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Alone, for other creature in this place,
Living or lifeless, to be found was none;
None yet, but store hereafter from the earth
Up hither, like aëreal vapours flew

Of all things transitory and vain, when sin
With vanity had fill'd the works of men :
Both all things vain, and all who in vain things
Built their fond hopes of glory or lasting fame,
Or happiness in this or the other life;

All who have their reward on earth, the fruits
Of painful superstition and blind zeal,
Nought seeking but the praise of men, here find
Fit retribution, empty as their deeds;
All the unaccomplish'd works of Nature's hand,
Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd,
Dissolv'd on earth, fleet hither, and in vain,
Till final dissolution, wander here;

Not in the neighbouring moon, as some have dream'd;
Those argent fields more likely habitants,
Translated Saints, or middle Spirits hold,

Betwixt the angelical and human kind.
Ilither of ill-joined1 sons and daughters born
First from the ancient world those giants came
With many a vain exploit, though then renown'd:
The builders next of Babel on the plain
Of Sennaar,2 and still with vain design,
New Babels, had they wherewithal, would build :
Others came single; he who, to be deem'd
A god, leap'd fondly into Etna's flames,
Empedocles;3 and he who, to enjoy
Plato's Elysium, leap'd into the sea,

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16 'Ill-joined,' &c.: alluding to the sons of God wedding the daughters of men. See Gen. vi. 4.-2 Sennaar:' Shinar.-3 Empedocles:' who, to be deemed a god, threw himself unseen into Etna; but whose brazen slippers, cast out, betrayed the secret.

Cleombrotus;1 and many more too long,
Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,

White, black, and grey,2 with all their trumpery.
Here pilgrims roam, that stray'd so far to seek
In Golgotha Him dead who lives in Heaven;
And they who, to be sure of Paradise,
Dying put on the weeds of Dominick,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguis'd;
They pass the planets seven, and pass
And that crystalline 3 sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation talk'd, and that first mov'd ;4
And now Saint Peter at Heaven's wicket seems
To wait them with his keys, and now at foot
Of Heaven's ascent they lift their feet, when, lo
A violent cross wind from either coast

the fix'd,

Blows them transverse, ten thousand leagues awry
Into the devious air: Then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, toss'd
And flutter'd into rags; then relics, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,

The sport of winds: All these, upwhirl'd aloft,
Fly o'er the backside of the world far off
Into a Limbo large and broad, since call'd
The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown
Long after, now unpeopled and untrod.

All this dark globe the Fiend found as he pass'd,
And long he wander'd, till at last a gleam
Of dawning light turn'd thitherward in haste
His travell'd steps: far distant he descries
Ascending by degrees magnificent

''Cleombrotus:' a youth of Epirus, who, having read Plato on the Immortality of the Soul, threw himself into the sea.- -White, black, and grey:' Carmelites, Dominicans, and Franciscans.- 'The Crystalline:' or Tremulous Sphere.—‘First moved :' the Primum Mobile.

Up to the wall of Heaven a structure high ;
At top whereof, but far more rich, appear'd
The work as of a kingly palace-gate,
With frontispiece of diamond and gold
Embellish'd; thick with sparkling orient gems
The portal shone, inimitable on earth
By model, or by shading pencil, drawn.
The stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw
Angels ascending and descending, bands
Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled
To Padan-Aram, in the field of Luz
Dreaming by night under the open sky,
And waking cried, This is the gate of heaven.
Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood
There always, but drawn up to Heaven sometimes
Viewless; and underneath a bright sea flow'd
Of jasper, or of liquid pearl, whereon
Who after came from earth, sailing arriv'd
Wafted by Angels, or flew o'er the lake
Rapt in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds.
The stairs were then let down, whether to dare
The Fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate
His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss:
Direct against which open'd from beneath,
Just o'er the blissful seat of Paradise,

A passage down to the Earth, a passage wide,
Wider by far than that of after-times
Over Mount Sion, and, though that were large,
Over the Promis'd Land to God so dear;
By which, to visit oft those happy tribes,
On high behests, his Angels to and fro

Pass'd frequent, and his eye with choice regard
From Paneas,1 the fount of Jordan's flood,

''Paneas:' a city at the foot of Lebanon.

To Beërsaba, where the Holy Land
Borders on Egypt and the Arabian shore;

So wide the opening seem'd, where bounds were set
To darkness, such as bound the ocean wave.
Satan from hence, now on the lower stair,
That scaled by steps of gold to Heaven gate,
Looks down with wonder at the sudden view
Of all this world at once. As when a scout,
Through dark and desert ways with peril gone
All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn
Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
Which to his eye discovers unaware
The goodly prospect of some foreign land
First seen, or some renown'd metropolis
With glistering spires and pinnacles adorn'd,
Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams:
Such wonder seiz'd, though after Heaven seen,
The Spirit malign, but much more envy seiz'd,
At sight of all this world beheld so fair.
Round he surveys (and well might where he stood
So high above the circling canopy

Of night's extended shade), from eastern point
Of Libra1 to the fleecy star that bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic seas

Beyond the horizon; then from pole to pole
He views in breadth, and, without longer pause
Downright into the world's first region throws
His flight precipitant, and winds with ease
Through the pure marble air his oblique way
Amongst innumerable stars, that shone
Stars distant, but nigh hand seem'd other worlds;
Or other worlds they seem'd, or happy isles,
Like those Hesperian gardens fam'd of old,

Libra:' the Balance.

Fortunate fields, and groves, and flow'ry vales,
Thrice happy isles; but who dwelt happy there
He stay❜d not to enquire: Above them all
The golden sun, in splendour likest Heaven,
Allur'd his eye; thither his course he bends
Through the calm firmament (but up or down,
By centre or eccentric, hard to tell,

Or longitude), where the great luminary
Aloof the vulgar constellations thick,
That from his lordly eye keep distance due,
Dispenses light from far; they, as they move
Their starry dance in numbers that compute
Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp
Turn swift their various motions, or are turn'd
By his magnetick beam, that gently warms
The universe, and to each inward part
With gentle penetration, though unseen,
Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep;
So wonderously was set his station bright.
There lands the Fiend, a spot like which perhaps
Astronomer in the sun's lucent orb

Through his glazed optic tube yet never saw.
The place he found beyond expression bright,
Compar'd with aught on earth, metal or stone;
Not all parts like, but all alike inform'd
With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire;
If metal, part seem'd gold, part silver clear;
If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite,
Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone
In Aaron's breast-plate, and a stone besides
Imagined rather oft than elsewhere seen,
That stone, or like to that, which here below
Philosophers in vain so long have sought,

In vain, though by their powerful art they bind

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