New courage and revive, though now they lie
Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amazed:
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious 2 height.”

He scarce had ceased when the superior fiend Was moving toward the shore, his ponderous shield, Ethereal temper,4 massy, large, and round, Behind him cast. The broad circumference 6 Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artistē views At evening, from the top of Fesolé,3 Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,10 Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe. His spear, — to equal which the tallest pine, Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast Of some great ammiral,11 were but a wand, He walked with, to support uneasy steps

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ous.

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1 erewhile, before, previously. by his name the Galilean telescope, pernicious, excessive, ruin- which immensely advanced the

science of astronomy. 3 ethereal. What preposition is 8 Fesolé (Fiesole) is a hill near understood before this word ? Florence, on which are the remains 4 temper. Meaning here? of the ancient city of Fæsulæ.

massy. Poetic form of what 9 Valdarno ( Val d'Arno), the valword?

!

Over the burning marle (not like those steps
On heaven's azure), and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless ? he so endured, till on the beach
Of that inflaméd sea he stood, and called
His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced,
Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arched, imbower; or scattered sedge
Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion 5 armed
Hath vexed the Red-sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,$
While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrewn,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He called so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of hell resounded : “Princes, potentates,

Warriors ! the flower of heaven, once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize
Eternal spirits! Or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose
Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here as in the vales of heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conqueror - who now beholds
Cherub and seraphı rolling in the flood,
With scattered arms and ensigns — till anon
His swift pursuers from heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down,
Thus drooping, or, with linkéd thunderbolts,
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake! arise! - or be for ever fallen!”

3.- INVOCATION TO LIGHT.

[The following fifty-five lines form the opening of the Third Book of Paradise Lost : they are of special interest, as containing the touching lament of the poet on his own blindness.)

Hail, holy Light !3 offspring 4 of Heaven first-born,
Or of the Eternal co-eternal5 beam,
May I express 6 thee unblamed ? since God is light,

i astonishment, thunderstruck 4 offspring. With what in apdismay.

position? 2 virtue, valor, manhood. See 5 co-eternal. Meaning? Glossary.

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And never but in unapproachéd light
Dwelt 1 from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence 2 of bright essence increate.3
Or hear'st thou 4 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.5
Thee I revisit 6 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 7 borne,
With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre,8
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Through 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 serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion 1 veiled. Yet not the more 2
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,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equaled with me in fate,4
So were I equaled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresi'as," and Phine'us, prophets old :
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move

1 drop serene ... dim suffusion. | bard. He is mentioned by Homer, An allusion to the two causes of who relates his presumption in blindness, which, according to the challenging the Muses to a contest, medical authorities of Milton's and his punishment in being detime, were the “serene drop" (gut- prived by them of sight and the ta serena), - a sort of transparent power of song. watery humor that destroyed the 6 Mæon'ides; that is, Homer, optic nerve; and “suffusion” (suf- who is so called because supposed fusio), a kind of film that gathered to be a native of Mæonia, the over the eye.

ancient name of Lydia. 2 Yet not the more, etc. = ney- 7 Tiresi'as, a renowned “prophertheless I still wander.

et” (or bard) of the mythological 3 the flowery brooksare Kedron age of Greece. He was blind from and Siloa, the latter of which, how- childhood. ever, is only a pool.

8 Phinelus, a celebrated Thracian equaled with me in fate; that seer, whom the gods deprived of is, blind, like myself, by the decree sight because, on a false accusaof fate.

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