Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceiv'd
The Mother of Mankinde, what time his Pride
Had cast him out from Heav'n, with all his Host
Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring
To set himself in Glory above his Peers,
He trusted to have equal'd the most High,
If he oppos'd; and with ambitious aim
Against the Throne and Monarchy of God
Rais'd impious War in Heav'n and Battel proud
With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power
Hurld headlong flaming from th' Ethereal Skie
With hideous ruine and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In Adamantine Chains and penal Fire,
Who durst defie th' Omnipotent to Arms.

Nine times the Space that measures Day and Night
To mortal men, he with his horrid crew
Lay vanquisht, rowling in the fiery Gulfe
Confounded though immortal: But his doom
Reserv'd him to more wrath; for now the thought
Both of lost happiness and lasting pain

Torments him ; round he throws his baleful eyes
That witness'd huge affliction and dismay
Mixt with obdurate pride and stedfast hate :
At once as far as Angels kenn he views
The dismal Situation waste and wilde,
A Dungeon horrible, on all sides round

As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames
No light, but rather darkness visible

Serv'd only to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace
And rest can never dwell, hope never comes
That comes to all; but torture without end
Still urges, and a fiery Deluge, fed
With ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd:
Such place Eternal Justice had prepar'd

For those rebellious, here their Prison ordain'd
In utter darkness, and their portion set
As far remov'd from God and light of Heav'n
As from the Center thrice to th' utmost Pole.

BOOK I.: LINES 283-330.

He scarce had ceas't when the superiour Fiend Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the Moon, whose Orb
Through Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist views
At Ev'ning from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands,
Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest Pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the Mast
Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand,
He walkt with to support uneasie steps
Over the burning Marle, not like those steps
On Heavens Azure, and the torrid Clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with Fire ;
Nathless he so endur'd, till on the Beach
Of that inflamed Sea, he stood and call'd
His Legions, Angel Forms, who lay intrans't
Thick as Autumnal Leaves that strow the Brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades
High overarch't imbowr; or scatterd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce Winds Orion arm'd

Hath vext the Red-Sea Coast, whose waves orethrew
Busiris and his Memphian Chivalrie,

While with perfidious hatred they pursu'd
The Sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating Carkases

And broken Chariot Wheels, so thick bestrown
Abject and lost lay these, covering the Flood,
Under amazement of their hideous charge.
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow Deep
Of Hell resounded. Princes, Potentates,
Warriers, the Flowr of Heav'n, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can sieze

Eternal spirits; or have ye chos'n this place
After the toyl of Battel to repose

Your wearied vertue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the Vales of Heav'n?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conquerour? who now beholds
Cherube and Seraph rowling in the Flood
With scatter'd Arms and Ensigns, till anon
His swift pursuers from Heav'n Gates discern
Th' advantage, and descending tread us down.
Thus drooping, or with linked Thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this Gulfe.
Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n.

From the First (1671) Edition of "Paradise Regained" and "Samson Agonistes."

So saying he caught him up, and without wing
Of Hippogrif bore through the Air sublime
Over the Wilderness and o're the Plain;
Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,
The holy City lifted high her Towers,
And higher yet the glorious Temple rear'd
Her pile, far off appearing like a Mount
Of Alabaster, top't with Golden Spires:
There on the highest Pinacle he set

The Son of God; and added thus in scorn:

There stand, if thou wilt stand; to stand upright

Will ask thee skill; I to thy Fathers house

Have brought thee, and highest plac't, highest is best,
Now shew thy Progeny; if not to stand,
Cast thy self down; safely if Son of God:
For it is written, He will give command
Concerning thee to his Angels, in thir hands
They shall up lift thee, lest at any time
Thou chance to dash thy foot against a stone.
To whom thus Jesus: also it is written,
Tempt not the Lord thy God, he said and stood.
But Satan smitten with amazement fell
As when Earths Son Antaus (to compare
Small things with greatest) in Irassa strove
With Joves Alcides, and oft foil'd still rose,
Receiving from his mother Earth new strength,
Fresh from his fall, and fiercer grapple joyn'd,
Throttl'd at length in the Air, expir'd and fell;
So after many a foil the Tempter proud,
Renewing fresh assaults, amidst his pride
Fell whence he stood to see his Victor fall.
And as that Theban Monster that propos'd
Her riddle, and him, who solv'd it not, devour'd;
That once found out and solv'd, for grief and spight
Cast her self headlong from th' Ismenian steep,
So strook with dread and anguish fell the Fiend,
And to his crew, that sat consulting, brought
Joyless triumphals of his hop't success,
Ruin, and desperation, and dismay,

Who durst so proudly tempt the Son of God.
So Satan fell and strait a fiery Globe
Of Angels on full sail of wing flew nigh,

Who on their plumy Vans receiv'd him soft
From his uneasie station, and upbore

As on a floating couch through the blithe Air,
Then in a flowry valley set him down

On a green bank, and set before him spred
A table of Celestial Food, Divine,

Ambrosial, Fruits fetcht from the tree of life,
And from the fount of life Ambrosial drink,
That soon refresh'd him wearied, and repair'd
What hunger, if aught hunger had impair'd,
Or thirst, and as he fed, Angelic Quires
Sung Heavenly Anthems of his victory
Over temptation, and the Tempter proud.

66 SAMSON AGONISTES,” 1660-1707.

Chor. O dearly-bought revenge, yet glorious! Living or dying thou hast fulfill'd

The work for which thou wast foretold

To Israel, and now ly'st victorious

Among thy slain self-kill'd

Not willingly, but tangl'd in the fold,

Of dire necessity, whose law in death conjoin'd

Thee with thy slaughter'd foes in number more

Then all thy life had slain before.

Semichor. While thir hearts were jocund and sublime,

Drunk with Idolatry, drunk with Wine,

And fat regorg'd of Bulls and Goats,

Chaunting thir Idol, and preferring
Before our living Dread who dwells
In Silo his bright Sanctuary :

Among them he a spirit of phrenzie sent,
Who hurt thir minds,

And urg'd them on with mad desire

To call in hast for thir destroyer;

They only set on sport and play

Unweetingly importun'd

Thir own destruction to come speedy upon them.
So fond are mortal men

Fall'n into wrath divine,

As thir own ruin on themselves to invite,
Insensate left, or to sense reprobate,

And with blindness internal struck.

Semichor. But he though blind of sight, Despis'd and thought extinguish't quite, With inward eyes illuminated

His fierie vertue rouz'd

From under ashes into sudden flame,
And as an ev'ning Dragon came,
Assailant on the perched roosts,
And nests in order rang'd

Of tame villatic Fowl; but as an Eagle

His cloudless thunder bolted on thir heads.

So vertue giv'n for lost,

Deprest, and overthrown, as seem'd,

Like that self-begott'n bird

In the Arabian woods embost,

That no second knows nor third

And lay e'rewhile a Holocaust,

From out her ashie womb now teem'd,

Revives, reflourishes, then vigorous most

When most unactive deem'd,

And though her body die, her fame survives,
A secular bird ages of lives.

From the Second (1673) Edition of the Minor Poems.

SONNET ON THE LATE MASSACHER IN PIEMONT."

Avenge O Lord thy slaughter'd Saints, whose bones
Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold,
Ev'n them who kept thy truth so pure of old
When all our Fathers worship't Stocks and Stones,
Forget not in thy book record their groanes
Who were thy Sheep and in their antient Fold
Slayn by the bloody Piemontese that roll'd
Mother with Infant down the Rocks.
The Vales redoubl'd to the Hills, and they

Their moans

To Heav'n. Their martyr'd blood and ashes so
O're all th' Italian fields where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow
A hunder'd-fold, who having learnt thy way
Early may fly the Babylonian wo.

These specimens are sufficiently representative of the Printed Editions ; and we now annex some specimens of the preserved Manuscript Drafts. The first seven of the following pages of fac-simile are after photographs taken, by permission of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge, from the precious volume of Milton's MSS. described at pp. 175-180 of Vol. II. of this work; the last page is copied, by permission, from the late Mr. S. Leigh Sotheby's Ramblings in Elucidation of the Autograph of Milton, p. 196.