Of us out-cast, exiled, his new delight
Mankind created, and for him this world.
So, farewell hope! and, with hope, farewell fear!
Farewell remorse! all good to me is lost:
Evil! be thou my good; by thee at least
Divided empire with heaven's King I hold;
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign:
As man ere long, and this new world, shall know."
Thus while he spake, each passion dimm'd his
Thrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair;
Which marr'd his borrow'd visage, and betray'd
Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld:
For heavenly minds from such distempers foul
Are ever clear. Whereof he soon aware,
Each perturbation smooth'd with outward calm,
Artificer of fraud; and was the first
That practised falsehood under saintly show,
Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge:
Yet not enough had practised to deceive
Uriel once warn'd; whose eye pursued him down
The way he went; and on the' Assyrian mount
Saw him disfigured, more than could befall
Spirit of happy sort: his gestures fierce
He mark'd and mad demeanour, then alone,
As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.
So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her inclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access denied; and over-head up grew
Insuperable highth of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung;
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round:
And, higher than that wall, a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue
Appear'd, with gay enamell'd colors mix'd;
On which the sun more glad impress'd his beams
Than on fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath shower'd the earth; so lovely
seem'd
That landscape: and of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive
All sadness but despair. Now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense
Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are pass'd
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabean odors from the spicy shore
Of Araby the bless'd: with such delay [league,
Well pleased, they slack their course; and many a
Cheer'd with the grateful smell, old Ocean smiles.
So entertain'd those odorous sweets the Fiend,
Who came their bane; though with them better
Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume [pleased
That drove him, though enamour'd, from the spouse
Of Tobit's son; and with a vengeance sent
From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.
Now to the' ascent of that steep savage hill
Satan had journey'd on, pensive and slow:
But further way found none, so thick entwined,
As one continued brake, the undergrowth
Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplex'd
All path of man or beast that pass'd that way.
One gate there only was, and that look'd east
On the other side: which when the' arch-felon saw,
Due entrance he disdain'd; and, in contempt,
At one slight bound high over-leap'd all bound
Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,
Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve
In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,
Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold.
Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,
Cross-barr'd and bolted fast, fear no assault,
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles;
So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold:
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree and highest there that
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life
Thereby regain'd, but sat devising death
To them who lived: nor on the virtue thought
Of that life-giving plant, but only used
For prospect, what well used had been the pledge Of immortality. So little knows
Any, but God alone, to value right
The good before him; but perverts best things To worst abuse, or to their meanest use. Beneath him with new wonder now he views,
To all delight of human sense exposed,
In narrow room, Nature's whole wealth; yea more,
A heaven on earth: for blissful Paradise
Of God the garden was, by him in the' east
Of Eden planted. Eden stretch'd her line
From Auran eastward to the royal towers
Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings:
Or where the sons of Eden long before
Dwelt in Telassar. In this pleasant soil
His far more pleasant garden God ordain'd.
Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow
All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste:
And all amid them stood the tree of life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit
Of vegetable gold; and next to life,
Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by;
Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.
Southward through Eden went a river large;
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Pass'd underneath ingulf'd; for God had thrown
That mountain, as his garden-mound high raised,
Upon the rapid current; which, through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden: thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood:
Which from his darksome passage now appears;
And now, divided into four main streams,
Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account:
But rather to tell how, if art could tell,
How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy error under pendent shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy' of Paradise; which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpierced shade
Imbrown'd the noontide bowers. Thus was this
A happy rural seat of various view:
[balm; Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and Others whose fruit, burnish'd with golden rind, Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,
If true, here only, and of delicious taste.
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,
Or palmy hillock: or the flowery lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store,
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose:
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant; meanwhile murmuring waters fall
Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake,
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown'd
Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.
The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune
The trembling leaves; while universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on the' eternal Spring. Not that fair field
Of Enna, where Prosérpine gathering flowers,
Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis
Was gather'd; which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world: nor that sweet grove
Of Daphne by Orontes, and the' inspired
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