: Each to his place; they heard his voice, and went h In heavenly spirits could such perverseness dwell? Stood re-embattel'd fierce, by force or fraud Or faint retreat; when the great Son of God 785 790 795 To all his host on either hand thus spake : 800 Stand still in bright array, ye saints; here stand, Ye angels arm'd; this day from battel rest : : Faithful hath been your warfare, and of God h They heard his voice, and went. 805 810 815 820 Habakk. iii. 6:—"The everlasting mountains were scattered; the perpetual hills did bow."-TODD. As Pharaoh was, Exod. xiv.-HUME. i Harden'd more. J Stand still. As in Exod. xiv. 13, 14:-"Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will show you to day. The Lord shall fight for you, and ye shall hold your peace."-GILLIES. Vengeance is his. See Deut. xxxii. 35:-"To me belongeth vengeance." And Rom. xii. 19:-"Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord."-NEWTON. They measure all, of other excellence So spake the Son; and into terrour changed At once the Four1 spread out of their starry wings At once the Four. 825 830 833 840 845 Whenever he mentions the four cherubim, and the Messiah's chariot, he still copies from Ezekiel's vision. See ch. i. 9, 19, 24.-NEWTON. m Gloomy as night. From Homer, Il. xii. 462, where the translator uses Milton's words : Νυκτὶ θοῇ ἀτάλαντος ὑπώπια. A similar expression, translated in these words of Milton, is also in Odyss. xi. 609.— NEWTON. "Under his burning wheels. Job xxvi. 11:-"The pillars of heaven tremble, and are astonished at his reproof." -HUME. This sublime passage owes part of its magnificence to another sacred description, Daniel, vii. 9, of the Ancient of Days:-"His throne was as the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire." Milton's diction is here superior even to Hesiod's celebrated lines, Theog. v. 841:— Ποσσὶ δ ̓ ὑπ ̓ ἀθανάτοισι μέγας πελεμίζετ ̓ Ολυμπος The majesty of the exception, which Milton adds, affords to the whole passage a solemnity unparalleled and inimitable : Under his burning wheels The stedfast empyrean shook throughout, • That wish'd the mountains. See Rev. vi. 16:-"They said to the mountains, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:" which is very applicable here, as they had been overwhelmed with mountains, v. 655. What was so terrible before, they wished as a shelter now. -NEWTON. See Rev. vi. 16:-"They said to the mountains, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb:" which is very applicable here, as they had been overwhelmed with mountains, v. 655. What was so terrible before, they wished as a shelter now.-NEWTON. |