LITMIR.BIZ

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to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,

      Shot after us in storm, o’erblown hath laid

      The fiery surge that from the precipice

      Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,

      Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,

      Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now

      To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.

      Let us not slip th’ occasion, whether scorn

      Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.

      Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,

      The seat of desolation, void of light,

      Save what the glimmering of these livid flames

      Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend

      From off the tossing of these fiery waves;

      There rest, if any rest can harbour there;

      And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,

      Consult how we may henceforth most offend

      Our enemy, our own loss how repair,

      How overcome this dire calamity,

      What reinforcement we may gain from hope,

      If not, what resolution from despair.”

      Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,

      With head uplift above the wave, and eyes

      That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides

      Prone on the flood, extended long and large,

      Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge

      As whom the fables name of monstrous size,

      Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,

      Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

      By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast

      Leviathan, which God of all his works

      Created hugest that swim th’ ocean-stream.

      Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,

      The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,

      Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,

      With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,

      Moors by his side under the lee, while night

      Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.

      So stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay,

      Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence

      Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will

      And high permission of all-ruling Heaven

      Left him at large to his own dark designs,

      That with reiterated crimes he might

      Heap on himself damnation, while he sought

      Evil to others, and enraged might see

      How all his malice served but to bring forth

      Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn

      On Man by him seduced, but on himself

      Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured.

      Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool

      His mighty stature; on each hand the flames

      Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and rolled

      In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid vale.

      Then with expanded wings he steers his flight

      Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,

      That felt unusual weight; till on dry land

      He lights—if it were land that ever burned

      With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,

      And such appeared in hue as when the force

      Of subterranean wind transports a hill

      Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side

      Of thundering Etna, whose combustible

      And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,

      Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,

      And leave a singed bottom all involved

      With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole

      Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate;

      Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood

      As gods, and by their own recovered strength,

      Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.

      “Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,”

      Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat

      That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom

      For that celestial light? Be it so, since he

      Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid

      What shall be right: farthest from him is best

      Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme

      Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

      Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,

      Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,

      Receive thy new possessor—one who brings

      A mind not to be changed by place or time.

      The mind is its own place, and in itself

      Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

      What matter where, if I be still the same,

      And what I should be, all but less than he

      Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

      We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built

      Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

      Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,

      To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

      Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

      But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

      Th’ associates and co-partners of our loss,

      Lie thus astonished on th’ oblivious pool,

      And call them not to share with us their part

      In this unhappy mansion, or once more

      With rallied arms to try what may be yet

      Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?”

      So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub

      Thus answered:—“Leader of those armies bright

      Which, but th’ Omnipotent, none could have foiled!

      If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge

      Of hope in fears and dangers—heard so oft

      In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge

      Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults

      Their surest signal—they will soon resume

      New courage and revive, though now they lie

      Grovelling and prostrate on yon

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