"Havoc, and spoil, and ruin, are my gain."
He ceas'd; and Satan staid not to reply,
But, glad that now his sea should find a shore,
With fresh alacrity, and force renew'd,
Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire,
Into the wild expanse; and, through the shock
Of fighting elements, on all sides round
Environ'd, wins his way: harder beset,
And more endanger'd, than when Argo pass'd
Through Bosphorus, betwixt the justling rocks:
Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunn'd
Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steer'd.
So he with difficulty and labour hard
Mov'd on; with difficulty and labour he.
But, he once past, soon after, when man fell,
Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain
Following his track, such was the will of Heav'n,-
Pav'd after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf
Tamely endur'd a bridge of wondrous length,
From hell continued, reaching the utmost orb
Of this frail world; by which the spirits perverse,
With easy intercourse, pass to and fro
To tempt or punish mortals, except whom
God and good angels guard by special grace.
But now at last the sacred influence

Of light appears, and from the walls of heaven
Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night
A glimmering dawn: here Nature first begins
Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,
As from her outmost works, a broken foe,
With tumult less, and with less hostile din ;
That Satan with less toil, and now with ease,
Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light,
And, like, a weather-beaten vessel, holds
Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn;
Or in the emptier waste resembling air
Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold
Far off the empyreal heaven, extended wide
In circuit, (undetermin'd square or round,)
With opal towers and battlements adorn'd
Of living sapphire, once his native seat!
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.
Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accurs'd, and in a cursed hour, he hies.

:

Il finit. Satan ne s'arrêta point à répliquer. Ravi de toucher au rivage après avoir parcouru tant de mers, son ardeur et ses forces se renouvellent: il s'élève comme une pyramide de flammes, dans l'immensité des ténèbres. Au milieu du choc des éléments en fureur, il perce, il se fraye un passage. Moins redoutables, moins imminents furent les dangers qui menacèrent le navire Argo, traversant le Bosphore entre des masses de rochers qui, de leurs têtes, semblaient s'entre-heurter; Ulysse courut moins de hasards quand, pour éviter Charybde, il côtoya habilement l'autre gouffre. Tels furent les pénibles obstacles que Satan eut à vaincre dans sa route; lui seul devait les éprouver: car à peine en eut-il atteint le terme, à peine le premier Homme fut-il devenu coupable; ô changement étrange prescrit par les arrêts du ciel! la Mort et le Péché, ardents à suivre ses traces, construisirent un solide et large chemin sur le noir abîme. Le gouffre enflammé reçut patiemment un pont, dont l'étonnante longueur s'étendit du bord des enfers aux limites de notre globe fragile. C'est à l'aide de cette facile communication, que les esprits pervers passent et repassent sur la terre, pour corrompre ou punir les humains que le Très-Haut et ses anges fidèles n'ont pas favorisés d'une grâce particulière. Ici se fait enfin ressentir l'influence sacrée de la lumière! Du haut de la céleste voûte, un crépuscule naissant pénètre dans le sein de l'épaisse nuit. Ici commence l'empire de la nature. De loin, à l'aspect de ses limites, le Chaos se retire; un ennemi vaincu s'enfuit avec moins de prudence et de mystère. Déjà Satan, sans résistance et sans effort, tantôt vogue sur une mer plus tranquille, à la faible lueur d'une clarté douteuse : tel un vaisseau, dont la tempête a mis en pièces et voiles et cordages, gagne avec joie le port; et tantôt, planant de ses vastes ailes dans le vide qui domine les airs, il contemple à loisir dans le lointain l'empyrée, dont l'immense étendue dérobe la forme à ses yeux; il admire les tours d'opale et les créneaux de vivant saphir, ornements de ce séjour, qui fut autrefois sa demeure ; il voit au-dessous, suspendu par une chaîne d'or, le nouvel univers, qui lui paraît ainsi que paraît à nos yeux une étoile de la plus petitė grandeur, près du disque de la lune. A cet aspect, son cœur se gonfle d'une noire vengeance; il jure la perte de l'Homme, et dans ce projet infernal, il précipite son vol vers le monde.

BOOK III.

God, sitting on his throne, sees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created ; shows him to the Son, who sat at his right hand; foretels the success of Satan in perverting mankind, clears his own justice and wisdom from all imputation, having created man free and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious purpose towards man: but God again declares, that grace cannot be extended towards man without the satisfaction of divine justice: man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to godhead, and therefore, with all his progeny, devoted to death, must die, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ransom for man: the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in heaven and earth; commands all the angels to adore him. They obey, and hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Meanwhile Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world's outermost orb; where wandering he first finds a place, since called the Limbo of Vanity: what persons and things fly up thither thence comes to the gate of heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: his passage thence to the orb of the sun: he finds there Uriel, the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner angel ; and, pretending a zealous desire to behold the new creation, and man whom God had placed here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed: alights first on mount Niphates.

Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first born!
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun, -
Before the heavens thou wert; and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to th' Orphéan lyre,
I sung of Chaos, and eternal Night ;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,

CHANT III.

L'Éternel voit Satan qui s'avance vers la nouvelle Création. Il prédit à son fils qu'il réussira dans son dessein de corrompre l'Homme. Il déclare en même temps qu'il fera grâce à l'Homme séduit, pourvu qu'il se trouve une victime capable de satisfaire à la justice divine offensée. Le Fils de Dieu s'offre pour être cette victime, et le père l'accepte. Concert d'adoration des chœurs célestes. Satan, descendu sur la surface du monde, après avoir trouvé le Limbe de vanité, passe à l'orbe du Soleil. Uriel, conducteur de cet orbe, est trompé par Satan déguisé; il lui indique le chemin de la terre, et Satan y vole.

Je te salue, ô lumière sacrée ! fille aînée des cieux! ou, si je puis t'appeler ainsi sans blasphème, co-éternel rayon de l'Eternel! Oui, puisque Dieu est la lumière, puisque de toute éternité il réside au centre d'une inaccessible lumière, c'est en toi qu'il réside, brillante émanation d'une incréée et brillante essence! ou, si tu préfères ce nom, ruisseau pur et céleste! Qui pourra me révéler ta source ? Avant le soleil, avant les cieux, tu étais: Dieu parla; et tu enveloppas, comme d'un manteau, le monde naissant, masse fluide et noire, tirée des vastes profondeurs de l'abîme. Je reparais devant toi d'une aile plus assurée; échappé de l'empire du Styx, j'ai longtemps été retenu sur ses obscurs rivages. Mon vol s'est soutenu dans les profondes ténèbres et dans l'espace moins sombre qui confine à l'empire du jour, tandis que sur un ton différent de celui qui anima la lyre d'Orphée, je chantais le Chaos et l'éternelle Nuit. La muse céleste m'instruisit à descendre au fond du noir abîme; elle me ramène à la clarté, retour pénible et rare! Vainqueur des dangers, je reparais devant toi; je sens ton flambeau vivifiant et souverain; mais toi, tu ne reparais pas à ces yeux qui roulent en vain pour

Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a Drop-serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old;
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even, or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off! and, for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works, to me expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out!
So much the rather thou, celestial light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse; that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyréan where he sits
High thron'd above all height, bent down his eye,
His own works, and their works, at once in view.
About him all the sanctities of heaven

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only Son. On earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy garden plac'd,