And this imperial sovranty, adorned
With splendour, armed with power, if aught proposed And judged of public moment in the shape
Of difficulty or danger, could deter
Me from attempting. Wherefore do I assume
These royalties, and not refuse to reign, Refusing to accept as great a share
Of hazard as of honour, due alike
To him who reigns, and so much to him due Of hazard more as he above the rest
High honoured sits? Go, therefore, mighty Powers, Terror of Heaven, though fallen; intend at home,
While here shall be our home, what best may ease The present misery, and render Hell
More tolerable; if there be cure or charm
To respite, or deceive, or slack the pain Of this ill mansion: intermit no watch
Against a wakeful foe, while I abroad
Through all the coasts of dark destruction seek Deliverance for us all. This enterprise
None shall partake with me." Thus saying, rose The Monarch, and prevented all reply; Prudent lest, from his resolution raised, Others among the chief might offer now, Certain to be refused, what erst they feared, And, so refused, might in opinion stand His rivals, winning cheap the high repute Which he through hazard huge must earn. Dreaded not more the adventure than his voice Forbidding; and at once with him they rose. Their rising all at once was as the sound
Of thunder heard remote. Towards him they bend With awful reverence prone, and as a God
Extol him equal to the Highest in Heaven.
Nor failed they to express how much they praised
That for the general safety he despised
His own for neither do the Spirits damned Lose all their virtue; lest bad men should boast
Their specious deeds on earth, which glory excites, Or close ambition varnished o'er with zeal. Thus they their doubtful consultations dark
Ended, rejoicing in their matchless Chief: As, when from mountain-tops the dusky clouds Ascending, while the North-wind sleeps, o'erspread Heaven's cheerful face, the louring element
Scowls o'er the darkened landskip snow or shower, If chance the radiant sun, with farewell sweet,
Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings. O shame to men! Devil with devil damned Firm concord holds; men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope
Of heavenly grace, and, God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy cruel wars Wasting the earth, each other to destroy: As if (which might induce us to accord) Man had not hellish foes enow besides, That day and night for his destruction wait! The Stygian council thus dissolved; and forth In order came the grand Infernal Peers:
Midst came their mighty Paramount, and seemed Alone the antagonist of Heaven, nor less Than Hell's dread Emperor, with pomp supreme, And god-like imitated state him round A globe of fiery Seraphim enclosed With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms. Then of their session ended they bid cry With trumpet's regal sound the great result : Toward the four winds four speedy Cherubim Put to their mouths the sounding alchymy, By harald's voice explained; the hollow Abyss Heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell With deafening shout returned them loud acclaim. Thence more at ease their minds. and somewhat raised By false presumptuous hope, the rangèd Powers Disband; and, wandering, each his several way Pursues, as inclination or sad choice
Leads him perplexed, where he may likeliest find Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain The irksome hours, till his great Chief return. Part on the plain, or in the air sublime, Upon the wing or in swift race contend, As at the Olympian games or Pythian fields; Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal With rapid wheels, or fronted brigads form: As when, to warn proud cities, war appears Waged in the troubled sky, and armies rush To battle in the clouds; before each van
Prick forth the aery knights, and couch their spears, Till thickest legions close; with feats of arms From either end of heaven the welkin burns. Others, with vast Typhœan rage, more fell,
Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air
In whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild uproar :— As when Alcides, from Echalia crowned
With conquest, felt the envenomed robe, and tore Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines, And Lichas from the top of Eta threw
Retreated in a silent valley, sing
With notes angelical to many a harp
Their own heroic deeds, and hapless fall
By doom of battle, and complain that Fate
Free Virtue should enthrall to Force or Chance. Their song was partial; but the harmony (What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?) Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet (For Eloquence the Soul, Song charms the Sense) Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of Providence, Foreknowledge, Will, and Fate— Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute— And found no end, in wandering mazes lost. Of good and evil much they argued then, Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame : Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy!- Yet, with a pleasing sorcery, could charm Pain for a while or anguish, and excite Fallacious hope, or arm the obdurèd breast With stubborn patience as with triple steel. Another part, in squadrons and gross bands, On bold adventure to discover wide That dismal world, if any clime perhaps Might yield them easier habitation, bend Four ways their flying march, along the banks Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge
Into the burning lake their baleful streams- Abhorrèd Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton, Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks Forthwith his former state and being forgets- Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
Beyond this flood a frozen continent Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice, A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,
Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire. Thither, by harpy-footed Furies haled,
At certain revolutions all the damned
Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immovable, infixed, and frozen round
Periods of time,-thence hurried back to fire. They ferry over this Lethean sound
Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment,
And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach
The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,
All in one moment, and so near the brink;
But Fate withstands, and, to oppose the attempt, Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on
In confused 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,
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 Their spicy drugs; they on the trading flood, Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape, Ply stemming nightly toward the pole 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
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 naught valued he nor shunned), And with disdainful look thus first began :-
"Whence and what art thou, execrable Shape,
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