How overcome this dire calamity;
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair."
Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blaz'd; his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood; in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove;
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea-beast,
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the' ocean stream:
Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his skaly rind
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays:
So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay,
Chain'd on the burning lake: nor ever thence
Had risen, or heav'd his head; but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs;
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others; and, enrag'd, might see
How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace and mercy, shown
On Man by him seduced; but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour'd,
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flame
Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and
In billows, leave i' the' midst a horrid vale. [roll'd
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 burn'd
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire;
And such appear'd in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuell'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublim'd with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involv'd [sole
With stench and smoke: such resting found the
Of unblest feet. Him follow'd his next mate:
Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood
As Gods, and by their own recover'd strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, (Said then the lost Arch-angel) this the seat That we must change for Heaven; this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be' it so, since he,
Who now is Sov'ran, can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best,
Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made su
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells; hail, horrors; hail,
Infernal world; and thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time:
The mind is its own palace, 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:
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 copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd 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
Regain'd in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell ?”
So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub
Thus answer'd: "Leader of those armies bright,
Which but the' Omnipotent none could have foil'd,
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 rag'd, 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,
As we erewhile, astounded and amaz’d;
No wonder, fall'n such a pernicious heighth."
He scarce had ceas'd, when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous
shield,
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 Fesolé,
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 admiral, 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 endur'd, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd
His legions, angel-forms, who lay intranc'd
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the' Etrurian shades,
High over-arch'd, imbower; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd
Hath vex'd the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'er-
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot wheels: so thick bestrown,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded: "Princes, Potentates,
Warriors, the flower of Heaven, once yours, now
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal Spirits; or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
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 scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
The' advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping; or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be forever fall'n!"
They heard, and were abash'd, 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 obey'd,
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,
Wav'd round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
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;
A multitude, like which the populous North
Pour'd 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 Lybian sands.
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