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 re-visit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained 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 re-ascend, Though hard and rare: Thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovran 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 quenched their orbs, Or dim suffusion veiled. 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 hallowed feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equalled with me in fate, So were I equalled 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 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 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 highth, 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, unrivalled love,
In blissful solitude; he then surveyed
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 seemed Firm land imbosomed, 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 Heaped 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 Not far off Heaven, in the precincts of light, Directly towards the new created world,
And man there placed, with purpose
If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert;
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: So will fall
He and his faithless progeny: Whose fault? Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me All he could have; I made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood, and them who failed; Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do appeared,
Not what they would? what praise could they receive? What pleasure I from such obedience paid, When will and reason (reason also is choice) Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled, Made passive both, had served necessity, Not me? They therefore, as to right belonged, So were created, nor can justly accuse Their Maker, or their making, or their fate, As if predestination over-ruled
Their will disposed by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed Their own revolt, not I; if I foreknew, Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, Which had no less proved certain unforeknown. So without least impúlse or shadow of fate,
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