Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,

Consent or custom; and his regal state

Put forth at full, but still his strength concealed,
Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.
Henceforth his might we know, and know our own;
So as not either to provoke, or dread

New war, provoked: our better part remains
To work in close design, by fraud or guile,
What force effected not: that he no less
At length from us may find, who overcomes
By force, hath overcome but half his foe.
Space may produce new worlds; whereof so rife
There went a fame in Heaven, that he ere long
Intended to create, and therein plant

A generation, whom his choice regard
Should favour equal to the sons of Heaven:
Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps
Our first eruption; thither or elsewhere:
For this infernal pit shall never hold
Celestial Spirits in bondage, nor the abyss
Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts
Full counsel must mature: peace is despaired;
For who can think submission? War then, War,
Open or understood, must be resolved.

He spake and to confirm his words, out-flew Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze

Far round illumined Hell: highly they raged Against the Highest, and fierce with grasped arms Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war, Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven.

There stood a hill not far, whose grisly top Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire Shone with a glossy scurf; undoubted sign That in his womb was hid metallic ore,

The work of sulphur. Thither winged with speed,
A numerous brigad hastened: as when bands
Of pioneers, with spade and pickax armed,
Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field,
Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on;
Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell
From Heaven; for e'en in Heaven his looks and thoughts
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught, divine or holy, else enjoyed
In vision beatifick by him first

Men also, and by his suggestion taught,

Ransacked the center, and with impious hands
Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth
For treasures, better hid. Soon had his crew
Opened into the hill a spacious wound,
And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire
That riches grow in Hell; that soil may best
Deserve the precious bane. And here let those
Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell
Of Babel, and the works of Memphian kings,
Learn how their greatest monuments of fame,
And strength, and art, are easily out-done
By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour
What in an age they with incessant toil
And hands innumerable scarce perform.
Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared,

That underneath had veins of liquid fire

Sluced from the lake, a second multitude

With wonderous art founded the massy ore,

Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion dross :

A third as soon had formed within the ground

A various mould, and from the boiling cells
By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook;
As in an organ, from one blast of wind,

To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.
Anon, out of the earth, a fabrick huge
Rose like an exhalation, with the sound
Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet,
Built like a temple, where pilasters round
Were set, and Dorick pillars overlaid
With golden architrave; nor did there want
Cornice or freeze, with bossy sculptures graven :
The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon,
Nor great Alcairo, such magnificence
Equalled in their glories, to enshrine
Belus or Sérapis, their Gods; or seat
Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove
In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile
Stood fixed her stately highth: and straight the doors,

Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide
Within, her ample spaces, o'er the smooth
And level pavement: from the arched roof,
Pendant by subtle magick, many a row
Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed
With Napththa and Asphaltus, yielded light
As from a sky. The hasty multitude

Admiring entered; and the work some praise,

And some the architect: his hand was known
In Heaven by many a towered structure high, ·
Where sceptered Angels held their residence,
And sat as princes; whom the supreme King
Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,
Each in his hierarchy, the orders bright.
Nor was his name unheard, or unadored,
In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land
Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell
From Heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith like a falling star,
On Lemnos the 'gean isle: thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

Fell long before; nor aught availed him now
To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did he 'scape

By all his engines, but was headlong sent

With his industrious crew to build in Hell.

Mean while the winged heralds, by command

Of sovran power, with awful ceremony

And trumpets' sound, throughout the host proclaim A solemn council, forthwith to be held

At Pandemonium; the high capital

Of Satan and his peers: their summons called
From every band and squared regiment

By place or choice the worthiest; they anon,
With hundreds and with thousands, trooping came,
Attended all access was thronged; the gates
And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall

(Though like a covered field, where champions bold Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair Defied the best of Panim chivalry

To mortal combat, or career with lance,)
Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air
Brushed with the hiss of rusling wings. As bees
In spring-time, when the sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,

New rubbed with balm, expatiate and confer
Their state affairs. So thick the aery croud
Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given,
Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed
In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless, like that Pygmean race
Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves,
Whose midnight revels, by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,

Or dreams he sees, while over-head the moon`

Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth

Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance

Intent, with jocund musick charm his ear;

At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.

Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms

Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,
Though without number still, amidst the hall
Of that infernal court. But far within,

And in their own dimensions, like themselves,