Weakning the scepter of old Night: first Hell,
Your dungeon, stretching far and wide beneath;
Now, lately, Heav'n and Earth, another world,
Hung o'er my realm, link'd in a golden chain 1005
To that fide Heav'n from whence your legions fell:
If that way be your walk, you have not far;
So much the nearer danger; go, and speed;
Havoc and spoil and ruin are my gain.

He ceas'd; and Satan stay'd not to reply,
But, glad that now his sea should find a shore,
With fresh alacrity, and force renew'd,
Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire,

Into the wild expanse, and through the shock
Of fighting elements, on all fides round
Environ'd wins his way; harder befet

ΙΟΙΟ

1015

And more indanger'd, than when Argo pass'd
Through Bosporus betwixt the justling rocks:
Or when Ulyffes on the larbord shunn'd
Charybdis, and by th'other whirlpool steer'd. 1020
So he,with difficulty and labor hard,

Mov'd on; with difficulty and labor he;

But he once past, soon after, when man fell,

Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain

Following his track, fuch was the will of Heaven, 1025
Pav'd after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf
Tamely indur'd a bridge of wondrous length,
From Hell continued reaching th’utmost orb

Of this frail world; by which the Spirits perverfe,1030
With easy intercourse, pass to and fro

To tempt or punish mortals, except whom
God and good Angels guard by special grace.
But now, at laft, the facred influence

Of light appears; and from the walls of Heaven 1035
Shoots far into the bofom of dim Night

1040

A glimmering dawn; here Nature firft begins
Her fartheft verge, and Chaos to retire,
As from her outmost works,a broken foe,
With tumult less, and with less hostile din;
That Satan with less toil, and now with ease
Wafts on the calmer wave, by dubious light,
And like a weather-beaten vessel holds
Gladly the port, though fhrouds and tackle torn;
Or in the emptier wafte, resembling air,
Weighs his spread wings, at leifure to behold
Far off th'empyreal Heav'n, extended wide
In circuit, undetermin'd fquare or round;
With opal tow'rs, and battlements adorn'd
Of living faphir, once his native feat;
And fast by,hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent world; in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.

Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accurs'd, and in a cursed hour he hies.

The end of the Second Book.

1045

1050

1055

THE

THIRD BOOK

O F

PARADISE LOST.

God fitting on his throne fees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; fhows him to the Son who fat at his right hand; foretels the fuccefs of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own juftice and wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him feduc'd. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifeftation of his gracious purpose towards Man; but God again declares, that Grace cannot be extended towards Man without the fatisfaction of divine juftice; Man hath offended the majesty of God by afpiring to God-head, and therefore with all his progeny devoted to death must die, unless fome one can be found fufficient to anfwer for his offence, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ranfome for Man: the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in Heaven and Earth; commands all the Angels to adore him; they obey, and hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Mean while Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world's outermoft orb; where wand'ring he first finds a place, fince call'd The Limbo of Vanity; what perfons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the gate of Heaven, defcrib'd afcending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: His paffage thence to the orb of the fun; he finds there Uriel the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner Angel; and pretending a zealous defire to behold the new creation, and Man whom God had plac'd here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights first on mount Niphates.

BOOK III.

H

AI L,holy Light, ofspring of Heav'n,first-born,
Or of th' Eternal coeternal beam,

May I exprefs thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence, of bright effence, increate.
Or hear'ft thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the fun,
Before the Heav'ns thou wert; and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle,didst invest
The rifing world of waters, dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,

Escap'd the Stygian pool; though long detain'd
In that obfcure fojourn, while in my flight

5

10

15.

Through utter, and through middle darkness borne, With other notes than to th' Orphéan lyre,

I fung of Chaos and eternal Night,

Taught, by the heav'nly Muse, to venture down
The dark descent; and up to re-afcend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,

20

And