Satan with his perverted world; then raise Subverting worldly strong, and worldly wise And, to the faithful, death the gate of life; To whom thus also the angel last replied: This having learn'd, thou hast attain'd the sum Of wisdom: hope no higher, though all the stars Thou knew'st by name, and all the ethereal powers, All secrets of the deep, all Nature's works, Deeds to thy knowledge answerable; add faith, Add virtue, patience, temperance; add love, Let her with thee partake what thou hast heard He ended, and they both descend the hill: know; For God is also in sleep; and dreams advise, This farther consolation yet secure I carry hence; though all by me is lost, So spake our mother Eve, and Adam heard Risen from a river o'er the marish glides, Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate soon: The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way. PARADISE REGAINED. BOOK I. THE ARGUMENT THE subject proposed. Invocation of the Holy Spirit. The poem opens with John baptizing at the river Jordan: Jesus, coming there, is baptized; and is attested by the descent of the Holy Ghost, and by a voice from heaven, to be the Son of God Satan, who is present, upon this immediately flies up into the regions of the air; where, summoning his infernal council, he acquaints them with his apprehensions that Jesus is that seed of the woman, destined to destroy all their power; and points out to them the immediate necessity of bringing the matter to proof, and of attempting, by snares and fraud, to counteract and defeat the person from whom they have so much to dread: this office he offers himself to undertake; and, his offer being accepted, sets out on his enterprise. In the mean time, God, in the assembly of holy angels, declares that he has given up his Son to be tempted by Satan; but foretells that the tempter shall be completely defeated by him: upon which the angels sing a hymn of triumph. Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, while he is meditating on the commencement of his great office of Saviour of mankind. Pursuing his meditations, he narrates. in a soliloquy, what divine and philanthropic impulses he had felt from his early youth, and how his mother Mary, on perceiving these dispositions in him, had acquainted him with the circumstances of his birth, and informed him that he was no less a person than the Son of God; to which he adds what his own inquiries and reflections had supplied in confirmation of this great truth, and particularly dwells on the recent attestation of it at the river Jordan. Our Lord passes forty days, fasting in the wilderness;. where the wild beasts become mild and harmless in his presence. Satan now appears under the form of an old peasant; and enters into discourse with our Lord, wondering what could have brought him alone into so dangerous a place, and at the same time professing to recognize him for the person lately acknowledged by John at the river Jordan, to be the Son of God. Jesus briefly replies. Satan rejoins with a description of the difficulty of supporting life in the wilderness; and entreats Jesus, if he be really the Son of God, to manifest his divine power, by changing some of the stones into bread. Jesus reproves him, and at the same time tells him that he knows who he is. Satan instantly avows himself, and offers an artful apology for himself and his conduct. Our blessed Lord severely reprimands him, and refutes every part of his justification. Satan, with much semblance of humility, still endeavours to justify himself; and, professing his admiration of Jesus and his regard for virtue, requests to be permitted at a future time to hear more of his conversation; but is answered, that this must be as he shall find permission from above. Satan then disappears, and the book closes with a short description of night coming on in the desert. I, WHO erewhile the happy garden sung Thou Spirit, who ledst this glorious eremite Into the desert, his victorious field, Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, |