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

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 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

thrown.

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

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 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.