As many miles aloft: that fury stayed, Quenched in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea, Nor good dry land: nigh foundered, on he fares Treading the crude consistence, half on foot, Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail. As when a gryphon through the wilderness With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale, Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth Had from his wakeful custody purloined The guarded gold: so eagerly the fiend
O'er bog, or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies; At length a universal hubbub wild
Of stunning sounds and voices all confused, Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear With loudest vehemence: thither he plies, Undaunted, to meet there whatever power Or spirit of the nethermost abyss
Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies
Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne
Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread
Wide on the wasteful deep; with him enthroned Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things, The consort of his reign, and by them stood Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon; Rumour next, and Chance, And Tumult, and Confusion, all embroiled, And Discord with a thousand various mouths.
To whom Satan turning boldly, thus: "Ye powers And spirits of this nethermost abyss, Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy, With purpose to explore or to disturb
The secrets of your realm, but, by constraint Wandering this darksome desert, as my way Lies through your spacious empire up to light, Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds Confine with Heaven: or, if some other place,
From your dominion won, the ethereal king Possesses lately, thither to arrive
I travel this profound; direct my course; Directed, no mean recompense it brings To your behoof, if I that region lost, All usurpation thence expelled, reduce To her original darkness and your sway (Which is my present journey), and once more Erect the standard there of ancient Night; Yours be the advantage all, mine the revenge.'
Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old, With faltering speech and visage incomposed, Answered: "I know thee, stranger, who thou art: That mighty leading angel, who of late
Made head against Heaven's King, though overthrown. I saw and heard, for such a numerous host
Fled not in silence through the frighted deep
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded; and Heaven-gates Poured out by millions her victorious bands Pursuing. I upon my frontiers here Keep residence; if all I can will serve That little which is left so to defend,
Encroached on still through your intestine broils, Weakening the sceptre of old Night: first Hell, Your dungeon, stretching far and wide beneath; Now lately Heaven and Earth, another world, Hung o'er my realm, link'd in a golden chain To that side Heaven from whence your legions fell. If that way be your walk, you have not far; So much the nearer danger; go, and speed; Havoc, and spoil, and ruin, are my gain."
He ceased; and Satan stayed not to reply, But glad that now his sea should find a shore, With fresh alacrity and force renewed Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire, Into the wild expanse, and through the shock Of fighting elements, on all sides round Environed, wins his way, harder beset
And more endangered, than when Argo passed
Through Bosphorus, betwixt the justling rocks; Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steered. So he with difficulty and labour hard Moved on, with difficulty and labour he; But he once passed, soon after, when man fell, Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain Following his track (such was the will of Heaven) Paved after him a broad and beaten way Over the dark abyss, whose boilinggulf Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length, From Hell continued, reaching the utmost orb Of this frail world, by which the spirits perverse With easy intercourse pass to and fro
To tempt or punish mortals, except whom God and good angels guard by special grace. But now at last the sacred influence
Of light appears, and from the walls of Heaven Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night A glimmering dawn; here Nature first begins Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire, As from her utmost works, a broken foe, With tumult less, and with less hostile din, That Satan with less toil, and now with ease Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light, And like a weather-beaten vessel holds Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn; Or in the emptier waste, resembling air, Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold Far off the empyreal Heaven, extended wide In circuit, undetermined square or round, With opal towers and battlements adorned Of living sapphire, once his native seat; And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude close by the moon. Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge, Accursed, and in a curséd hour, he hies.
GOD, sitting on His throne, sees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created shows him to the Son, who sat at His right hand; foretells the success of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own justice and wisdom from all imputation, having created man free, and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious purpose towards man; but God again declares that grace cannot be extended towards man without the satisfaction of divine justice; man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to godhead, and therefore with all his progeny devoted to death must die, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ransom for man; The Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces His exaltation above all names in Heaven and Earth; commands all the angels to adore him; they obey, and by hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Meanwhile Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world's outermost orb; where wandering he first finds a place, since called the Limbo of Vanity; what persons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the gate of Heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: his pas sage thence to the orb of the sun; he finds there Uriel, the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner angel; and pretending a zealous desire to behold the new creation, and man whom God had placed here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed: alights first on mount Niphates.
HAIL, holy Light! offspring of Heaven firstborn! Or of the Eternal coëternal beam,
May I express thee unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproachéd light Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee, Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream, Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun, Before the Heaven thou wert; and at the voice Of God, as with a mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep, Won from the void and formless infinite. Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight Through utter and through middle darkness borne With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to re ascend, Though hard and rare: Thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That washed thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget Those other two equalled with me in fate, So were I equalled with them in renown, Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides, And Tiresias and Phineas, prophets old: Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return, but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank
Of nature's works to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
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