From your dominion won, the ethereal 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 expell'd, 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 overthrown
I saw and heard; for such a numerous host 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 labour hard, Moved on; with difficulty and labour 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.
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