A vast vacuity; all unawares,
Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb-down he Wandering this darksome desert, as my way

With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his That mighty leading Angel, who of late Made head against Heaven's King, though overthrown.

If that way be your walk, you have not far;
So much the nearer danger. Go, and speed!
Havoc, and spoil, and ruin, are my gain.'
He ceased; and Satan stayed not to
reply,
But, glad that now his sea should find a shore,
With fresh alacrity and force renewed
Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire,
970 Into the wild expanse, and through the shock
Of fighting elements, on all sides round
Environed, wins his way; harder beset
And more endangered, than when Argo passed
Through Bosporus betwixt the justling rocks;
Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned

1021

Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steered: | And never but in unapproached light
So he with difficulty and labor hard
Moved on: with difficulty and labor he;
But, he once passed, soon after, when Man fell,
Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain,
Following his track (such was the will of
Heaven)

Dwelt from eternity-dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate! 1
Or hear 'st thou rather2 pure Ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the
Sun,

Paved after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling gulf
Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length,
From Hell continued, reaching the utmost orb
Of this frail World;* by which the Spirits
perverse
1030

With easy 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 influence65
Of light appears, and from the walls of Heaven
Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night
A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first begins
Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,
As from her outmost works, a broken foe,
With tumult less and with less hostile din; 1040
Thates 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 leisure to behold
Far off the empyreal Heaven, extended wide
In circuit, undetermined square or round,
With opal towers, and battlements adorned
Of living sapphire, once his native seat;
And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent World, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.
Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,|
Accurst, and in a cursed hour, he hies.

FROM BOOK III. INVOCATION TO LIGHT†

1050

10

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 revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian Pool, though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,
Through utter and through middle Darkness
borne,

20

With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare. Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit 'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serenes hath quenched thei
orbs,

Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, 30
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling
flow,

Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equalled with me in fate,
So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,5
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and, in shadiest covert hid,
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the
year
40

Seasons return; but not to me returns

Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,

May I express thee unblamed? since God is Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;

light,

65 Perhaps literally "in- 66 so that

flow.'

But cloud instead and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and, for the book of knowledge fair,
Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 50

By world is meant the starry universe with the earth at the center. The Ptolemaic theory held the universe to consist of ten concentric, transparent, revolving spheres, each carrying with it its own body-Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Fixed Stars, with finally the Crystalline Sphere, and the Primum 1 uncreated Mobile ("first movable," primary source of 2 wouldst rather be motion). From their revolutions came, according to Pythagoras, the "music of the spheres." † Milton speaks here in his own person; it is to be remembered that he was blind (Cf. line 23).

called

of

8 The gutta serena,
supposed cause
blindness.

4 would I were so

5 Homer, who mentions Thamyris as an other blind bard.

So much the rather thou, Celestial Light, Or from without to all temptations armed! Shine inward, and the mind through all her Hadst thou the same free will and power to powers stand? Irradiate; there plant eyes; all mist from Thou hadst.

thence

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

FROM BOOK IV. SATAN IN SIGHT OF EDEN

SOMETIMES towards Eden, which now in his

view

Lay pleasant, his grieved look he fixes sad;
Sometimes towards Heaven and the full-blazing
Sun,

30

Which now sat high in his meridian tower:
Then, much revolving, thus in sighs began:-
"O thou that, with surpassing glory crowned,
Look 'st from thy sole dominion like the god
Of this new World-at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminished heads-to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name,
O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams,
That bring to my remembrance from what

state

I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere, Till pride and worse ambition threw down,

me

40

Whom hast thou then, or what,

to accuse,

70

But Heaven's free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed, since, love or hate,
To me alike it deals eternal woe.
Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.

O, then, at last relent! Is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left? 80
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan.
While they adore me on the throne of Hell,
With diadem and sceptre high advanced,

Warring in Heaven against Heaven's matchless The lower still I fall, only supreme

King!

Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burdensome, still paying, still to owe;
Forgetful what from him I still received;
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged-what burden then?
Oh, had his powerful destiny ordained
Me some inferior Angel, I had stood
Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised 60
Ambition. Yet why not? Some other Power
As great might have aspired, and me, though

mean,

Drawn to his part. But other Powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within

e disdained

90

In misery: such joy ambition finds!
But say I could repent, and could obtain,
By act of grace, my former state; how soon
Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon
unsay

What feigned submission swore! Ease would

recant

Vows made in pain, as violent and void
(For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so
deep);

Which would but lead me to a worse relapse 100
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission, bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging, peace.
All hope excluded thus, behold, instead
Of us, outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind, created, and for him this World!
So farewell hope, and, with hope, farewell fear,
Farewell remorse! All good to 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;

110

As Man ere long, and this new World, shall know."

FROM BOOK IV. EVENING IN PARADISE

Now came still Evening on, and Twilight gray

600

Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.
She all night long her amorous descant sung:
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firma-
ment

With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw;
When Adam thus to Eve:-"Fair consort, the
hour

610

620

Our eye-lids. Other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest;
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of Heaven on all his ways;
While other animals unactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.
To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen,
And at our pleasant labor, to reform
Yon flowery arbors, yonder alleys green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton
growth.

Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums,
That lie bestrewn, unsightly and unsmooth, 631
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease.
Meanwhile, as Nature wills, Night bids us

rest."

FROM BOOK V. THE MORNING HYMN OF
ADAM AND EVE

Speak, ye who best can tell, ye Sons of Light,
Angels-for ye behold him, and with songs
And choral symphonies, day without night,
Circle his throne rejoicing-ye in Heaven;
On Earth join, all ye creatures, to extol
Him first, him last, him midst, and without end.
Fairest of Stars, last in the train of Night,
If better thou belong not to the Dawn,
Sure pledge of day, that crown'st the smiling

morn

With thy bright circlet, praise him in thy sphere
While day arises, that sweet hour of prime. 170
Thou Sun, of this great World both eye and

soul,

Acknowledge him thy greater; sound his praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb 'st,
And when high noon hast gained, and when
thou fall'st.

Moon, that now meet'st the orient Sun, now

fliest,

With the fixed Stars, fixed in their orb that
flies; 1

And ye five other wandering Fires, that move
In mystic dance, not without song, resound
His praise who out of Darkness called up

Light.

180

Air, and ye Elements, the eldest birth
Of Nature's womb, that in quaternion2 run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix
And nourish all things, let your ceaseless
change

Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye Mists and Exhalations, that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or gray,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honor to the World's great Author rise;
Whether to deck with clouds the uncolored sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers,
Rising or falling, still advance his praise.
His praise, ye Winds, that from four quarters

blow,

191

Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye
Pines,

With every Plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye, that warble, as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs, warbling tune his praise.
Join voices, all ye living Souls. Ye Birds,

"THESE are thy glorious works, Parent of That, singing, up to Heaven-gate ascend, good,

Almighty! thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair: thyself how wondrous then!

Bear on your wings and in your notes his
praise.

Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread, or lowly creep,

Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these heavens Witness if I be silent, morn or even,
To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare

Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine.