To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach Disloyal on the part of man, revolt, And disobedience: on the part of Heaven Now alienated, distance and distaste, Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given, That brought into this world a world of woe, Sin and her shadow death, and misery, Death's harbinger : sad task, yet argument Not less but more heroic than the wrath Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued Thrice fugitive about Troy-wall; or rage Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd; Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long Perplex'd the Greek, and Cytherea's son ; If answerable style I can obtain
celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:
Since first this subject for heroic song
Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late ;
Not sedulous by nature te indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroic deem'd; chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havoc fabled knights In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroic martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneschals; The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroic name To person, or to poem. Me, of these Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp my intended wing Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine, Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear. The sun was sunk, and after him the star Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end Night's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round: When Satan, who late fled before the threats Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd
In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On man's destruction, maugre what might hap Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd By night he fled, and at midnight return'd From compassing the earth; cautious of day, Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried His entrance, and forewarn'd the cherubim That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven, The space of seven continued nights he rode With darkness: thrice the equinoctial line He circled; four times cross'd the car of night From pole to pole, traversing each colure ;
On the eighth return'd; and, on the coast averse From entrance or cherubic watch, by stealth
Now not, (tho' sin, not time, first wrought the change,) Where Tigris, at the foot of paradise,
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a fountain by the tree of life; In with the river sunk, and with it rose Satan, involv'd in rising mist; then sought
Where to lie hid; sea he had search'd, and land, From Eden over Pontus and the pool Mæotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctic; and in length, West from Orontes to the ocean barr'd At Darien; thence to the land where flows Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd With narrow search; and with inspection deep Consider'd every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found The serpent subtlest beast of all the field. Him after long debate, irresolute
Of thoughts revolv'd, his final sentence chose Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide From sharpest sight : for, in the wily snake Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark, As from his wit and native subtilty
Proceeding; which, in other beast observ'd, Doubt might beget of diabolic power Active within, beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he resolv'd, but first from inward grief
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