Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid
The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of Heaven receiv'd us falling; and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn,
Or satiate fury, yield it from our foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, re-assembling 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 up-lift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blaz'd; 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;
Briareos 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 sea-men tell,
With fixed anchor in his skaly rind
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays :
So stretch'd out huge in length the arch-fiend
lay

Chain'd on the burning lake: nor ever thence
Had ris'n or heav'd his head; but that the
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven [will
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, enrag'd, might see
How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace and mercy, shown
On Man by him seduc'd ; but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour'd.
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each band the flames,
Driven backward, slope their pointing spires,
and, roll'd

In billows, leave i'the midst a horrid vate.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air

That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
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,
Sublim'd with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involv'd

TOL. VII.

the sole

Of unblest feet. Him follow'd his next mate: Both glorying to have 'scap'd 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 arch-angel, "this the seat That we must change for Heaven: this mournful gloom

For that celestial light? Be it so, since he,
Who now is Sovran, can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best,
Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made

supreme

Above his equals. Farewell happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells. Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd 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?"
So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub
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 rag'd, in all assaults
Their surest sigual, they will soon resume
New courage and revive; though now they lie
Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we ere while, astounded and amaz'd;
No wonder, fall'n such a pernicious highth."

He scarce had ceas'd 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 endur'd, till on the beach
27

Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd
His legions, angel forms, who lay intranc'd
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arch'd, imbower; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd
Hath vex'd the Red-Sea coast, whose waves
Busiris, and his Memphian chivalry, [o'erthrew
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot wheels: so thick bestrown,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
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 chos'n 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
'T' 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
Th' advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf,
Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n."

They heard, and were abas'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
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,
Wav'd 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, as a signal given, the 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 or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Lybian sands.
Forth with from every squadron and each band
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood
Their great commander; godlike shapes and
Excelling human, princely dignities, [forms
And powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial; blotted out and ras'd
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,

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 emperor's call, as next in worth
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous cloud 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 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 sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profan'd,
And with their darkness durst affront his light.
First Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;
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
Worshipt in Rabba and her watry plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
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
sons,

From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild
Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond
The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,
And Eleälé to th' Asphaltic pool.
Peor his other name, when he entie'd
Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarg'd
Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide; lust hard by hate;
Till good Josiah 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 Baalim and Ashtaroth; those male,
These feminine: for spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure;
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Not founded on the brittle strength of bone

Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,

Dilated or condens'd, bright or obscure,
Can execute their aery purposes,
And works of love or enmity full.

For those the race of Israel oft forsook
Their living strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, boning lowly down

To bestial gods; for which their heads as low
Bow'd down in battle, sunk before the spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians call'd
Astarte, queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the Moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood
Her temple on the offensive mountain, built
By that uxorious king, whose heart, though
Beguil'd by fair idolatresses, fell

[large,

[off

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 smooth 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 saw, 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 In his own temple, on the grunsel edge, Where he fell flat, and sham'd his worshippers: 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 Ascalon, And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds. Him follow'd Rimmon, whose delightful seat Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. He also against the house of God was bold: A leper once he lost, and gain'd a king; Ahaz his sottish conqueror, whom he drew God's altar to disparage and displace For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn His odious offerings, and adore the gods Whom he had vanquish'd. After these appear'd A crew, who, under names of old renown, Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train, With monstrous shapes and sorceries abus'd Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek Their wandering gods disguis'd in brutish forms Rather than human. Nor did Israel 'scape The infection, when their borrow'd gold compos'd The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, Likening his Maker to the grazed ox; Jehovah, who in one night, when he pass'd From Egypt marching, equall'd with one stroke Both her first-born and all her bleating gods. Belial came last, than whom a spirit more lewd Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love Vice for itself: to him no temple stood Or altar smok'd; yet who more oft than he In temples and at altars, when the priest Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who fill'd With lust and violence the house of God? VOL. VII.

In courts and palaces he also reigns,
And in luxurious cities, where the noise
Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,
And injury and outrage: and when night
Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night
In Gibeah, when the hospitable door
Expos'd a matron, to avoid worse rape.
These were the prime in order and in might:
The rest were long to tell, though far renown'd,
The Ionian gods, of Javan's issue; held
Gods, yet confess'd later than Heaven and Earth,
Their boasted parents: Titan, Heaven's first-
born,

With his enormous brood, and birthright seiz'd
By younger Saturn; he from mightier Jove,
His own and Rhea's son, like measure found;
So Jove usurping reign'd: these first in Crete
And Ida known, thence on the snowy top
Of bold Olympus, rul'd the middle air,
Their highest Heaven; or on the Delphian cliff,
Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds
Of Doric land: or who with Saturn old
Fled over Adria to the Hesperian fields,
And o'er the Celtic roam'd the utmost isles.

All these and more came flocking; but with looks

Down-cast and damp; yet such wherein appear'd Obscure some glimpse of joy, to have found their chief

Not in despair, to 'ave found themselves not lost

In loss itself; which on his countenance cast
Like doubtful hue: but he, his wonted pride
Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore
Semblance of worth, not substance, gently rais'd
Their fainting courage, and dispell'd their fears.
Then straight commands, that at the warlike
sound

Of trumpets loud and clarions be uprear'd

His mighty standard: that proud honour claim'd
Azazel as his right, a cherub tall;

Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurl'a
The imperial ensign; which, full high advanc'd,
Shone like a meteor streaming to the wind,
With gems and golden lustre rich imblaz'd,
Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while
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.
All in a moment through the gloom were seen
Ten thousand banners rise into the air
With orient colours waving: with them rose
A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms
Appear'd, and serried shields in thick array
Of depth immeasurable: anon they move
In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mod
Of flutes and soft recorders; such as rais'd
To highth of noblest temper heroes old
Arming to battle; and instead of rage
Deliberate valour breath'd, firm and unmov'd
With dread of death to flight or foul retreat:
Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage
With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and

chase

Anguish, and doubt, and fear, and sorrow, and pain,

From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they,

A A

Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth
For treasures, better hid. Soon had his crew
Open'd into the hill a spacious wound,
And digg'd out ribs of gold. Let none admire
That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane. And here let those,
Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell
Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings,
Learn how their greatest monuments of fame,
And strength and art, are easily out-done
By spirits reprobate, and in an hour
What in an age they with incessant toil
And hands innumerable scarce perform.
Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepar'd,
That underneath had veins of liquid fire
Slure'd from the lake, a second multitude
With wonderous art founded the massy ore,
Severing each kind, and scumm'd the bullion
dross :

A third as soon had form'd within the ground
A various mould, and from the boiling cells,
By strange conveyance, fill'd each hollow nook;
As in an organ, from one blast of wind,

To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.
Anon, out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,
Built like a temple, where pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid
With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven:
The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon,
Nor great Alcairo, such magnificence
Equall'd in all their glories, to enshrine
Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat

Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove
In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile
Stood fix'd her stately heighth: and straight the
doors,

Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide
Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth
And level pavement; from the arched roof
Pendent by subtle magic many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With Naphtha and Asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. The hasty multitude
Admiring enter'd; and the work some praise,
And some the architect; his hand was known
In Heaven by many a tower'd structure high,
Where scepter'd angels held their residence,
And sat as princes; whom the supreme king
Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright.
Nor was his name unheard, or unador'd,
In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
Men call'd him Mulciber; and how he fell
From Heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry
Jove

Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting Sun
Dropt from the zenith like a falling star,
On Lemnos the gean isle: thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught avail'd him now
To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did

Mean while the winged heralds, by command Of sovran power, with awful ceremony [claim And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proA solemn council, forthwith to be held At Pandemonium; the high capital Of Satan and his peers: their summons call'd From every band and squared regiment

By place or choice the worthiest; they anon, With hundreds and with thousands, trooping

came,

Attended: all access was throng'd: the gates And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall (Though like a cover'd field, where champions bold

[air

Wont ride in arm'd, and at the Soldan's chair
Defied the best of Panim chivalry
To mortal combat, or career with lance)
Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the
Brush'd with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees
In spring time, when the Sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,
New rubb'd with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs. So thick the aery croud
Swarm'd and were straiten'd; till, the signal
given,

Behold a wonder! They but now who seem'd
In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless, like that pygmean race
Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while over-head the Moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth
Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth
and dance

Intent, with jocund music charm his ear;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.
Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms[large,
Reduc'd their shapes immense, and were at
Though without number still, amidst the hall
Of that infernal court. But far within,
And in their own dimensions, like themselves,
The great seraphic lords and cherubim
In close recess and secret conclave sat ;
A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,
Frequent and full. After short silence then,
And summons read, the great consult began.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK II.

THE ARGUMENT.

The consultation begun, Satan debates whether another battle be to be hazarded for the recovery of Heaven: Some advise it, others dissuade : A third proposal is preferred, mentioned befure by Satan, to search the truth of that prophecy or tradition in Heaven concerning another world, and another kind of creature equal or not much inferior to the.selves, about this