LITMIR.BIZ

      Hail holy light, ofspring of Heav’n first-born,

      Or of th’ Eternal Coeternal beam

      May I express thee unblam’d? since God is light,

      And never but in unapproached light

      Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,

      Bright effluence of bright essence increate.

      Or hear’st 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 re-visit now with bolder wing,

      Escap’t 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 then to th’ ORPHEAN Lyre

      I sung of CHAOS and ETERNAL NIGHT,

      Taught by the heav’nly Muse to venture down

      The dark descent, and up to reascend,

      Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,

      And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou

      Revisit’st not these eyes, that rowle in vain

      To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;

      So thick a drop serene hath quencht thir Orbs,

      Or dim suffusion veild. Yet not the more

      Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt

      Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill,

      Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief

      Thee SION and the flowrie Brooks beneath

      That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow,

      Nightly I visit: nor somtimes forget

      Those other two equal’d with me in Fate,

      So were I equal’d with them in renown,

      Blind THAMYRIS and blind MAEONIDES,

      And TIRESIAS and PHINEUS Prophets old.

      Then feed on thoughts, that voluntarie move

      Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird

      Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid

      Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year

      Seasons return, but not to me returns

      Day, or the sweet approach of Ev’n or Morn,

      Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose,

      Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

      But cloud in stead, and ever-during dark

      Surrounds me, from the chearful waies of men

      Cut off, and for the book of knowledg fair

      Presented with a Universal blanc

      Of Natures works to mee expung’d and ras’d,

      And wisdome 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

      High Thron’d above all highth, bent down his eye,

      His own works and their works at once to view:

      About him all the Sanctities of Heaven

      Stood thick as Starrs, and from his sight receiv’d

      Beatitude past utterance; on his right

      The radiant image of his Glory sat,

      His onely Son; On Earth he first beheld

      Our two first Parents, yet the onely two

      Of mankind, in the happie Garden plac’t,

      Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,

      Uninterrupted joy, unrivald love

      In blissful solitude; he then survey’d

      Hell and the Gulf between, and SATAN there

      Coasting the wall of Heav’n 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 onely Son foreseeing spake.

      Onely begotten Son, seest thou what rage

      Transports our adversarie, whom no bounds

      Prescrib’d, no barrs of Hell, nor all the chains

      Heapt on him there, nor yet the main Abyss

      Wide interrupt can hold; so bent he seems

      On desperat revenge, that shall redound

      Upon his own rebellious head. And now

      Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way

      Not farr off Heav’n, in the Precincts of light,

      Directly towards the new created World,

      And Man there plac’t, with purpose to assay

      If him by force he can destroy, or worse,

      By som false guile pervert; and shall pervert;

      For man will heark’n to his glozing lyes,

      And easily transgress the sole Command,

      Sole pledge of his obedience: So will fall

      Hee and his faithless Progenie: whose fault?

      Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee

      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

      And Spirits, both them who stood & them who faild;

      Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

      Not free, what proof could they have givn sincere

      Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,

      Where onely what they needs must do, appeard,

      Not what they

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