/ HAIL, holy Light! offspring of Heaven first-born,

Or of the Eternal coeternal beam!

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May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,

And never but in unapproached light

5Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,

Bright effluence of bright essence increate!
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
10 Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest

The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.

Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detained
15 In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre,

Isung of Chaos and eternal Night;

3.

A Taught by the Heavenly Muse to venture down 20 The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,

Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain

To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; 25 So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more

Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equalled with me in fate,
So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of nature's works to me expunged and rased,

And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers there plant eyes, all mist from thence

Irradiate; there plant eyes,

Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell

Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Now had the Almighty Father from above, From the pure empyrean where he sits

High throned above all highth, bent down his eye
His own works and their works at once to view :
About him all the Sanctities of Heaven

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only Son; on earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind in the happy garden placed,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivalled love,
In blissful solitude; he then surveyed
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of Heaven on this side Night
In the dun air sublime, and ready now

To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet,
On the bare outside of this world, that seemed
Firm land imbosomed, without firmament,
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.

Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future, he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.

Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage 80

Transports our Adversary? whom no bounds
Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heaped on him there, nor yet the main abyss.
Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now,
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
Not far off Heaven, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new-created world,
And man there placed, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert,
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall
He and his faithless progeny: whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal Powers

And Spirits, both them who stood, and them who failed;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,

Where only what they needs must do appeared,
Not what they would? what praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled,
Made passive both, had served necessity,

Not me? They therefore, as to right belonged,

So were created, nor can justly accuse

Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination over-ruled

Their will, disposed by absolute decree

Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I; if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, authors themselves in all,

Both what they judge, and what they choose; for so
I formed them free: and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves; I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained

Their freedom; they themselves ordained their fall.
The first sort by their own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-depraved: Man falls, deceived
By the other first: Man therefore shall find grace,
The other none: in mercy and justice both,
Through Heaven and Earth, so shall my glory excel;
But mercy, first and last, shall brightest shine.

Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance filled
All Heaven, and in the blessed Spirits elect

Sense of new joy ineffable diffused.
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious; in him all his Father shone
Substantially expressed; and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appeared,

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