Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar1
Circled his head; nor less his locks behind
Illustrious2 on his shoulders, fledge with wings,
Lay waving round: on some great charge employed
He seemed, or fixed in cogitation deep.

Glad was the Spirit impure, as now in hope
To find who might direct his wandering flight
To Paradise, the happy seat of man,

His journey's end, and our beginning woe.3
But first he casts to change his proper shape,
Which else might work him danger or delay:
And now a stripling cherubs he appears,
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb
Suitable grace diffused, so well he feigned:
Under a coronet his flowing hair

In curls on either cheek played; wings he wore
Of many a coloured plume, sprinkled with gold;
His habit fit for speed succinct, and held
Before his decent steps a silver wand.

He drew not nigh unheard; the angel bright,
Ere he drew nigh, his radiant visage turned,
Admonished by his ear, and straight was known
The archangel Uriel, one of the seven

Who in God's presence, nearest to his throne,
Stand ready at command, and are his eyes9

That run through all the heavens, or down to th' earth
Bear his swift errands over moist and dry,

O'er sea and land.

(1) Tiar―tiara, or diadem-the ornamental headdress of Eastern princes. (2) Illustrious-bright, glossy.

(3) Our beginning woe-the first cause of woe to us-a Latinism.

(4) Casts-casts in his mind, contrives a plan.

(5) Stripling cherub, &c.-" A finer picture of a young angel," says Newton, "could not be drawn by the pencil of Raphael than is here by the pen of Milton." (6) Prime-first or highest dignity.

(7) His habit succinct-i. e. his robe was tucked or looped up for freedom of action; he was prepared for motion.

(8) Decent-as the Latin decens, graceful, comely.

(9) His eyes, &c.-" Those seven, they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth." Zech. iv. 10.

SATAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN.1

(Abridged.)

O THOU! that, with surpassing glory crowned,
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the God
Of this new world; at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished 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 ambition3 threw me down
Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless King.
Ah, wherefore! He deserved 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 recompence, and pay him thanks,
How due! yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I'sdained subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome, still paying, still to owe:
Forgetful what from him I still received;
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; what burden then?
Oh! had his powerful destiny ordained

Me some inferior angel, I had stood

(1) "Paradise Lost," book iv. "The opening of this speech to the sun," says Addison, "is very bold and noble. It is, I think, the finest ascribed to Satan in the whole poem." The consummate skill, too, with which the poet describes the conflict of passions in the mind of Satan is commended by the same judicious critic.

(2) This new world-Satan has now alighted on earth, and from the top of Mount Niphates thus addresses the sun, which "sat high in his meridian tower." The ruined archangel, the mighty orb of day, the lone mountain-summit, each the greatest of its kind, present in their combination a magnificent picture.

(3) Worse ambition-worse, because it led to daring impiety and its retribution. (4) What could be, &c.-i. e. what service could be less hard, &c.

(5) I'sdained-I disdained.

(6) So burdensome, &c.-i. e. it being so burdensome, &c.

Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition. Yet why not? some other power
As great might have aspired, 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 armed.
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst. Whom hast thou then, or what, to accuse,
But Heaven's free love, dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed, since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe.

Nay, cursed 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 threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

2

PARADISE.1

So on he fares, and to the border comes
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,

Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,
As with a rural mound, the champaign head3
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides

With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,

(1) "Paradise Lost," book iv. This beautiful description has been compared with the finest specimens of the same kind, as Homer's description of the gardens of Alcinous, and of Calypso's shady grotto, Ariosto's of the garden of Paradise, Tasso's of the garden of Armida, and Marino's of the garden of Venus, and though doubtless a general imitation of some of them, is thought greatly to exceed them all. In reference to Milton's power of delineating external scenery, Macaulay remarks (“Edinburgh Review," vol. xlii.):-" Neither Theocritus nor Ariosto had a finer or a more healthful sense of the pleasantness of external objects, or loved better to luxuriate amidst sunbeams and flowers, the song of nightingales, the juice of summer fruits, and the coolness of shady fountains. His poetry reminds us of the miracles of Alpine scenery. Nooks and dells, beautiful as fairyland, are embosomed in its most rugged and gigantic elevations. The roses and myrtles bloom unchilled on the verge of the avalanche."

(2) Fares-from the Anglo-Saxon far-an, to go-goes. We have the same element in "thoroughfare "-i. e. through-go.

(3) Champaign head, &c.-Open top or table-land of a steep hill, whose rough and prickly sides were covered with a wild growth of thickets and bushes.

Access denied; and over-head1 up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend
Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verdurous wall2 of Paradise up sprung;
Which to our general sire gave prospect large
Into his nether empire neighbouring round:
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,3
Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appeared with gay enamelled colours mixed;
On which the sun more glad impressed his beams,
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed
That landscape and of pure now purer air

:

Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires

Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

All sadness but despair: now gentle gales,
Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole
Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail
Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past
Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow
Sabæan odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the blest; with such delay

Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league
Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:

So entertained those odorous sweets the fiend

Who came their bane.

Beneath him with new wonder now he views,

To all delight of human sense exposed,

In narrow room, Nature's whole wealth, yea, more,

(1) Overhead, &c.-i. e. overhead above these thickets, on the side of the hill likewise, grew the loftiest trees, rising one above another like the seats of an amphitheatre.

(2) Verdurous wall-i. e. a sort of bank set with a green hedge, over which Adam could look downwards on Eden. All the scenery hitherto described is outside of the garden itself.

(3) Fruit-here used in the sense of produce, including both blossoms and fruit. (4) Of pure, &c.-Of frequently implies change of circumstances, as in " Paradise Lost," book x., v. 720-"O miserable of happy."

A heaven on earth: for blissful Paradise
Of God the garden was, by him in the east
Of Eden planted; Eden stretched her line
From Auran' eastward to the royal towers
Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings;
Or where the sons of Eden long before
Dwelt in Telassar.2 In this pleasant soil
His far more pleasant garden God ordained:
Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow
All trees of noblest kind, for sight, smell, taste;
And all amid them stood the Tree of Life,
High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit

Of vegetable gold; and next to life,

Our death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew fast by ;-
Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill!
Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill
Passed underneath ingulfed: for God had thrown
That mountain as his garden-mould, high raised
Upon the rapid current, which, through3 veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,
Rose a fresh fountain, and, with many a rill
Watered the garden; thence united fell
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears,
And now, divided into four main streams,
Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account;
But rather to tell how, if art could tell,

How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With mazy error under pendent shades
Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed
Flowers worthy of Paradise; which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon
Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain;
Both where the morning sun first warmly smote
The open field, and where the unpiercéd shade

(1) Auran-i. e. Haran or Charræ, in Mesopotamia.

(2) Telassar-See Isaiah xxxvii. 12.

(3) Which, through, &c.-i. e. the water of the river being absorbed, it rose up through the mound placed upon it, and gushed out in the garden as a fountaina feat of enchantment scarcely harmonizing with the general character of the scene, in which nature is elevated and adorned, but not violated.