Springs epwa d, like a pyramid of fire,
Into the wild expanse; and through the shock
Of fighting eleinents, on all sides round
Environ'd, wins his way: harder beset,
And more endanger'd, than when Argo pass'd
Through Bosphorus, betwixt the justling rocks:
Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunn'd

1015

Charybdis, and by th' other whirlpool steer'd. 1020 So he with difficulty, and labour hard

Mov'd on;

with difficulty and labour he:

But he once pass'd, soon after, when man fell,
Strange alteration! Sin, and Death, amain,

1026

Following his tract (such was the will of heaven ')
Pav'd after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf
Tamely endur'd a bridge of wondrous length,
From hell continued, reaching th' 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

1031

Of light appears, and from the walls of heaven 1035
Shoots far into the bosom of dim night

A glimmering dawn: here Nature first begins
Her farthest 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 th' empyreal heaven, extended wide
In circuit undetermin'd square or round:
With opal towers and battlements adorn'd
Of living saphire, (once his native scat ')
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent world, in bigness as a star

1040

1045

1050

Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.

Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accurs'd and in a cursed hour, he hies.

1055

END OF BOOK SECOND.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK III.

THE ARGUMENT.

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; foretells 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; yel 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 choir, celebrate the Father and the Son. Meanwhile 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 arb; but first changes himself into the shape of u meaner angel; and pretending a zealous desire to

behold the new creation and Man whom God had placed there, 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 th' eternal co-eternal beain!

May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in an unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hearest 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;

10

15

20

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard, and rare! Thee 1 revisit safe,
And feel thy sovereign 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, 25
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
flarmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird

30

35

Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid

Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year 40
Seasons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or sumnier'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 a universal blank

45

50

Of nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'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.

Now had the Almighty Father from above, (From the pure empyrean where he sits

55

High thron'd above all height,) bent down his eye, His own works and their works at once to view: About him all the sanctities of heaven

60

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd
Beatitude past utterance: on his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only Son. On earth he first beheld
Our two first parents (yet the only two
Of mankind) in the happy garden plac'd,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love;
Uninterrupted joy, unrivall'd love,

In blissful solitude. He then survey'd
Hell, and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of heaven on this side night,
In the dun air sublime; and ready now

To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet,
On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd
Firm land imbosom'd without firmament;
Uncertain which, in ocean, or in air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake :

"Only begotten Son! seest thou what rage Transports our adversary, whom no bounds

85

90

Prescrib'd, no bars of hell, nor all the chains
Heap'd on him there, nor yet the main abyss
Wide-interrupt, can hold? So bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
Not far off heaven, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new-created world,
And man there plac'd; with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or worse,
By some false guile pervert: and shall pervert;
For man will hearken to his glozing lies, *
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall,
He, and his faithless progeny. Whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate! he had of me
All he could have: I made him just and right;
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all th' ethereal powers,

95

100

And spirits, both them who stood, and them who fail'd⚫
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love,

Where only what they needs must do, appear'd; 105 Not, what they would? What praise could they receive?

What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil'd,
Made passive both, had serv'd necessity,
Not me? They therefore, as to right belong'd,
So were created, nor can justly accuse

110

Their Maker, or their making, or their fate;
As if predestination over-rul'd

Their will, dispos'd by absolute decree,

115

Or high foreknowledge. They themselves decreed

Their own revolt, not, I: if I foreknew,

Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse, or shadow of fate, 120
Or ought by me immutably foreseen,

They trespass; authors to themselves in all,
Both what they judge, and what they choose; for so
I form'd them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthral themselves: I else must charge