Through Bofphorus betwixt the justling rocks =
Or when Ulyffes on the larboard shunn'd
Charybdis, and by th'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 tract, fuch was the will of heav'n,
Pav'd after him a broad and beat'n ways ES
Over the dark abyfs, whose boiling gulf
Tamely endur'd a bridge of wondrous length
From hell continu'd reaching th'utmost orbe
Of this frail world; by which the spirits perverse
With eafie intercourse pass to and fro
To tempt or punish mortals, except whom t
God and good angels guard by special grace.
But now at laft the facred influence

Of light appears, and from the walls of heav'n
Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night
A glimmering dawn; here nature first begins
Her fardeft verge, and Chaos to retire
As from her utmost works a brok'n foe-
With tumult lefs and with lefs hoftile din,
That Satan with less toil, and now with ease
Wafts on the calmer wave by dubius light
And like a weather-beaten vessel holds

Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn;
Or in the emptier wafte, resembling air,
Weighs his spread wings, at leasure to behold
Far off th'empyreal heav'n, extended wide
In circuit, undetermin'd fquare or round,

With opal towrs and battlements adorn'd
Of living faphire, once his native feat
And faft by hanging in a golden chain
This pendant world, in bigness as a star
Of fmalleft magnitude close by the moon.
Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accurft, and in a cursed hour he hies.

The End of the Second Book.

H

BOOK NI,

AIL holy light, offspring of heav'n first-born,
Or of th'eternal coeternal beam

May I exprefs thee unblam'd? fince God is light,
And never but in unapproached light

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright effence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the fun,
Before the heav'ns thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle did invest

The rifing world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revifit now with bolder wing,
Efcap't the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obfcure fojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne
With other notes than to th'Orphean lyre

I fung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly mufe to venture down
The dark defcent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revifit safe,
And feel thy fovran vital lamp; but thou
Revifit'ft not these eyes, that rowle in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop ferene hath quencht their orbs,
Or dim fuffufion veil'd. Yet not the more
Ceafe I to wander where the mufes haunt

Clear fpring, or fhaddie grove, or funnie hill,
Smit with the love of sacred fong; but chief
Thee Sion and the flowrie brooks beneath
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I vifit: nor fometimes 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 Tirefias 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 tó mẹ returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or fight of vernal bloom, or fummer's rofe,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud inftead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the chearful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Prefented with a univerfal blanc

Of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite fhut out.
So much the rather thou celeftial light

7

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powere
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and difperfe, that I may fee and tell
Of things invisible to mortal fight, chan
Now had the almighty father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he fits
High thron'd above all highth bent down his eye.

His own works and their works at once to view:

About him all the fanctities of heav'n

Stood thick as stars, and from his fight receiv'd
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his glory fat,
His only Son; on earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy garden plac't,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrival'd love

In blissful folitude; he then survey'd
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of heav'n on this fide Night
In the dun air sublime, and ready now

To ftoop 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 paft, prefent, future he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.

Only begotten Son, feest thou what rage
Transports our adversarie, whom no bounds
Prefcrib'd, no barrs of hell, nor all the chains
Heapt on him there, nor yet the main abyss
Wide interrupt can hold; so bent he seems
On defperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now.
Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way
Not far off heav'n, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new created world.