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His utmost power with adverse power opposed

In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?
All is not lost; the unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome;
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power,
Who from the terror of this arm so late

Doubted his empire; that were low indeed;
That were an ignominy, and shame beneath
This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods
And this empyreal substance cannot fail;

We

inay

Since through experience of this great event
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,
with more successful hope resolve
To wage, by force or guile, eternal war
Irreconcileable to our grand Foe,
Who now triumphs, and, in the excess of joy
Sole reigning, holds the tyranny of Heaven.

So spake the apostate Angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but rack'd with deep despair:
And him thus answer'd soon his bold compeer.
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 thus laid low,

As far as Gods and heavenly essences

Can perish; for the mind and spirit remains

Invincible, and vigor 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

Than such could have o'erpower'd such force as ours,) Have left us thus 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 will never 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 labor 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
B*

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 glimmerings of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossings of these fiery waves;
There rest, if any rest can harbor 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 up-lift 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 th' 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 shattered side
Of thundering Ætna, whose combustible
And fuel'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 unbless'd 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

That we must change for Heaven; this mournful gloom For that celestial light? Be it so! since he,

Who now is Sov'reign, 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,

SCIE

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 palace, 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 copartners 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 rag'd, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage, and revive, though now they lie
Grov❜ling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amaz'd;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious heighth !"

He scarce had ceased, when the superior Fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his pond'rous shield
Etherial temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

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