Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ay, me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of hell.
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery: such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain,
By act of grace, my former state; how soon
Would height recal high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feign'd submission swore! Ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void:

For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse,
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission, bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore, as far
From granting he, as I from begging peace:
All hope excluded thus, behold, instead
Of us, outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind, created, and for him this world.
So farewell hope; and with hope, farewell fear;
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil be thou my good: by thee, at least,
Divided empire with heaven's King I hold:
By thee, and more than half, perhaps, will reign,
As man, ere long, and this new world, shall know."

Thus while he spake, each passion dimm'd his

face,

Thrice changed with pale ire, envy, and despair;
Which marr'd his borrow'd visage, and betray'd
Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld:

For heavenly minds from such distempers foul
Are ever clear. Whereof he soon aware,
Each perturbation smooth'd with outward calm,
Artificer of fraud; and was the first

That practised falsehood under saintly show,
Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge:
Yet not enough had practised to deceive
Uriel once warn'd: whose eye pursued him down
The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount
Saw him disfigured, more than could befal
Spirit of happy sort: his gestures fierce
He mark'd, and mad demeanour, then alone,
As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.
So on he fares, and to the border comes,
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,

Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and overhead up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend,
Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up-sprung:

Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round;
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once, of golden hue,
Appear'd, with gay enamell'd colours mix'd:
On which the sun more glad impress'd his beams,
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely seem'd

That landscape and of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

All sadness but despair: now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when, to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambique, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the Blest; with such delay

Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league

Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles. So entertain❜d those odorous sweets the fiend, Who came their bane: though with them better pleased

Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume

That drove him, though enamour'd, from the spouse
Of Tobit's son, and with a vengeance sent.
From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.

Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill
Satan had journey'd on, pensive and slow;
But further way found none, so thick intwined,
As one continued brake, the undergrowth
Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplex'd
All path of man or beast that pass'd that way.
One gate there only was, and that look'd east
On the other side; which, when the arch-felon saw,
Due entrance he disdain'd; and, in contempt,
At one slight bound high overleap'd all bound
Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,
Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve,
In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,

Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold:
Or as a thief bent to unhoard the cash

Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,
Cross-barr'd and bolted fast, fear no assault,
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles:
So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold;
So since, into his church, lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life
Thereby regain'd, but sat devising death
To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought
Of that life-giving plant, but only used

For prospect, what, well used, had been the pledge
Of immortality. So little knows

Any, but God alone, to value right

The good before him, but perverts best things
To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.
Beneath him, with new wonder, now he views,
To all delight of human sense exposed,

In narrow room, Nature's whole wealth, yea more;
A heaven on earth: for blissful Paradise
Of God the garden was, by him in the east
Of Eden planted: Eden stretch'd her line
From Auran eastward to the royal towers
Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings;
Or where the sons of Eden long before
Dwelt in Telassar: in this pleasant soil
His far more pleasant garden God ordain'd:
Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow
All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;
And all amid them stood the tree of life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
Of vegetable gold; and next to life,

Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by,
Knowledge of good, bought dear by knowing ill.
Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Pass'd underneath, ingulf'd; for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden mould, high raised
Upon the rapid current, which through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears;
And now, divided into four main streams,