Moloch We now debate. Who can advise may speak.' advises He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptred king,
Stood up the strongest and the fiercest Spirit That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair His trust was with the Eternal to be deemed Equal in strength, and rather than be less Cared not to be at all; with that care lost Went all his fear of God, or Hell, or worse, He recked not, and these words thereafter
My sentence is for open war.
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 lingering here, Heaven'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, Armed with Hell-flames and fury, all at once O'er Heaven's high towers to force resistless Turning our tortures into horrid arms Against the Torturer; when, to meet the noise Of his almighty engine, he shall hear Infernal thunder, and, for lightning, see Black fire and horror shot with equal rage Among his Angels, and his throne itself Mixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire, His own invented torments. But perhaps The way seems difficult, and steep to scale With upright wing against a higher foe! Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still, That in our proper motion we ascend Up to our native seat; descent and fall To us is adverse. Who but felt of late, When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep, With what compulsion and laborious flight We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy, then; The event is feared! Should we again provoke Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction, if there be in Hell
Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, con- demned
In this abhorred deep to utter woe; Where pain of unextinguishable fire Must exercise us without hope of end The vassals of his anger, when the scourge Inexorably, and the torturing hour,
Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus, We should be quite abolished, and expire. What fear we then? what doubt we to incense His utmost ire? which, to the highth enraged, Will either quite consume us, and reduce To nothing this essential-happier far Than miserable to have eternal being! Or, if our substance be indeed divine, And cannot cease to be, we are at worst On this side nothing; and by proof we feel Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven, And with perpetual inroads to alarm, Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:
'What
can be worse than this?'
He dis- What if the breath that kindled those grim fires, suades Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage, war And plunge us in the flames; or from above Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us? What if a Her stores were opened, and this firmament II¢ Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire, Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall One day upon our heads; while we perhaps, Designing or exhorting glorious war, Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled, Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and Of racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains, There to converse with everlasting groans, Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved, Ages of hopeless end?
This would be worse. War, therefore, open or concealed, alike
My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye Views all things at one view? He from Heaven's highth
All these our motions vain sees and derides, Not more almighty to resist our might
Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles. Shall we, then, live thus vile-the race of
Thus trampled, thus expelled, to suffer here Chains and these torments? Better these than
By my advice; since fate inevitable
Subdues us, and omnipotent decree, The Victor's will. To suffer, as to do,
Our strength is equal; nor the law unjust 200
That so ordains. This was at first resolved, If we were wise, against so great a foe Contending, and so doubtful what might fall. I laugh when those who at the spear are bold And venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear What yet they know must follow-to endure Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain,
The sentence of their conqueror. This is now Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear, Our Supreme Foe in time may much remit 210 His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed, Not mind us not offending, satisfied
With what is punished; whence these raging fires Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames. Our purer essence then will overcome
Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel; Or, changed at length, and to the place con- formed
In temper and in nature, will receive
Familiar the fierce heat; and, void of pain, This horror will grow mild, this darkness light; Besides what hope the never-ending flight Of future days may bring, what chance, what change
Worth waiting-since our present lot appears For happy though but ill, for ill not worst, If we procure not to ourselves more woe.'
Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason's garb,
Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth, Not peace; and after him thus Mammon spake :- Either to disenthrone the King of Heaven
We war, if war be best, or to regain -Our own right lost. Him to unthrone we then
Satan THE consultation begun, Satan debates whether another upon his battle be to be hazarded for the recovery of Heaven : throne some aavise it, others dissuade. A third proposal is pre
ferred, mentioned before 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 themselves, about this time to be created. Their doubt who shall be sent on this difficult search: Satan, their chief, undertakes alone the voyage; is honoured and applauded. The council thus ended, the rest betake them several ways and to several employments, as their inclinations lead them, to entertain the time till Satan return. He passes on his journey to Hell-gates; finds them shut, and who sat there to guard them; by whom at length they are opened, and discover to him the great gulf between Hell and Heaven. With what difficulty he passes through, directed by Chaos, the Power of that place, to the sight of this new World which he sought.
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 Heaven; and, by success untaught,
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