A vast vacuity: all unawares,
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops Ten thousand fathom deep; and to this hour Down had been falling, had not, by ill chance, The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him As many miles aloft: that fury stay'd, Quench'd in a boggy Syrtis, neither sea, Nor good dry land, nigh founder'd, 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, purloin'd 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 embroil❜d, And Discord, with a thousand various mouths. To whom Satan, turning boldly, thus: "Ye
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 expell'd, 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, Answer'd: "I know thee, stranger, who thou art; That mighty leading angel, who, of late,
Made head 'gainst heaven's King, though over
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 Pour'd 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,
Encroach'd 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
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 stay'd not to reply, But, glad that now his sea should find a shore, With fresh alacrity and force renew'd, Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire, Into the wild expanse, and, through the shock Of fighting elements, on all sides round Environ'd, wins his way; harder beset And more endanger'd than when Argo pass'd Through Bosphorus, betwixt the justling rocks: Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunn'd Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steer'd.
So he with difficulty and labour hard
Moved on, with difficulty and labour he;
But he once pass'd, 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 boiling gulf 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 outmost 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 oval towers and battlements adorn'd 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, Accurst, and in a cursed hour, he hies.
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