PARADISE LOST.

N

BOOK. IX.

more of talk where God or angel guest With man, as with his friend, familiar us'd

To fit indulgent, and with him partake

Rural repast, permitting him the while
Venial difcourfe unblam'd: I now muft change
Those notes to tragic; foul diftrust, and breach
Difloyal on the part of man, revolt,

And disobedience: on the part of heav'n
Now alienated, distance and distaste,

Anger and just rebuke, and judgement giv'n,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her fhadow death and miferie
Death's harbinger: fad task, yet argument
Not lefs but more heroic than the wrauth
Of ftern Achilles on his foe purfu'd
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia difefpous'd;
Or Neptune's ire or Juno's, that fo long
Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's fon;
If anfwerable ftyle I can obtain

Of my celestial patronefs, who deignes
Her nightly vifitation unimplor'd,

And dictates to me flumbering, or infpires

Eafie my unpremeditated verse :

Since first this subject for heroic fong

Pleas'd me long choofing, and beginning late;

Not fedulous by nature to indite

Wars, hitherto the only argument

Heroic deem'd, chief maiftrie to diffect
With long and tedious havoc fabled knights
In battels feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroic martyrdom
Unfung or to defcribe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, emblazon'd shields,
Impreffes quaint, caparisons and steeds;
Bafes and tinfel trappings, gorgious knights
At jouft and torneament; then marshall'd feaft
Serv'd up in hall with fewers, and seneshals;
The fkill of artifice or office mean,

Not that which justly gives heroic name
To perfon or to poem, Me of these
Nor skill'd nor ftudious, higher argument
Remaines, fufficient of itself to raise

That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years damp my intended wing
Depreft, and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.
The fun was funk, and after him the star
Of Hefperus, whofe office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter

Twixt day and night, and now from end to end
Night's hemifphere had veil'd the horizon round:
When Satan who late filed before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd

In meditated fraud and malice, bent

On man's destruction, maugre what might hap Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd.

By night he fled, and at midnight return'd
From compaffing the earth, cautious of day,
Since Uriel regent of the fun defcri'd

His entrance, and forewarn'd the cherubim

That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driv'n,
The fpace of seven continu'd nights he rode
With darkness, thrice the equinoctial line

He circl'd, four times cross'd the car of night
From pole to pole, traverfing each colure;
On the eighth return'd, and on the coast averse
From entrance or cherubic watch, by stealth
Found unfufpected way. There was a place
Now not, though fin, not time, first wrought the change,
Where Tigris at the foot of Paradife

Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rofe up a fountain by the tree of life;
In with the river funk, and with it rofe
Satan involv'd in rifing mist, then fought
Where to lie hid; sea he had searcht and land
From Eden over Pontus, and the pool
Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antartic; and in length
West from Orontes to the ocean barr'd
At Darien, thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd
With narrow fearch; and with inspection deep
Confider'd every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found
The ferpent futtleft beast of all the field.
Him after long debate, irrefolute

Of thoughts revolv'd, his final sentence chose

K S

Fit veffel, fitteft imp of frauds in whom
To enter, and his dark fuggeftions hide
From sharpeft fight: for in the wilie fnake,
Whatever fleights none would fufpicious mark,
As from his wit and native futtletie
Proceeding, which in other beasts obferv'd
Doubt might beget of dabolic

pow'r
Active within beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he refolv'd, but first from inward grief
His burfting passion into plaints thus pour'd:

O earth, how like to heav'n, if not preferr'd
More juftly, feat worthier of gods, as built
With fecond thoughts, reforming what was old!
For what God after better worfe would build ?
Terreftrial heav'n, danc't round by other heav'ns
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as feems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of facred influence: as God in heav'n
Is center, yet extends to all, fo thou

Centring receav❜ft from all those orbs; in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known vertue appeers
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life

Of growth, sense, reason, all fumm'd up in man.
With what delight could I have walkt thee round,
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange

Of hill and vallie, rivers, woods and plains,

Now land, now fea, and fhores with forrest crown'd,
Rocks, dens, and caves; but I in none of these
Find place of refuge; and the more I see

Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful fiege
Of contraries; all good to me becomes

Bane, and in heaven much worse would be my state.

But neither here feek I, no nor in heav'n
To dwell, unless by maistring heav'n's supreme ;
Nor hope to be myself lefs miserable

By what I feek, but others to make fuch
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease

To my relentless thoughts; and him destroy'd,
Or won to what may work his utter lofs,

For whom all this was made, all this will foon
Follow, as to him linkt in weal or woe,
In woe then; that destruction wide may range :
To me fhall be the glorie fole among

The infernal powers, in one day to have marr'd
What he Almightie styl'd, fix nights and days
Continu'd making, and who knows how long
Before had been contriving, though perhaps
Not longer, than fince I in one night freed
From fervitude inglorious welnigh half
Th'angelic name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: he to be aveng'd,

And to repaire his numbers thus impair'd,
Whether fuch virtue spent of old now fail'd
More angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or to fpite us more,
Determin'd to advance into our room

A creature form'd of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from fo base original,