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Love not the heavenly Spirits? and how their love Express they? by looks only, or do they mix Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch?

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To whom the Angel, with a smile that glowed Celestial rosy-red, love's proper hue,

Answered: Let it suffice thee that thou knowest Us happy, and without love no happiness. Whatever pure thou in the body enjoyest

And pure thou wert created

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we enjoy In eminence, and obstacle find none Of membrane, joint, or limb, exclusive bars: Easier than air with air, if Spirits embrace, Total they mix, union of pure with pure Desiring, nor restrained conveyance need As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul. But I can now no more; the parting sun Beyond the earth's Green Cape and Verdant Isles Hesperean sets, my signal to depart.

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Be strong, live happy, and love! but first of all
Him whom to love is to obey, and keep
His great command; take heed lest passion sway
Thy judgement to do aught, which else free-will
Would not admit; thine, and of all thy sons
The weal or woe in thee is placed; beware!
I in thy persevering shall rejoice,

And all the Blest. Stand fast; to stand or fall 640
Free in thine own arbitrement it lies.
Perfect within, no outward aid require ;
And all temptation to transgress repel.'

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So saying, he arose; whom Adam thus
Followed with benediction : -"Since to part,
Go, heavenly guest, ethereal messenger,
Sent from whose sovran goodness I adore.
Gentle to me and affable hath been

Thy condescension, and shall be honoured ever
With grateful memory; thou to mankind
Be good and friendly still, and oft return."

So parted they, the Angel up to Heaven
From the thick shade, and Adam to his bower.

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PARADISE LOST.

BOOK IX.

THE ARGUMENT.

SATAN having compassed the earth, with meditated guile returns as a mist by night into Paradise, enters into the Serpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the morning go forth to their labours, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each labouring apart; Adam consents not, alleging the danger, lest that enemy, of whom they were forewarned, should attempt her found alone. Eve, loth to be thought not circumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather desirous to make trial of her strength; Adam at last yields. The Serpent finds her alone; his subtle approach, first gazing, then speaking, with much flattery extolling Eve above all other creatures. Eve, wondering to hear the Serpent speak, asks how he attained to human speech and such understanding not till now: the Serpent answers, that by tasting of a certain tree in the garden he attained both to speech and reason, till then void of both. Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and finds it to be the Tree of Knowledge forbidden. The Serpent now grown bolder, with many wiles and arguments induces her at length to eat; she, pleased with the taste, deliberates a while whether to impart thereof to Adam or not, at last brings him of the fruit, relates what persuaded her to eat thereof. Adam at first amazed, but perceiving her lost, resolves through vehemence of love to perish with her; and extenuating the trespass eats also of the fruit. The effects thereof in them both; they seek to cover their nakedness; then fall to variance and accusation of one another.

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10 more of talk where God or Angel guest With Man, as with his friend, familiar used To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast, permitting him the while Venial discourse unblamed. I now must change Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt

And disobedience; on the part of Heaven,
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery,
Death's harbinger: sad task! yet argument
Not less but more heroic than the wrath
Of stern Achilles, on his foe pursued
Thrice fugitive about Troy-wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespoused;
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long
Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son ;-
If answerable style I can obtain

Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation, unimplored,

And dictates to me slumbering, or inspires

Easy my unpremeditated verse,

Since first this subject for heroic song

Pleased me, long choosing and beginning late,
Not sedulous by nature to indite

Wars, hitherto the only argument

Heroic deemed, chief mastery to dissect,
With long and tedious havoc, fabled knights,
In battles feigned- the better fortitude

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Of patience and heroic martyrdom

Unsung or to describe races and games,

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Or tilting furniture, emblazoned shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and torneament; then marshalled feast
Served up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,

Not that which justly gives heroic name
To person or to poem. Me, of these
Nor skilled nor studious, higher argument
Remains, sufficient of itself to raise

That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing,
Depressed; and much they may if all be mine,
Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.

The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter

'Twixt day and night; and now from end to end
Night's hemisphere had veiled the horizon round,
When Satan, who late fled, before the threats
Of Gabriel, out of Eden, now improved

In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned.
By night he fled, and at midnight returned,
From compassing the earth; cautious of day,
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
His entrance, and forewarned the Cherubim
That kept their watch.

driven

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Thence, full of anguish,

The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line
He circled, four times crossed the car of Night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;

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