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"O Prince! O Chief of many throned Powers! That led the embattled Seraphim to war Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds Fearless, endanger'd Heaven's perpetual King, And put to proof his high supremacy, Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate; Too well I see and rue the dire event, That, with sad overthrow, and foul defeat, Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host, In horrible destruction, laid thus low, As far as gods and heavenly essences Can perish for the mind and spirit remains Invincible, and vigour soon returns, Though all our glory' extinct, and happy state Here swallow'd up in endless misery. But what if he, our Conqueror, whom I now Of force believe almighty, since no less [ours, Than such could have o'er-power'd such force as Have left us this our spirit and strength entire, Strongly to suffer and support our pains, That we may so suffice his vengeful ire, Or do him mightier service, as his thralls By right of war, whate'er his business be; Here, in the heart of Hell, to work in fire, Or do his errands in the gloomy deep? What can it then avail, though yet we feel Strength undiminish'd, or eternal being To undergo eternal punishment?" Whereto with speedy words the Arch-Fiend replied. "Fallen Cherub! to be weak is miserable, Doing or suffering: but of this be sure, To do aught good never will be our task; But ever to do ill our sole delight, As being the contrary to his high will, Whom we resist. If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil: Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb His inmost counsels from their destined aim. But see the angry Victor hath recall'd His ministers of vengeance and pursuit Back to the gates of Heaven; the sulphurous hail Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid The fiery surge, that, from the precipice Of Heaven, received us falling; and the thunder,

Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts; and ceases now,
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn,
Or satiate fury, yield it from our Foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend,
From off the tossing of these fiery waves:
There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, re-assembling our afflicted Powers,
Consult, how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy; our own loss how repair;
How overcome this dire calamity :
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair.'

Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blazed: his other parts besides,
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood: in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove;
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest, that swim the ocean stream;
Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side, under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.
So stretch'd out, huge in length, the Arch-Fiend lay,
Chain'd on the burning lake: nor ever thence
Had risen, or heaved his head; but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs:
That, with reiterated crimes, he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others; and enraged might see
How all his malice served but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace and mercy, shown
On man, by him seduced; but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour'd.
Forthwith upright he rears, from off the pool,

His mighty stature: on each hand the flames,
Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, roll'd
In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings, he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight, till on dry land
He lights; if it were land that ever burn'd
With solid, as the lake with liquid, fire;
And such appear'd in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill,
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thundering Etna, whose combustible
And fuell'd entrails, thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds;
And leave a singed bottom, all involved
With stench and smoke Such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him follow'd his next mate:
Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood,
As gods, and by their own recover'd strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.

"Is this the region? this the soil? the clime,
(Said then the lost Arch-angel) this the seat [gloom
That we must change for Heaven? this mournful
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he,
Who now is Sovereign, can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best,
Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,
Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell!
Receive thy new possessor: one, who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time:
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be; all but less than He,
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here, at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy; will not drive us hence:
Here, we may reign secure; and, in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and co-partners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd on the oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion; or, once more,

With rallied arms, to try what may be yet
Regain'd in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"
So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub
Thus answer'd. "Leader of those armies bright
Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foil'd!
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults
Their surest signal; they will soon resume
New courage and revive; though now they lie
Groveling and prostrate, on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth."

He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, [shield,
Behind him cast: the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic-glass, the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Fesolé,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear (to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great admiral, were but a wand,)
He walked with, to support uneasy steps,
Over the burning marle : not like those steps
On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire:
Nathless he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood; and call'd
His legions, angel-forms, who lay entranced,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arch'd imbower; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd
Hath vex'd the Red-Sea coast, whose waves
Busiris, and his Memphian chivalry, [o'erthrew
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld,
From the safe shore, their floating carcasses,
And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrown,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded: " 'Princes, Potentates,

Warriors, the flower of Heaven, once yours, now
If such astonishment as this can seize [lost,
Eternal Spirits; or have ye chosen this place,
After the toil of battle, to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
Or, in this abject posture, have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror? who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph, rolling in the flood,
With scattered arms and ensigns; till anon
His swift pursuers, from Heaven-gates discern
The advantage; and, descending tread us down
Thus drooping; or, with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.
Awake! arise! or be for ever fallen!"

They heard, & were abash'd, & up they sprung
Upon the wing; as when men wont to watch
On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves, ere well awake.
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight
In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to their General's voice they soon obey'd;
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,
Waved round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That, o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung,
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,
'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear
Of their great Sultan, waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain:
A multitude, like which the populous North
Pour'd never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw; when her barbarous sons
Came, like a deluge, on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.
Forthwith, from every squadron, and each band,
The heads and leaders thither haste, where stood
Their great Commander; godlike shapes and forms
Excelling human; princely Dignities;
And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones ;
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial; blotted out, and rased,

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