Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.

Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!

They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing; as when men wont to watch

On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake,

Nor did they not perceive the evil plight

In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed;
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,

Waved round the coast, up called a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darkened all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad Angels seen,
Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,
"Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, the up-lifted spear
Of their great Sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain;
A multitude, like which the populous North
Poured never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.

Forthwith from every squadron, and each band,

The heads and leaders thither haste where stood

Their great Commander; Godlike shapes, and forms Excelling human; princely Dignities;

And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;

Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial; blotted out and rased
By their rebellion from the books of life.

Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

Got them new names; till wand'ring o'er the earth,
Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their creator, and the invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorned..
With gay religions full of pomp and gold,
And Devils to adore for Deities:

Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the Heathen world.

Say, Muse, their names then known; who first, who last,
Roused from the slumber, on that fiery couch,
At their great Emperour's call, as next in worth
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof.
The chief were those, who, from the pit of Hell
Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
Their seats long after next the seat of God,
Their altars by his altar; Gods adored
Among the nations round; and durst abide
Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned
Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed
Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,

And with their darkness durst affront his light.
First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears; -

Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their childrens cries unheard, that passed through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon: nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God
On that opprobrious hill; and made his grove
The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.
Next, Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,
From Aroer to Nebo, and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond

The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines;
And Elëalé to the Asphaltick pool.

Peor his other name, when he enticed
Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged
Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide; lust hard by hate;
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.

With these came they, who, from the bordering flood

Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts

Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names

Of Baälim and Ashtaroth; those male,

These feminine: for Spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure;

Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittled strength of bones,

Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose, Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,

Can execute their aery purposes,

And works of love or enmity fulfil.

For those the race of Israel oft forsook
Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down
To bestial Gods; for which their heads as low
Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called
Astarte, queen of Heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood

Her temple on the offensive mountain, built

By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large,
Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale

Infected Sion's daughters with like heat;

Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,
His eye surveyed the dark idolatries

Of alienated Judah. Next came one

Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark
Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopped off
In his own temple, on the grunsel edge,

Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers:
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
And downward fish: yet had his temple high
Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,

And Accaron and Gaza's frontier-bounds.
Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
He also against the house of God was bold:
A leper once he lost, and gained a king;
Ahaz, his sottish conquerour, whom he drew
God's altar to disparage and displace,
For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn
His odious offerings, and adore the Gods
Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared
A crew, who, under names of old renown,
Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train,

With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused
Fanatick Egypt, and her priests, to seek

Their wandering Gods disguised in brutish forms
Rather than human. Nor did Israel 'scape

The infection, when their borrowed gold composed