To work in close design, by fraud or guile,
What force effected not; that he no less
At length from us may find, who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

655

Space may produce new worlds, whereof so rife 650
There went a fame in heav'n, that he ere long
Intended to create, and therein plant
A generation, whom his choice regard
Should favour equal to the sons of heaven :
Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps
Our first eruption, thither or elsewhere;
For this infernal pit shall never hold
Celestial spirits in bondage, nor th' Abyss
Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts
Full counsel must mature: peace is despair'd;
For who can think submission? war then, war
Open or understood, must be resolv'd.

He spake and to confirm his words outflew
Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs
Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze
Far round illumin'd hell: highly they rag'd
Against the highest, and fierce with grasped arms
Clash'd on their sounding shields the din of war,
Hurling defiance toward the vault of heav'n.

660

665

669 vault of heav'n] Doctor Pearce approves Bentley's conjecture, 'walls of heaven,' and says the emendation is good. But I must differ from the opinions of both critics, and consider that this reading would much impair the beauty of the passage.

'Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,

Hurling defiance toward the vault of heaven,'

which collected and reverberated the clash of the shields.

There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top Belch'd fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire Shone with a glossy scurf, undoubted sign That in his womb was hid metallic ore,

670

675

The work of sulphur. Thither, wing'd with speed,
A numerous brigad hasten'd; as when bands
Of pioneers, with spade and pickaxe arm'd,
Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field,
Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on,
Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell

From heav'n; for ev'n in heav'n his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heav'n's pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoy'd

In vision beatific. By him first

Men also and by his suggestion taught

Ransack'd the center, and with impious hands
Rifled the bowels of their mother earth
For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew
Open'd into the hill a spacious wound,
And digg'd out ribs of gold. Let none admire
That riches grow in hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane. And here let those
Who boast in mortal things, and wond'ring tell
Of Babel and the works of Memphian kings,
Learn how their greatest monuments of fame

687 Rifled] v. Ovid Met. i. 138.

'Itum est in viscera terræ,

Quasque recondiderat, Stygiisque admoverat umbris,
Effodiuntur opes.' Hume.

685

690

695

700

In strength and art are easily outdone
By spirits reprobate, and in an hour
What in an age they with incessant toil
And hands innumerable scarce perform.
Nigh on the plain in many cells prepar'd,
That underneath had veins of liquid fire
Sluic'd from the lake, a second multitude
With wond'rous art founded the massy ore,
Severing each kind, and scumm'd the bullion dross.
A third as soon had form'd within the ground

A various mould, and from the boiling cells
By strange conveyance fill'd each hollow nook:
As in an organ from one blast of wind

To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.
Anon out of the earth a fabric huge
Rose, like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,
Built like a temple, where pilasters round
Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid

With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or freeze with bossy sculptures grav'n;
The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon,
Nor great Alcairo such magnificence
Equall'd in all their glories, to inshrine
Belus or Serapis their Gods, or seat

706 A various mould] 'capacious moulds.' Bentl. MS.
711 Rose] Did like a shooting exhalation glide.'

714 Doric pillars]

See Marlowe's Hero and Leander, p. 81.

'There findest thou some stately Doric frame.'

See Hall's Satires, ed. Singer, p. 133.

705

710

715

720

Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove
In wealth and luxury. Th' ascending pile

725

730

Stood fixt her stately highth, and straight the doors,
Op'ning their brazen folds, discover, wide
Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth
And level pavement: from the arched roof,
Pendent by subtle magic, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With Naphtha and Asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. The hasty multitude
Admiring enter'd, and the work some praise,
And some the architect: his hand was known
In heav'n by many a tower'd structure high,
Where scepter'd angels held their residence,
And sat as princes; whom the supreme King
Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright.
Nor was his name unheard or unador'd
In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
Men call'd him Mulciber; and how he fell
From heav'n they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements; from morn.
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting sun

735

740

742 crystal battlements] See Beaumont's Psyche, cxx. 110. 'Much higher than the proudest battlement of the old heavens.' See Don Quixote, vol. 3. p. 156, (trans. Shelton, 12mo. 1731.) 'I saw a princely and sumptuous palace, whose walls and battlements seemed to be made of transparent crystal;' and Miltoni Sylv. p. 323 (ed. Todd, ver. 63.)

'ventum est Olympi, et regiam crystallinam.'

Dropt from the Zenith like a falling star,
On Lemnos th' Ægean isle; thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

745

Fell long before; nor aught avail'd him now
To have built in heav'n high tow'rs; nor did he scape
By all his engines, but was headlong sent
With his industrious crew to build in hell.

Mean while the winged haralds by command
Of sov'reign power, with awful ceremony

And trumpets' sound, throughout the host proclaim
A solemn council forthwith to be held
At Pandæmonium, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers: their summons call'd
From every band and squared regiment

750

755

By place or choice the worthiest; they anon
With hundreds and with thousands trooping came 760
Attended all access was throng'd, the gates
And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall,
(Though like a cover'd field, where champions bold
Wont ride in arm'd, and at the Soldan's chair
Defi'd the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat or carreer with lance,)
Thick swarm'd, both on the ground and in the air,
Brush'd with the hiss of rusling wings. As bees
In spring time, when the sun with Taurus rides,

765

752 haralds] Par. Lost, 1st ed. Steevens' Shakesp. (Pericles) ed. 1793, vol. xiii. p. 489.

769 Taurus] v. Virg. Georg. i. 217.

'Candidus auratis aperit cum cornibus annum