He prepares to speak. Their strife was glorious. The issue was unexpected. He now prepared 615 strife 625 630 Was not inglorious, though the event was dire, As this place testifies, and this dire change Hateful to utter. But what power of mind, Foreseeing or presaging, from the depth Of knowledge past or present, could have feared How such united force of gods, how such As stood like these, could ever know repulse? For who can yet believe, though after loss, That all these puissant legions, whose exile Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to reascend They may yet Self-raised, and repossess their native seat? For me, be witness all the host of Heaven, If counsels different, or danger shunned By me, have lost our hopes. But He who reigns Monarch in Heaven, till then as one secure Sat on His throne, upheld by old repute, Consent, or custom, and His regal state Put forth at full, but still His strength concealed Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall. Henceforth His might we know, and know our return. Fraud must effect what force could not. own, So as not either to provoke, or dread 635 640 New war provoked; our better part remains Space may produce new worlds; whereof so 645 650 655 There went a fame in Heaven that He ere long He spake; and, to confirm his words, outflew The new mentioned. They must escape. No thought of submission. Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs The flash of Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze 665 swords and Far round illumined Hell. Highly they raged There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top 670 smiting of shields. A mine The work of sulphur. Thither, winged with speed, projected. Mammon. They mine, and smelt, and cast. A numerous brigade hastened, as when bands Mammon led them on Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell 675 From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and thoughts Were always downward bent, admiring more In vision beatific. By him first Men also, and by his suggestion taught, Ransacked the Centre, and with impious hands Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew Opened into the hill a spacious wound, 680 685 And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire 690 700 Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion dross. A third as soon had formed within the ground 705 To many a row of pipes the soundboard breathes. Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove 715 720 Stood fixed her stately highth; and straight the doors, Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide The hasty multitude Admiring entered; and the work some praise, 725 730 The palace of ium rises. The architect otherwise Hephaistos or Vulcan. 735 740 In Heaven by many a towered structure high, Where sceptred Angels held their residence, And sat as Princes, whom the Supreme King Exalted to such power, and gave to rule, Each in his hierarchy, the Orders bright. was Mulciber, Nor was his name unheard or unadored In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell From heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove. Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer's day; and with the setting sun Dropped from the zenith, like a falling star, On Lemnos, the Ægæan isle. Thus they relate, Erring; for he with this rebellious rout The summons to the council. 745 Fell long before; nor aught availed him now scape By all his engines, but was headlong sent, 750 Meanwhile the wingèd Heralds, by command A solemn council forthwith to be held At Pandemonium, the high capital Of Satan and his peers. Their summons called By place or choice the worthiest; they, anon, The infernal With hundreds and with thousands trooping estates con 755 760 |