Will once more lift us up in spite of fate,
Nearer our ancient seat; perhaps in view
Of those bright confines, whence with neigh
b'ring arms
And opportune excursion we may chance
Re-enter Heav'n; or else in some mild zone
Dwell not unvisited of Heav'n's fair light
Secure, and at the brightning orient beam
Purge off this gloom; this soft delicious air,
To heal the scar of those corrosive fires,
Shall breathe her balm. But first, whom
[find
shall we send
In search of this new world; whom shall we
Sufficient? who shall tempt with wand'ring
The dark unbottom'd infinite abyss,
And through the palpable obscure find out
His uncouth way, or spread his aery flight
Upborne with indefatigable wings
Over the vast abrupt, ere he arrive
The happy isle? what strength, what art can
then
Suffice, or what evasion bear him safe
Through the strict senteries and stations thick
Of angels watching round? Here he had need
All circumspection, and we now no less
Choice in our suffrage? for on whom we send,
The weight of all and our last hope relies.
This said, he sat; and expectation held
His looks suspence, awaiting who appear'd
To second, or oppose, or undertake
The perilous attempt: but all sat mute,
Pond'ring the danger with deep thoughts; and
So hardy as to proffer or accept
Alone the dreadful voyage: till at last
Satan, whom now transcendent glory rais'd
Above his fellows, with monarchial pride
Conscious of highest worth, unmov'd thus
spake:
Than unknown dangers, and as hard escape?
But I should ill become this throne, O Peers!
And this imperial sov'rignty, adorn'd
With splendor, arm'd with pow'r, if ought,
propos'd
And judg'd of public moment, in the shape
Of difficulty or danger could deter
Me from attempting. Wherefore do I asume
These royalties, and not refuse to reign,
Refusing to accept as great a share,
Of hazard as of honour, due alike
To him who reigns, and so much to him due -
Of hazard more, as he above the rest
High honour'd sits? Go, therefore, mighty
Powers,
[home,
Terror of Heav'n, though falla; intend at
While here shall be our home, what best may.
The present misery, and render Hell
More tolerable; if there be cure or charm
To respite or deceive, or slack the pain
Of this ill mansion; intermit no watch
Against a wakeful foe, while I abroad
Through all the coast of dark Destruction,
Deliverance for us all: this enterprise
None shall partake with me. Thus saying,
The Monarch, and prevented all reply,
Prudent, least from his resolution rais'd
Others among the chief might offer now
(Certain to be refus'd) what erst they fear'd;
And so refus'd, might in opinion stand
His rivals, winning cheap the high repute
Which he through hazard huge must earn.
But they
Dreaded not more the adventure than his
Forbidding; and at once with him they rose;
Their rising all at once was as the sound
Of thunder heard remote. Tow'rds him they
bend
With awful reverence prone; and as a god
Extol him equal to the Highest in Heav'n :
Nor fail'd they to express how much they
prais'd,
O Progeny of Heaven! empyreal Thrones!
With reason hath deep silence and demur
Seis'd us, though undismay'd: long is the That for the general safety he despis'd
His own: for neither do the spirits damn'd Lose all their virtue; least bad men should boast
In order came the grand infernal Peers:
Midst came their mighty paramount, and (For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense)
Alone th' antagonist of Heav'n, nor less Than Hell's dread emperor with pomp supreme,
And Godlike imitated state; him round
A globe of fiery seraphim inclus'd
With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms.
Then of their session ended they bid cry
With trumpets' regal sound the great result:
Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, aud reasou'd high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost,
Of good and evil much they argued then,
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame,
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy:
Tow'rds the four winds four speedy che-Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm
Put to their mouths the sounding alchemy
By herald's voice explain'd; the hollow abyss
Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell
With deaf'ning shout return'd them loud
acclame.
[what rais'd
Thence more at ease their minds, and some-
By false presumptuous hope, the ranged
Disband, and wand'ring, each his several way
Pursues, as inclination or sad choice
Pain for a while or anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm th' obdured breast
With stubboru patience as with triple steel.
Another part, in squadrons and gross bands,
In bold adventure to discover wide
That dismal world, if any clime perhaps
Might yield them easier habitation, bend
Four ways their flying march, along the
Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge
Into the burning lake their baleful streams;
Leads him perplex'd, where he might likeliest Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain
The irksome hours, till his great chief return.
Part on the plain, or in the air sublime,
Upon the wing, or in swift race coutend,
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;
Cocytus, nam'd of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage,
Far off from these a slow and silent stream,
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls
Her watry labyrinth, whereof who drinks,
Forthwith his former state and being forgets,
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain,
Beyond this Hood a frozen continent
As at the Olympian games or Pythian fields.
Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal
With rapid wheels, or fronted brigade form,
As when to warn proud cities war appears
Wag'd in troubled sky, and armies rush
To battle in the clouds, before each van
Pick forth the acry knights, and couch their Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
Thaws not, but gather heaps, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice,
A gulph profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and mount Casios old, Where armies whole have sunk: the parching
Burns frore, and cold perfumes th' effect of fire.
Thither by harpy footed furies hal'd
At certain revolutions all the damu'd
Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter
change
[fierce,
Officrce extremes, extremes by change more
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immoveable, infix'd, and frozen round,
Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.
They ferry over this Lethean sound
Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment,
And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach
The tempting stream, with one small drop to
In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,
All in one moment, and so near the brink;
But fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt
Medusa, with Gorgonian terror, guards
The ford, and of itself the water flies
All taste of living wight, as once it fled
The lip of Tantales. This roving on
In coufus'd march forlorn, th' advent rous
bands
With shudd'ring horror pale, and eyes aghast,
View'd first their lamentable lot, and found
No rest: through many a dark and dreary vale
They pass'd, and many a regiou dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a tiery Alp,
Far off the flying fiend: at last appear
Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid roof,
And thrice three fold the gates; three folds
were brass,
Three iron, three of adamantin rock,
Impenetrable, impard with circling fire,
Yet unconsum'd. Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;
The one seem'd woman to the waste, and
fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd
With mortal sting about her middle round
A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and
[creep,
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would
If ought disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there, yet there still bark'd and
howld
Within, unseen. Far less abhorr'd thau these
Vex'd Scylla bathing in the sea that parts
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore:
Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when call'd
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lor'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring moon
Eclipses at their charms. The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had noue
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,
Or substance might be calld that shadow
seem'd,
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and For each seem'd either; black it stood as night,
A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good,
Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds,
Perverse, ali monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd,
Gorgons, and hydras, and chimeras dire.
Mean while the adversary of God and Man, Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of high'st design, [hell
Puts ou swift wings, and tow'rds the gates of
Explores his solitary flight; sometimes
He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the
left,
Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars
Up to the fiery concave tow'ring high.
As when far off at sea a fleet descry'd
Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds.
Close sailing from Bengala, or the iles
Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring
Their spicy drugs: they on the trading flood
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape
Ply stemming nightly toward the Pole. So
seem'd
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, and from his seat
The monster moving onward came as fast
With horrid strides, bell trembled as he strøde.
Thundaunted fiend what this might be
admir'd,
Admir'd, not fear'd; God and his son except,
Created thing nought valued he nor shunn'd;
And with disdainful look thus first began:
Whence and what art thou, execrable shape, That dars't, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way To yonder gates? through them I mean te pass,
That be assur'd, without leave ask'd of thee: Retire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof, Hell-born, not to contend with sprits of Heav'n.
To whom the goblin full of wrath reply'd: Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he Who first broke peace in Heav'n and faith, tilf then
Unbroken, and in proud rebellious arms Drew after him the third part of Heav'a's see
Conjur'd against the High'st, for which both Me Father, and that phantasm call'st my
[condemn'd
And they, outcast from God, are here
To waste eternal days in woe and pain?
And reckon'st thou thyself with sp'rits of
Heav'n,
[scorn
Hell-doom'd, and breath'st defiance here and
Where I reign king, and to curage thee more,
Thy king and lord? Back to thy punishment,
False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings,
Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue
Thy ling'ring, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horror seise thee, and pangs unfelt
I know thee not, nor ever saw till now
Sight more detestable thau him and thee.
T' whom thus the portress of hell gate
reply'd:
Hast thou forgot me theu, and do I seem
Now in thine eye so foul? once deem'd so fair
In Heav'n, when at th' assembly, and in sight
Of all the seraphim with thee combin'd
In bold conspiracy against Heav'n's King,
All on a sudden miserable pain
Surpris'd thee, dim thine eyes, and dizzy
[fast
In darkness, while thy head flames thick and
Threw forth, till on the left side opening wide,
So spake the grisly terror, and in shape,
So speaking and so threatening, grew ten-fold
More dreadful and deform: on th' other side | Likest to thee in shape and count'nance
Incens'd with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd,
That fires the length of Opiuchus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head
Level'd his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend, and such a frown
Each cast at the other, as when two black
clouds,
[on
With Heav'n's artillery fraught, come rattling
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front
Hov'ring a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air:
So frown'd the mighty combatants, that hell
Grew darker at their frown, so match'd they
stood;
For never but once more was either like
To meet so great a foe:, and now great deeds
Had been achiev'd, whereof all hell had rung,
Had not the snaky sorceress that sat
Fast by hell gate, and kept the fatal key,
Ris'n, and with hideous outcry rush'd between.
O Father, what intends thy hand, she cry'd,
Against thy only son? What fury, O Son,
Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart
Against thy father's head? and know'st for
whom;
For him who sits above and laughs the while
At thee ordain'd his drudge, to execute
Whate'er his wrath, which he calls justice,
bids;
His wrath, which one day will destroy ye both.
She spake, and at her words the bellish pest
Forbore, then these to her Satan return'd.
So strange thy outcry, and thy words so
strange
Thou interposest, that my sudden hand
Prevented spares to tell thee yet by deeds
What it intends; till first I know of thee,
Then shining heav'nly fair, a goddess arm'd
Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seis'd
All th' host of Heav'n; back they recoil'd
afraid
At first, and call'd me Sin, and for a sign
Portentous held me; but familiar grown,
I pleas'd, and with attractive graces won
The most averse, thee chiefly, who full oft
Thyself in me thy perfect image viewing,
Becam'st enamour'd, and such joy thou
With me in secret, that my womb conceiv'd
A growing burden. Mean while war arose,
And fields were fought in Heav'n; wherein
(For what could else?) to our almighty foe
Clear victory, to our part loss and rout
Through all the empyréan, down they fell
Driv'n headlong from the pitch of Heav'n,
Into this deep, and in the general fall
I also! at which time this powerful key
Into my hand was giv'n, with charge to keep
These gates for ever shut, which none car
Without my op'ning. Pensive here I sat
Alone, but long I sat not, till my womb,
Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown,
Prodigious motion feit and rueful throes.
At last this odious offspring whom thou seest
Thine own begotten, breaking violent way
Tore through my entrails, that with fear and
pain
Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew
Transform'd: but be my inbred enemy
Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart
Made to destroy: I fled, and cry'd out Death;
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd
What thing thou art, thus double-form'd, and From all her caves, and back resounded why
In this infernal vale, first met, thou call'st
I fled, but he pursued (though more, it seems,
Inflam'd with lust than rage) and swifter far, Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen
Me overtook his mother all dismay'd,
And in embraces forcible and foul
Ingendring with me, of that rape begot
These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless
Surround me, as thou saw'st, hourly conceiv'd
Aud hourly horn, with sorrow infinite
To me; for when they list into the womb
That bred them, they return, and howl and gnaw
My bowels, their repast; then bursting forth
Afresh with conscious terrors vex me round,
That rest or intermission none I find.
Before my eyes in opposition sits
Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on,
And me his parent would full soon devour
For want of other prey, but that he knows
Wing silently the buxom air, inbalım'd
With odours; there we shall be fed and filrd
Immeasurably, all things shall be your prey.
He ceas'd, for both seem'd highly pleas'd, and Death
Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be fill'd, and blest his maw
Destin'd to that good hour: no less rejoic'd
His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire:
The key of this infernal pit by due,
And by command of Heav'n's all-powerful
king
I keep, by him forbidden to unlock
These adamantine gates; against all force
Death ready stands to interpose his dart,
Fearless to be o'ermatch'd by living might.
But what owe I to his commands above
His end with mine involv'd; and knows that I Who hates me, and bath hither thrust me
Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
Whenever that shall be; so fate pronounc'd.
But thou, O Father, I forewarn thee, shun His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope
To be invulnerable in those bright arıms, Though temper'd heav'nly, for that mortal dint,
Into this gloom of Tartarus profound,
To sit in hateful office here confin'd,
Inhabitaut of Heav'n, and heav'nly born,
Here in perpetual agony and pain,
With terrors and with clamours compass'd
Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed?
Thou art my father, thou my author, thou
Save he who reigns above, none can resist.
She finish'd, and the subtle Fiend his lore
Soon learn'd, now milder, and thus answer'd | My being gav'st me; whom should I obey
Dear daughter, since thou claim'st me for thy sire,
But thee, whom follow? thou wilt bring me
To that new world of light and bliss, among And my fair son here show'st me, the dear pledge | The Gods who live at ease, where I shall reign Of dalliance had with thee in Heav'n, and joys Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change
Befall'n us unforseen, unthought of; know
I come no enemy, but to set free
From out this dark and dismal house of pain
Both him and thee, and all the heav'nly host
Of spirits, that in our just pretences arm'd
Fell with us from on high: from them I go
This uncouth errand sole, and one for all
Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread
Th' unfounded deep, and through the void
To search with wand'ring quest a place foretold
Should be, and, by concurring sigus, ere now
Created vast and round, a place of bliss
In the purlieus of Heav'u, and therein plac'd
A race of upstart creatures, to supply
Perhaps our vacant room, though more re-
mov'd,
Lest Heav'n surcharg'd with potent multitude
Might hap to move new broils : be this or aught
Than this more secret now design'd, I haste
To know, and this once known, shall soon re-
turn,
At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems
Thy daughter and thy darling, without end.
Thus saying, from her side the fatal key,
Sad instrument of all our woe, she took;
And towards the gate rolling her bestial train,
Forthwith the huge portcullis high up drew,
Which but herself, not all the Stygian powers
Could once have mov'd; then in the key-hole
Th' intricate wards, and every bolt and bar
Ofmassy iron or solid rock with ease
Unfastens: on a sudden open fly
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus. She open'd, but to shut
Excell'd her pow'r, the gates wide open stood,
That with extended wings a banner'd host
Under spread ensigns marching might pass
through
With horse and chariots rank'd in loose array;
So wide they stood, and like a furnace mouth
Cast forth rebounding smoke and ruddy flame.
Before their eyes in sudden view appear
The secrets of the hoary deep, a dark
Illimitable ocean, without bound,
And bring ye to the place where thou and Death
No. III.-N. S. Continued from the Poetical Part of No. II.
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