8

A

Remov'd far off; then, pitying how they stood
Before him naked to the air, that now
Must suffer change, disdain'd not to begin
Thenceforth the form of servant to assume;
As when he wash'd his servants' feet; so now,
As father of his family, he clad

Their nakedness with skins of beasts, or slain,
Or as the snake with youthful coat repaid;
And thought not much to clothe his enemies:
Nor he their outward only with the skins
Of beasts, but inward nakedness, much more
Opprobrious, with his robe of righteousness,
Arraying, cover'd from his Father's sight.
To him with swift ascent he up return'd,
Into his blissful bosom reassum'd
In glory, as of old; to him appeas'd,
All, though all-knowing, what had pass'd with
Recounted, mixing intercession sweet.

[Man

Mean while, ere thus was sirm'd and judg'd on
Earth,

Within the gates of Hell sat Sin and Death,
In counterview within the gates, that now
Stood open wide, belching outrageous flame
Far into Chaos, since the fiend pass'd through,
Sin opening; who thus now to Death began.

"O son, why sit we here each other viewing
Idly, while Satan, our great author, thrives
In other worlds, and happier seat provides
For us, his offspring dear? It cannot be
But that success attends him; if mishap,
Ere this he had return'd, with fury driven
By his avengers; since no place like this
Can fit his punishment, or their revenge.
Methinks I feel new strength within me rise,
Wings growing, and dominion given me large,
Beyond this deep; whatever draws me on,
Or sympathy, or some connatural force,
Powerful at greatest distance to unite,
With secret amity, things of like kind,
By secretest conveyance. Thou, my shade
Inseparable, must with me along :

For Death from Sin no power can separate.
But, lest the difficulty of passing back
#Stay his return perhaps over this gulf
Impassable, impervious; let us try

Adventurous work, yet to thy power and mine
Not unagreeable, to found a path

Over this main from Hell to that new world,
Where Satan now prevails; a monument
Of merit high to all the infernal host,
Fasing their passage hence, for intercourse,
Or transmigration, as their lot shall lead.
Nor can I miss the way, so strongly drawn
By this new felt-attraction and instinct."
Whom thus the meagre shadow answer'd soon.
Go, whither Fate, and inclination strong,
Leads thee; I shall not lag behind, nor err
The way, thou leading; such a scent I draw
Of carnage, prey innumerable, and taste
The savour of death from all things there that
Nor shall I to the work thou enterprisest [live:
Be wanting, but afford thee equal aid."

So saying, with delight he snuff'd the smell
Of mortal change on Earth. As when a flock
Of ravenous fowl, though many a league remote,
Against the day of battle, to a field,
Where armies lie encamp'd, come flying, lur'd
1 With scent of living carcasses design'd

For death, the following day, in bloody fight:
So scented the grim feature, and upturn'd

His nostril wide into the murky air; Sagacious of his quarry from so far.

Then both from out Hell-gates, into the waste Wide anarchy of Chaos, damp and dark,

Flew diverse; and with power (their power was great)

Hovering upon the waters, what they met
Solid or slimy, as in raging sea

Tost up and down, together crouded drove,
From each side shoaling towards the mouth of
Hell:

waves.

As when two polar winds, blowing adverse
Upon the Cronian sea, together drive
Mountains of ice, that stop the imagin'd way
Beyond Petsora eastward, to the rich
Cathaian coast. The aggregated soil
Death with his mace petrific, cold and dry,
As with a trident smote, and fix'd as firm
As Delos, floating once; the rest his look
Bound with Gorgonian rigour not to move;
And with Asphaltic slime, broad as the gate,
Deep to the roots of Hell the gather'd beach [on
They fasten'd, and the mole immense wrought
Over the foaming deep high-arch'd, a bridge
Of length prodigious, joining to the wall
Immoveable of this now fenceless world,
Forfeit to Death; from hence a passage broad,
Smooth, easy, inoffensive, down to Hell.
So, if great things to small may be compar'd,
Xerxes, the liberty of Greece to yoke,
From Susa, his Memnonian palace high,
Came to the sea; and, over Hellespont
Bridging his way, Europe with Asia join'd,
And scourg'd with many a stroke the indignant
[art
Now had they brought the work by wonderous
Pontifical, a ridge of pendant rock,
Over the vex'd abyss, following the track
Of Satan to the self-same place where he
First lighted from his wing, and landed safe
From out of Chaos, to the outside bare
Of this round world: with pins of adamant
And chains they made all fast, too fast they made
And durable! And now in little space
The confines met of empyréan Heaven,
And of this world; and, on the left hand, Hell
With long reach interpos'd; three several ways
In sight, to each of these three places led.
And now their way to Earth they had descried,
To Paradise first tending; when, behold!
Satan, in likeness of an angel bright,
Betwixt the Centaur and the Scorpion steering
His zenith, while the Sun in Aries rose :
Disguis'd he came; but those his children dear
Their parent soon discern'd, though in disguise.
He, after Eve seduc'd, unminded slunk
Into the wood fast by; and, changing shape,
To observe the sequel, saw his guileful act
By Eve, though all unweeting, seconded
Upon her husband; saw their shame that sought
Vain covertures; but when he saw descend
The Son of God to judge them, terrified
He fled; not hoping to escape, but shun
The present; fearing, guilty, what his wrath
Might suddenly inflict; that past, return'd
By night, and listening where the hapless pair
Sat in their sad discourse, and various plaint,
Thence gather'd his own doom; which under-

stood

Not instant, but of future time, with joy

To expedite your glorious march; but I
Toil'd out my uncouth passage, forc'd to ride
The untractable abyss, plung'd in the womb
Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild;
That, jealous of their secrets, fiercely oppos'd
My journey strange, with clamorous uproar
Protesting Fate supreme; thence how I found
The new created world, which fame in Heaven
Long had foretold, a fabric wonderful
Of absolute perfection! therein Man
Plac'd in a Paradise, by our exile

Made happy: him by fraud I have seduc'd
From his Creator; and, the more to increase
Your wonder, with an apple; he, thereat
Offended, worth your laughter! hath given up
Both his beloved Man and all his world,
To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us,
Without our hazard, labour, or alarm;
To range in, and to dwell, and over Man
To rule, as over all he should have rul'd.
True is, me also he hath judg'd, or rather
Me not, but the brute serpent in whose shape
Man 1 deceiv'd: that which to me belongs,
Is enmity, which he will put between

Me and mankind; I am to bruise his heel;
His seed, when is not set, shall bruise my head:
A world who would not purchase with a bruise,
Ɔr much more grievous pain?-Ye have the ac-

count

Of my performance: what remains, ye gods,
But up, and enter now into full bliss ?"

So having said, a while he stood, expecting Their universal shout, and high applause, fo fill his ear; when, contrary, he hears On all sides, from innumerable tongues, A dismal universal hiss, the sound Of public scorn; he wonder'd, but not long Had leisure, wondering at himself now more ; lis visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare; His arms clung to his ribs; his legs entwining ach other, till supplanted down he fell monstrous serpent on his belly prone, teluctant, but in vain; a greater power low rul'd him, punish'd in the shape he sinn'd, ccording to his doom: he would have spoke, ut hiss for hiss return'd with forked tongue o forked tongue; for now were all transform'd like, to serpents all, as accessories

o his bold riot: dreadful was the din

of hissing through the hall, thick swarming now Tith complicated monsters head and tail, corpion, and asp, and amphisbæna dire, erastes horn'd, hydrus, and elops drear, nd dipsas; (not so thick swarm'd once the soil edropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle phiusa,) but still greatest he the midst, ow dragon grown, larger than whom the Sun ngender'd in the Pythian vale or slime, uge Python, and his power no less he seem'd bove the rest still to retain; they all im follow'd, issuing forth to the open field, "There all yet left of that revolted rout, eaven-fall'n, in station stood or just array; ublime with expectation when to see

triumph issuing forth their glorious chief; hey saw, but other sight instead! a croud if ugly serpents; horrour on them fell, nd horrid sympathy; for, what they saw, hey felt themselves, now changing; down their

arms,

VOL. VII.

Down fell both spear and shield; down they as
And the dire hiss, renew'd, and the dire form[fast;
Catch'd, by contagion; like in punishment,
As in their crime. Thus was the applause they
meant,

Turn'd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame
Cast on themselves from their own mouths. There
stood

A grove hard by, sprung up with this their change,
His will who reigns above, to aggravate
Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that
Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve
Us'd by the tempter: on that prospect strange
Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining
For one forbidden tree a multitude

Now ris'n, to work them further woe or shame; Yet, parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce,

Though to delude them sent, could not abstain
But on they roll'd in heaps, and, up the trees
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megara: greedily they pluck'd
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceiv'd; they, fondly thinking to allay
Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes, which the offended taste
With spattering noise rejected: oft they assay'd
Hunger and thirst constraining; drugg'd as oft,
With hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws,
With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell
Into the same illusion, not as Man

Whom they triumph'd once laps'd. Thus were they plagu'd

And worn with famine, long and ceaseless hiss,
Till their lost shape, permitted, they resun'd;
Yearly enjoin'd, some say, to undergo,
This annual humbling certain number'd days,
To dash their pride, and joy, for Man seduc'd.
However, some tradition they dispers'd
Among the Heathen, of their purchase got,
And fabled how the serpent, whom they calld
Ophion, with Eurynome, the wide-
Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus; thence by Saturn driven
And Ops, ere yet Dictaan Jove was born.

Mean while in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arriv'd; Sin, there in power before,
Once actual; now in body, and to dwell
Habitual habitant; behind her Death,
Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet
On his pale horse: to whom Sin thus began.
"Second of Satan sprung, all-conquering
Learn'd

Death!

What think'st thou of our empire now, though With travel difficult, not better far [watch, Than still at Hell's dark threshold to have sat Unnam'd, undreaded, and thyself half starv'd?"

Whom thus the Sin-born monster answered "To me, who with eternal famine pine, [soon, Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven;

There best, where most with ravine I may meet; Which here, though plenteous, all too little

seems

To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corps." To whom the incestuous mother thus replied. "Thou therefore on these herbs and fruits, and flowers,

Feed first; on each beast next, and fish, and fowl;

Ee

Or multiply, but curses on my head?
Who of all ages to succeed, but, feeling
The evil on him brought by me, will curse
My head? Ill fare our ancestor impure,
For this we may thank Adam! but his thanks
Shall be the execration: so, besides

Mine own that bide upon me, all from me
Shall with a fierce reflux on me rebound;
On me, as on their natural centre, light
Heavy, though in their place. O fleeting joys
Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes!
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
To mould me Man? Did I solicit thee
From darkness to promote me, or here place
In this delicious garden? As my will
Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right
And equal to reduce me to my dust;
Desirous to resign and render back
All I receiv'd; unable to perform
Thy terms too hard, by which I was to hold
The good I sought not. To the loss of that,
Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added
The sense of endless woes? Inexplicable
Thy justice seems; yet, to say truth, too late
I thus contest; then should have been refus'd
Those terms, whatever, when they were propos'd:
Thou didst accept them: wilt thou enjoy the
good,

Then cavil the conditions? and, though God
Made thee without thy leave, what if thy son
Prove disobedient; and, reprov'd, retort,
'Wherefore didst thou beget me? I sought

not:'

Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee That proud excuse? yet him not thy election, But natural necessity, begot.

it

God made thee of choice his own, and of his own
To serve him; thy reward was of his grace;
Thy punishment then justly is at his will.
Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair,
That dust I am, and shall to dust return:
O welcome hour whenever! Why delays
His hand to execute what his decree
Fix'd on this day? Why do I overlive? [out
Why am I mock'd with death, and lengthen'd
To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet
Mortality my sentence, and be earth
Insensible! How glad would lay me down
As in my mother's lap! There I should rest
And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more
Would thunder in my ears; no fear of worse
To me, and to my offspring, would torment me
With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt
Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die;
Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of Man
Which God inspir'd, cannot together perish
With this corporeal clod; then, in the grave,
Or in some other dismal place, who knows
But I shall die a living death? O thought
Horrid, if true! Yet why? It was but breath
Of life that sinn'd; what dies but what had life
And sin? The body properly hath neither.
All of me then shall die: let this appease
The doubt, since human reach no further knows.
For though the Lord of all be infinite,

Is his wrath also? Be it, Man is not so,
But mortal doom'd. 'How can he exercise [end?
Wrath without end on Man, whom death must
Can he make deathless death? That were to make

Strange contradiction, which to God himself Impossible is held; as argument

Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw out,
For anger's sake, finite to infinite,

In punish'd Man, to satisfy his rigour,
Satisfied never? That were to extend
His sentence beyond dust and Nature's law:
By which all causes else, according still
To the reception of their matter, act;

[tion

[kind,

Not to the extent of their own sphere. But say
That death be not one stroke, as I suppos'd,
Bereaving sense, but endless misery
From this day onward; which I feel begun
Both in me, and without me; and so last
To perpetuity:-Ay me! that fear
Comes thundering back with dreadful revolu-
On my defenceless head; both Death and I
Are found eternal, and incorporate both;
Nor I on my part single; in me all
Posterity stands curs'd: fair patrimony
That I must leave ye, sons! O, were I able
To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!
So disinherited, how would you bless
Me, now your curse! Ah, why should all man-
For one man's fault, thus guiltless be condemn'd,
If guiltless? But from me what can proceed,
But all corrupt; both mind and will deprav'd
Not to do only, but to will the same
With me? How can they then acquitted stand
In sight of God? Him, after all disputes,
Forc'd I absolve: all my evasions vain,
[still
And reasonings, though through mazes, lead me
But to my own conviction: first and last
On me, me only, as the source and spring
Of all corruption, all the blame lights due;
So might the wrath! fond wish! couldst thou

support

That burden, heavier than the Earth to bear;
Than all the world much heavier, though divided
With that bad woman? Thus, what thou desir'st,
And what thou fear'st, alike destroys all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
Beyond all past example and future;
To Satan only like both crime and doom.
O Conscience! into what abyss of fears
And horrours hast thou driven me; out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd !"
Thus Adam to himself lamented loud,
Through the still night; not now, as ere Man
fell,
[air
Wholesome, and cool, and mild, but with black
Accompanied; with damps, and dreadful gloom;
Which to his evil conscience represented
All things with double terrour: on the ground
Outstretch'd he lay, on the cold ground; and oft
Curs'd his creation; Death as oft accus'd
Of tardy execution, since denounc'd
The day of his offence. "Why comes not Death,"
Said he, "with one thrice-acceptable stroke
To end me? Shall Truth fail to keep her word,
Justice Divine not hasten to be just?

But Death comes not at call; Justice Divine
Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries.
O woods, O fountains, hillocks, dales, and bowers!
With other echo late I taught your shades
To answer, and resound far other song.
Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,
Desolate where she sat, approaching uigh,
Soft words to his fierce passion she assay'd: