Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd
Hath vex'd the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erBusiris 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 scattered 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 for ever fallen!"
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, nor 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,
Waved 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 Libyan sands.
Forthwith, from every squadron and each band,
The heads and leaders thither haste, where stood
Their great Commander; godlike shapes and forms
Excelling human: princely Dignities;
And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones ;
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial; blotted out and rased
By their rebellion from the book of life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve
Got them new names: till, wandering o'er the earth,
Through God's high sufferance for the trial' of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and the' invisible
Glory of Him that made them, to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorn'd
With gay religions full of pomp and gold;
And devils to adore for Deities :
Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the Heathen world.
Say, Muse, their names then known, who first,
who last,
Roused from the slumber, on that fiery couch,
At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth,
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof.
The chief were those, who, from the pit of Hell
Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
Their seats long after next the seat of God,
Their altars by his altar; (gods adored
Among the nations round;) and durst abide
Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned
Between the Cherubim: yea, often placed
Within his sanctuary' itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned;
And with their darkness durst affront his light.
First, Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite [fire
Worshipp'd in Rabba and her watery plain;
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon: nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple' of God
On that opprobrious hill; and made his grove
The pleasant valley of Hinnom,-Tophet thence
And black Gehenna call'd, the type of Hell.
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