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On Man by him seduced, but on himself
219 rises
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured. and sur-
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames
Driven backward slope their pointing spires,
and, rolled

In billows, leave i' the midst a horrid vale.
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 burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in hue as when the force 230
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singèd bottom all involved

With stench and smoke. Such resting found
the sole

Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate;
Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood
As gods, and by their own recovered strength, 240
Not by the sufferance of supernal power.

Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,'
Said then the lost Archangel, this the seat
That we must change for Heaven?—this mourn-
ful 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 equalled, force hath made

supreme

we shall

be free'

'Here Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields, at least Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail, Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell, 251 Receive thy new possessor-one who brings A mind not to be changed 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: 260
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 co-partners of our loss,
Lie thus astonished 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
Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?'
So Satan spake; and hir Beelzebub
Thus answered:-Leader of those armies bright
Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have
foiled!

271

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 raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal-they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire, 280

Thick as dead leaves the fallen

As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth!'
He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous Angels lie

shield,

290

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 Fesolè,
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 walked 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 endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamèd sea he stood, and called
His legions-Angel Forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades
High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed
Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves
o'erthrew

Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

300

While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcases
And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,
Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,

310

'Arise, Under amazement of their hideous change. or be He called so loud that all the hollow deep for ever Of Hell resounded :—“ Princes, Potentates, Warriors, the Flower of Heaven-once yours; now lost,

fallen'

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose

320

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
To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linkèd thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf ?—
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!'

330

They heard, and were abashed, 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 obeyed
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,
Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like Night, and darkened all the land of Nile ;
So numberless were those bad Angels seen

341

Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,
'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, the uplifted 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: 350
A multitude like which the populous North
Poured 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 Libyan sands.
Forthwith, from every squadron and each band,
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood
Their great Commander-godlike Shapes, and
Forms

Excelling human; princely Dignities;

And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones, 360
Though of their names in Heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and rased

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 the invisible

Glory of him that made them to transform 370
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned

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

The bad Angels arise

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