Now risen, to work them further woe or shame;
Yet parch'd with scalding thirst, and hunger fierce,
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain;
But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the trees
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megara; greedily they pluck'd
The fruitage fair to sight; like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceived; they, fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit,
Chew'd bitter ashes, which, the offended taste
With spattering noise, rejected: oft they assay'd,
Hunger and thirst constraining, drugg'd as oft,
With hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws
With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell
Into the same illusion; not as Man [plagued,
Whom they triumph'd once laps'd. Thus were they
And worn with famine, long and ceaseless hiss,
Till their lost shape, permitted, they resumed,
Yearly enjoin'd, some say to undergo
This annual humbling, certain number'd days,
To dash their pride and joy, for man seduced.
However, some tradition they dispersed
Among the Heathen, of their purchase got;
And fabled how the Serpent, whom they call'd
Ophion, with Eurynome, the wide

Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus, thence by Saturn driven
And Ops, ere yet Dictaan Jove was born.

Meanwhile, in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arrived, Sin there in power before,
Once actual, now in body, and to dwell
Habitual habitant; behind her Death,
Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet
On his pale horse; to whom Sin thus began.

"Second of Satan sprung, all conquering Death, What think'st thou of our empire now, though With travail difficult; not better far [earn'd Than still at Hell's dark threshold to have sat watch, Unnamed, undreaded, and thyself half-starved?"

Whom thus the Sin-born Monster answered soon. "To me, who with eternal famine pine, Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven; There best, where most with ravine I may meet; Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corps."

To whom the incestuous mother thus replied. "Thou therefore on these herbs, & fruits, & flowers Feed first, on each beast next, and fish and fowl, No homely morsels; and whatever thing The scythe of Time mows down, devour unspared; Till I, in man residing, through the race, His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect, And season him, thy last and sweetest prey."

This said, they both betook them several ways,
Both to destroy, or un-immortal make
All kinds, and for destruction to mature,
Sooner or later: which the Almighty seeing,
From his transcendant seat, the saints among,
To those bright orders utter'd thus his voice.
"See, with what heat these dogs of Hell advance,
To waste and havoc yonder world, which I
So fair and good created; and had still
Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man
Let in these wasteful furies, who impute
Folly to me, so doth the prince of Hell,
And his adherents, that, with so much ease,
I suffer them to enter, and possess
A place so heavenly, & conniving seem,
To gratify my scornful enemies,

That laugh, as if transported with some fit
Of passion, I to them had quitted all,
At random yielded up to their misrule

And know not, that I call'd & drew them thither,
My hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth,
Which man's polluting sin with taint hath shed
On what was pure; till cramm'd & gorged, nigh
With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling [burst,
Of thy victorious arm, well-pleasing Son,
Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave at last,
Through Chaos hurl'd, obstruct the mouth of Hel
For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.

Then Heaven & Earth, renew'd, shall be made pure
To sanctity, that shall receive no stain :
Till then, the curse pronounced on both precedes."
He ended; and the heavenly audience loud
Sung Hallelujah, as the sound of seas,
Through multitude that sung:
“Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works;
Who can extenuate thee?" Next, to the Son,
"Destined Restorer of Mankind, by whom
New Heaven & Earth shall to the ages rise, [song;
Or down from Heaven descend." Such was their

While the Creator, calling forth by name
His mighty angels, gave them several charge,
As sorted best with present things. The sun
Had first his precept, so to move, so shine,
As might affect the earth with cold and heat,
Scarce tolerable; and from the north to call
Decrepit winter, from the south to bring
Solstitial summer's heat. To the blank moon
Her office they prescribed; to the other five,
Their planetary motions, and aspects,
In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite,
Of noxious efficacy; and when to join
In synod unbenign; and taught the fix'd,
Their influence malignant, when to shower,
Which of them rising with the sun, or falling,
Should prove tempestuous. To the winds they set
Their corners, when with bluster to confound
Sea, air, and shore; the thunder when to roll
With terror, through the dark aerial hall.
Some say, he bid his angels turn askance
The poles of earth, twice ten degrees & more,
From the sun's axle: they, with labour, push'd
Oblique the centric globe. Some say the sun
Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road,
Like distant breadth to Taurus, with the seven
Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins,
Up to the Tropic Crab: thence down amain,
By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales,
As deep as Capricorn, to bring in change
Of seasons to each clime; else had the Spring
Perpetual smiled on earth with verdant flowers,
Equal in days and nights, except to those
Beyond the polar circles; to them, day
Had unbenighted shone, while the low sun,
To recompense his distance, in their sight
Had rounded still the horizon, and not known
Or east or west, which had forbid the snow
From cold Estotiland, and south as far,
Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit,
The sun, as from Thyestean banquet, turn'd
His course intended; else how had the world
Inhabited, though sinless, more than now
Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat?
These changes in the Heavens, though slow, pro-
Like change on seas & land; sideral blast, [duced
Vapour, and mist, and exhalation hot,
Corrupt, and pestilent. Now from the north

Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shore,
Bursting their brazen dungeon, arm'd with ice,
And snow, and hail, and stormy gust, and flaw,
Boreas and Cacias, and Argestes loud,
And Thrascias, rend the woods, & seas upturn;
With adverse blast upturns them, from the south,
Notus and Afer, black with thunderous clouds
From Serraliona; thwart of these, as fierce,
Forth rush the Levant, & the Ponent winds,
Eurus and Zephyr, with their lateral noise,
Sirocco, and Libecchio. Thus began
Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first,
Daughter of Sin, among the irrational
Death introduced through fierce antipathy:
Beast now with beast 'gan war, & fowl with fowl,
And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving,
Devour'd each other; nor stood much in awe
Of man, but fled him, or, with countenance grim,
Glared on him passing. These were, from without
The growing miseries, which Adam saw
Already in part, though hid in gloomiest shade,
To sorrow abandon'd; but worse felt within,
And in a troubled sea of passion tost,
Thus to disburden sought, with sad complaint.

"O miserable of happy! is this the end
Of this new glorious world, and me, so late
The glory of that glory, who now become
Accursed of blessed? Hide me from the face
Of God, whom to behold was then my height
Of happiness; yet well, if here would end
The misery I deserved it; and would bear
My own deservings; but this will not serve;
All that I eat, or drink, or shall beget,
Is propagated curse. O voice once heard
Delightfully, Increase and multiply,'
Now death to hear! for what can I increase,
Or multiply, but curses on my head?
Who, of all ages to succeed, but feeling
The evil on him brought by me, will curse
My head? Il fare our ancestor impure,
For this we may thank Adam; but his thanks
Shall be the execration; so besides

Mine own that bide upon me, all from me Shall, with a fierce reflux, on me redound, On me, as on their natural centre, light Heavy, though in their place. O fleeting joys Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes!

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man? did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me, or here place,
In this delicious garden? as my will
Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right,
And equal, to reduce me to my dust,
Desirous to resign, and render back
All I received; unable to perform
Thy terms, too hard, by which I was to hold
The good I sought not. To the loss of that,
Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added
The sense of endless woes? Inexplicable
Thy justice seems; yet, to say truth, too late
I thus contest; then should have been refused
Those terms whatever, when they were proposed.
Thou didst accept them; wilt thou enjoy the good
Then cavil the conditions? and, though God
Made thee without thy leave, what if thy son
Prove disobedient, and reproved, retort,
Wherefore didst thou beget me? I sought it not:
Wouldst thou admit, for his contempt of thee,
That proud excuse? yet him, not thy election,
But natural necessity, begot.

God made thee, of choice his own, & of his own
To serve him; thy reward was of his grace;
Thy punishment then, justly is at his will.
Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair
That dust I am, and shall to dust return.
O welcome hour whenever! why delays
His hand to execute what his decree
Fix'd on this day? why do I overlive?
Why am I mock'd with death, & lengthen'd out
To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet
Mortality, my sentence, and be earth
Insensible! how glad would lay me down,
As in my mother's lap! there I should rest
And sleep secure his dreadful voice no more
Would thunder in my ears; no fear of worse
To me and to my offspring, would torment me,
With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt
Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die;
Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of Man,
Which God inspired, cannot together perish
With this corporeal clod; then in the grave,
Or in some other dismal place, who knows
But I shall die a living death? O thought
Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath