Whether to deck with clouds th' uncolour'd sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling still advance his praise.
His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters blow,
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye pines,
With every plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble, as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling, tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living souls: ye birds,
That singing up to heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings, and in your notes his praise
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep;
Witness if I be silent, morn or eve,
To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught his praise.
Hail, universal Lord! be bounteous still
To give us only good; and if the night
Have gather'd aught of evil, or conceal'd,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.
4. SATAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN. O thou that, with surpassing glory crown'd, Look'st from thy sole dominion like the god Of this new world: at whose sight all the stars Hide their diminish'd heads to thee I call, But with no friendly voice, and add thy name, O sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams, That bring to my remembrance from what state I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere; Till pride and worse ambition threw me down, Warring in heav'n against heav'n's matchless king Ah, wherefore? he deserv'd no such return From me, whom he created what I was In that bright eminence, and with his good Upbraided none; nor was his service hard. What could be less than to afford him praise, The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks? How due! yet all his good prov'd ill to me, And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I 'sdain'd subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me high'st, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude
So burthensome, still paying, still to owe;
Forgetful what from him I still receiv'd;
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays at once
Indebted and discharg'd: what burthen then?
O had his powerful destiny ordain'd
Me some inferior angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had rais'd
Ambition. Yet why not? some other power
As great might have aspir'd, and me, though mean,
Drawn to his part: but other powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations arm'd.
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst. Whom hast thou then, or what t'accuse.
But Heaven's free love, dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accurs'd, since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe.
Nay, curs'd be thou: since against his thy will
Chose freely, what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threat'ning to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
O then at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduc'd
With other promises and other vaunts,
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
Th' Omnipotent. Ah me, they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain ;
Under what torments inwardly I groan,
While they adore me on the throne of hell:
With diadem aud sceptre high advanc'd,
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery; such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain,
By act of grace, my former state;
Would height recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feign'd submission swore! ease would recant
Vows made in pain, as violent and void:
For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierc'd so deep ·
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse,
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission, bought with double smart.
This knows my punisher: therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging peace.
All hope excluded thus, behold instead
Of us outcast, exil'd, his new delight
Mankind created, and for him this world.
So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,
Farewell, remorse; all good to me is lost:
Evil, be thou my good: by thee at least
Divided empire with heaven's king I hold,
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign
As man ere long, and this new world, shall know.
5. INVOCATION TO LIGHT.
Hail, holy light, offspring of heaven first-born,
Or of th' eternal co-eternal beam!
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproachéd light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal 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,
Escap'd 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 th' Orphean lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the heavenly muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sov'reign 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 din 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
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note: thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine:
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with an universal blank
Of nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou celestial light
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
6. LYCIDAS: A PASTORAL.
Yet once more, O ye laurels, and once more,
Ye myrtles brown, with ivy never sere,
I come to pluck your berries harsh and crude;
And, with forced fingers rude,
Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.
Bitter constraint, and sad occasion dear,
Compels me to disturb your season due :
For Lycidas is dead, dead ere his prime,
Young Lycidas, and hath not left his peer;
Who would not sing for Lycidas ? he knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhyme.
He must not float upon his watry bier
Unwept, and welter to the parching wind,
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Begin then, sisters of the sacred well,
That from beneath the seat of Jove doth spring:
Begin, and somewhat loudly sweep the string;
Hence with denial vain, and coy excuse;
So may some gentle muse
With lucky words favour my destined urn :
And, as he passes, turn,
And bid fair peace be to my sable shroud.
For we were nursed upon the self-same hill, Fed the same flock by fountain, shade, and rill. Together both, ere the high lawns appeared Under the opening eye-lids of the morn, We drove a-field, and both together heard What time the gray fly winds her sultry horn, Battening our flocks with the fresh dews of night, Oft till the star, that rose at evening bright, Toward heaven's descent had sloped his westering wheel. Meanwhile the rural ditties were not mute, Tempered to the oaten flute;
Rough Satyrs danced, and Fauns with cloven heel From the glad sound would not be absent long; And old Damætas loved to hear our song.
|