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
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. Oh, 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 seduced With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ay 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 and sceptre high advanced, 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; how soon
Would height recall high thoughts, how soon unsay What feigned 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 pierced 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, exiled, 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." Thus while he spake, each passion dimmed his face, Thrice changed with pale ire, envy, and despair; Which marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld :
For heavenly minds from such distempers foul Are ever clear. Whereof he soon aware,
Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm, Artificer of fraud; and was the first
That practised falsehood under saintly show, Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge: Yet not enough had practised to deceive
Uriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount Saw him disfigured, more than could befall Spirit of happy sort: his gestures fierce He marked and mad demeanour, then alone, As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.
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 head Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, Access denied; and overhead 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 wall 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, 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 Sabean 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, though with them better pleased Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume
That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse Of Tobit's son, and with a vengeance sent From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound. Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill Satan had journeyed on, pensive and slow; But further way found none; so thick entwined, As one continued brake, the undergrowth Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed All path of man or beast that passed that way. One gate there only was, and that looked east
On the other side; which when the arch-felon saw, Due entrance he disdained, and, in contempt, At one slight bound high overleaped all bound Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf, Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve, In hurdled cotes amid the field secure, Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold; Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash
Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault, In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles; So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold: So since into His church lewd hirelings climb. Thence up he flew, and on the Tree of Life, The middle tree and highest there that grew,
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life
Thereby regained, but sat devising death
To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought Of that life-giving plant, but only used
For prospect what, well used, had been the pledge Of immortality. So little knows
Any, but God alone, to value right
The good before him, but perverts best things
To worst abuse, or to their meanest use. Beneath him, with new wonder, now he views, To all delight of human sense exposed,
In narrow room nature's whole wealth; yea, more!— 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. 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, through 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,
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