious windes

And surging waves, as Mountains to assault

Heav'ns highth, and with the Center mix the Pole.

"Silence, ye troubl'd waves, and thou Deep, peace!"

Said then th' Omnific Word, "Your discord end!"

Nor staid, but on the Wings of Cherubim

Uplifted, in Paternal Glorie rode

Farr into Chaos, and the World unborn;

For Chaos heard his voice: him all his Traine

Follow'd in bright procession to behold

Creation, and the wonders of his might.

Then staid the fervid Wheeles, and in his hand

He took the golden Compasses, prepar'd

In Gods Eternal store, to circumscribe

This Universe, and all created things:

One foot he center'd, and the other turn'd

Round through the vast profunditie obscure,

And said, "Thus farr extend, thus farr thy bounds,

This be thy just Circumference, O World!"

Servant of God, well done, well hast thou fought

The better fight, who single hast maintained

Against revolted multitudes the cause

Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms.

In naked beauty more adorn'd,

More lovely than Pandora.

Hither, as to their fountain, other stars

Repairing, in their golden urns draw light.

In heavenly spirits could such perverseness dwell?

Midnight brought on the dusky hour

Friendliest to sleep and silence.

The starry cope

Of heaven.

Eased the putting off

These troublesome disguises which we wear.

The planets in their stations list'ning stood,

While the bright pomp ascended jubilant.

Open, ye everlasting gates, they sung,

Open ye heavens, your living doors; let in

The great Creator from his work returned

Magnificent, his six days' work, a world.

Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth

Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep.

A wilderness of sweets.

Indu'd

With sanctity of reason.

Now morn, her rosy steps in th' eastern clime

Advancing, sow'd the earth with orient pearl,

When Adam wak'd, so custom'd; for his sleep

Was aery light, from pure digestion bred.

Still govern thou my song,

Urania, and fit audience find, though few.

Knowledge forbidd'n?

Suspicious, reasonless. Why should thir Lord

Envie them that? can it be sin to know,

Can it be death? and do they onely stand

By Ignorance, is that thir happie state,

The proof of thir obedience and thir faith?

O fair foundation laid whereon to build

Thir ruine! Hence I will excite thir minds

With more desire to know, and to reject

Envious commands, invented with designe

To keep them low whom knowledge might exalt

Equal with Gods; aspiring to be such,

They taste and die: what likelier can ensue?

So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found;

Among the faithless, faithful only he.

There Leviathan

Hugest of living creatures, on the deep

Stretched like a promontory sleeps or swims,

And seems a moving land, and at his gills

Draws in, and at his trunk spouts out a sea.

Morn,

Waked by the circling hours, with rosy hand

Unbarred the gates of light.

The timely dew of sleep.

All seemed well pleased, all seemed but were not all.

As Jupiter

On Juno smiles, when he impregns the clouds

That shed May flowers.

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold,

And pavement stars,—as stars to thee appear

Seen in the galaxy, that milky way

Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest

Powder'd with stars.

With thee conversing I forget all time,

All seasons, and their change; all please alike.

Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,

With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun

When first on this delightful land he spreads

His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,

Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth

After soft showers; and sweet the coming on

Of grateful ev'ning mild; then silent night

With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,

And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:

But neither breath of morn when she ascends

With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun

On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,

Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,

Nor grateful ev'ning mild, nor silent night

With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon

Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.

Imparadis'd in one another's arms.

How few somtimes may know, when thousands err.

Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,

The lowest of your throng.

Fairest of stars, last in the train of night,

If better thou belong not to the dawn.

Innumerable as the stars of night,

Or stars of morning, dewdrops which the sun

Impearls on every leaf and every flower.

Him thus intent Ithuriel with his spear

Touch'd lightly; for no falsehood can endure

Touch of celestial temper.

Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source

Of human offspring.

Fled

Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.

So saying, with dispatchful looks in haste

She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent.

Came not all hell broke loose?

Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers.

More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged

To hoarse or mute, though fall'n, and evil tongues;

In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,

And solitude.

Hung over her enamour'd, and beheld

Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,

Shot forth peculiar graces.

Live while ye may,

Yet happy pair.

My latest found,

Heaven's last, best gift, my ever new delight!

Like Teneriff or Atlas unremoved.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray

Had in her sober livery all things clad;

Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird,

They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,

Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;

She all night long her amorous descant sung;

Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament

With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led

The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,

Rising in clouded majesty, at length

Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,

And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.

The bright consummate flower.

What if earth

Be but the shadow of heaven, and things therein

Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?

Good, the more

Communicated, more abundant grows.

Fountains, and ye, that warble, as ye flow,

Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.

The wakeful nightingale,

She all night long her amorous descant sung;

Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament

With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led

The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,

Rising in clouded majesty, at length

Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,

And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

Arms on armour clashing bray'd

Horrible discord, and the madding wheels

Of brazen chariots rag'd: dire was the noise

Of conflict.

Another morn

Ris'n on mid-noon.

So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,

The tyrant's plea, excused his devilish deeds.

Far off his coming shone.

Squat like a toad, close at the ear of Eve.

Abashed the Devil stood,

And felt how awful goodness is, and saw

Virtue in her shape how lovely; saw, and pined

His loss.

They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet

Quaff immortality and joy.

These are thy glorious works, Parent of good.

Freely we serve,

Because we freely love, as in our will

To love or not; in this we stand or fall.

Back to thy punishment,

False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings.

For contemplation he and valor formed,

For softness she and sweet attractive grace;

He for God only, she for God in him.

His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd

Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks

Round from his parted forelock manly hung

Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.

Their fatal hands

No second stroke intend.

So spake the grisly Terror.

And on the Tree of Life,

The middle tree and highest there that grew,

Sat like a cormorant.

Thoughts that voluntary move

Harmonious numbers.

Dark with excessive bright.

And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,

This pendent world, in bigness as a star

Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.

Into this wilde Abyss,

The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,

Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,

But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt

Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,

Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more Worlds,

Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,

Pondering his Voyage.

Two of far nobler shape erect and tall,

Godlike erect, with native honor clad

In naked majesty seemed lords of all.

Neither man nor angel can discern

Hypocrisy, the only evil that walks

Invisible

Golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,

With joy and love triumphing.

Hail, holy light! offspring of heav'n first born.

Into a limbo large and broad, since call'd

The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown.

That practis'd falsehood under saintly shew,

Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge.

I fled, and cry'd out, DEATH!

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd

From all her caves, and back resounded, DEATH!

Gorgons and Hydras and Chimæras dire.

Me miserable! which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath and infinite despair?

Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;

And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide,

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,

And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

Incens'd with indignation Satan stood

Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd

That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge

In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair

Shakes pestilence and war.

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death.

Arm th' obdur'd breast

With stubborn patience as with triple steel.

To compare

Great things with small.

Adam the goodliest man of men since born

His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.

Death

Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear

His famine should be fill'd.

A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog

Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,

Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air

Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire.

Thither by harpy-footed Furies hal'd,

At certain revolutions all the damn'd

Are brought, and feel by turns the bitter change

Of fierce extremes,—extremes by change more fierce;

From beds of raging fire to starve in ice

Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine

Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round,

Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.

Where eldest Night

And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal anarchy amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand;

For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,

Strive here for mast'ry.

Before mine eyes in opposition sits

Grim Death, my son and foe.

A grateful mind

By owing owes not, but still pays, at once

Indebted and discharg'd.

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps

At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity

Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill

Where no ill seems.

So farewel Hope, and with Hope farewel Fear,

Farewel Remorse: all Good to me is lost;

Evil be thou my Good; by thee at least

Divided Empire with Heav'ns King I hold

By thee, and more then half perhaps will reigne;

As Man ere long, and this new World shall know.

Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,

White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery.

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

Confusion worse confounded.

The other shape,

If shape it might be call'd that shape had none

Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;

Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,

For each seem'd either,—black it stood as night,

Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head

The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

Satan was now at hand.

On a sudden open fly,

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,

Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate

Harsh thunder.

Hell

Grew darker at their frown.

In discourse more sweet;

For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense.

Others apart sat on a hill retired,

In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high

Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,

Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,

And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.

Proserpine gathering flowers,

Herself a fairer flower.

Vain wisdom all and false philosophy.

The rising world of waters dark and deep.

Flowers worthy of paradise.

Oh, shame to men! devil with devil damn'd

Firm concord holds, men only disagree

Of creatures rational.

Thus with the year

Seasons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,

Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,

Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

But cloud instead, and ever-during dark

Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men

Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair

Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works to me expunged and razed,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

Sabean odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the Blest.

Satan, now first inflam’d with rage, came down,

The Tempter ere th’ Accuser of man-kind,

To wreck on innocent frail man his loss

Of that first Battel, and his flight to Hell:

Yet not rejoycing in his speed, though bold,

Far off and fearless, nor with cause to boast,

Begins his dire attempt, which nigh the birth

Now rowling, boiles in his tumultuous brest,

And like a devillish Engine back recoiles

Upon himself; horror and doubt distract

His troubl’d thoughts, and from the bottom stirr

The Hell within him, for within him Hell

He brings, and round about him, nor from Hell

One step no more then from himself can fly

By change of place: Now conscience wakes despair

That slumberd, wakes the bitter memorie

Of what he was, what is, and what must be

Worse; of worse deeds worse sufferings must ensue.

Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.

Under what torments inwardly I groane;

While they adore me on the Throne of Hell,

With Diadem and Scepter high advanc’d

The lower still I fall, onely Supream

In miserie; such joy Ambition findes.

But say I could repent and could obtaine

By Act of Grace my former state; how soon

Would highth recal high thoughts, how soon unsay

What feign’d submission swore: ease would recant

Vows made in pain, as violent and void.

For never can true reconcilement grow

Where wounds of deadly hate have peirc’d so deep:

Which would but lead me to a worse relapse

And heavier fall: so should I purchase deare

Short intermission bought with double smart.

This knows my punisher; therefore as farr

From granting hee, as I from begging peace:

All hope excluded thus, behold in stead

Of us out-cast, exil'd, his new delight,

Mankind created, and for him this World.

At whose sight all the stars

Hide their diminish'd heads.

Whence and what art thou, execrable shape?

So he with difficulty and labour hard

Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he.

I made him just and right,

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

Implied

Subjection, but required with gentle sway,

And by her yielded, by him best received,

Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,

And sweet reluctant amorous delay.

And out of good still to find means of evil.

To be weak is miserable,

Doing or suffering.

Fairy elves,

Whose midnight revels by a forest side

Or fountain some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon

Sits arbitress.

Th' ethereal mould

Incapable of stain would soon expel

Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,

Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope

Is flat despair: we must exasperate

Th' Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;

And that must end us; that must be our cure--

To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being,

Those thoughts that wander through eternity,

To perish rather, swallowed up and lost

In the wide womb of uncreated Night,

Devoid of sense and motion?

Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:

At which the universal host up sent

A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond

Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.

Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit

Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste

Brought death into the world, and all our woe,

With loss of Eden, till one greater Man

Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue

Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appear

The better reason, to perplex and dash

Maturest counsels.

The infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,

Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived

The mother of mankind.

Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell

From heaven; for ev’n in heaven his looks and thoughts

Were always downward bent, admiring more

The riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold,

Than aught divine or holy else enjoy’d

In vision beatific.

Th' imperial ensign, which full high advanc'd

Shone like a meteor, streaming to the wind.

They looking back, all th' Eastern side beheld

Of Paradise, so late thir happie seat,

Wav'd over by that flaming Brand, the Gate

With dreadful Faces throng'd and fierie Armes:

Som natural tears they drop'd, but wip'd them soon;

The World was all before them, where to choose

Thir place of rest, and Providence thir guide:

They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,

Through EDEN took thir solitarie way.

Let none admire

That riches grow in hell; that soil may best

Deserve the precious bane.

His form had yet not lost

All her original brightness, nor appear'd

Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess

Of glory obscur'd.

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes

That comes at all.

Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n.

Heard so oft

In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge

Of battle.

Thrice he assay'd, and thrice in spite of scorn

Tears, such as angels weep, burst forth.

Sing Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top

Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire

That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,

In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth

Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill

Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd

Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence

Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,

That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues

Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.

From morn

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer's day; and with the setting sun

Dropped from the zenith like a falling star.

The strongest and the fiercest spirit

That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair.

Their rising all at once was as the sound

Of thunder heard remote.

Rather than be less

Cared not to be at all.

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 warred on Jove,

Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast

Leviathan, which God created of all his works

Created hugest that swim th' Ocean stream.

And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer

Before all Temples th' upright heart and pure,

Instruct me, for Thou know'st; Thou from the first

Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread

Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss

And mad'st it pregnant: What in me is dark

Illumine, what is low raise and support;

That to the highth of this great Argument

I may assert th' Eternal Providence,

And justifie the wayes of God to men.

In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds

On half the nations, and with fear of change

Perplexes monarchs.

Our torments also may in length of time

Become our elements.

With grave

Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed

A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven

Deliberation sat and public care;

And princely counsel in his face yet shone,

Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood,

With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear

The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look

Drew audience and attention still as night

Or summer's noontide air.

Execute their airy purposes.

Farewell happy fields,

Where joy forever dwells: hail, horrors!

My sentence is for open War; Of Wiles,

More unexpert, I boast not: them let those

Contrive who need, or when they need, not now.

For while they sit contriving, shall the rest,

Millions that stand in Arms, and longing wait

The Signal to ascend, sit ling'ring here,

Heav'n's fugitives, and for their dwelling place

Accept this dark opprobrious Den of shame,

The Prison of his Tyranny who Reigns

By our delay? no, let us rather choose,

Arm'd with Hell flames and fury all at once

O'er Heaven's high Tow'rs to force resistless way,

Turning our Tortures into horrid Arms

Against the Torturer.

Anon out of the earth a fabric huge

Rose, like an exhalation.

And, when night

Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons

Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.

As far as angels' ken.

The never-ending flight

Of future days.

What in me is dark

Illumine, what is low raise and support;

That to the height of this great argument

I may assert eternal Providence,

And justify the ways of God to men.

To sit in darkness here

Hatching vain empires.

Who overcomes

By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.

Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.

Long is the way

And hard, that out of Hell leads up to Light.

The low'ring element

Scowls o'er the darken'd landscape.

The palpable obscure.

For who can yet believe, though after loss,

That all these puissant legions, whose exile

Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend,

Self-raised, and repossess their native seat?

Spirits when they please

Can either sex assume, or both.

What though the field be lost?

All is not lost; th’ unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,

And courage never to submit or yield.

Thus Belial with words clothed in reason's garb

Counseled ignoble ease, and peaceful sloth,

Not peace.

That in our proper motion we ascend

Up to our native seat: descent and fall

To us is adverse.

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades

High over-arch'd imbower.

Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev'd.

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.

High on a throne of royal state, which far

Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand

Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,

Satan exalted sat, by merit raised

To that bad eminence; and from despair

Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires

Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue

Vain war with heav'n.

Yet from those flames

No light, but rather darkness visible.

When the scourge

Inexorable and the torturing hour

Call us to penance.

Surer to prosper than prosperity

Could have assur'd us.

Him the Almighty Power

Hurled headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky

With hideous ruin and combustion down

To bottomless perdition, there to dwell

In adamantine chains and penal fire,

Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.

Anon they move

In perfect phalanx, to the Dorian mood

Of flutes and soft recorders.