WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recover'd Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the Tempter foil'd
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness.
Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence
By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds
With prosperous wing full summ'd, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age:
Worthy to have not remain'd so long unsung.
Invocation, PARADISE REGAINED, BOOK I.
To give a kingdom hath been thought har
Greater and nobler done, and to lay down Far more magnanimous, than to assume.
PARADISE REGAINED, BOOK II.
PROPHET of glad tidings, finisher
Of utmost hope! now clear I understand
What oft my steadiest thoughts have search'd in vain ;
Why our great Expectation should be call'd
The Seed of Woman. Virgin Mother, hail!
High in the love of Heaven, yet from my loins
Thou shalt proceed, and from thy womb the Son
Of God Most High; so God with Man unites.
Adam, PARADISE LOST, BOOK XII.
E who comes thy Saviour shall recure, Not by destroying Satan, but his works In thee and in thy seed.
PARADISE LOST, BOOK XII.
LEARN with awe
To dread the Son of God.
PARADISE REGAINED, BOOK IV.
HAIL, Son of the Most High, heir of both Worlds,
PARADISE REGAINED, BOOK IV.
DESCEND from Heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly thou art call'd, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing!
The meaning, not the name, I call; for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwell'st; but heavenly born,
Before the hills appear'd or fountain flow'd,
Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased
With thy celestial song. Up led by thee,
Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy tempering with like safety guided down,
Returns me to my native element;
Lest from this flying steed unrein'd (as once
Bellerophon, though from a lower clime)
Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous there to wander and forlorn,
Invocation, PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.
TANDING on Earth, not rapt above the pole, More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged To hoarse or mute, though fall'n on evil days, On evil days though fall'n, and evil tongues ; In darkness, and with dangers compass'd round, And solitude; yet not alone, while thou Visit'st my slumbers nightly, or when morn Purples the east. Still govern thou my song, Urania, and fit audience find, though few; But drive far off the barbarous dissonance Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears To rapture, till the savage clamour drown'd Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend Her son. So fail not thou who thee implores ; For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream.
Invocation, PARADISE LOST, BOOK VII.
What never yet was heard in tale or song.
Bacchus, that first from out the purple grape Crush'd the sweet poison of misusèd wine,
Coasting the Tyrrhene shore, as the winds listed,
On Circe's island fell. (Who knows not Circe,
The daughter of the Sun? whose charmed cup
Whoever tasted lost his upright shape,
And downward fell into a grovelling swine.)
This Nymph, that gazed upon his clustering locks,
With ivy berries wreathed, and his blithe youth,
Had by him, ere he parted thence, a son
Much like his father, but his mother more,
Whom therefore she brought up, and Comus named :
Who, ripe and frolic of his full-grown age,
Excels his mother at her mighty art;
Offering to every weary traveller
His orient liquor in a crystal glass,
To quench the drouth of Phoebus; which as they taste
(For most do taste through fond intemperate thirst),
Soon as the potion works, their human count'nance,
The express resemblance of the gods, is changed
Into some brutish form of wolf, or bear,
Or ounce, or tiger, hog, or bearded goat,
All other parts remaining as they were.
And they, so perfect is their misery
Not once perceive their foul disfigurement,
But boast themselves more comely than before,
And all their friends and native home forget,
To roll with pleasure in a sensual sty.
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