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Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue

Vain war with Heaven, and by success untaugnt
His proud imaginations thus displayed.

"Powers and dominions,' deities of Heaven,
For since no deep within her gulf can hold
Immortal vigour, 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 Thunderer'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

custom used at the coronation of some kings in the east, of showering gold and precious stones upon their heads. And the same sort of metaphor is used in Shakespear, Ant. and Cleop. act. ii.

"I'll set thee in a shower of gold, and hail
Rich pearls upon thee."

And this pearl and gold is called "barbaric pearl and gold," after the manner of the Greeks and Romans, who accounted all other nations barbarous; as Virgil, Æn. ii. 504.

"Barbarico postes auro spoliisque superbi."

and Æn. viii. 685.

"Hinc ope barbarica variisque Antonius armis
Victor ab aurora populis."-Newton.

1 Cf. Coloss. i. 16.

2 He means that the higher in dignity any being was in heaven, the happier his state was; and that therefore inferiors might there envy superiors, because they were happier too.-Pearce.

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, sceptred king,
Stood up, the strongest and the fiercest spirit
That fought in Heaven, now fiercer by despair:
His trust was with the 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 reck'd not, and these words thereafter spake.
'My sentence is for open war: of wiles,

66

:

More inexpert, 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 lingering 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's 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,
Mixed with Tartarean sulphur, and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But, perhaps,

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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 benumn 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? The ascent is easy then,
The 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 abhorréd deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire

Must exercise1 us without hope of end,

The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorable, and the torturing hour,

Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus
We should be quite abolished and expire.
What fear we, then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the height enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential (happier far3
Than miserable to have eternal being):
Or if our substance bé indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne: 4
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge."
He ended frowning, and his look denounced
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
To less than gods. On the other side up rose

1 Harass, torture.

2 Or, perhaps, "vessels," from Rom. ix. 22.-Bentley. 3 Cf. Matt. xxvi. 24. Mark xiv. 21.

i. e. his throne upheld by fate.

i. e. angels.

Belial, in act more graceful and humane;
A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed
For dignity composed and high exploit:

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropped manna,1 and could make the worse appear 3
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels, for his thoughts were low;
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful; yet he pleased the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began.
"I should be much for open war, peers,
As not behind in hate; if what was urged
Main reason to persuade immediate war,
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success;
When he who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels and in what excels
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled
With arméd watch, that render all access
Impregnable; oft on the bordering deep
Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing
Scout far and wide into the realm of night,
Scorning surprise. Or could we break our way
By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise
With blackest insurrection, to confound
Heaven's purest light, yet our great enemy
All incorruptible would on his throne
Sit unpolluted, and the ethereal mould
Incapable of stain would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire
Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair; we must exasperate
The Almighty Victor to spend all his rage,
And that must end us; that must be our cure,

1 So, Shakspeare, Merchant of Venice, act v.

"Fair ladie, you drop manna in the way

Of starvéd people."

2 This was the well known profession of the Sophists, ròv λóyov τὸν ἤττω κρείττω ποιεῖν.

3 Deed.

To be no more- -sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated night,
Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,
Let this be good, whether our angry foe
Can give it, or will ever? how he can,
Is doubtful; that he never will, is sure.
Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,
Belike through impotence,1 or unaware,
To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger, whom his anger saves
To punish endless? Wherefore cease we then?
Say they who counsel war, we are decreed,
Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse? Is this then worst,
Thus fitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What when we fled amain, pursued and struck
With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us? this Hell then seemed
A refuge from those wounds: or when we lay
Chained on the burning lake? that sure was worse,
What if the breath 2 that kindled those grim fires,
Awaked should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames? or from above
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand 3 to plague us? what if all
Her stores were opened, and this firmament
Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we, perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest shall be hurled
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey
Of racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains;
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,

1 i. e. weakness of mind, want of self-restraint.

2 Cf. Is. xxx. 33.

3" Et rubenti dextera sacras jaculatus arces."-Hor. Od. 1. 2.

D

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