In cónfused march forlorn, the adventurous bands,
With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,
Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found

No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous-

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp—

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Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death-

A universe of death! which God by curse

Created evil-for evil only good,

Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds

Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things,
Abominable, inutterable, and worse

Than fables yet have feigned, or fear conceived,
Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeras dire.

Meanwhile, the adversary of God and man,
Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design,
Puts on swift wings, and toward the gates of Hell
Explores his solitary flight: sometimes

He scours the right-hand coast, sometimes the left :
Now shaves with level wing the deep; then soars
Up to the fiery concave, towering high.

As when, far off at sea, a fleet descried
Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds
Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles

Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring

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Their spicy drugs: they on the trading flood
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape

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Ply, stemming nightly toward the pole: so seemed
Far off the flying fiend. At last appear

Hell-bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof;

And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass,
Three iron, three of adamantine rock,

Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,

Yet unconsumed. Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape;

The one seemed woman to the waist, and fair;
But ended foul in many a scaly fold,
Voluminous and vast, a serpent armed
With mortal sting; about her middle round
A cry of Hell-hounds never ceasing barked

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With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturbed their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there; yet there still barked and howled
Within, unseen. Far less abhorred than these
Vexed Scylla, bathing in the sea that parts
Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore:
Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when, called
In secret, riding through the air she comes,
Lured with the smell of infant blood, to dance
With Lapland witches, while the labouring moon
Eclipses at their charms. The other shape,—
If shape it might be called, that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb,

Or substance might be called that shadow seemed,
For each seemed either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,

And shook a dreadful dart; what seemed his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand: and from his seat

The monster moving onward came as fast,
With horrid strides; Hell trembled as he strode.
The undaunted fiend what this might be admired;
Admired,—not feared: God and his Son except,
Created thing nought valued he, nor shunned;
And, with disdainful look, thus first began:

"Whence and what art thou, execrable shape! "That darest, though grim and terrible, advance Thy miscreated front athwart my way

"To yonder gates? through them I mean to pass,
"That be assured, without leave asked of thee:
"Retire, or taste thy folly; and learn by proof,
"Hell-born! not to contend with spirits of Heaven."
To whom the goblin full of wrath replied:
"Art thou that traitor angel, art thou he,
"Who first broke peace in Heaven, and faith, till then
"Unbroken; and, in proud, rebellious arms,
"Drew after him the third part of Heaven's sons
"Conjured against the Highest; for which both thou
"And they, outcast from God, are here condemned

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"To waste eternal days in woe and pain?
"And reckon'st thou thyself with spirits of Heaven,
"Hell-doomed! and breath'st defiance here and scorn,
"Where I reign king, and, to enrage thee more,
"Thy king and lord! Back to thy punishment,
"False fugitive! and to thy speed add wings;
"Lest with a whip of scorpions I pursue

Thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart
Strange horror seize thee, and pangs unfelt before."
So spake the grisly terror; and in shape,

So speaking, and so threatening, grew tenfold
More dreadful and deform: on the other side,
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood
Unterrified; and like a comet burned,
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war. Each at the head
Levelled his deadly aim; their fatal hands
No second stroke intend; and such a frown
Each cast at the other, as when two black clouds,
With Heaven's artillery fraught, come rattling on
Over the Caspian; then stand front to front,
Hovering a space, till winds the signal blow
To join their dark encounter in mid air:
So frowned the mighty combatants, that Hell

Grew darker at their frown; so matched they stood;
For never but once more was either like
To meet so great a foe: and now great deeds
Had been achieved, whereof all Hell had rung,
Had not the snaky sorceress, that sat
Fast by Hell-gate, and kept the fatal key,
Risen, and with hideous outcry rushed between.
"O father! what intends thy hand," she cried,
"Against thy only son? What fury, O son!
"Possesses thee to bend that mortal dart
"Against thy father's head? and know'st for whom ;
"For him who sits above, and laughs the while
"At thee, ordained his drudge, to execute
"Whate'er his wrath, which he calls justice, bids;
His wrath, which one day will destroy ye both."

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She spake, and at her words the hellish pest Forbore; then these to her Satan returned:

"So strange thy outcry, and thy words so strange "Thou interposest, that my sudden hand "Prevented spares to tell thee yet by deeds "What it intends; till first I know of thee,

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"What thing thou art, thus double-formed; and why,
"In this infernal vale first met, thou call'st
"Me father, and that phantasm call'st my son:
"I know thee not, nor ever saw till now
"Sight more detestable than him and thee."
To whom thus the portress of Hell-gate replied:
"Hast thou forgot me then, and do I seem
"Now in thine eye so foul? once deemed so fair
"In Heaven, when at the assembly, and in sight
"Of all the Seraphim with thee combined
"In bold conspiracy against Heaven's King,
"All on a sudden miserable pain

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Surprised thee; dim thine eyes, and dizzy swum

"In darkness, while thy head flames thick and fast
"Threw forth; till on the left side opening wide,
"Likest to thee in shape and countenance bright,
"Then shining heavenly fair, a goddess armed,
"Out of thy head I sprung: amazement seizèd
"All the host of Heaven; back they recoiled afraid
"At first, and called me Sin, and for a sign
"Portentous held me: but, familiar grown,
"I pleased, and with attractive graces won
"The most averse; thee chiefly, who, full oft,
66 Thyself in me, thy perfect image, viewing
"Becamest enamoured; and such joy thou took'st
"With me in secret, that my womb conceived
"A growing burden. Meanwhile war arose,

"And fields were fought in Heaven; wherein remained
"(For what could else?) to our Almighty Foe
"Clear victory; to our part loss and rout
"Through all the empyréan: down they fell,

"Driven headlong from the pitch of Heaven,-down
"Into this deep; and, in the general fall,

"I also: at which time this powerful key

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"Into my hand was given, with charge to keep
"These gates for ever shut, which none can pass
"Without my opening. Pensive here I sat
"Alone; but long I sat not, till my womb,

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Pregnant by thee, and now excessive grown, "Prodigious motion felt, and rueful throes. "At last this odious offspring whom thou seest, "Thine own begotten, breaking violent way, "Tore through my entrails, that, with fear and pain "Distorted, all my nether shape thus grew "Transformed: but he, my inbred enemy, "Forth issued, brandishing his fatal dart "Made to destroy: I fled, and cried out, 'DEATH!' "Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed "From all her caves, and back resounded-'DEATH!' "I fled; but he pursued, (though more, it seems, "Inflamed with lust than rage,) and, swifter far, "Me overtook-his mother-all dismayed; "And, in embraces forcible and foul "Engendering with me, of that rape begot "These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry "Surround me, as thou saw'st; hourly conceived, "And hourly born, with sorrow infinite "To me: for, when they list, into the womb

"That bred them they return, and howl and gnaw

My bowels, their repast; then, bursting forth

"Afresh, with conscious terrors vex me round, "That rest or intermission none I find.

"Before mine eyes, in opposition, sits

"Grim Death, my son and foe, who sets them on;
"And me, his parent, would full soon devour
"For want of other prey, but that he knows
"His end with mine involved; and knows that I
"Should prove a bitter morsel, and his bane,
"Whenever that shall be; so Fate pronounced.
"But thou, O father! I forewarn thee, shun
"His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope

"To be invulnerable in those bright arms,

Though tempered heavenly; for that mortal dint, "Save he who reigns above, none can resist."