Cannot be heard so high :-I'll look no more ;
Lest my brain turn, and the deficient sight
Topple down headlong.
chough (pronounced chuff), a bird resembling the crow in size and appearance. 2 samphire, a species of plants growing on the sea coast. It has a pleasant flavour when mixed with vinegar and spice. cock, cock-boat, a small boat carried on board a ship. chafes, rubs; grinds. topple, tumble.
SELECTIONS FROM MILTON.
JOHN MILTON was born at Bread Street, London, 1608, and died in 1674. With the single exception of Shakespeare, he is regarded as the greatest of all English poets. His principal work is Paradise Lost," an epic or heroic poem, which gives an account of the expulsion of Satan from Heaven, the Creation of the world, the Fall of our first parents, and their banishment from the Garden of Eden.
EXTRACTS FROM "PARADISE LOST."
I. THE CREATION FIRST DAY'S WORK.
On His great expedition now appear'd,
Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crown'd
Of majesty divine: sapience and love
Immense, and all His Father in Him shone.
About His chariot numberless were pour'd
2 Cherub and Seraph, potentates and thrones,
And virtues, winged spirits, and chariots wing'd
From the armoury of God; where stand of old
3 Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged
Against a solemn day, harness'd at hand,
Celestial equipage; and now came forth,
Spontaneous, for within them spirit lived,
Attendant on their Lord heaven open'd wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound!
On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King of Glory in His powerful Word
And Spirit, coming to create new worlds.
On heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore
They view'd the vast immeasurable abyss,
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turn'd by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven's height, and, with the centre mix the pole. Silence, ye troubled waves, and, thou deep, peace," Said then the omnific Word: "your discord end!" Nor stay'd; but on the wings of cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode
Far into Chaos, and the world unborn ;
For Chaos heard his voice: Him all His train
Follow'd in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of His might.
Then stay'd the fervid wheels, and in His hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he centred, and the other turn'd
Round through the vast profundity obscure ;
And said, "Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference, O world!"
Thus God the heaven created, thus the earth,
Matter unform'd and void: darkness profound
Cover'd the abyss; but on the watery calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth,
Throughout the fluid mass; but downward purged
The black, tartareous, cold, infernal dregs,
Adverse to life: then founded, then conglobed
Like things to like: the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the air;
And earth, self-balanced, on her centre hung.
"Let there be light," said God; and forthwith light
Ethereal, first of things, 2 quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from her native east
To journey through the aëry gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud; for yet the sun
Was not she in a cloudy tabernacle
Sojourn'd the while. God saw the light was good; And light from darkness by the hemisphere Divided light the day, and darkness night,
He named. Thus was the first day even and morn :
Nor pass'd uncelebrated, nor unsung
By the celestial choirs, when 13 orient light
14 Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;
Birthday of heaven and earth; with joy and shout
The hollow universal orb they fill'd,
And touch'd their golden harps, and hymning praised
God and His works: Creator Him they sung,
Both when first evening was, and when first morn.
1 sapience, wisdom; Lat. sapientia. 2 cherub, seraph, two kinds of angels. A seraph is of the highest order of angels, and is superior to a cherub. myriad, properly ten thousand. The word is now used to denote any very large number. * spontaneous, moved by their own will. abyss, properly that which has no bottom; a bottomless gulf. omnific, all-creating.
* Chaos, a state of confusion, in which things are mixed together without order or fixed law. This state is described in the lines which precede. fervid, burning. 'profundity, depth. tartareous, or tartarean, belonging to Tartarus, a name given by ancient poets to the lower regions inhabited by the spirits of the dead. "ethereal, belonging to ether, a thin fluid more subtle and finer than air. 12 quintessence, the fifth or highest and purest essence of any substance. 13 orient, rising, eastern (where the sun rises). 14 exhaling, breathing out.
II. THE CREATION : SECOND AND THIRD DAYS' WORK. Again, God said, "Let there be firmament
Amid the waters, and let it divide
The waters from the waters ;" and God made
The firmament, expanse of liquid pure,
Transparent,' elemental air, diffused
In circuit to the uttermost convex
Of this great round; partition firm and sure,
The waters underneath from those above
Dividing for as earth, so He the world
Built on 2 circumfluous waters, calm, in wide
Crystalline ocean, and the loud misrule
Of Chaos far removed; lest fierce extremes
3 Contiguous might distemper the whole frame:
And heaven He named the firmament.
And morning chorus sung the second day.
The earth was form'd, but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involved,
Appear'd not; over all the face of earth
Main ocean flow'd, not idle; but, with warm
5 Prolific humour softening all her globe,
Fermented the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture; when God said,
"Be gather'd now, ye waters under heaven,
Into one place, and let dry land appear."
Immediately the mountains huge appear
'Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky :
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters: thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, uproll'd,
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry;
Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste such flight the great command impress'd
On the swift floods; as armies at the call
Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard; so the watery throng,
Wave rolling after wave, where way there found :
If steep, with torrent 10 rapture; if through plain,
Soft ebbing nor withstood them rock or hill ;
But they, or under ground, or circuit wide
With serpent error wandering, found their way,
And on the washy" ooze deep channels wore ;
Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry,
All but within those banks, where rivers now
Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train.
The dry land, earth; and the great receptacle
Of congregated waters, He call'd seas :
And saw that it was good, and said, "Let the earth
Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed,
And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind,
Whose seed is in herself upon the earth."
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