John Milton

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.