LITMIR.BIZ

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Can Perish: for the mind and spirit remains

       Invincible, and vigour soon returns,

       Though all our Glory extinct, and happy state

       Here swallow’d up in endless misery.

       But what if he our Conquerour, (whom I now

       Of force believe Almighty, since no less

       Then such could hav orepow’rd such force as ours)

       Have left us this our spirit and strength intire

       Strongly to suffer and support our pains,

       That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,

       Or do him mightier service as his thralls

       By right of Warr, what e’re his business be

       Here in the heart of Hell to work in Fire,

       Or do his Errands in the gloomy Deep;

       What can it then avail though yet we feel

       Strength undiminisht, or eternal being

       To undergo eternal punishment?

       Whereto with speedy words th’ Arch-fiend reply’d.

      Fall’n Cherube, to be weak is miserable

       Doing or Suffering: but of this be sure,

       To do ought good never will be our task,

       But ever to do ill our sole delight,

       As being the contrary to his high will

       Whom we resist. If then his Providence

       Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,

       Our labour must be to pervert that end,

       And out of good still to find means of evil;

       Which oft times may succeed, so as perhaps

       Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb

       His inmost counsels from their destind aim.

       But see the angry Victor hath recall’d

       His Ministers of vengeance and pursuit

       Back to the Gates of Heav’n: The Sulphurous Hail

       Shot after us in storm, oreblown hath laid

       The fiery Surge, that from the Precipice

       Of Heav’n receiv’d us falling, and the Thunder,

       Wing’d 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 wilde,

       The seat of desolation, voyd 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 reassembling 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 despare.

      Thus Satan talking to his neerest Mate

       With Head up-lift above the wave, and Eyes

       That sparkling blaz’d, 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 warr’d on Jove, Briarios 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 slumbring on the Norway foam The Pilot of some small night-founder’d Skiff, Deeming some Island, oft, as Sea-men tell, With fixed Anchor in his skaly rind Moors by his side under the Lee, while Night Invests the Sea, and wished Morn delayes: So stretcht out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay Chain’d on the burning Lake, nor ever thence Had ris’n or heav’d 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 enrag’d might see How all his malice serv’d but to bring forth Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shewn On Man by him seduc’t, but on himself Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour’d. Forthwith upright he rears from off the Pool His mighty Stature; on each hand the flames Drivn backward slope their pointing spires, & rowld In billows, leave i’th’ midst a horrid Vale. Then with expanded wings he stears his flight Aloft, incumbent on the dusky Air That felt unusual weight, till on dry Land He lights, if it were Land that ever burn’d With solid, as the Lake with liquid fire; And such appear’d in hue, as when the force Of subterranean wind transports a Hill Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter’d side Of thundring Aetna, whose combustible And fewel’d entrals thence conceiving Fire, Sublim’d with Mineral fury, aid the Winds, And leave a singed bottom all involv’d With stench and smoak: Such resting found the sole Of unblest feet. Him followed his next Mate, Both glorying to have scap’t the Stygian flood As Gods, and by their own recover’d strength, Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.

      Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,

       Said then the lost Arch Angel, this the seat

       That we must change for Heav’n, this mournful gloom

       For that celestial light? Be it so, since hee

       Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid

       What shall be right: fardest from him is best

       Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream

       Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields

       Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail

       Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell

       Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings

       A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.

       The mind is its own place, and in it self

       Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

       What matter where, if I be still the same,

       And what I should be, all but less then hee

       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 choyce

       To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

       Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.

       But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

       Th’ associates and copartners of our loss

       Lye thus astonisht 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

       Regaind in Heav’n, or what more lost in Hell?

      So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub Thus answer’d. Leader of those Armies bright, Which but th’ Omnipotent none could have foyld, If once they hear that voyce, their liveliest

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