Tore through my entrails, that, with fear and pain Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew Transformed: but he, my inbred enemy, Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart, Made to destroy. I fled, and cried out Death! Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed From all her caves, and back resounded Death! I fled, but he pursued — though more, it seems, 790 Inflamed with lust than rage- and, swifter far, Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed, And, in embraces forcible and foul Ingendering with me, of that rape begot These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry Surround me, as thou sawest, hourly conceived And hourly born, with sorrow infinite To me; for, when they list, into the womb That bred them they return, and howl and gnaw My bowels, their repast; then, bursting forth Afresh, with conscious terrors vex me round, That rest or intermission none I find.
Before mine eyes in opposition sits
Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on, And me his parent would full soon devour, For want of other prey, but that he knows His end with mine involved, and knows that I Should prove a bitter morsel and his bane, Whenever that shall be; so Fate pronounced. But thou, O father, I forewarn thee, shun His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope To be invulnerable in those bright arms, Though tempered heavenly; for that mortal dint, Save he who reigns above, none can resist."
She finished, and the subtle Fiend his lore Soon learned, now milder, and thus answered smooth:
"Dear daughter-since thou claimest me for thy sire, And my fair son here shewest me, the dear pledge Of dalliance had with thee in Heaven, and joys Then sweet, now sad to mention, through dire change Befallen us, unforeseen, unthought of-know, 821 I come no enemy, but to set free
From out this dark and dismal house of pain, Both him and thee, and all the heavenly host Of Spirits, that, in our just pretences armed, Fell with us from on high. From them I go This uncouth errand, sole, and one for all Myself expose, with lonely steps to tread
The unfounded Deep, and, through the Void immense To search with wandering quest a place foretold 830 Should be, and, by concurring signs, ere now Created vast and round, a place of bliss
In the purlieus of Heaven, and therein placed A race of upstart creatures, to supply Perhaps our vacant room, though more removed, Lest Heaven, surcharged with potent multitude, Might hap to move new broils. Be this or aught Than this more secret now designed, I haste To know; and, this once known, shall soon return And bring ye to the place where thou and Death Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen Wing silently the buxom air, embalmed With odours.
There ye shall be fed and filled Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey."
He ceased, for both seemed highly pleased, and Death
Grinned horrible a ghastly smile, to hear
His famine should be filled, and blessed his maw Destined to that good hour. No less rejoiced His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire:
"The key of this infernal pit, by due
And by command of Heaven's all-powerful King, I keep, by him forbidden to unlock
These adamantine gates; against all force Death ready stands to interpose his dart, Fearless to be o'ermatched by living might. But what owe I to his commands above, Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down Into this gloom of Tartarus profound,
To sit in hateful office here confined, Inhabitant of Heaven and heavenly born, Here in perpetual agony and pain,
With terrors and with clamours compassed round Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed? Thou art my father, thou my author, thou My being gavest me; whom should I obey But thee? whom follow? Thou wilt bring me soon To that new world of light and bliss, among The Gods who live at ease, where I shall reign At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems Thy daughter and thy darling, without end." Thus saying, from her side the fatal key, Sad instrument of all our woe, she took; And, toward the gate rolling her bestial train, Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew, Which but herself not all the Stygian Powers Could once have moved; then in the keyhole turns The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar Of massy iron or solid rock with ease Unfastens. On a sudden open fly,
With impetuous recoil and jarring sound, The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook Of Erebus. She opened, but to shut
Excelled her power; the gates wide open stood, That with extended wings a bannered host, Under spread ensigns marching, might pass through With horse and chariots ranked in loose array; So wide they stood, and like a furnace mouth Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame. Before their eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoary Deep, a dark, Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth,
And time and place, are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.
For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms: they around the flag Of each his faction, in their several clans, Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow, Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands Of Barca or Cyrenè's torrid soil,
Levied to side with warring winds, and poise Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere He rules a moment;
And by decision more embroils the fray,
By which he reigns;
next him high arbiter Into this wild Abyss
- The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave, Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mixed Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight, Unless the almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more worlds Into this wild Abyss the wary Fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and looked awhile, Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith
He had to cross. Nor was his ear less pealed 920 With noises loud and ruinous · - to compare
Great things with small- than when Bellona storms With all her battering engines, bent to rase Some capital city; or less than if this frame Of heaven were falling, and these elements In mutiny had from her axle torn
The steadfast earth. At last his sail-broad vans He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke Up-lifted spurns the ground; thence many a league, As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides
Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets A vast vacuity. All unawares,
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour Down had been falling, had not by ill chance The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud, Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
That fury stayed — Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea
Nor good dry land-nigh foundered on he fares, 940 Treading the crude consistence, half on foot, Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail. As when a gryphon, through the wilderness With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale, Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth Had from his wakeful custody purloined The guarded gold: so eagerly the Fiend
O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or
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