Language is dumb,- Imagination,
Knowledge, and Science, helpless fall;
They are irreverent profanation,

And thou, O God! art all in all.

How vain on such a thought to dwell!

Who knows Thee? Thee, the All-unknown?
Can angels be thy oracle,

Who art, who art Thyself alone?

None, none can trace Thy course sublime,
For none can catch a ray from Thee,
The Splendor and the Source of Time,
The Eternal of Eternity!

The light of light outpoured conveys
Salvation in its flight elysian,
Brighter than even Thy mercy's rays;-
But vainly would our feeble vision
Aspire to Thee. From day to day

Age steals on us, but meets Thee never:
Thy power is life's support and stay,-
We praise Thee, sing Thee, Lord! forever.
Holy! holy! holy! Praise,
Praise be His in every land!
Safety in His presence stays,

Sacred is His high command.

THE DEBATE IN PANDEMONIUM.

BY JOHN MILTON.

(From "Paradise Lost.")

[JOHN MILTON: English poet; born in London, December 9, 1608; died in London, November 8, 1674. He was graduated from Cambridge, 1629; was Latin secretary, 1649-1660. He became totally blind in 1652. At the Restoration he was proscribed and his works were ordered burnt by the hangman; but after a time he was left unmolested and spent the last years of his life in quiet literary labors. "Paradise Lost" was issued in 1666, “Paradise Regained" in 1671, and "Samson Agonistes" in 1671. His masque of "Comus was published in 1634, "Lycidas" in 1637, "L'Allegro " and "Penseroso" in 1645. Among his prose works the "Areopagitica" (1644), advocating the freedom of the press, his work on Divorce, and his "Defense of the English People" (1654) are most famous. His sonnets in the Italian manner are among the finest in the English language.]

HIGH on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus and of Ind,

Or where the gorgeous east with richest hand
Showers on her kings Barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised

To that bad eminence; and, from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with heaven, and by success untaught
His proud imaginations thus displayed.

"Powers and Dominions, Deities of heaven,
For since no deep within her gulf can hold
Immortal vigor, though oppressed and fallen,
I give not heaven for lost: from this descent
Celestial virtues rising will appear

More glorious and more dread, than from no fall,
And trust themselves to fear no second fate.

Me though just right and the fixed laws of heaven
Did first create your leader, next free choice,
With what besides, in council or in fight,
Hath been achieved of merit; yet this loss,
Thus far at least recovered, hath much more
Established in a safe unenvied throne,

Yielded with full consent. The happier state
In heaven, which follows dignity, might draw
Envy from each inferior; but who here
Will envy whom the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the Thund'rer's aim
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain? Where there is then no good
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there
From faction; for none sure will claim in hell
Precedence, none, whose portion is so small.
Of present pain, that with ambitious mind
Will covet more. With this advantage then
To union, and firm faith, and firm accord,
More than can be in heaven, we now return
To claim our just inheritance of old,
Surer to prosper than prosperity

Could have assured us; and by what best way,
Whether of open war or covert guile,

We now debate; who can advise, may speak."

He ceased; and next him Moloch, sceptered king, Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit That fought in heaven, now fiercer by despair: His trust was with th' Eternal to be deemed

Equal in strength, and rather than be less

Cared not to be at all; with that care lost
Went all his fear; of God, or hell, or worse,
He recked not; and these words thereafter spake:
"My sentence is for open war; of wiles,
More unexpert, I boast not: them let those
Contrive who need, or when they need, not now:
For while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit ling'ring here,
Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns
By our delay? no, let us rather choose,
Armed with hell flames and fury, all at once,
O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the torturer; when to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine he shall hear
Infernal thunder, and for lightning see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his angels; and his throne itself
Mixt with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But perhaps
The way seems difficult and steep to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe.
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat: descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy then;
Th' event is feared; should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction: if there be in hell

Fear to be worse destroyed: what can be worse
Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned,

In this abhorrèd deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire

Must exercise us without hope of end,

The vassals of his anger, when the scourge

Inexorably, and the torturing hour

Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus