He ceased; 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 wide 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 Bosporus, 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 Moved on: with difficulty and labour he: But, he once pass'd, soon after, when man fell, Strange alteration! Sin and. Death amain
Following his track, such was the will of Heaven, Paved after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf Tamely endured 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 1035
Shoots far into the bosom of dim night
A glimmering dawn; Here Nature first begins
Her furthest 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, undetermined 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, Accursed, and in a cursed hour, he hies.
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 choir, 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, descried 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 unblamed? 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, Escaped 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 the Orphéan lyre, I sung of Chaos and eternal Night; Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend, Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sov'reign 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'd thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget Those other two equal'd with me in fate, So were I equal'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 everduring dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank
Of natures works, to me expunged and rased, 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 empyrean where he sits High throned above all height, bent down his eye His own works and their works at once to view: About him all the Sanctities of Heaven Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received 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 placed, Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love, Uninterrupted joy, unrival'd love, In blissful solitude; he then survey'd Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there Coasting the wall of Heaven on this side Night In the dun air sublime, and ready now To stoop with wearied wings and willing feet, On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd Firm land imbosom'd, without firmament, Uncertain which, in ocean or in air. Him God beholding from his prospect high, Wherein past, present, future he beholds, Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake :
Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage Transports our Adversary? whom no bounds Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains Heap'd on him there, nor yet the main abyss, Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems On desperate revenge, that shall redound Upon his own rebellious head. And now, Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way Net far off Heaven, in the precincts of light,
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