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605

Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and flowers
Feed first, on each beast next, and fish, and fowl,
No homely morsels; and whatever thing
The sithe of Time mows down, devour unspar'd;
Till I in Man residing through the race,

His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect,
And season him thy last and sweetest prey.

THIS said, they both betook them several ways,
Both to destroy, or unimmortal make
All kinds, and for destruction to mature
Sooner or later; which th' Almighty seeing,
From his transcendent seat the Saints among,
To those bright Orders utter'd thus his voice.

SEE with what heat these dogs of Hell advance

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To waste and havoc yonder world, which I

So fair and good created, and had still

Kept in that state, had not the folly' of Man

Let in these wasteful furies, who impute

Folly to me, so doth the prince of Hell

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Of passion, I to them had quitted all,

At random yielded up to their misrule;

And know not that I call'd and drew them thither

My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth

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Which Man's polluting sin with taint hath shed

On what was pure, till cramm'd and gorg'd, nigh burst

With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling
Of thy victorious arm, well pleasing Son,

Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave at last
Through Chaos hurl'd, obstruct the mouth of Hell
For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.

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Then Heav'n and Earth renew'd shall be made pure

To sanctity that shall receive no stain:

Till then the curse pronounc'd on both precedes. 640
He ended, and the heav'nly audience loud
Sung Halleluiah, as the sound of seas,

Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works;
Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son,

Destin'd restorer of mankind, by whom

New Heav'n and Earth shall to the ages rise,

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Or down from Heav'n descend. Such was their song, While the Creator calling forth by name

His mighty Angels gave them several charge,
As sorted best with present things. The sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,
As might affect the earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable, and from the north to call
Decrepit winter, from the south to bring
Solstitial summer's heat. To the blank moon

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Her office they prescrib'd, to th' other five
Their planetary motions and aspécts
In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite
Of noxious efficacy, and when to join
In synod unbenign; and taught the fix'd
Their influence malignant when to shower,

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Which of them rising with the sun, or falling,
Should prove tempestuous: To the winds they set
Their corners, when with bluster to confound
Sea, air, and shore, the thunder when to roll
With terror through the dark aerial hall.
Some say he bid his Angels turn ascance
The poles of earth twice ten degrees and more
From the sun's axle; they with labour push'd
Oblique the centric globe: Some say the sun
Was bid turn reins from th' equinoctial road
Like distant breadth to Taurus with the seven
Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins
Up to the Tropic Crab; thence down amain
By Leo and the Virgin and the Scales,

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As deep as Capricorn, to bring in change

Of seasons to each clime; else had the spring

Perpetual smil❜d on earth with vernant flowers,

Equal in days and nights, except to those
Beyond the polar circles; to them day
Had unbenighted shone, while the low sun
To recompense his distance, in their sight

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Had rounded still th' horizon, and not known

Or east or west, which had forbid the snow

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From cold Estotiland, and south as far
Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit
The sun, as from Thyéstean banquet, turn'd
His course intended; else how had the world

Inhabited, though sinless, more than now,

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Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat?

These changes in the Heav'ns, though slow, produc'd

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