Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns
By our delay? no; let us rather choose,
Arm'd with hell flames and fury, all at once

O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the Torturer; when to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine he shall hear
Infernal thunder; and for lightning see
Black fire and horrour shot with equal rage
Among his angels; and his throne itself
Mix'd with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps
The way seems difficult and steep, to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe.
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumm not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce Foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low ? the ascent is easy then :-
The event is fear'd; should we again provoke

Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find

To our destruction; if there be in hell

Fear to be worse destroy'd; what can be worse
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemn'd
In this abhorred deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire

Must exercise us without hope of end,

The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorably, and the torturing hour f

Calls us to penance? more destroy'd than thus,
We should be quite abolish'd, and expire.
What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the highth enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential; happier far
Than miserable to have eternal being ;-

Or if our substance be indeed divine,

And cannot cease to be, we are at worst

On this side nothing: and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,

The torturing hour.

Gray has borrowed these words at the opening of his "Hymn to Adversity."

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Though inaccessible, his fatal throne :
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.

He ended frowning h, and his look denounced
Desperate revenge and battel dangerous

To less than gods. On the other side up rose
Belial, in act more graceful and humane:
A fairer person lost not heaven; he seem'd
For dignity composed and high exploit:
But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropp'd manna, and could make the worse appeari
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels; for his thoughts were low;
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful: yet he pleased the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began

I should be much for open war, O Peers,
As not behind in hate, if what was urged,
Main reason to persuade immediate war,
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success :
When he, who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels and in what excels

Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

First, what revenge ? the towers of heaven are fill'd
With armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable; oft on the bordering deep
Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing
Scout far and wide into the realm of night,
Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way
By force, and at our heels all hell should rise
With blackest insurrection, to confound
Heaven's purest light; yet our great Enemy
All incorruptible would on his throne
Sit unpolluted, and the ethereal mould
Incapable of stain would soon expel

g Fatal throne.

That is, upheld by fate, as he expresses it, b. i. 133.-NEWTON.

h He ended frowning.

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Nobody of any taste or understanding will deny the beauty of the following paragraph; in the whole of which there is not one metaphorical or figurative word. In what then does the beauty of it consist? In the justness of the thought, in the propriety of the expression, in the art of the composition, and in the variety of the versification.--MONBODDO.

i And could make the worse appear.

Word for word from the known profession of the ancient sophists, Tòv λóyov тdv 1⁄2TTW κρείττω ποεῖν.-BENTLEY.

Sit unpolluted.

i Would on his throne

This is a reply to that part of Moloch's speech where he had threatened to mix the throne itself of God with infernal sulphur and strange fire.-NEWTON.

Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair: we must exasperate
The Almighty Victor to spend all his rage,
And that must end us: that must be our cure,
To be no more: sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being *,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallow'd up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion? and who knows,
Let this be good, whether our angry Foe
Can give it, or will ever? how he can,
Is doubtful! that he never will, is sure.
Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire
Belike through impotence, or unaware,
To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger, whom his anger saves

To punish endless? Wherefore cease we then?
Say they who counsel war ;—we are decreed,
Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse ?-Is this then worst,
Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What! when we fled amain, pursued and struck
With heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us? this hell then seem'd
A refuge from those wounds: or when we lay
Chain'd on the burning lake? that sure was worse.
What, if the breath, that kindled m those grim fires,
Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames? or from above
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us? what, if all
Her stores were open'd, and this firmament
Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrours, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads? while we, perhaps
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurl'd,
Each on his rock transfix'd, the sport and prey
Of racking whirlwinds; or for ever sunk

For who would lose,

Though full of pain, this intellectual being.
See Gray's celebrated stanza in his Elegy,
For who, to dumb forgetfulness a prey, &c.
1 Through impotence.

Weakness of mind. -PEARCE.

m Breath, that kindled.

See Isaiah, xxx. 33.-NEWTON.

Under yon boiling ocean, wrapp'd in chains:
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,

Ages of hopeless end? this would be worse.

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War therefore, open or conceal'd, alike

My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile

With him, or who deceive his mind, whose eye

Views all things at one view? He from heaven's highth

All these our motions vain sees and derides;

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Thus trampled, thus expell'd, to suffer here

Chains and these torments? better these than worse,
By my advice; since fate inevitable

Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,
The Victor's will. To suffer, as to do,
Our strength is equal; nor the law unjust
That so ordains. This was at first resolved,
If we were wise, against so great a Foe

Contending, and so doubtful what might fall.
I laugh, when those, who at the spear are bold
And venturous, if that fail them, shrink and fear
What yet they know must follow, to endure
Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain,
The sentence of their Conquerour. This is now
Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,
Our Supreme Foe may in time much remit

His

anger; and perhaps thus far removed

Not mind us not offending, satisfied

With what is punished: whence these raging fires
Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.

Our purer essence then will overcome

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Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel;

Or changed at length, and to the place conform❜d

In temper and in nature, will receive

Familiar the fierce heat, and void of pain;

This horrour will grow mild, this darkness light:

Besides what hopes the never-ending flight

Of future days may bring, what chance, what change

Worth waiting: since our present lot appears

For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
If we procure not to ourselves more woe.

Thus Belial, with words clothed in reason's garb Counsell'd ignoble ease and peaceful sloth,

:

Not peace and after him thus Mammon spake :-
Either to disenthrone the King of heaven

We war, if war be best; or to regain
Our own right lost. Him to unthrone we then

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May hope, when everlasting Fate shall yield
To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife:
The former, vain to hope, argues as vain
The latter for what place can be for us

Within heaven's bound, unless heaven's Lord supreme
We overpower? Suppose he should relent
And publish grace to all, on promise made
Of new subjection; with what eyes could we
Stand in his presence humble, and receive
Strict laws imposed to celebrate his throne
With warbled hymns, and to his Godhead sing
Forced halleluiahs; while he lordly sits
Our envied Sovran, and his altar breathes
Ambrosial odours, and ambrosial flowers,
Our servile offerings? This must be our task
In heaven, this our delight: how wearisome
Eternity so spent in worship paid

To whom we hate! Let us not then pursue,
By force impossible, by leave obtain❜d
Unacceptable, though in heaven, our state
Of splendid vassalage: but rather seek

Our own good from ourselves; and from our own

n

Live to ourselves "; though in this vast recess,
Free, and to none accountable; preferring

Hard liberty before the easy yoke

Of servile pomp. Our greatness will appear

Then most conspicuous, when great things of small,
Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse,

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We can create; and in what place soe'er

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Thrive under evil, and work ease out of pain

Through labour and endurance. This deep world

Of darkness do we dread? how oft amidst

Thick clouds and dark doth heaven's all-ruling Sire
Choose to reside, his glory unobscured,
And with the majesty of darkness round

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Covers his throne: from whence deep thunders roar
Mustering their rage, and heaven resembles hell!
As he our darkness, cannot we his light
Imitate when we please? this desert soil
Wants not her hidden lustre, gems and gold;
Nor want we skill or art, from whence to raise
Magnificence; and what can heaven show more?

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Imitated from Psalm xviii. 11, 13; and xcvii. 2.-NEWTON: and from 1 Kings, viii. 12. -TODD.