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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 upgrew

      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 upsprung;

      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 landskip: 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 fail

      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 flight bound high over-leaped 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

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