Heroic deem'd; chief mastery to dissect

With long and tedious havock fabled knights
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroic martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, emblazon'd shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds,
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall and 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 skill'd nor studious, higher argument
Remains; sufficient of itself to raise

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That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing

45

Depress'd; 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

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'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end

Night's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round:
When Satan, who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd

In meditated fraud and malice, bent

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On man's destruction, maugre what might hap

Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd.
By night he fled, and at midnight return'd
From compassing the earth; cautions of day,
Since Uriel, regent of the sún, descry'd
His entrance, and forewarn'd the cherubim

That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of sev'n continued nights he rode
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line

He circled; four times cross'd the car of night
From pole to pole, travérsing each colúre;
On th' eighth return'd, and on the coast averse
From entrance or cherubic watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way. There was a place

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Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change, 70
Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise,

Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life;
In with the river sunk, and with it rose
Satan, involv'd in rising mist: then sought

Where to lie hid; sea he had search'd, and land,
From Eden over Pontus, and the pool
Mæotis, up beyond the river Orb;
Downward as far antarctic; and in length,
West from Orontes to the ocean barr'd
At Darien; thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd

With narrow search; and with inspection deep
Consider'd every creature, which of all

Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found

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The serpent subtlest beast of all the field.

Him after long debate, irresolute

Of thoughts revolv'd, his final sentence chose
Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake,
Whatever sleights, none would suspicions mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety

Proceeding; which, in other beasts observ'd,
VOL. 1.
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Doubt might beget of diabolic power

Active within, beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he resolv'd, but first from inward grief
His bursting passion into plaints thus pour'd.
"O Earth, how like to Heav'n, if not preferr'd
More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
For what God, after better, worse would build?
Terrestrial Heav'n, danc'd round by other Heav'ns
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems
In thee concent'ring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence! As God in Heav'n

Is centre, yet extends to all, so thou

Centring, receiv'st from all those orbs; in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue' appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth

Of creatures animate with gradual life

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105

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Of growth, sense, reason, all summ'd up in man.

With what delight could I have walk'd thee round,
If I could joy in ought, sweet interchange

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Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,

Now land, now sea, and shores with forest crown'd,

Rocks, dens, and caves! but I in none of these

Find place or refuge; and the more I see

Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me', as from the hateful siege
Of contraries; all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heav'n much worse would be
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven

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my

state.

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To dwell, unless by mast'ring Heav'n's Supreme;

Nor hope to be myself less miserable

By what I seek, but others to make such

As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease

To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,

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Or won to what may work his utter loss,

For whom all this was made, all this will soon

Follow, as to him link'd in weal or woe;

In woe then; that destruction wide may range :
To me shall be the glory sole among

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Th' infernal pow'rs, in one day to have marr'd
What he, Almighty stil'd, six nights and days
Continued making; and who knows how long
Before had been contriving? though perhaps
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed
From servitude inglorious well nigh half
Th' angelic name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: he, to be aveng'd,

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And to repair his numbers thus impair'd,

Whether such virtue spent of old now fail'd
More angels to create, if they at least

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Are his created, or, to spite us more,

Determin'd to advance into our room

A creature form'd of earth, and him endow,

Exalted from so base original,

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With heav'nly spoils, our spoils: what he decreed,

He effected: man he made, and for him built

Magnificent this world, and earth his seat,
Him lord pronounc'd, and, O indignity;
Subjected to his service angel wings,
And flaming ministers to watch and tend

Their earthly charge: of these the vigilance

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I dread; and to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find

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4

The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds
To hide

me, and the dark intent I bring.

O foul descent! that I, who erst contended

With Gods to sit the high'est, and now constrain'd

Into a beast; and mix'd with bestial si me,
This essence to incarnate and imbrute,
That to the height of deity aspir'd!

But what will not ambition and revenge

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Descend to? who aspires must down as low

As high he soar'd, obnoxious first or last

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To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet,

Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:

Let it; Ireck not, so it light well aim'd,

Since higher I fall short, on him who next

Provokes my envy, this new favourite

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Of Heav'n, this man of clay, son of despite,
Whom us the more to spite, his Maker rais'd
From dust spite then with spite is best repaid."
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry,

Like a black mist low creeping, he held on

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His midnight search, where soonest he might find
The serpent: him fast sleeping soon he found

In labyrinth of mauy a round self-roll'd,

His head the midst, well stor'd with subtle wiles:

Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den,

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Nor uocent yet; but on the grassy herb

Fearless unfear'd he slept: in at his mouth
The devil enter'd; and his brutal sense,
In heart or head, possessing soon inspir'd

With act intelligential; but his sleep

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Disturb'd not, waiting close th' approach of morn.

Now, when as sacred light began to dawn

In Eden on the humid flow'rs, that breath'd