Can else inflict, do I repent or change,
Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind, And high disdain from sense of injured merit, That with the Mightiest raised me to contend, And to the fierce contention brought along Innumerable force of Spirits armed, That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring, His utmost power with adverse power opposed, In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven, And shook his throne.
All is not lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And courage never to submit or yield, And what is else not to be overcome That glory never shall his wrath or might Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace With suppliant knee, and deify his power, Who, from the terror of this arm, so late Doubted his empire, - that were low indeed, That were an ignominy and shame beneath This downfall. Since by fate the strength of Gods And this empyreal substance cannot fail; Since, through experience of this great event, In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced, We may with more successful hope resolve To wage by force or guile eternal war, Irreconcilable to our grand foe,
Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven . . ." So spake the apostate Angel, though in pain, Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair; And him thus answered soon his bold compeer: "O prince, O chief of many throned Powers,
That led the embattled Seraphim to war Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds, Fearless endangered Heaven's perpetual King, And put to proof his high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate; Too well I see and rue the dire event, That, with sad overthrow and foul defeat, Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host In horrible destruction laid thus low, As far as Gods and heavenly essences Can perish; for the mind and spirit remains Invincible, and vigour soon returns,
Though all our glory extinct, and happy state Here swallowed up in endless misery. But what if he our conqueror - whom I now Of force believe almighty, since no less
Than such could have o'erpow'red such orce as ours→→ Have left us this our spirit and strength entire, Strongly to suffer and support our pains, That we may so suffice his vengeful ire, Or do him mightier service, as his thralls By right of war, whate'er his business be; Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire, Or do his errands in the gloomy Deep! What can it then avail, though yet we feel Strength undiminished, or eternal being To undergo eternal punishment?
Whereto with speedy words the Arch-Fiend replied:
"Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable Doing or suffering. But of this be sure, To do aught good never will be our task; But ever to do ill our sole delight, As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil; Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb His inmost counsels from their destined aim. But see! the angry victor hath recalled His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of Heaven; the sulphurous hail, Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder, Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage, Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep. Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn Or satiate fury yield it from our foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, / 180 / The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves, There rest, if any rest can harbour there, And, reassembling our afflicted powers, Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our enemy, our own loss how repair, How overcome this dire calamity, What reinforcement we may gain from hope, If not what resolution from despair."
Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate, With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream Him, haply slumbering on the Norway-foam, The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wished morn delays So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay, Chained on the burning lake, nor ever thence Had risen or heaved his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs, That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others, and enraged might see How all his malice served but to bring forth Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shewn On Man by him seduced, but on himself Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance poured. 220 Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature. On each hand the flames Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and, rolled
In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale. Then with expanded wings he steers his flight Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air, That felt unusual weight, till on dry land He lights; if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire, And such appeared in hue, as when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side Of thundering Etna, whose combustible And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire, Sublimed with mineral fury aid the winds, And leave a singed bottom all involved
With stench and smoke-such resting found the sole Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate, Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood As Gods, and by their own recovered strength, 240 Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime," Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat,
That we must change for Heaven? this mournful
For that celestial light?
Who now is sovran, can dispose and bid
· What shall be right; furthest from him is best, Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme Above his equals. Farewell happy fields, Where joy for ever dwells! hail, horrors! hail, 250 Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell, Receive thy new possessor, one who brings A mind not to be changed by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven. What matter where if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater. Here at least We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence; Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
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