LITMIR.BIZ

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Chaos, and his dark Pavilion spread Wide on the wasteful Deep; with him Enthron’d Sat Sable-vested Night, eldest of things, The consort of his Reign; and by them stood Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name Of Demogorgon; Rumor next and Chance, And Tumult and Confusion all imbroild, And Discord with a thousand various mouths.

      T’ whom Satan turning boldly, thus. Ye Powers And Spirits of this nethermost Abyss, Chaos and Ancient Night, I come no Spie, With purpose to explore or to disturb The secrets of your Realm, but by constraint Wandring this darksome desart, as my way Lies through your spacious Empire up to light, Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek What readiest path leads where your gloomie bounds Confine with Heav’n; or if som other place From your Dominion won, th’ Ethereal King Possesses lately, thither to arrive I travel this profound, direct my course; Directed, no mean recompence it brings To your behoof, if I that Region lost, All usurpation thence expell’d, reduce To her original darkness and your sway (Which is my present journey) and once more Erect the Standerd there of Ancient Night; Yours be th’ advantage all, mine the revenge.

      Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old With faultring speech and visage incompos’d Answer’d. I know thee, stranger, who thou art, That mighty leading Angel, who of late Made head against Heav’ns King, though overthrown. I saw and heard, for such a numerous host Fled not in silence through the frighted deep With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded; and Heav’n Gates Pourd out by millions her victorious Bands Pursuing. I upon my Frontieres here Keep residence; if all I can will serve, That little which is left so to defend Encroacht on still through our intestine broiles Weakning the Scepter of old Night: first Hell Your dungeon stretching far and wide beneath; Now lately Heaven and Earth, another World Hung ore my Realm, link’d in a golden Chain To that side Heav’n from whence your Legions fell: If that way be your walk, you have not farr; So much the neerer danger; goe and speed; Havock and spoil and ruin are my gain.

      He ceas’d; and Satan staid not to reply, But glad that now his Sea should find a shore, With fresh alacritie and force renew’d Springs upward like a Pyramid of fire Into the wilde expanse, and through the shock Of fighting Elements, on all sides round Environ’d wins his way; harder beset And more endanger’d, then when Argo pass’d Through Bosporus betwixt the justling Rocks: Or when Ulysses on the Larbord shunnd Charybdis, and by th’ other whirlpool steard. So he with difficulty and labour hard Mov’d on, with difficulty and labour hee; But hee once past, soon after when man fell, Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain Following his track, such was the will of Heav’n, Pav’d after him a broad and beat’n way Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling Gulf Tamely endur’d a Bridge of wondrous length From Hell continu’d reaching th’ utmost Orbe Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse With easie intercourse pass to and fro To tempt or punish mortals, except whom God and good Angels guard by special grace. But now at last the sacred influence Of light appears, and from the walls of Heav’n Shoots farr into the bosom of dim Night A glimmering dawn; here Nature first begins Her fardest verge, and Chaos to retire As from her outmost works a brok’n foe With tumult less and with less hostile din, That Satan with less toil, and now with ease Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light And like a weather-beaten Vessel holds Gladly the Port, though Shrouds and Tackle torn; Or in the emptier waste, resembling Air, Weighs his spread wings, at leasure to behold Farr off th’ Empyreal Heav’n, extended wide In circuit, undetermind square or round, With Opal Towrs and Battlements adorn’d Of living Saphire, once his native Seat; And fast by hanging in a golden Chain This pendant world, in bigness as a Starr Of smallest Magnitude close by the Moon. Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge, Accurst, and in a cursed hour he hies.

      THE END OF THE SECOND BOOK.

      PARADISE LOST

      BOOK III.

       Table of Contents

      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

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