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All sounds on fret by string or golden wire,
Temper'd soft tunings, intermix'd with voice
Choral or unison: of incense clouds,

Fuming from golden censers, hid the mount.
Creation and the six days' acts they sung:
'Great are thy works, Jehovah! infinite

Thy power! what thought can measure thee, or tongue

Relate thee? Greater now in thy return
Than from the giant angels: thee that day
Thy thunders magnified; but to create
Is greater than, created, to destroy.

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Who can impair thee, Mighty King, or bound
Thy empire? Easily the proud attempt
Of spirits apostate, and their counsels vain,"
Thou hast repell'd; while impiously they thought
Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw
The number of thy worshippers. Who seeks
To lessen thee, against his purpose serves
To manifest the more thy might: his evil
Thou usest, and from thence createst more good.
Witness this new-made world, another heaven,
From heaven-gate not far, founded, in view,
On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea;
Of amplitude almost immense, with stars
Numerous, and every star, perhaps, a world
Of destined habitation; but thou know'st
Their seasons: among these the seat of men,
Earth with her nether ocean circumfused,
Their pleasant dwelling-place. Thrice happy men
And sons of men, whom God hath thus advanced!

Created in his image there to dwell
And worship him; and in reward to rule
Over his works, on earth, in sea, or air,
And multiply a race of worshippers
Holy and just thrice happy, if they know
Their happiness, and persevere upright!'

"So sung they, and the empyrean rung
With hallelujahs: thus was sabbath kept.
And thy request think now fulfill'd, that ask'd
How first this world and face of things began
And what before thy memory was done
From the beginning: that posterity,

Inform'd by thee, might know: if else thou seek'st
Aught not surpassing human measure, say "

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK VIII

THE ARGUMENT.

Adain incires concerning celestial motions; is doubtfully ar swered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knov lege; Adam assents; and, still desirous to detain Raphael, relates to him what he remembered since his own creation; his placing in Paradise; his talk with God concerning solitude and fit society; his first meeting and nuptials with Eve; his discourse with the angel thereupon, who, after admonitions repeated, departs.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK VIII.

THE angel ended, and in Adam's ear
So charming left his voice, that he awhile
Thought him still speaking, still stood fix'd to hear;
Then, as new-waked, thus gratefully replied:
"What thanks sufficient, or what recompense
Equal, have I to render thee, divine
Historian, who thus largely hast allay'd
The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed
This friendly condescension, to relate
Things else by me unsearchable; now heard
With wonder, but delight, and, as is due,
With glory attributed to the high
Creator? Something yet of doubt remains,
Which only thy solution can resolve.
When I behold this goodly frame, this world,
Of heaven and earth consisting, and compute
Their magnitudes; this earth, a spot, a grain,
An atom, with the firmament compared
And all her number'd stars, that seem to roll
Spaces incomprehensible (for such

Their distance argues, and their swift return
Diurnal,) merely to officiate light

Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot,

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