Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine, Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear; Yet dazzle heaven, that brightest seraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes. Thee next they sang of all creation first, Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,
In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud Made visible, the Almighty Father shines, Whom else no creature can behold: on thee Impress'd the effulgence of his glory abides; Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests. He heaven of heavens and all the powers therein By thee created, and by thee threw down The aspiring dominations. Thou that day Thy Father's dreadful thunder didst not spare, Nor stop thy flaming chariot-wheels, that shook Heaven's everlasting frame, while o'er the necks Thou drovest of warring angels disarray'd. Back from pursuit thy powers with loud acclaim Thee only extoll'd, Son of thy Father's might, To execute fierce vengeance on his foes, Not so on man; him, through their malice fallen, Father of mercy and grace, thou didst not doom So strictly, but much more to pity incline. No sooner did thy dear and only Son Perceive thee purposed not to doom frail man So strictly, but much more to pity inclined, He, to appease thy wrath, and end the strife Of mercy and justice in thy face discern'd, Regardless of the bliss wherein he sat Second to thee, offer'd himself to die For man's offence. Oh, unexampled love, Love nowhere to be found less than Divine ! Hail, Son of God, Saviour of men, thy name Shall be the copious matter of my song Henceforth, and never shall my harp thy praise Forget, nor from thy Father's praise disjoin.
Thus they in heaven, above the starry sphere, Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent. Meanwhile upon the firm opacous globe
Of this round world, whose first convex divides The luminous inferior orbs, enclosed From chaos and the inroad of darkness old, Satan alighted walks: a globe far off It seem'd, now seems a boundless continent, Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of night Starless exposed, and ever-threatening storms Of chaos blustering round, inclement sky; Save on that side which from the wall of heaven, Though distant far, some small reflection gains Of glimmering air, less vex'd with tempest loud Here walk'd the fiend at large in spacious field.
As when a vulture on Imaüs bred,
Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds, Dislodging from a region scarce of prey
To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids
On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams; But in his way lights on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light: So on this windy sea of land the fiend Walk'd up and down alone, bent on his prey; Alone, for other creature in this place, Living or lifeless, to be found was none; None yet, but store hereafter from the earth Up hither like aërial vapours flew
Of all things transitory and vain, when sin With vanity had fill'd the works of men : Both all things vain, and all who in vain things Built their fond hopes of glory or lasting fame, Or happiness in this or the other life;
All who have their reward on earth, the fruits Of painful superstition and blind zeal, Nought seeking but the praise of men, here find Fit retribution, empty as their deeds;
All the unaccomplish'd works of Nature's hand, Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mix'd,
Dissolved on earth, fleet hither, and in vain,
Till final dissolution, wander here,
Not in the neighbouring moon, as some have dream'd; Those argent fields more likely habitants,
Translated saints, or middle spirits, hold
Betwixt the angelical and human kind.
Hither of ill-join'd sons and daughters born
First from the ancient world those giants came
With many a vain exploit, though then renown'd ; The builders next of Babel on the plain
Of Sennaar, and still with vain design
New Babels, had they wherewithal, would build : Others came single; he who to be deem'd
A god leap'd fondly into Ætna flames,
Empedocles, and he who to enjoy Plato's Elysium leap'd into the sea, Cleombrotus, and many more too long, Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery. Here pilgrims roam, that stray'd so far to seek In Golgotha him dead, who lives in heaven; And they who to be sure of Paradise Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised; They pass the planets seven, and pass the fix'd, And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation talk'd, and that first moved: And now Saint Peter at heaven's wicket seems To wait them with his keys, and now at foot Of heaven's ascent they lift their feet, when, lo! A violent cross-wind from either coast
Blows them transverse ten thousand leagues awry Into the devious air; then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers toss' And flatter'd into rags; then relics, beads, Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls, The sport of winds: all these upwhirl'd aloft Fly o'er the backside of the world far off, Into a limbo large and broad, since call'd The Paradise of fools, to few unknown Long after, now unpeopled, and untrod. All this dark globe the fiend found as he pass'd, And long he wander'd, till at last a gleam Of dawning light turn'd thitherward in haste His travelled steps; far distant he descries, Ascending by degrees magnificent
Up to the wall of heaven, a structure high, At top whereof, but far more rich appear'd The work as of a kingly palace-gate, With frontispiece of diamond and gold Embellish'd; thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone, inimitable on earth By model or by shading pencil drawn. The stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw Angels ascending and descending, bands Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled To Padan-Aram in the field of Luz, Dreaming by night under the open sky, And waking cried, This is the gate of heaven. Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood There always, but drawn up to heaven sometimes Viewless, and underneath a bright sea flow'd Of jasper, or of liquid pearl, whereon Who after came from earth sailing arrived, Wafted by angels, or flew o'er the lake, Wrapt in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds. The stairs were then let down, whether to dare The fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss: Direct against which open'd from beneath, Just o'er the blissful seat of Paradise,
A passage down to the earth, a passage wide, Wider by far than that of after-times
Over mount Sion, and, though that were large, Over the Promised Land to God so dear, By which, to visit oft those happy tribes, On high behests his angels to and fro
Pass'd frequent, and his eye with choice regard,
From Paneas, the fount of Jordan's flood, To Beersaba, where the Holy Land
Borders on Egypt and the Arabian shore;
So wide the opening seem'd, where bounds were set To darkness, such as bound the ocean wave. Satan from hence now on the lower stair, That, scaled by steps of gold to heaven-gate, Looks down with wonder at the sudden view Of all this world at once. As when a scout, Through dark and desert ways with peril gone All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill, Which to his eye discovers unaware
The goodly prospect of some foreign land First seen, or some renown'd metropolis, With glistering spires and pinnacles adorn'd, Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams; Such wonder seized, though after heaven seen, The spirit malign; but much more envy seized At sight of all this world beheld so fair. Round he surveys, and well might, where he stood So high above the circling canopy
Of night's extended shade, from eastern point Of Libra to the fleecy star that bears Andromeda far off Atlantic seas,
Beyond the horizon: then from pole to pole He views in breadth, and without longer pause Down right into the world's first region throws His flight precipitant, and winds with ease Through the pure marble air his oblique way Amongst innumerable stars, that shone Stars distant, but nigh hand seem'd other worlds; Or other worlds they seem'd, or happy isles, Like those Hesperian gardens famed of old, Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales, Thrice happy isles; but who dwelt happy there He stay'd not to inquire above them all The golden sun, in splendour likest heaven, Allured his eye; thither his course he bends Through the calm firmament; but up or down, By centre or eccentric, hard to tell, Or longitude, where the great luminary, Aloof the vulgar constellations thick, That from his lordly eye keep distance due, Dispenses light from far; they, as they move Their starry dance in numbers that compute
Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp Turn swift their various motions, or are turn'd By his magnetic beam, that gently warms
The universe, and to each inward part
With gentle penetration, though unseen, Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep;
So wondrously was set his station bright. There lands the fiend, a spot like which perhaps Astronomer in the sun's lucent orb
Through his glazed optic tube yet never saw. The place he found beyond expression bright, Compared with aught on earth, metal or stone; Not all parts like, but all alike inform'd With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire; If metal, part seem'd gold, part silver clear; If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite, Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone In Aaron's breastplate, and a stone besides Imagined rather oft than elsewhere seen; That stone, or like to that, which here below Philosophers in vain so long have sought, In vain, though by their powerful art they bind Volatile Hermes, and call up unbound In various shapes old Proteus from the sea, Drain'd through a limbec to his native form. What wonder then if fields and regions here Breathe forth elixir pure, and rivers run Potable gold, when with one virtuous touch The arch-chymic sun, so far from us remote, Produces, with terrestrial humour mix'd, Here in the dark so many precious things Of colour glorious and effect so rare? Here matter new to gaze the devil met Undazzled, far and wide his eye commands, For sight no obstacle found here, nor shade, But all sunshine; as when his beams at noon Culminate from the Equator, as they now Shot upward still direct, whence no way round Shadow from body opaque can fall, and the air, Nowhere so clear, sharpen'd his visual ray To objects distant far, whereby he soon Saw within ken a glorious angel stand, The same whom John saw also in the sun : His back was turn'd but not his brightness hid Of beaming sunny rays, a golden tiar
Circled his head, nor less his locks behind Illustrious on his shoulders fledge with wings
Lay waving round; on some great charge employ'd He seem'd, or fix'd 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. But first he casts to change his proper shape, Which else might work him danger or delay And now a stripling cherub he appears, Not of the prime, yet such as in his face Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb
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