Bordering on light: when,straight, behold the throne
Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread
Wide on the wasteful deep with him enthroned
Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,
The consort of his reign; and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon: Rumor next and Chance,
And Tumult, and Confusion all embroil'd,
And Discord with a thousand various mouths.
To' whom Satan turning boldly, thus: "Ye Powers
And Spirits of this nethermost abyss,
Chaos and ancient Night! I come no spy,
With purpose to explore or to disturb
The secrets of your realm; but, by constraint
Wandering this darksome desert, as my way
Lies through your spacious empire up to light,
Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek
What readiest path leads where your gloomy
Confine with heaven: or if some other place,
From your dominion won, the' etherial King
Possesses lately, thither to arrive
I travel this profound: direct my course;
Directed, no mean recompense it brings
To your behoof, if I that region lost,
All usurpation thence expelled, reduce
To her original darkness and your sway,
(Which is my present journey) and once more
Erect the standard there of ancient Night.
Yours be the advantage all, mine the revenge."
Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old,
With faltering speech and visage incomposed,
Answer'd: "I know thee, Stranger! who thou art,
That mighty leading angel, who of late
Made head against Heaven's King, though over-
I saw and heard; for such a numerous host [thrown.
Fled not in silence through the frighted deep,
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded; and Heaven-gates
Pour'd out by millions her victorious bands
Pursuing. I upon my frontiers here
Keep residence; if all I can will ́serve
That little which is left so to defend,
Encroach'd on still through your intestine broils,
Weakening the sceptre of old Night: first hell,
Your dungeon, stretching far and wide beneath;
Now lately heaven, and earth, another world,
Hung o'er my realm, link'd in a golden chain
To that side heaven from whence your legions fell.
If that way be your walk, you
have not far;
So much the nearer danger: go, and speed!
Havoc, and spoil, and ruin are my gain."
He ceased; and Satan staid not to reply;
But, glad that now his sea should find a shore,
With fresh alacrity, and force renew'd,
Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire,
Into the wild expanse; and, through the shock
Of fighting elements, on all sides round
Environ'd, wins his way; harder beset
And more endanger'd, than when Argo pass'd
Through Bosporus, betwixt the justling rocks:
Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunn'd
Charybdis, and by the' other whirlpool steer'd.
So he with difficulty and labor hard
Moved on, with difficulty and labor he :
But, he once past, soon after, when man fell,
Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain
Following his track, such was the will of Heaven,
Paved after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf
Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length,
From hell continued reaching the' utmost orb
Of this frail world: by which the Spirits perverse,
With easy intercourse, pass to and fro
To tempt or punish mortals, except whom
God and good angels guard by special grace.
But now at last the sacred influence
Of light appears, and from the walls of heaven
Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night
A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first begins
Her furthest verge, and Chaos to retire
As from her outmost works, a broken foe,
With tumult less, and with less hostile din,
That Satan with less toil, and now with ease
Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light:
And, like a weather-beaten vessel, holds
Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn ;
Or in the emptier waste, resembling air,
Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold
Far off the' empyreal Heaven, extended wide
In circuit, undetermined square or round,
With opal towers and battlements adorn'd
Of living sapphire, once his native seat;
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent world, in bigness as a star,
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.
Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accursed, and in a cursed hour, he hies.
God, sitting on his Throne, sees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; shows him to the Son, who sat at his right hand; foretels the success of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own justice and wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free, and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious purpose towards Man: but God again declares, that grace cannot be extended towards Man without the satisfaction of divine justice; Man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to Godhead, and, therefore, with all his progeny, devoted to death, must die, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ransom for Man: the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in Heaven and Earth; commands all the Angels to adore him they obey, and, hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Mean while Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world's outermost orb; where wandering, he first finds a place, since called the Limbo of Vanity what persons and things fly up thither: thence comes to the gate of Heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: his passage thence to the orb of the sun; he finds there Uriel, the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner Angel; and, pretending a zealous desire to behold the new creation, and Man whom God had placed here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed alights first on Mount Niphates.
HAIL, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first-born, Or of the' Eternal coeternal beam,
May I express thee' unblamed? since God is light, And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather, pure etherial stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the' Orphéan lyre,
sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent; and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp: but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song: but chief
Thee, Sion! and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow'd feet and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown!
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides;
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers: as the wakeful bird
VOL. I.
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