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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 heaved 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, enraged, might see
How all his malice served 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 flames,
Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and,
roll'd

In billows, leave in the' midst a horrid vale.
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,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds;
And leave a singed bottom all involved [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 sovran, can dispose and bid

What shall be right: furthest from him is best, Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme

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 changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, 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 raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage and revive; though now they lie
Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth."

He scarce had ceased, when the superior Fiend Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield,

Etherial 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 on her spotty globe.
His spear (to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,)
He walk'd 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 endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood; and call'd
His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the' Etrurian shades,
High over-arch'd, imbower; or scatter'd sedge

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