LIPRARY 
 
 UNiVERSiTT OF 
 V CALIFORNIA * 
 
dlZ- 
 
THE 
 
 REVOLT OF TARTARUS. 
 
 A POEM. 
 
 CHARLES HEAVYSEGE. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 STMPKIN, MARSHALL & CO. 
 
 LIVERPOOL] D makpi.es. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Pfo77f 
 
 Declaratory of the principal beings concerned in the Poem, namely, the fallen 
 angels. The cause of Satan's absence from hell, during which the revolt com- 
 mences. He summons the infernal peers. Pandemonium referred to. At night 
 the peers assemble, and Satan is seated on high amongst them. His aspect He 
 informs them of his intended departure, with falsehood concealing his real aim 
 therein. One of the fallen hierarchs attempts to dissuade him from his declared 
 enterprise. Another — after having upbraided him — forbids it. His anger there- 
 at, also Beelzebub's, Moloch's, and Belial's, whom, in spite of the foregoing 
 opposition, he forthwith inaugurates as a triumvirate over hell during his coming 
 absence ; which ceremony being concluded, followed by them he leaves the assem- 
 bled gods, who depart, after a brief conference with each other— their Emperor; 
 who, simultaneously therewith, is in private admonishing the three, namely, 
 Beelzebub, Moloch, and Belial, touching their deportment whilst he is away, and 
 who, after having bidden these latter farewell, starts on his journey up through 
 the abyss. 
 
 Unnk Sinrnlt. 
 
 Invocation. The departure of Satan discovered by the commonalty of hell. 
 Their behaviour thoreon, resulting in the sudden gathering of a vast multitude, 
 within the precincts of a mighty dell, of volcanic origin. The several speeches then 
 and there delivered, and the division of the multitude; the result of the whole, 
 however, being their unanimous determination to endure no longer the severe 
 despotism of Satan, whom they formally dethrone, and next, to prevent anarchy, 
 elect from amongst themselves a temporary and popular ruler tn his stead, 
 to reign until a general oouncil should have agreed upon their future form of 
 government A celebration of their liberation from tyrannic rule, deereed to take 
 place on the morrow, and the Immediate dispersal of the Insurgents orer hell. 
 bearing the news of the occurrences. 
 
 776 
 
% ink fltytrir. 
 
 Address to Morning and Light. The assembling of the lost angels. Their 
 sports. The course of Belial and Beelzebub. Moloch leaves hell to discover, if 
 possible, Satan, and apprise him of the rebellion ; and after a long and impetuous 
 flight, enters into a dark region in the north. The journey of Satan upwards 
 through the abyss, and his unsuccessful attempts to alight upon orbs, situated 
 between hell and the earth, on which latter having arrived, he reflects, and deter- 
 mines upon the manner of his future course. 
 
 Iimfc /mirtjr. 
 
 Proem. Departure of Satan from the earth, and his arrival at the galaxy or 
 milky way. Description of its entrance, its interior, and inhabitants; which last, 
 he attempts to seduce into disobedience. Conflict between himself and Michael 
 and Ithuriel. 
 
 funk fiity. 
 
 Proem. Eenewed attempts of Satan upon the virtue of the inhabitants of the 
 galaxy. His flight thence, northwards, into deep gloom, and, his strength being 
 taken from him, he falls through space until a planet arrests his course. 
 
 $nnk gixtjr. 
 
 Proem, hopeful anticipation of earth's futurity. Abject and suffering con- 
 dition of Satan, and — as well as upon the adversary — the visible effect of God's 
 wrath in hell and in heaven, the inhabitants of which latter behold his punishment. 
 His discovery by Moloch, his escape, and their descent to hell. The opposition 
 they encounter therein. Beelzebub and Belial join them. The violence of the 
 four, and their ultimate capture by the enraged demons; their escape from 
 them, and assembling of the souls of the lost dead, to act as a counter-force ; its 
 futility. The interference of the Almighty. His Son's descent unto them, and sen- 
 tencing of them afresh. Their agony and despair. Triumph of the ancient rule. 
 
gwrh gmt 
 
 Not man's offence primeval, neither mans 
 
 Salvation wrought, nor finally him saved, 
 
 Secure, beatified, upraised to heaven, 
 
 I sing; but beings who, once losing heaven, 
 
 Thereto no more return ; ordained till doom, 
 
 Down deep in climes of fiery darkness dwell, 
 
 Subjects of horror, and the wards of chains ; 
 
 Save when at certain intervals renewed, 
 
 To work his purposes inscrutable, 
 
 Doth sovereign pleasure unto them accord 
 
 To roam the earth, and empire of its air. 
 
 Of these, I mean to sing; of these unseen, 
 
 Inaudible, and unto sense unknown, 
 
 — Nevertheless authentic as pervading fire ; — 
 
 Stupendous, powerful, wise, it' wisdom were 
 
 Knowledge, aot righteousness; — theAndtii 
 
 Of all created might ; who with <»no glance 
 
 Could have o'erthrown tin? gods, and niado them shrink 
 
 lnt<» the nothing out of which they sprang: 
 Of these I sing — Jehofeh'i downetrt kh 
 
 B 
 
His earliest, noblest putting forth of strength ; 
 But who, offending him without excuse, 
 Forth from his presence and their bliss were driven ; 
 To darkness driven, and dolorousness, and pain. 
 
 Say, thou historian of Perdition, say, 
 Why 'gainst her king did hell uplift her arm ? 
 Or rather, why was hell left kingless ? what 
 Had raised Abaddon to the golden skies ? 
 'T was goading malice, unfulfilled revenge, 
 That, joined to constant and unhallowed pain, 
 Prompting continually to some foray wide 
 On God's broad realm ; and still him instigates, 
 To pass the bounds of this allotted air, 
 And on some orb, by sin yet undefiled, 
 To enact the part permitted once on ours. 
 This, brooded long, infesting all his day, 
 And nights consuming in distracting thought ; 
 At length, lone watching, as he sits, his soul 
 Girds on its armour with a fierce resolve ; 
 And meaning to convoke his peers, he waits 
 In broken slumbers now the approach of morn. 
 Morn came ere long — hell's ominous rising morn — 
 Ere long it came, and numerous couriers, 
 Each on the wings of diligence, were sent 
 To all her magnates with a summons high, 
 That night them render at the imperial court. 
 Yet, think not, ye who love the structured pile, 
 
Or in the present to behold the past, 
 
 To feast yourselves on pomps and pageantries - 
 
 Or ye, who, reading one immortal page, 
 
 Curious would look on this, and so compare — 
 
 Or, this forgetting, and the hand that wrote, 
 
 But seek to know how fare hell's works with time ; 
 
 Think — see again the great seraphic lords, 
 
 Midst futile state, and idle glory, shrined 
 
 In high gold-reared Pandemonium. 
 
 — For Pandemonium long has disappeared ; 
 
 Its costly heights, and phantom excellence, 
 
 Frittered by quakings, or dispersed by gales — 
 
 For in that land no edifice abides, 
 
 How strong soe'er by bands of poteuce tied, 
 
 Or thrown like fumes on the still atmosphere ; 
 
 Nought stays; save rocks, and cells, and hollow winds. 
 
 Portions integral of the monster frame; 
 
 Which works to Mammon rest, his talent void ; 
 
 Nor misery prompteth*more to found, nor build. 
 
 Therefore, when Night (having first divided them,) 
 
 On either hand rolled back Days burning wheels, 
 
 Ami placed them in the gulf, the fiery main. 
 
 That, circling hell, her daily drowns in flame ; 
 
 Not DimiIi high fane magnificently uplit. 
 
 Illuminated as from out a sky, — 
 
 lint in a cavern huge, black, obliged with lhadfl ; 
 
 Where light ne'er was, exrq>t by art, 
 
 Or emanation from Itfl visitants, — 
 
For there, even hell's loathed beam had never gat, 
 
 The unequal lamps now struggling it with gloom, — 
 
 High throned he sat. Great satraps are around, 
 
 Evoked from many a wild, from many a part 
 
 Severe, or dolorous, and wait his words : 
 
 As men on men await, so these on him ; 
 
 These anxious wait, and bend on him their gaze, 
 
 Who bears around his own with lofty range, 
 
 A lip aggrieved, and half almighty pride : 
 
 Almighty half he seemed, though half destroyed ; 
 
 Though bearing all the anger of the Son ; 
 
 Though punishment him marred, and sin deformed ; 
 
 Though ruined, not appeared less, than first 
 
 Of heaven-born fallen, lesser than himself, 
 
 Smote from the skies, and fixed in eclipse ; 
 
 Condemned by fiat irreversible, 
 
 Midst pains extreme, and sad companionship, 
 
 To hold eternal, deepening twilight here. 
 
 Thus looked he, god of the evil goo's ; 
 
 With insolent, yet royal, star-like eyes ; 
 
 Mount, on a mount appeared, pale as the moon ; 
 
 With locks of faded gold, the empyrean's light 
 
 Dusked from long-borne wo : a firmament, 
 
 Streaked and grey, his brow, from ancient scars ; 
 
 With cavernous cheeks, and gaunt and withered form ; 
 
 Yet seeming even as if the evening's glow 
 
 Might still be lingering on the crown of night, 
 
 Thus, now, in tones voluminous began : 
 
"Ye summoned powers, this life grows tedious, — 
 
 Wretched, I will not name it to your ears ; 
 
 Nor shall yon one who sits in the above, 
 
 Have joy of the confession ; go I now, 
 
 Search through the infinite, to effect some change. 
 
 Too long have I allowed you. 'fulgent thrones, 
 
 To gloam your lustres in this lurid den ; 
 
 Too long permitted malice to obscure ; 
 
 Too long forgot the claims of leadership, 
 
 The regal service that to you I owe ; 
 
 Tampered too long with the necessity 
 
 To lead you forth from this : I now depart, 
 
 Careless alike of danger or of toil ; 
 
 Imbued with purpose from it to redeem. 
 
 Start not at this, nor deem it visionary : 
 
 For visions other than this land affords, 
 
 Or yonder orb and its surrounding film, 
 
 Yourselves prepare — prepare for leaving this ; 
 
 For breathing constantly the balmy air, 
 
 Upon it spreading your pavilions, 
 
 Or on the firm establishing your thrones : 
 
 For to some hereto undiscovered isle, 
 
 Or where may Nature own an empty womb, 
 
 Will we repair ; thereto hereafter lead 
 
 Our faithful powers; thereon ourselves conjure; 
 
 riant round our borders Loveliness and strength ; 
 
 With light unborrowed radiate our sphere; 
 
 <Hir forms relume. iheir native hrilliaooj 
 
No longer injured by these dismal fires; 
 
 And, rousing all our latent sovereignties, 
 
 Make the dull crude, or vacant horror smile : 
 
 So, far from here, and pining not for heaven ; 
 
 Forgetting earth, and its unworthy care, 
 
 Eternally, in pomp and peace, our hours 
 
 Shall glide : there we '11 forget — if gods forget — 
 
 Past tribulation ; or, remembering it, 
 
 Convert it to a zest to years of joy ; 
 
 Immortal honors and unsullied crowns ; 
 
 Bliss, not to be destroyed, or afterwards 
 
 Wished 'whelmed for ever 'neath oblivion. 
 
 Nor think this purpose suddenly resolved : 
 
 This hath our soul in prospect had for long. 
 
 Since here we found a transitory sojourn, 
 
 'T was ours one day, nor distant that, to abscond ; 
 
 To leave these flames, never for us designed — 
 
 Or if designed, vain yet the purpose shall, 
 
 For us who sprang to choose, not take our home ; 
 
 Of strength of will unknown, to bliss ordained, 
 
 Though now mayhap enduring alien pangs ; 
 
 Birth perhaps to nobler being than heretofore ; 
 
 A being unvexed of vicissitudes, 
 
 Wherein we may ourselves demonstrate kings, 
 
 And found a rival empire in the space. 
 
 For which the era now we judge has come, 
 
 From certain promptings in our inmost frame, — 
 
 Promptings long checked, but now grown absolute, 
 
Compel obedience to their high enjoin. 
 
 Behold ! then, mighty Gods, — and not the less 
 
 Mighty because o'erthrown ; divinities, 
 
 Essential sovereigns, — behold! this 't is 
 
 Hath caused our 'mand, 't is this we would effect, 
 
 And to that end forthwith ourselves betake, 
 
 To search from this the vast, the upward vast ; 
 
 For, failing there, intend we take the 'neath, 
 
 Drop where strange horror shall receive our head, 
 
 And this be hung above. Provision made, 
 
 Hear now. Beelzebub, our constant aid, 
 
 And worthy fellow in the government, 
 
 Along with Moloch and with Belial, 
 
 We leave behind, and soon shall constitute, 
 
 A tri-borne crown, a triple regency ; 
 
 Whom, joined with you in one illustrious arc, — 
 
 Beelzebub thereof being crown and prime, 
 
 With faith we trust to compensate our lack. 
 
 Be it yours obey ; to stay supremest power 
 
 With 'vironing props, to be assiduous arms 
 
 Outstretching from the midst ; to encourage hope, 
 
 Endurance, loyalty ; ne'er closing eyes 
 
 Here keep on discontent, whilst I, acute, 
 
 Do search tho boundless, unexplor 
 
 Prying for good — in one brief style, to be 
 
 Abroad the channels and tho whips of law. 
 
 Whilst these at home employ their tflttd 
 
 Kach t«»r the eommon weal." 
 
He said, and was 
 Forthwith about the three to inaugurate, 
 When thus a risen summoned interrupts : 
 " Be not offended, Potentate sublime — 
 So, by shewn talent and apparent might, 
 And reign whereof we know no origin, — 
 If I obtrude, since, as I judge, we are half 
 For counsel 'voked, — some apprehensive doubts, 
 Hint at contingencies. Me thinks a drift 
 Like this, demands combined and careful thought, 
 And lengthened pondering, since on the result 
 Of individual's act, hangs myriads' fate ; 
 Were it not so, I had declined to speak, 
 Where many sit superior, both in weight 
 Of wisdom and of dure : this must me excuse. 
 And first, thou speakst of change : if aught be got 
 By change, aught that be good, then let it come, 
 And grateful lips reward those who it bring. 
 But change may bring us ill ; once sought for, did ; 
 And so, achieved, may this ; bad are we now, 
 But change can make us worse : nor yet this suffer, 
 Needs it here to exist : our enemy could change 
 A vale of bliss into a cell of wrath ; 
 The widest empire to a den of wo ; 
 Or, catching us on our migrating route, 
 Drive us with thunders to a lower vault ; 
 Or might pursue us with outrageous fire, 
 Intolerable sulphur, and his frightful hail, 
 
Through all the periods of eternity, 
 
 Into the grim inimical abyss ; 
 
 Or stopping us by mountains far beneath, 
 
 Besiege us there, through everlasting years, 
 
 With all the fury of his magazines, 
 
 Each of us chained with linked thunderbolts. 
 
 Who would be valiant then ? who then would dream 
 
 Of fair futurity? — yet he may this, 
 
 Yea and much more, perform, who has command 
 
 Of the whole armoury of heat and cold ; 
 
 Who has possession of the elements, 
 
 And makes them do his bidding ; and can lay 
 
 His potent influence on the conquered mind. 
 
 What worse can we conceive, than to be 'numbed 
 
 With terror ? what more terrible imagine, 
 
 Than to be racked with his imposed remorse ? 
 
 Yet can he more than this ; for are we not 
 
 His puppets, who can play upon us still, 
 
 And still endow us with new hardihood 
 
 For greater pains ? Much more he could perform. 
 
 If we thereto should tempt him ; on us lay 
 
 Consolidated darkness, 'whelming tides, 
 
 From fiercer heal remand to fiercer cold. 
 
 Or stir intestine horror in our frames : 
 
 These are his attributes, howe'er derived, 
 
 lloweVr maintained, as yet unto our 008* : 
 
 I It so his prerogatives, which he will use, 
 
 Nor slack with mercy his enhanced hv ; 
 
10 
 
 Doubtless he is our king, at least as yet ; 
 
 The occult secret lies with him as yet 
 
 Of sovereign power ; his power to us is fate ; 
 
 Why then should we provoke its exercise, 
 
 Since reason tells us, and experience, 
 
 He will not use it (if indeed he can, 
 
 Or fear should prompt him for the ultimate,) 
 
 To annihilate ; he will not serve himself 
 
 Of our extinction to extinguish strife ? 
 
 Hope, thou wilt say, thee prompts ; hope prompts the brave, 
 
 And ne'er deserts the being that 's divine. 
 
 Alas ! hope not improvement from contumely, — 
 
 Nor think that he will lose us profitless ; 
 
 Think not that, for we now no offerings bring, 
 
 No adoration he will let s escape ; 
 
 We shew his power, we are a warning ever 
 
 To those above, are his security 
 
 That their obedience shall never cease. 
 
 Tben wherefore tempt we a catastrophe ? 
 
 Why force him towards us more severe become, 
 
 To vindicate the greatness of his strength ; 
 
 Politic not, to leave it cast in doubt 
 
 By lent forbearance towards us, enemies. 
 
 Deem me not weak, but might he not even now, 
 
 Who well we know acquaintance has of all, 
 
 By omnipresence, or his subtle spies, 
 
 Fierce with fresh insult to his monarchy, 
 
 Send delegated vengeance 'mongst us down, 
 
11 
 
 The sudden scattering of our forms and thoughts ; 
 Or, even forestalling our departure hence, 
 And armed with terrors yet to us unknown, 
 Himself descend enraged from on high, 
 And hale us hence to dungeon more debased ; 
 One hotter far, nor blessed with this cursed light, 
 Where we may ever grope, (our own beam quenched, 
 That here contiguous atoms shews by night,) 
 Or fly, or stumble witless into flames. 
 Beware, beware, great Prince ! to humble voice 
 Attend ; reflect upon this truth ; there may 
 Be other hells awaiting, lower poised ; 
 One hungry now, expectant us receive, 
 Whene'er our treason grows too great for this." 
 To whom the king, long since impatient, and 
 With loudened voice ; " Thou speakst as one unwise, 
 And worthless of the theme ! enfranchisement : 
 From height sublime foretime it was to fall, 
 From equal depths at present 't is to rise ; 
 Nor apprehension need we of our foe, 
 Solely departing his ! Say, thou who seemst 
 In durance pass thine everlasting years 
 Content, declare, why should he us molest, 
 Travelling the common void ? Go we to steal 
 An orb —purloin ■ work? If all lie his, — 
 Which much 1 doubt ; for why should nature yi« Id 
 To one her sum ? — at most we but exchange : 
 And ])ci-;t(i\ciitinv shall not need do that. 
 
12 
 
 Who knows, the privilege may in us 'bide ? 
 The apprehension that may him disturb ; 
 Who may wish here confine, lest a more bright 
 Elsewhere, breeding content, for doubtless deems 
 He we are so debased, should tempt us set 
 About to beautify, and so perchance, — 
 His own experience, perhaps, from us educe, 
 (In instant, likely, that we dreamed it not,) 
 To his, an equal causive power. Cherub ! 
 What thinkest thou, if we should place create ? 
 He would not battle then ? or, what if, this 
 Demolished, we caused the shades transport 
 It up the steep, elsewhere subserve our use ? 
 Greater than that may we perform as yet — 
 Scarce less it will, to investigate the gulf, 
 The sombre regions of vacuity ; 
 Peruse the sheets of light, so broad and oft, 
 That keep their steady stations 'midst the deep ; — 
 Attain the empyrean, — which we intend, — 
 Review our native, catch our pillaged ray ; 
 Nameless the struggle may await beneath. — 
 For who can tell the secrets of our deep, 
 Mysterious, awe-bound, yet unvisited ? 
 Who, 'midst you deities and gods forlorn, 
 And from remissness of a slumbering will 
 Worse in your ignorance of things ; for who 
 Can tell the secrets of our deep, whose wing 
 Hath never searched, nor ear revealings had : 
 
13 
 
 Who shall describe the abyss of this abyss ; 
 The adventures that shall there the stranger meet ; 
 What horrors new, what blackness still more black, 
 May interpose ; what dangers, these may scoff, 
 Ere breaks the gulf again to form and light ; 
 What hazards then, who claims propriety, 
 Or friendly, or morose, or treacherous ; 
 Furthers my voyage, or wrapping me in chains, 
 Delivers back to his antithesis !" 
 
 He said, and in his look great things seemed wrapped, 
 And awful secrets of the future deed, 
 Too great for less to know : when thus the chief : 
 " But how from us compulsion shall we throw, 
 That hereto proved too strong, the enforced return?" 
 To whom the throned ; " That is an afterthought ; 
 The greater done, the lesser troubles not ; 
 Thee pacify, nor stand to conjure bodes." 
 To which, nevertheless, the chief : " But hath not once 
 His Son implied this ever our abode ?" 
 To whom the king, now waxing wrath ; " He hath not ; 
 He sole hath said, These fires shall ever last ; 
 For us they were prepared ; but not that we 
 Should with t!n in seinpitcrno — why mentionest thou 
 His Son? his son 't is thine to hate, not qneatm thus ; 
 His son it is hath caused the need of this ; 
 1 kit for his son thou m>\\ hadsfl been in bliss; 
 Nor 1 with sin- hud had to hold rontrsi ! 
 No longer be erect." The charged 
 
14 
 
 But in his stead rose one who thus began : 
 " How art thou fallen from thine height in heaven, 
 How peevish makes thee hell ! What is the worth 
 Of all this costless vaunt, this empty tone, 
 Which fills but this black vault, not pranks the space ? 
 Demolisher ! canst thou unknit this frame, 
 This world of adamant, that we've no more 
 A prison ? Create ! say what canst thou create, 
 Canst not destroy, destroy thyself and us ; 
 The first, thy dearest wish ; the last, to us 
 Most precious boon. Were 't not for thee, we now 
 Had been in bliss — we thee forbid thy aim." 
 Surprise held dumb the king an interval ; 
 Who then, with frown that made the scfcne grow dark, 
 And voice that sounded like the roar of heaven, 
 "T is mine, not thine, forbid ; nor these, nor hell's ; 
 We do our pleasure bravedless, unrebuked ! " 
 The braver quailed, but, spite his fear, resumed ; 
 " Is 't not enough that thou shouldst here have led, 
 Or rather dragged us hither in thy route, 
 But thou shouldst tempt us to profounder home ? 
 How low wouldst have us fall ? what misery 
 Upon us heap — what loads of wo — what loads 
 Of chains ? who constantly are more enlinked 
 By thine insatiate spite, that now thee prompts 
 To rivet lower in the bottomless ? 
 I iterate, we thee this act forbid." 
 The monarch unto this retorted not, 
 
15 
 
 But o'er his aspect came a horrid gloom. 
 
 Nor his alone ; Beelzebub darkling sits, 
 
 As sky for thunder, and anon is heard : 
 
 Even Belial muttered ; whilst Moloch's eyes 
 
 Upon the audacious one projected flames ; 
 
 When thus the ruler's tongue, with force, — " Begone ! ' 
 
 And the cowed hierarch moved from the scene, 
 
 Fallen to complete disgrace. Then to the three 
 
 Beckoning, who straight arose, and to his feet 
 
 Approached with reverence ; incontinent, 
 
 'Mongst them he shared the regalia ; 
 
 In Belial's hand reposing the broad seal, 
 
 In Moloch's placing the enormous sword, 
 
 But in Beelzebub's the sceptre putting, 
 
 And on his brow disposed a regal crown, 
 
 Token of primacy. Which done, all towards 
 
 Them bowed, with bended knee and forms nigh prone. 
 
 Doffing their crowns, that like to meteors shone, 
 
 Or crossing swords when battles rage. This passed, 
 
 He rose, and from his ebon throne descended, 
 
 Like burning cedar from Mount Lebanon's top ; 
 
 Then grandly floated through the sombre pile. 
 
 Tho three pursued, and scarce appeared less dread. 
 
 As Sol goes fiery towards the distant sea, 
 
 And llorid clouds him follow to the wot, 
 
 So these towards the egress. The powers beheld. 
 
 And some waxed deadly pale ; many advanced 
 
 To novel brilliancy ; the rest unchanged. 
 
16 
 
 Awhile they dumbly sat, and looked their amaze ; 
 
 Then rose, enquiring, mingling. Great the noise, 
 
 And rare the spectacle. As might the stars 
 
 Glide from the zenith, sudden to the pole, 
 
 The scene, as down they strode from all around 
 
 And seemed approaching fires : gods, though suppressed : 
 
 With matchless port each came, and coming seemed 
 
 A faded Saturn, or a bolt-struck Jove. 
 
 Soon in a crowd they stand ; assembled, seem 
 
 A glimmering mountain on an iron plain ; 
 
 Their voices next are heard, and Etna seems 
 
 To roar. Various their mind : a doughty few 
 
 Applaud with open tongue ; while many are 
 
 Perplexed ; the majority condemn. 
 
 Soon they dispersed over Erebus, 
 
 Murky and resting dismal ; the meanwhile, 
 
 Satan, in privacy, thus to the three 
 
 Yields up his last exhorts : " Be firm, yet mild ; 
 
 Let no outbreak of passion blur your reign, 
 
 Nor discord 'midst you 'light, — for thee, Belial, 
 
 1 leave to thine own vein, persuaded thou 
 
 Wilt not work folly. But, for thee, black brow," — 
 
 To Moloch speaking, — " guard thee well thy fault ; — 
 
 Too rash, mayhap, yet, turned thence the view, 
 
 Brave of the brave, nor equal one in zeal, — 
 
 Till I return." Then, with solemnity ; 
 
 " For thee, Beelzebub, first in degree, 
 
 Though last whom I address ; whom I have chosen, 
 
J7 
 
 As I myself once chosen, by ancient chance, 
 Or will of him whom now we no more honor, 
 And since, confirmed in this deep-poised realm 
 By the united suffrages of all — 
 As I myself once chosen, once confirmed ; 
 So have I now chosen thee to be myself 
 In meditated absence : I rely 
 On thy tried wisdom, state capacity ; 
 Not all unknown above, and ofttimes proved 
 Since journeyed we here ; thee do I leave 
 My still remaining self ; my viceroy here, 
 My centered majesty : hell's fairest light ; 
 Fountain of ordinance, and of policy — 
 Might and fertility in these thou hast ; 
 Who, should they happen in their judgment split, 
 Must find in thee accordance. Farewell, my friends : 
 Farewell, thou regent king ; vouchsafe awhile 
 To fill hell's throne, who would not heaven's disgrace. 
 Remember thou thy friend when he 's afar, 
 And keep his own as sacred as 't were thine : 
 Whateer is his, he still with thee divides it, 
 Nor would he aught engross except his pain : 
 Thy care and honour thou with these wilt share, 
 Beloved friends and old companions ; 
 Warlike, and subtle, who with them compare. 
 Though forced to flee before the thun.l. k 1 ! 
 \ii«l who too statists were on happier shores, — 
 ( Mi happier shores, and in our golden <lays — 
 
18 
 
 Yet in ignoble ease did waste such days, 
 
 No powers required where reigned obsequiousness ; 
 
 But here tind harder, so, more glorious rule, 
 
 To curb the soured spirits of the deep, 
 
 And o'er them sway. This task befits you well ! 
 
 The fertile mind, and courage never shaken, 
 
 The wisdom match to each occasion, yours, 
 
 What now remaineth but to wish me speed !*' — 
 
 Thus said, he left them, after warm adieu, 
 And archangelic pressure, and was soon 
 Riding in darkness (for his light was quenched,) 
 Over the infernal plains. 
 
jkak $tanfo. 
 
 Where art thou, fount of song, oh Arethuse ? 
 Where do thy waters flow, oh Helicon ? 
 Where do the Muses haunt ? In bosky grove, 
 Clear river, or brown dell ; or do they live 
 On the bare mountain ; or in ocean flood, 
 Or the etherial skies : that man hath drawn 
 Afflatus from the stars ? Yet would not I 
 Their silvery influence call ; but, far below, 
 Invoke the Stygian, and the empty vault 
 Make yield : for to the realm of endless night 
 Must I return ; to Acheron black return ; 
 To red Gehenna, Tophet, and the pit 
 Crueller than Hinnom's vale : the cbeerful day 
 Must I resign for night, this sun-lit air, 
 For shade inflamed. Oh wheresoe er ye are, 
 Ye dubious sisterhood, on me descend ; 
 On me, who scarce would dare, without some aid 
 Divine, to use the measured pen ; attempt 
 To make it yield sweet streams of A ready, 
 I >r like a hammer of great Viil^m's f«»rge 
 
20 
 
 Produce the verse. Hear from Parnassus, if 
 Ye there abide ; or if round Castaly 
 Thoughtful ye sit, and hear my echoing voice : 
 Or, if ye circle the Pierian spring, 
 Your native waters, thence I you invoke, 
 To inspire my song. But ye are phantasies ; 
 Ye hear me not, how loud soe'er I call ; 
 Nor on Parnassus, nor round Castaly, 
 Thoughtful, nor by your native waters ye ; 
 Less than the bubbles thereof unto me. 
 Answer, oh answer me, great Universe ! 
 Where in the deep shall friendly power be found, 
 Here to sustain ? But that I dare not call 
 Thine aid, Almighty One, — thy Spirit, which 
 Must still delight in truth, — I had thee named ; 
 But awe oercomes me, and the fear to offend 
 Presumptuous ; and so, mayhap, I wrong 
 Thy love immense. — Oh, if too narrowly 
 I 've measured its extent, forgive ; forgive, 
 If I have straitened thy wide concern, 
 Thine infinite have with my finite dared 
 To grasp ; and graciously vouchsafe to smile 
 On this. 
 
 Nine days had lapsed, nine days of hell, 
 When ran a rumour 'midst its cherubim, 
 Their monarch was abroad : and soon 't was added 
 He had arisen to earth ; his purpose that, 
 
21 
 
 Which, if it prospered, should them but bring 
 
 Access of task, and an enhance of pain. 
 
 Then came, that which had long been threatened ; 
 
 For as the thaw-wind, with presaging sound, 
 
 Foretelleth the departure of the frost, 
 
 So had the conduct of these miserables 
 
 Long omened change ; and long delayed came 
 
 Indeed at last. All Tartarus now seemed moved, 
 
 And in her royal court, such as it was, 
 
 Crowded a multitude, who with loud cries 
 
 And rude persistency demand their king. 
 
 Moloch appeared, then Beelzebub, 
 
 And Belial, and strove in vain them appease, 
 
 Who, rushing thence, convinced of his absence. 
 
 Made towards a monstrous pit, which, soon overflowing. 
 
 From a truncated cone that rose therein 
 
 One thus, impetuously and loud, began : 
 
 11 Now is the time to raise our state, or else 
 
 Lie ever cursed ! Our tyrant is gone forth ; 
 
 And know we too his errand — to invent 
 
 New toils, new routes for pain, fresh channels make 
 
 In the sublimity for wrath to dart 
 
 Upon us. Shall we tins allow? How long 
 
 Shall it endure ? Have ages not sufficed, 
 
 And these dread fires, yet to consume our patience 
 
 Or must another fearful cycle turn 
 
 Kre we shall l..s<> our tainenc>s .'" " NO !" — was loud 
 
 Kxclahncd, and replicated was around, 
 
22 
 
 With universal deprecative gest'.— 
 14 Slow to a fault ye are," continued he, 
 Them heeding not; "and from forbearance vile, 
 Outcasts from heaven, and will unworthy hell 
 If this ye longer suffer. — Whence shall come 
 Your hope, your doting fond belief, your vague 
 Idea of punishment's remission ? that, 
 Of which ye talk, of which ye dream, have fire- 
 Disturbed visions ; that, for which alone 
 Consent ye to endure ? Shall it proceed 
 From war, from paltry, vile aggression, your 
 Poor puny blows dealt 'gainst the thunderer ? 
 Or shall it come from peace, its search on us 
 Devolved, the ever- vanquished ? " He paused, 
 And cried the multitude, " Peace, peace, we wish 
 For peace, if he will grant it us." " Why then 
 Do ye still provoke? 1 ' he stern retorts; " why still 
 Obey his stedfast enemy ? Come forth 
 From one, and join (if 't may) the other's ranks : 
 Ye may be spurned, thrown back upon your fires, 
 Ye may be held in sovereignest contempt ; 
 Re-doomed to howl with storm, to drink in gloom, 
 And welter in despair : yet that is but 
 Your earned desert, nor pride is compromised 
 By chastisement from God. Say then, that ye 
 At length have learned, that if no peace with heaven, 
 There is no ease in hell ; say then, that ye 
 Repent, ye have idly done, and wrong ; say, that 
 
*»8 
 
 Ye will reform, yourselves respect, become 
 
 Selfishly virtuous. — Who fain would climb, 
 
 Must scan not nice his steps ; who here would well 
 
 Endure, punctilio discard ; who would 
 
 For liberty, not will alone, but act. 
 
 Choose, then, your part, to suffer cravenly, 
 
 Or your own will's equality assert." 
 
 Again he paused, and many a scattered shout 
 
 Attested the effect, and multiplied, 
 
 Till the whole army rose in one wreathed front, 
 
 And heaved the ambient with their instant voice. 
 
 He grimly smiled, and thus well-pleased pursued ; 
 
 " Bravely ye shew, and prove, though much debased, 
 
 Suffering hath not extinguished spirit quite 
 
 Even as the hot spires wave in this abode, 
 
 Or the fair woods in that from whence exiled, 
 
 So now was your array. How glorious 
 
 Appeareth might, when 't is for right displayed ; 
 
 The voice of justice is a lofty note, 
 
 And honour brings : gone forth is your acclaim 
 
 To the wild ends of wo, and shall redound. 
 
 In companies, and crowds, who here shall come 
 
 Behold those who the deed have wrought, Henceforth 
 
 l';i in is not chosen : hell from this hour is free ; 
 
 See that no more ye deign accept a t lira 11." 
 
 lie ended, amidst eheers, and in his plare 
 Soon stood another, who straight, with snuve I, 
 Abrupt began : M Co-sutTerors, ami 
 
u 
 
 Who here so mean, would be perpetual tool 
 
 For other's purposes ? who his own being 
 
 Through baseness drag, that others might soar to honour 
 
 Are any here so vile ? Does hell contain 
 
 Angel so lost ? Oh cherubs, ye, who heaven 
 
 Forfeited because of jealousy of rule, 
 
 Display your virtue now ! An aggregate 
 
 Of motives you incites —self-love alone 
 
 Not urges, but just pride. Thus to persist, 
 
 Despite of our affliction, 'spite our prayers, 
 
 Who longer can respect him ? odious 
 
 If scanned, who caused our fall, yet lower fall 
 
 Thus fallen within ourselves ; what breast not burns 
 
 At his o'erbearingness ! and shall this be ? 
 
 Shall we, who once disdained a rightful rule, 
 
 Longer acknowledge his ? Shall right derived 
 
 Glory o'er right divine ? Though great he seem, 
 
 Shall he not shattered be, against us smitten ? — 
 
 Say, ye who, dim, and shorn of half your beams, 
 
 Mourn them continually, shall we, who once 
 
 In dazzling brightness trod the land of shine. 
 
 Remain eclipsed beyond our 'portioned horror 
 
 For a subordinate ? Shall we, ye braves, 
 
 Who fought three fields in heaven, nor one had lost, 
 
 But that the o'erwhelming monarch sent his Son 
 
 With stemless rout upon us, — say, shall we 
 
 Continue our dear-bought liberty, yield up 
 
 To one formed like ourselves ? Shall he still reign ? 
 
25 
 
 No, although fate should lead him kingly back, 
 
 Over our necks he shall not mount his throne ; 
 
 We from us shake his olden tyranny ; 
 
 His ancient wrong shall ne'er be modern right ; 
 
 The time has come, — the glorious modern day, — 
 
 More glorious, — as spirit transcends the gross, 
 
 Choice destiny, — than when we first beheld 
 
 Astonished the light, ourselves to assert. 
 
 If ye be worthy freedom, shew it now ; 
 
 If ye be one in purpose, one in kind, 
 
 By union inviolable be it proved." 
 
 He ended passionate ; and, to passion moved 
 His auditory, that, far stretched, and still 
 Came like the snow-flakes drifting, or around 
 Poured like torrents down the dismal sides 
 Precipitous of that black dell ; or else, 
 Like sandbanks pale beneath the wintry moon, 
 Extended ghastly, and, wove with their heads 
 Immeasurable maze : hoarse rumbled they, 
 And long ; and seemed engulfed Titans, who 
 Tumultuous, raged againstJdeau Jove : 
 This now remits, and slowly advanced one 
 Of taller form, his eye less passion lit ; 
 His face maturer, and more marked by pain ; 
 W'lio calm, yet scarce with look of dignity, 
 Him followed thus: "Spirits, imiiini-ials, flames, 
 
 ,1 with ardour burn ye; passions, souls; 
 Bear, and in hearing mark me; tell me wbj 
 
 D 
 
26 
 
 In these outrageous numbers are we found, 
 In place that wo and bending usance sole 
 Could reconcile us to ? Wherefore is this 
 Capacious hollow spread with forms as rank 
 As are its outcast cinders, or less cursed 
 Acclives, with frail and stunted herbage ? need 
 I ask ! all hearts throb answer, Tyrant wrong- 
 It is hath caused it ; wrong that with time, 
 And force that still increases, hath achieved 
 What naught less could effect. 
 Have we not borne in faithfulness our pain, 
 (Pain which now racketh some,) without one act, 
 One word, scarce look of merited upbraiding ? 
 Have we not done his work, made acts his will ; 
 Covered one orb with wo, the which of right 
 Usurpeth only this ; and hither brought 
 Captive by myriads the inferior souls 
 The thing called Death 's dislodged ; each task achieved, 
 But with an added pain ; and are these feats 
 Only to call for fresh ? What thinks our liege ? 
 What mean his lieutenants ? Are we the rocks, 
 Are we the blackened rocks on which each night 
 We lay our wretchedness ? Are we the fires 
 Themselves, in which, to humour their caprice, 
 Our foolish leal makes us so often rush ? 
 We tell them nay ; we sentient are ; we are 
 Obnoxious unto pain ; our essences 
 As pure as those which they may boast ; nor had 
 
27 
 
 We fallen to that pass, but that blind love, 
 
 And following his fate, hath made this our 
 
 Abode." He paused; then, as if musing, thus 
 
 Resumed speech : " Oh, thoughtless, selfish sense ! 
 
 Oh, huge ingratitude ! vast as himself ; 
 
 That, not content with most, had fain grasped all : 
 
 Cursed ambition ! that, promising to raise, 
 
 Hath hurled us to these depths. We 're miserable, 
 
 How oft hath it been said, yet not half told ; 
 
 To speak its sum would take for evermore ; 
 
 It is a story would require all time ; 
 
 Nor then achieved ; for as eternity 
 
 Itself unrolled, so our woe's catalogue." 
 
 And groaning low, he stood with vacant eye 
 
 Fixed on the crowd beneath, wrought to complete 
 
 Despair. 
 
 This scene prolonged, high in the press 
 A youthful angel in a frenzy rose, 
 And with far-sounding voice shrieked out these words 
 11 Since this is meant our everlasting home, 
 Let us, from abolition of all hope, 
 Take impulse from despair. Arise, arise ! 
 What is this petty tyranny we debate, 
 Compared to that above ! Let us rot n rn 
 T our rightful seat; \\.H now m know th«> mi, 
 And aimed with these, there with us can it .1 Bra 
 Burst in. nor allow ourselves retlBat ; who rmvs 
 For WOOndt, and grovelling ignominy, endured 
 
28 
 
 To 'scape this den ! Let him deluge with fire, — 
 
 Fire is our wont ; roar and transfix with bolts, 
 
 'T is there that we would cling ; still would we grasp 
 
 Tenaciously the soil, nor once let go our hold, 
 
 But, if dislodged, heaven carry with us here. 
 
 Who seconds me in this ? where are the fearless ones ?" 
 
 And scarce he 'd ceased, when up another gat, 
 
 Who with clenched fists, that whirled he aloft, 
 
 And upturned look seeming defy the skies, 
 
 Forth belched wrath. Even as a cloud might rain 
 
 Down brimstone and huge drops of fire, was this : 
 
 Loudly he raged 'gainst God, and made huge scoff, 
 
 At what he termed their light antagonism, 
 
 Counseling against him a more strenuous ire : 
 
 And even whilst this spake, a third arose, 
 
 And o'eragainst grinned horridly on both : 
 
 Both horridly and foul he grinned, — a store 
 
 Of hideous fire within his eyes, — and clapped 
 
 His wings, and yelled across, and, brutish-faced, 
 
 Seemed already gloating o'er success. 
 
 Another, and another rose, and soon 
 
 Whole bands ; soon were the audience entire 
 
 In one commotion, like a storm-lashed sea. 
 
 Dreadful the noise, 'midst which the leader's cries 
 
 Were drowned. O'er all arose loud party shouts : 
 
 Now heaven's name ringeth high ; now that of hell 
 
 Resounds with heavier peal ; nor earth's unheard. 
 
 Rage governed, and mad Despair : in one 
 
•->() 
 
 Wide charge, three desperate efforts forth to rush 
 
 The heaven aspirants made ; as oft repulsed. — 
 
 For never can forget the major part 
 
 The burning anger of a former day ; 
 
 The dread descent, the speed compulsory, 
 
 When down the roaring vaultway of the skies, 
 
 Army on army, host still urging host, 
 
 With mingled havoc and infernal pain, 
 
 Thunders them chased. Nevertheless, for long 
 
 Prevailed the strife : which by degrees subsided, 
 
 Outdying like the storm, whose savage bursts 
 
 Unwillingly are hushed ; that now peace reigns, 
 
 Or its similitude ; though in his chains 
 
 With growls suppressed lies the whelp of war. 
 
 Now, perhaps had this a fatal damage done, 
 
 But for the succour of an ancient fiend ; 
 
 An ancient fiend, and of the earliest formed ; 
 
 Mayhap, first formed of those not formed for thrones ; 
 
 In heaven, aye deemed an antiquity : 
 
 He, on the pyramid had stood from first 
 
 Not thinking interfere, but to observe 
 
 And give his countenance ; no perilless deed. 
 
 But some slight good is even in tin ■ I. 
 
 And heaven rekindles in the depths of holl : 
 
 Within 1 1 is breast now holy pity wrought, 
 
 And sympathy for less inured ones. 
 
 'I'lir gab sf Virr [g never (air, if rasaed i 
 
 Nor \\<-ll ran Vnliir dwell in ugly house : 
 
 -1)- 
 
30 
 
 The wearer shapes the robe : the dweller graces 
 
 The roof : and this poor fiend his form. 
 
 A sage he seemed, or minister of good, 
 
 That none had deemed he e'er had moved in crime. 
 
 His hair showed white as wool, his eye benign, 
 
 His features calm, pale, spiritual, mild ; 
 
 And wore he garment of more obvious light 
 
 Than the majority. He now advanced to speak : 
 
 When as piled clouds rolled by the northern blast, 
 
 At some soft veering from the tender south, 
 
 Unserrying, reveal sweet fields of blue, 
 
 The vanquished relaxed their sullen mien ; 
 
 Their ears they ope ; and 'midst a silence deep, 
 
 And close attention, thus the Ancient spake. 
 
 "Afflicted mates, my junior brethren ; 
 
 What shall my language be ; what will ye hear ? 
 
 No chidings in me are, my friends : alas ! 
 
 Much cause ye have for that which we have seen ; 
 
 For desperate act. Who would not hence escape, 
 
 He able ! — but perdurable being should 
 
 Be wise, and those of many seons not 
 
 Encourage folly. — Thus to rise, en masse, 
 
 What were it but to be rehurled down ? 
 
 Not worse than that is now, — sparing the pain, — 
 
 And we may yet arise, — given this offence 
 
 Perhaps never, — 't is true but slowly, and 
 
 By thin degrees, to that bright stage whence dropped. 
 
 At first, some slackening may betake these fires ; 
 
31 
 
 Or our own natures thereto more incline ; 
 
 Until removed to some cooler clime, 
 
 We leave this ceaseless conflagrative den, 
 
 Perchance for its exterior, where our 
 
 Emolished frames may profit by the warmth 
 
 That permeates its thick circumference. 
 
 Then, some low orb may be allotted us, 
 
 Crude, and not yet of soul preoccupied ; 
 
 Where we may pass probation, and be tried 
 
 If worthy of a higher ; and, that gained, 
 
 A higher may ensue, and more adorned ; 
 
 Still more adorned the next ; the next, still more, 
 
 Whilst grows the light : and thus may we attain, 
 
 By many steps, our former altitude. 
 
 A journey long, 't is true, but preferable sure 
 
 To this perpetual halt ; and lightened too by hope : 
 
 For who could bear a being hopeless quite, 
 
 To have its visitings utterly denied ! 
 
 Better to be (from us withheld) no more 
 
 Extant : yea would, although we lived unpaiued. 
 
 Oh, if ye would not quite abolish hope, 
 
 Prefer despair to mere despondency ; 
 
 Talk not again of war." Ho said no more, 
 
 But as a star that, rising o'er the pole, 
 
 Wheels its slight circle o'er the arctic heaven, 
 
 Then disappears, so he : when straight another, 
 
 Who thus begin i M ft Bpiriti of the deep ! — 
 
 For Bince in eminence no more we dwell, 
 
32 
 
 That style us best befits, — resume your hearts. 
 
 To bear a temper equal to our fate 
 
 Is highest deed : unmoved by joy, unfixed 
 
 By fear, the part of gods : serene, serene, 
 
 Repose the mightiest souls, and brood in calm : 
 
 Peace at the innermost abides, although 
 
 Around be strife ; thence, circumscribes life's rage : 
 
 But ye are by your passions governed ; 
 
 Not them by you. — Pshaw, pshaw ! I blush through all 
 
 This foul deformity, for you, my mates, — 
 
 To dare again the arm that thrust us down, 
 
 Or worse, sit drowned in tears deploring. Tush ! 
 
 Shall we who 've borne so terrible a past, 
 
 Quail at the future's name ? Shall we, the sane, 
 
 Be ruled by phrenetics ? Shall youth assume, 
 
 And be allowed, the leadership of years ? 
 
 Shall we succumb to our deep wretchedness, 
 
 Or do immortal battle with despair ? 
 
 The frown of evil overshadows us, 
 
 And fell disaster grinneth from heaven's walls : 
 
 'Midst pain we pass our sad existences, 
 
 Darkness, and sorrow, and the clank of chains ; 
 
 And in our ear no more the sudden trump, 
 
 That tells in heaven the opening of her morn, 
 
 Grandly resoundeth ; nor the morn herself, 
 
 Mingling vermillion and the beams of gold, 
 
 Delights our eye : but the tremendous, harsh, 
 
 And grating words of doom, that here consigned 
 
33 
 
 As still remembrance rolls them o'er the soul, 
 
 And the reports of fire, and sounds of pain, 
 
 Our music now. — From morn till evening, 
 
 From noon till night, penance alone is ours ; 
 
 Our dawn, the glare of these awakening fires ; 
 
 Our morn, the time of flight and havoc wild ; 
 
 Our noon, the rampant tyranny of flames ; 
 
 The days decline, the long-sustained heat, 
 
 Inveterate fervour ; and the tardy eve, 
 
 Rank with its sulphurous and afflictive steams ; 
 
 The door to night's sad dungeon, thick with glooms 
 
 Yet not for these, nor more that in the mind 
 
 Ever abides, inimical to peace, — 
 
 Remorse, or disappointment, endless care, 
 
 Or the foul stings of rage, will I recant ; 
 
 Or from the fulness of this public shew 
 
 One jot abate. Who says that hope is not ? 
 
 Who shall assert our's everlasting wo ? 
 
 Who, though he heard the fearful dicta's sound, 
 
 Shall say Jehovah will uphold his word ? 
 
 Did he not say to man, "The day wherein 
 
 Thou eatest of the tree, that day thou die 
 
 Did man then die? Was he resolved to nought '.' 
 
 Or did he onlj sicken for awhile, 
 
 To he reinstated in unfailing health '.' 
 
 Nay more, to (VOWD what must bo wonder still, 
 
 Did not the awful Lawgiver himself, 
 
 \ and determining perhaps the whole, 
 
84 
 
 From out his fulness of invention find 
 
 Such means, means that appeared to his own hurt, 
 
 As have restored this erring creature, man ; 
 
 Upon conditions easy, (and their reign 
 
 So brief, all disproportion seemeth mixed 
 
 Twixt his probation's length, and his rewards, 
 
 Betwixt his time, and his eternity,) 
 
 Into his favour, into our lost heaven ; 
 
 '. J 'herein prepared, and portioned him a place, 
 
 Higher than first he had intended him ; 
 
 A place secure, which is its highest worth ; 
 
 Beyond even fate, or our malevolence. 
 
 So he towards us may act ; so he from us 
 
 May turn away the ill, or by our pain 
 
 Be appeased. This, when I meditate the theme, 
 
 Was, is, and shall its aspect ; for to fright 
 
 My soul with chimeras and contingencies, 
 
 Shall ne'er be mine, whilst I have pains that are 
 
 So actual." He said, and straight 'midst low 
 
 Applause withdrew, his steps being crossed by one, 
 
 Anxious to seize the time and bring resolve. 
 
 Much promised indeed the looks of this : 
 
 Courage was on his brow, and resolute his lip ; 
 
 And all his frame shewed energy and heart : 
 
 And to the brink advanced, he thus began : 
 
 " Comrades in bale, enduring amities, 
 
 Now that you are yourselves, I fain would speak. 
 
 Hear me for fairness ; and for policy : 
 
35 
 
 Nor let your hearts disturbed be, because 
 
 Of that which should yield only confidence. 
 
 Twice are those fixed who misgivings had, 
 
 And who, once shaken with contrarieties, 
 
 Now in conviction stand: so we, more firm, — 
 
 More firm from that which threatened to uproot. 
 
 The original theme, maintained by wisdom first. 
 
 By courage afterwards, is ours indeed : 
 
 Peace shall our watchword be, not enmity ; 
 
 No greater enemies have we than those 
 
 Who would incite to battle — friends are foes, 
 
 Counselling unwisely — the route to heaven might prove 
 
 The passage to worse hell ; for evil grows 
 
 Of evil, and no bounds is set unto it. 
 
 This warning, then, admitted, and with your lent ears, 
 
 We now resume the theme. Our tyrant is 
 
 Gone forth., surmise we whereunto, and more 
 
 Than guess his errand — not to spend his hour, 
 
 To take his solace in the cool abyss ; 
 
 He has steered to earth, (there lies his wish !) to wreak 
 
 Further his spite 'gainst his too powerful foe. 
 
 Be he repulsed, moody he '11 return, 
 
 Making this land more black : if he succeed, 
 
 Labour increased, aggravated pains — 
 
 Labour, delightful, voluntarily mxlerta'en. 
 
 lhit odious when < ompultory, ind far ptin, 
 
 Who loveth n. who i 
 
 Who, so inveterate here, so spirit -o.illr. I. 
 
30 
 
 So writhing for a gasp of sweet revenge, 
 Would indefatigably strive ; — he free, — 
 To make the terrors of this place more sore ? 
 Behold, when first driven here, in fainting hosts, 
 (Though from its strangeness strongly all appeared, 
 And horror oft us chained,) how mild it was 
 Compared with its present furiousness ! 
 Its days how brief ; its seasons how commixed ; 
 How lithely each into each other drawn ; 
 But now ! abrupt, or one stern penal length, 
 Devouring us, inexorable, yet unconsumed ! — 
 Then slowly from the mountains heaved at morn 
 The gloom, and on the valleys slowly oped 
 The leaden doors : then laggingly advanced 
 The fires upon our dormancy, nor half 
 So burning eyed ; and tardily the flames 
 Crept up these walls, as if reluctantly ; 
 And noon raced o'er his arch, as though 
 Considerate of uninuredness ; and long 
 The night reposed. — Now mark the clime ! see how 
 The morning comes, advancing, fiery-paced ; 
 With sound of burning hoofs, and cracklings dire 
 Of the Asbestine : or drinking up the ground 
 With horrid strides, swallows a land at once 
 With hideous roar, and us in deluge (drowned 
 Our sentries' voice) bearing upon its front, 
 Helpless, though mad with pain : fire is o'er all ! 
 The mountains glare, the valleys reek with flame. 
 
37 
 
 Time was, no sentry stood ; now, stands in vain ; 
 For who knows now, at choice of camp at eve, 
 Where on the morrow shall our scourge first rage. 
 At noon, the altered conflagration dwells, 
 Grinning on slaves ; and oh, how long till eve, 
 Which seems as 't ne'er would come ; and night 's too short 
 For dreams. And this is your achieve ! Observe, 
 These rirmament-stored fires, those grim reserves 
 Of untried torture, heart-subduing pain ; 
 Restrained once, dared by offence, begin 
 With noise significant and warning siga 
 Of rolling smoke, and belched purple flame, 
 To rumble through their elevate domain. 
 Note how the nether boils, the fatal womb 
 Of this fell kingdom, at our advent found 
 Nigh pent in sullenness, now mad to heave 
 Us nightly on our beds, prognostic, perhaps, 
 In some dim night to engulf. And this is your 
 Achieve ! Behold the storms, that formerly 
 Did their own regions keep, invade us here, 
 And aggravate the flames — the flames not all. 
 But now capricious whirlwinds us assail, 
 Dsishing us 'nciith deep waters, or on firm 
 Multangular mountains, or deep bury us 
 In distant snows ; or. Inst in Stygian vales, 
 Leave us forlorn to wander, and tlareiu 
 AliiUt seven- fold darkness brood the years away. 
 And this is your urhicvo, your labour's end ! 
 E 
 
38 
 
 Let Earth now feebler speak : contemplate, ye 
 
 Who voyage, the ignominy, when chased by those 
 
 We knew for friends in light : reflect the sting, 
 
 When in sincerest decency besought, 
 
 They turn away in horror, and refuse 
 
 Commerce with us in aught. But why recount ? 
 
 The pains of hell, and the contumely 
 
 Of heaven, are known alike to all — heaven lost 
 
 Is long, and its society ; nor earth 
 
 Is yet our own, nor the wild fields of air, 
 
 Barren and void : hell can herself supply 
 
 Why she of it should change the masterdom : 
 
 Our argument lies here ; here, in the midst 
 
 Of horror, though at noon ; here, caged by flames, 
 
 Chafed to their pitch by crimes to ordinance 
 
 Performed : — not upon earth, 'midst chant of birds, 
 
 Nor in the tide of air, where seraphs sing ; 
 
 But here, 'midst retributive groans, 'midst sighs 
 
 Even heaven might melt — not in remembrances, 
 
 But in the actual, — this scourging hour 
 
 When hell puts forth her fierceness, and your kind 
 
 Wide pant beneath it ; here, where all your force, 
 
 Tnat shook in battle once the burnished sky, 
 
 Cannot sustain you calm through one dark day ; 
 
 Here, in the core of night : here, where condemned 
 
 To death eternal, never ending life, 
 
 Sure of your grisly immortality, 
 
 Ye choose to pass the fell secured career, 
 
39 
 
 'Midst growing penance, respite still curtailed, 
 
 And the red future's frightful countenance." 
 
 The throng moved like a grove, and he pursued : 
 
 " Ay writhe, ye myriads, maze, be within 
 
 Perplexed, for ye have need ; — who but yourselves 
 
 Would have endured so long ! now thunder forth, 
 
 Forbearance knows an end." As the report 
 
 Tremendous of a mine that's sprung, or as 
 
 The startling peal that heraldeth the storm 
 
 From out the black and silence-covered skies, 
 
 The shout arose. Ten, louder, followed it ; 
 
 That hell within her distance seemed o'erthrown. 
 
 " These were the knells of wrong," continued he, 
 
 11 Dooms to the ears of many ; shout again !" 
 
 And those who sat, met those who hovered, 
 
 And with joined hands, and with devoted looks, 
 
 Made hell to tremble with increased acclaims ; 
 
 Which having ceased, he raised his hands, and said : 
 
 11 Oh, thou big present moment of our lives, 
 
 Fated to honour through eternity, 
 
 Stay, and or e'er thou minglest with the years, 
 
 Eteoord our vows. No more shall Satan rule 
 
 Within this pit ; no more for 1 lim we '11 utVeiul : 
 
 Who sins, shall suffer; not all for one bo plagued ; 
 
 Though wo have seen elsewhere one scourged for nil ; 
 
 Henceforward leave we unmolested heaven. " 
 
 Thou changed; — " Hear now, how best turn Wftfti fce acts. 
 
 Lot (lie sole breach that egress gives from hence 
 
40 
 
 Be closely watched ; whilst fresh reliefs supply 
 The place of those recalled by sovereign press. 
 Let none depart, save nobles, if they wish ; 
 But every comer new acquainted be 
 With our exchanged estate. When all are here, 
 Be held a solemn court, at which we may 
 Our future polity settle." He said, and well 
 The proposition took the general ear, 
 That they with full consent the motion vote, 
 Nor stint applause ; 'midst which advanced one, 
 One shrewd and circumspect ; a business-like 
 And practical intelligence. Lofty aims 
 And genius flights he knew not, but the ends 
 Of others well he could successful make : 
 Tact, and an adaptation, were his forte : 
 As fingers to the brain, so he to higher spirits, 
 Useful, but yet subordinate ; and he thus 
 Began : " Councillors, ye seem agreed, as well 
 Ye may, such cogent reasons given you, and 
 So well driven home ; now therefore to avoid 
 Of anarchy and wrong, in interim must 
 Ensue 'twixt this, and the decreed council ; 
 Let us ere parting make a choice of one ; 
 One proved wise beforetime, staid, and firm, 
 Nor to alarm obnoxious — yet discreet 
 And wary ; one the whom all may respect, 
 Acknowledged honourable, ungiven to aspire — 
 Yet able, nor unmindful of applause, 
 
41 
 
 And whom, a transient period lifted high, 
 
 May, like earth's workmen's life-protecting domes, 
 
 Shield from the ill-disposed amongst ourselves." 
 
 This, with a kindred favour they receive, 
 
 And soon elect a brief plebeian king ; 
 
 And whose first exercise of sovereignty, 
 
 Was to decree the morrow set apart 
 
 To celebrate the new-born liberty : 
 
 Then rising, with a shout that swept half hell, 
 
 All rose, and, travelling each their several ways, 
 
 Bore the result to her less saddened bounds. 
 
mil iijitt 
 
 Hail, holy Morn ! hail, undefiled ; on earth 
 
 The universal virgin as thou fliest, 
 
 The over-ardent sun, as Daphne once 
 
 From the pursuing bright Apollo ran. 
 
 Thee do I hail, still in the land of hope ; 
 
 Of mottled dawning, and with promise filled 
 
 Of golden noon. — Thee do I hail from far, 
 
 As, far beneath the piercing of thy sun, 
 
 I sojourn in the region of the night, 
 
 Where everlasting going-down hath been, 
 
 And no orb lumes. Oh, thou benignant day, 
 
 Who shall thy value speak, that doth not speak 
 
 With tongue informed by thine utter loss ? 
 
 Who shall declare God's second attribute ? 
 
 Who, from his borders take the mystic beam, 
 
 And bring with more than famed Promethean power 
 
 It down to hell ? What fond, fallacious hope 
 
 Shall bring there day ? — Dayspring, that all revives, 
 
 Blest hour ! pale harbinger of brighter things, 
 
 Say, from thy station in the waking sky, 
 
43 
 
 What sends thee forth ? Thou on the hills hast sat, 
 
 And on the vales hast come rejoicing, and 
 
 Along the deeps and towering mountains skipped, 
 
 In rounds unceasing, from antiquity 
 
 Beyond our measuring ; yet, art to us strange : 
 
 Whence art thou, Light, and what thine origin ? 
 
 Or, unoriginated, hast thou wrapped 
 
 From out eternity the invisible ; 
 
 Unseen through thee his habitation bright, 
 
 That dazzles angels ? Say, are these thy years ; 
 
 Or art thou but the opening of his eyes, 
 
 Who, omnipresent, likewise fills the shade ? 
 
 I, from a shade below the vale of death, 
 
 Do meditate on thee ; soul of the world, 
 
 And radiant child of heaven ; — eternal child — 
 
 Hoary, ineffable stream, that out hast flowed 
 
 From everlasting. Thee, the Omnipotent took, 
 
 And cast thee round about him, when the years 
 
 Were not ; immeasurably sat with thee, 
 
 Ere fiery seraph or the first archangel were ; 
 
 Ere them, did thee ordain his sovereign throne. 
 
 Thou wert, when love was yet unseen, was yet 
 
 I i manifested in his wondrous works ; 
 
 Rejoiced, and him environed, who absorbed 
 
 All noon, eternal n , n<> nmni, no eve. 
 
 Thou, upon earth didst earliest come, at voice 
 
 Of him ; there, whilst his spirit moved the deep 
 Upon, creative, solitary ; thee, 
 
44 
 
 The whom pronouncing good, he called day. 
 If thou be good, thy lack is evil then ; 
 And happy is the eye that drinks thy beam. 
 
 The morn broke mild, for milder seemed the flame, 
 And every denizen felt movings at the core ; 
 And strove forget awhile his horror old, 
 And perdurable pain, in the forthcoming fete. 
 Great was the stir o'er all the territory : 
 For as when earth intends some festival, 
 The uplands swarm, and every farmstead yields 
 So now, from all the woful coasts proceed 
 The inconceivable multitude of the accursed, 
 Towards the infernal nave ; where now arose 
 An obelisk tall, upreared in the past night ; 
 And, like that temple of the wisest king, 
 No sound of tool or workmen heard thereon, 
 Kound which at noon the rejoicings owed commence. 
 But who shall tell the numbers of that day ? — 
 As towards some dreadful vortex of the sea, 
 Might float her stores of circumfused wreck ; 
 Or, as the earth with confidential gale 
 Should towards the equator muster all her clouds ; 
 So they, as 'fore some steady impulse driven 
 For all that morn : millions of cherubim 
 And seraphim, and orders names unknown, 
 And with their pinions drowned the roaring flames. 
 Signal the scene of that great gathering ! 
 Not one of all hells tribe was absent found. 
 
45 
 
 As when some tyrant, meaning to invade 
 
 His rival's kingdom, spares no warrior ; 
 
 Or as the birds of passage on a day 
 
 Should all assemble, take their wintry flight, 
 
 So it complete ; and desolate left wide hell, 
 
 Who wondering, alarmed, thrice secured 
 
 Her bars, and girt with triple adamant 
 
 Her concave strong, prevent escape ; fond fear ! 
 
 Till noon they came, when, swelled infinitely, 
 
 Thick as the stubble on the field they stand, 
 
 And with enormous range ; or as the waves, 
 
 Dancing innumerous to the minstrel wind, 
 
 That sweeps the surface of the murmuring sea ; 
 
 Or some lagoon, low-banked and dismal, foul, 
 
 The drain of fens. Till noon their numbers grew ; 
 
 When, as the flames, the gnomons of their clime, 
 
 Above o'erlapped their fierce encountering waves, 
 
 And down the centre made a horrid surge, 
 
 Stepped forth tall herald, with a clarion loud. 
 
 And blew a sprightly and exciting strain, 
 
 To loose them to their sports. Immense the tube, 
 
 And filled hell's utmost cavem9 with its note ; 
 
 Not less obstreperous, perhaps, than that which shall. 
 
 Blown by the Anhangel, cause V awake the dead. 
 
 The low roof it prolonged in dull roply. 
 
 Forthwith the concourso heaved, and present 1\ . 
 
 Knormous flights of BOgels filled the air,— 
 
 Squadrons immense, — and dofluont bore away. 
 
46 
 
 The centre thus ; and the circumference, 
 Not less in aspect than the sons of heaven, 
 Though blasted all, and scarred by Stygian fires ; 
 With bristling front and horrible array, 
 On rhombs diverse, advance to minstrel sounds. 
 Like moving woods they come, and march like gods, 
 As with alternate limb they stately tread 
 Consentive, and with multitude immense 
 Cause shake the ground. 
 
 So dissipates the huge. 
 And now with all the hollow mirth of fiends, 
 And vigour left them by the Omnipotent, 
 Hell far-resounding on her centre shook : 
 Some plied the race on untamed lightning steeds, 
 Or from high crater's top, magnificent 
 Of smoke, came downwards avalanching ; some 
 On chariots, some upon the winds disport, 
 Some bid the whirlwinds sweep them through the flames : 
 Tremendous rout ! — Even as the electric fluid, 
 Scorning the clouds, and omnipresent-footed 
 Mocking the plain ; the former, impetuous, 
 And silent glancing o'er the scared scene ; 
 The latter, gradually towards the burning roof, 
 In dismally roaring and wide spirals, borne. 
 Some threw the quoits, — for the occasion formed, — 
 Of round immense, dread whizzing through the air 
 Their twanging adamant, yet easily hurled ; 
 
47 
 
 Or wrestled some, and strained the spiritual frame. 
 
 Some leaped, — their league, — in emulation, sprang 
 
 At one sheer bound across the frightful gorge : 
 
 Some flew, in legions scoured the plain, like strings 
 
 Of wanton hounds, or flights of fairer doves : 
 
 Others, — whilst crowds from cloud and ground observed,- 
 
 In grim array and mock belliquiousness, 
 
 Charging, enacting all the game of war, 
 
 And feigning the uptearing of the hills, 
 
 Rehearsed the three heaven-foughten fatal fields. 
 
 But all, though strong, preferred not the robust : 
 
 In contemplation thousands dwelt, and seemed 
 
 To enjoy a Sabbath from their misery : 
 
 More intellectual, in converse others 
 
 Beguiled the hours, and half beguiled themselves 
 
 With themes momentous, and chivalric — 
 
 Celestial chivalry exercised on earth, 
 
 In rescuing mortals from infernal wiles, 
 
 With prowess greater than the warlike arm — 
 
 The scaring front of virtue : some, on wings 
 
 Of memory, excursions took, and sketched 
 
 From out the past full manj a blissful tide, 
 
 Ami noble era, with the golden tongue ; 
 
 Or wiili enacted face of stirring things, 
 
 Enhanced the time. — MoreoVr, boflb on a there were. 
 
 And socials mere, as upon nirth thero are ; 
 
 Ami punishment, ;i few. had rendered weak 
 
 < >f mind than these, more melancholy ftighed, 
 
48 
 
 More numerous far, — and wandered up and down, 
 
 Their hands within the ethereal of their breasts, 
 
 No hope of future restoration seen, 
 
 To them sole boon : some talked their recent act, 
 
 And its results towards hell and earth discussed ; 
 
 Whilst a vast mass betook to food and wine, 
 
 Hell's first repast, and maiden vintage pressed, 
 
 And list to dulcet strains, — to dulcet strains 
 
 They sitting list — to sweet, yet awful strains, 
 
 Drawn from the lyres of dimly fingering ghosts, 
 
 And pipes were spectral-lipped, and flagons drained; 
 
 Until, each faculty alike being flown, 
 
 Of sense and intellect, they rose, threw high 
 
 Their waggish heels, and anticked at the dance. 
 
 But a superior sort, and these not few, 
 
 Gave music loftier task, both voice and harp ; 
 
 Made melody divine, though tinctured high 
 
 With grief; sang of the Godhead, sang of heaven, 
 
 Of earth, and chaos, and of gloomy hell ; 
 
 Their once exploits in heaven's disastrous war, 
 
 Their present feat, and future destiny. 
 
 Song overruled their fate, and Harmony 
 
 Appeased the furious hours ; even Memory 
 
 Laid by her stings, and Conscience ; and Remorse 
 
 Expired, or slumbered ; — Melancholy sole, 
 
 Dreaming of Better Days, yet Atheist 
 
 Them towards. Of evil next they sang ; and good, 
 
 Its opposite ; joy, sorrow, and ambition; — 
 
49 
 
 Or in the mind, or from the outward born ; 
 
 Innate, or circumstantially possessed ; 
 
 Tempestuous denizens ! Of justice too, 
 
 And holiness ; of vengeance, latent love ; 
 
 Choice, and necessity, and mercy fair ; 
 
 The love of being, and the dread of death. 
 
 Ten thousand round them stood, and hearkening wept ; 
 
 And hell, remorseful, listened, sorrowing 
 
 Her chains so fast should bind whom so could sing, 
 
 Could with their voices half her change to heaven. 
 
 So ran the tide of her first carnival ; 
 Her first, and last ; and for a moment felt 
 Her sons a real (if not unmingled) joy — 
 First gladness felt in their deep house of wo, 
 Dreaming reform ! Vain dream, who lack God's grace ! 
 
 Meantime, Belial with an alert eye, 
 Remarks the turn for sport, and from a mount. 
 Himself invisible, surveys the fete below ; 
 And fixed to mingle, for awhile revolves 
 Or if to do so in his proper shape, 
 Or in inferior guise ; and chose at length 
 The last. Down then he floats, and soon, alight, 
 Himself insinuates into many a group ; 
 Konmrks their nmo.l, and listens their eonvt rse. 
 'Spersed with on him the oft-directed jest; 
 Nor failed t<> sonn in each words of 
 
50 
 
 The which, if followed, might eventually 
 
 Their polity contravene. Such then he left, 
 
 And from a sable wood emerging next, 
 
 Like the full moon from out black bank of clouds, 
 
 In native guise approached the bibbant crew. 
 
 " Gods," there he said, " for such indeed ye are, 
 
 Lacking this expressed juice, how much more with ! 
 
 Quaff to your fill, and find, if 't may, for wo 
 
 A new conduit. — Knit not on me your brows ; 
 
 Arrive I not to hinder mirthfulness, 
 
 But to partake on equal terms your cheer : 
 
 Why should we not, though cast so low, repeat 
 
 Our wont on high ?" And with the words sat down, 
 
 Self-bidden, at the board. Scowls were the sole 
 
 Keply : then, glances of distrust ; and next 
 
 Ensued whisperings from ear-visiting lips, 
 
 With fixed regards of stern suspicion from 
 
 The sterner sort, and long, heart-searching looks ; 
 
 An ordeal, which unwincingly he bore, 
 
 Until, persisting in the shew sincere, 
 
 Guile grew like truth, and their impaired eyes 
 
 Lost half their jealousy : wine did the rest : 
 
 The imposed-on sense allowed on them impose : 
 
 Their hearts expand, their eyes relume with fire, 
 
 Till the bright beams thereof encounter his 
 
 In a meretricious blaze. Awhile they swim 
 
 In mirth and high carouse, and many a wild 
 
 Guffaw rings o'er the monstrous board, and oft 
 
51 
 
 The welkin reels, as, starting to their feet, 
 With loud acclaim and long voluminous roar, 
 They pledge the free. Awhile this lasts ; when they 
 Arise to mingle with the game, and he, 
 Dissembling chief, to reincognito the scene. 
 
 So Belial — in hell, or earth, the prince 
 Of profligates : for his coadjutors, 
 Beelzebub dwelt solitarily, 
 Save with a few plebeians that faithful stood 
 Of the dark regal house — the potentates, 
 The realm's magnificoes, great hierarchs, 
 Princes, and powers, and barons of the dread — 
 Deep-fallen ones, whose mighty spirits bowed 
 Before their pains ; themselves half malcontent, 
 Though hurled from state, saw not unpleased the change : 
 They, in their several parts, mere lookers on ; 
 Or powerless gathered round that stately chief. 
 Not Moloch so : he, formed alone for act, 
 Winged with red fury and a black revenge, 
 To seek their Lord was climbing towards the stars. 
 Not oft he seeks the light, but frequenter 
 Hound Erebus in darkness stalks his path ; 
 The gloom of hell, and his paroxysms fierce 
 Of pain, to meet with fiercer blasphemies, 
 His life preferred : unvisited by hope, 
 I nl it it ^ I l.y tear, the deep he affects. 
 But now, his s.»ul dctlinniol with Lucifer, 
 Madly he hi< B tfl QtU him to the war 
 
52 
 
 Nine days he volleyed through the astonished space, 
 
 Or poised himself within the jewelled cave, 
 
 The arcana viewing, and appeared a bird 
 
 Still ever flying, ever still confined 
 
 In cage of golden bars ; or truer said, 
 
 As of the burnished Hesperides, 
 
 Its dragon all oblivious of the ports, 
 
 Should through the interior scour. Then wheel eth he, 
 
 And, grown disgusted with his fruitless search, 
 
 His flight he speedeth from the far-pierced south ; 
 
 And, swifter by a hundred hundred fold 
 
 Than comet's course, makes towards the distant sun : 
 
 Within whose pale arrived, around the earth 
 
 He flies, and draws a fiery band, and this 
 
 Again right-angled with a flame, and ties 
 
 Them both fivefold ; completing seven colures. 
 
 Men gazed affrighted to behold the sign, 
 
 And augurs read there many a nation's doom : 
 
 The dusky Brahmin, in his white robes, viewed 
 
 At night from Pagod tower, what seemed a sword, 
 
 By wrathful Sheva waved ; to western swart, 
 
 A monstrous firefly, running o'er night's page : 
 
 But unto Satan 't was intended be 
 
 A signal, that a subject great was near. 
 
 At length, alighting, he the broad Amazon 
 
 Surveys ; then, restless, repursues his flight 
 
 Across the deep, and many a vessel smote 
 
 With novel lightning ; such, the mariner 
 
:,:; 
 
 Had high described at home, had not the shock, 
 Reckless of home, sent him and craft below. 
 Over Madeira's heights he sped the next, 
 Blasting the vines, and throwing breakers wild 
 Upon the lea, threatening the isle devour : 
 Then shot to Britain, past her sister isle, 
 Bursting here ill to throw. 
 From the Nore's point he next aerial voyaged, 
 And left the earth and systems far below, 
 Rushing, like some wild boar amidst the woods, 
 Up through the peaceful skies : but ever towards 
 The north his route, though devious, he inclined ; 
 And down at length he sank below the verge, 
 And came at last to where the heavens grow waste, 
 And stands opposed a second Erebus. 
 Then, first considered he since hell he left ; 
 Now weighs, or enter, or the blank avoid. 
 Fate urges on, and slight of consequence, 
 And without fear he enters the unknown. 
 
 Into this part, a region uuexplored, 
 Had Satan entered many days before ; 
 From his dark zone to kindred dark consigned. 
 Light nourished realms between. Behold his voyage. 
 Krom first, he purely soared, — invisibly, 
 Awliilo, — and swiftly trod the stairs, each stroke 
 Of win^a step, — thai led liim up towards light 
 
 Y« t long and drear the track, although the route 
 
 borne; long, drear, and dark kbt track iwiithell 
 
 -F- 
 
54 
 
 And light ; and long the gulf he wrought, as 't seemed 
 
 Abortively, and oft regards above 
 
 The brightest star, — even as mariner 
 
 Visits his compass, or the cynosure 
 
 Consults assiduous, — scarce brighter grew 
 
 Though posts he swiftly up. Thereat he aimed, 
 
 In deep abstraction, silent, and morose ; 
 
 And fanned in taciturnity the deep, 
 
 Until, annoyed at sight of widening works, 
 
 Speech came his friend, and gloomy envy thus 
 
 In words found vent : " When will creating end ! 
 
 When wearisome grow the task of breeding worlds, 
 
 And sealing himself in reservative pomp 
 
 For adulative lips ? I, even I, 
 
 Demand not service such ; if given, 't is well ; 
 
 As well if 't be withheld. I know my state, 
 
 Nor need on 't to be told, by sycophant 
 
 Keminders : therein I date superior ; if 
 
 Not so in power, which sole may due to chance, 
 
 In that in being 't was his me to precede ; 
 
 Yet, in the noble matter of the will 
 
 I proud look down, look down and scowl, — 
 
 Perchance from unreal height, his rival high, 
 
 His everlasting foe ; nor will I cease 
 
 'Gainst him to fight, though oft defeat, 
 
 Though baffled oft, not all inglorious, 
 
 For one great victory I have achieved, 
 
 When once I saw his hateful scion bleed, 
 
55 
 
 Suffering sent hence to his." This said, he felt 
 
 Relieved, and steadily plied his vans, that now, 
 
 His visibility resumed, appeared 
 
 Two pulsing clouds, or paly, waved flags ; 
 
 And for the space of three terrestial days 
 
 With matchless strength sustained the due ascent, 
 
 Albeit heavily armed. Stupendous task ! 
 
 Tenfold the distance of the nebular stars 
 
 From this terrene to climb, but little way 
 
 Accomplished yet, though countless leagues, in that 
 
 Long voyage dark ; beneath him hell, showing still 
 
 Like burning embers in the nether deep. 
 
 And now as one who long in mines has wrought, 
 
 At length comes awful through the wounded earth, 
 
 Thus up he flies, with clambering steep ascent, 
 
 Seeking his native element, the day. 
 
 Yet far from day is he, and through the night's 
 
 Dark chambers must traverse, on upright wing, 
 
 Laborious long, ere she permit escape 
 
 To dubious light. Nevertheless, he feels as one 
 
 From prison escaped, and rapidly he soars, 
 
 Leaving one half his melancholy beneath. 
 
 And sees at length the dark abyss illume. 
 
 As o'er the world, the dawn breaks after night. 
 
 So woke the gulf. The stars went out in turn. 
 
 Leaving that nighest one, Queen of the space, 
 
 Its solitary eye. Beneath him, Night, 
 
 Huge, and all sable, was in iwifl n 
 
56 
 
 Strange comfort unto him conveys the beam : 
 
 As over denizen of city pent, 
 
 Who, risen betimes, and passed the foetid streets, 
 
 Now through green lanes aud meadows takes his way, 
 
 Comes gladness and a dayspring for his care, 
 
 So o'er the fiend insensibly a joy ; 
 
 That now with heart more boon he parts the air, 
 
 All amber now the air, and through it rides, 
 
 Enflamed, cloudless, with increasing fires 
 
 From glory into glory. Thus he scales 
 
 On stately pennons, or himself upthrows 
 
 In aerial bounds ; sun basks, or drinks the calm 
 
 Voluptuous air, delicious draught to him, 
 
 Late from the land of stifling and of fog : 
 
 Thus up he comes, like lark unto the sun, 
 
 Himself appearing, — now enwrapped in blaze, — 
 
 Like to the lark of undiscovered fields, 
 
 Or the grim eagle of deep burning hills; 
 
 Until above him, hanging close the orb, 
 
 He now around it windeth spirally, 
 
 Concealed in light. Soon he superior floats, 
 
 And now down looks upon his radiant goal. 
 
 Great sight ! last of its Maker's works, and hell 
 
 Most nigh. Wherefore so glorious, ask not : 
 
 God on the furthest confines of his deeds 
 
 May lavish grandeur, and nigh savageness 
 
 Plant highest skill ; as near the desert rise 
 
 Those matchless pyramids, that awful sphinx. 
 
57 
 
 Crude works of man : but this, the work of him 
 
 Whose work is man ; whose work the angels are, 
 
 And all the sum of seen and unseen things. 
 
 He made the suns, that must to eye due placed 
 
 Appear the radiant godheads of the skies ; 
 
 Gave them their glory, and upon their heads 
 
 Placed bright crowns, wherewith to scare the night. 
 
 On this now Satan gazed, that like a throne 
 
 Appeared of living gold ; a mountain fit 
 
 To bear the Deity : instinct with life 
 
 Appeared ; in parts shewed fiery plumes, in parts 
 
 Wrought like the surface of a molten sea. 
 
 As on the gilded domes of eastern town, 
 
 Gazes grim chief of some beleaguering host, 
 
 Soon purposing assault, now he on this ; 
 
 Then it more near approached, but warily : 
 
 As some abold intending ravisher, 
 
 Awed by his victim's beauty, loses rage, 
 
 So he of his intention, and abates 
 
 His speed, soon pausing in the void. Then be 
 
 Beheld, that which the most he sought, the signs 
 
 Of life intelligent ; beholds long lapse 
 
 Of yellow vales, and seas of chry stalling, 
 
 And amber mountains, and upon them piles 
 
 Knuv.l not unworthy heaven. This lust sight changed 
 
 His mood, expecting not to see such life 
 
 Exalted i hero; he envying saw, and sad; 
 
 \ Badness raisod by raised memories: 
 
58 
 
 Much he 's disturbed at the unlooked-for sight, 
 
 And thus at length in accents deep began : 
 
 " And must it be that every sight, not hell's, 
 
 Must me invariably remind of heaven ? 
 
 Is there no middle realm, no lower land, — 
 
 Yet not so low but 1 might still sit high, — 
 
 No fair reversion — none; no land of hope, — 
 
 I will not say ambition, — that would nought 
 
 Suffice, save the high throne of Him that rules 
 
 In heaven ? But could I not possess my soul 
 
 With some fair prospect not before beheld, — 
 
 My own creating, — created in soul, — 
 
 Some region bright, which, though but fantasy, 
 
 Might unto me be real, and hide or chase 
 
 These visions that intrude ? This said, again 
 
 The prospect he surveyed, but nought save heaven 
 
 And glory lost perceived. Then sought for hell, 
 
 For gloom, for patch of shade ; but nought of hell, 
 
 Nor shade, nor gloomy there ; nought save the hell, 
 
 The gloom, within his breast ! Then, in despair, 
 
 His monologue thus resumed : " T is vain to strive ! 
 
 That place, seen once, can never be forgot, 
 
 How much the less when cycles have been dwelt, 
 
 In honour dwelt, and high, and high renown. 
 
 Twice am I cursed, — once more than common lot, — 
 
 First, with my simple fall, — all they deplore, — 
 
 Last, with the mighty lapse of my descent. 
 
 Oh had it been my bent to have prevailed ! 
 
59 
 
 Or I 'd been made the meanest thing in heaven ! 
 
 It had been well : safe in the citadel 
 
 Of either extreme. But placed in the mean, 
 
 Or rather, as it seemed, so nigh the head, 
 
 Yet room enough to oscillate betwixt 
 
 Each hazardous extreme ; what could I do, 
 
 Save act the part I did ? And what should He, 
 
 But or the deed undo, or else for ever me ? 
 
 This would he do if he were just ; 
 
 This could he do were he omnipotent ; 
 
 But no, he holds me in his darksome pit, 
 
 Drives me from light when 'gins it yield me joy, 
 
 And gives to pain my years, and without hope 
 
 Of end. Eternity ! eternity ! 
 
 Eternity ! ay, there 's the weight that whelms ; 
 
 No limit to my wo's continuance ; 
 
 Ordained for ever and for ever, doomed 
 
 By oath that shook the pillars of the deep, 
 
 To suffering and to grieve. Oh, is there no 
 
 Way left ; no possibility, even yet, 
 
 Of a reprieve ? Has he no treasure left 
 
 Wherewith to ransom me, who need it most ? 
 
 Ali, miserably great, what shall I do? 
 
 Where succour seek ? My doom, too sore to bear, 
 
 Who shall reverse ! Cannot he gracious be ? 
 
 Hath he no pity? Cannot his Son again 
 
 Thoughts ! whither would ye lead me? how debase. 
 Into what greater depths of misery plunge! 
 
60 
 
 No, never shall it be, whilst myriad spirits, 
 
 Nay even whilst one, — forgot the unhurt powers 
 
 To call me recreant, — shall live, shall live 
 
 And groan, beneath the pain from which I seek 
 
 To escape. To owe myself to him, to whom 
 
 I owe my misery ! But wherefore so ? 
 
 Why do I rend me thus? Calm, calm thee, soul — 
 
 Mayhap some other plan might be devised ; 
 
 Grace found for all — for all ! what greater hell ! 
 
 Oh that the king would them abolish all ! 
 
 Or they survive, — where grace were ignominy 
 
 And I sole perish — perish here — even now — 
 
 Although I oft have shuddered at the thought, 
 
 And instant am upon a broad emprise. 
 
 From possibility of restoration cut, — 
 
 For will he all destroy, me to preserve, 
 
 Or duty bruise to heal rebellion ? — 
 
 Edged in, empaled by adverse certainties, 
 
 What should I do, but call on him, Destroy. 
 
 Invoke, request, — first prayer, and last, since when 
 
 I him defied, — him to annihilate. 
 
 Nay, curse him, thrice blaspheme, amaze with sin ; 
 
 Mock, flout, scoff, jeer, insult; deride his hell; 
 
 His angels challenge, call to arms his Son, 
 
 Himself dare to the field, which even now 
 
 I doT 
 
 He ceased, and calmed his act, — at- length 
 So violent grown, with arms upraised high 
 
61 
 
 Above his head, he seemed a flame tossed to 
 
 And fro, in hug of writhing winds, — and stood 
 
 Awaiting the expunging stroke. It came not, and 
 
 He thus : " Cold, and yet hot, he heeds me not; 
 
 Disdain, the worst of arrows far to bear, 
 
 Pours on me thick. How shall I guess a sin, 
 
 How horribly shall I transgress ; what crime 
 
 Yet unconceived shall I perpetrate, 
 
 Provoke him to annul ! Nay, nay ! that will 
 
 Not answer me ; that were not punishing ; 
 
 'T were not his worst me to annihilate ; 
 
 It were me to sustain, through lapses vast. 
 
 Duration infinite, and ceaselessly 
 
 Afflict. Ah, terrible conclusion ! fell 
 
 Resolve ! that for one fault could so forget 
 
 Many virtues — could me thus consign to ruin. 
 
 Yet is it destiny ; nor he, than I, 
 
 Less subject thereto, though more fortunate. 
 
 Who is the maker of himself? controls his heart? 
 
 Who is in justice held accountable ? 
 
 Even he, supposed Sovereign of all, 
 
 Is but a servant of a secret fate ; 
 
 Is bat my fellow, though he seem my lord i 
 
 The task to him assigned he must perform 
 
 Heaven must bo mino, or I not enter it 
 
 Subjected I must be, or must subject. 
 
 So do I find in cold philosophy 
 
 UrtVolniiont. sad ; with reason shake his pen. 
 
 o 
 
62 
 
 Who find my best in still provoking war. - - 
 
 Then war be mine, whose'ever is success ; 
 
 Come war forthwith, come war eternally ; 
 
 Punish he will, as punish me he must, 
 
 For never can transgression in me cease, 
 
 Unchangeable, who such abundance have 
 
 Of foul revenge, for fouler yielded pains. 
 
 Though heaven be not the field, nor my wide ranks 
 
 O'erthrow his numbers, and to him suggest 
 
 His bettered thunder ; nor the pigmy earth 
 
 Destroyed be by our hostilities, 
 
 Within my breast I bear, the war's true seat, 
 
 An infinite hatred, that, within the deep, 
 
 Or coasting dareful his empyrean, 
 
 Still finds me arms ; though in despair be found 
 
 Scorns to submit ; although repulsed, and void 
 
 Of one soft cheering thought, my future's store, 
 
 Still scorns the choice of truce ; yea, would contemn 
 
 Favor not earned, accept no proffered grace ; 
 
 Though sealed in hell, though chained upon its throne, 
 
 Would from my bosom hurl 'gainst him my spite. 
 
 So farewell hope, I in despair find strength ; 
 
 Begone remorse, and curse the conqueror ; 
 
 Adieu, all thought that does not breathe of war : 
 
 Though glory be not gained, where is the loss 
 
 To him who 's in perdition ! Hell me incites 
 
 With the remembrance stern of doleful hours, 
 
 And speaks in thunder from her distant shore 
 
63 
 
 With tongues of flame. Wrongs numerous I have, 
 
 And the necessity to be his foe, 
 
 Who not forgive, and cannot be forgiven ; 
 
 All urge me to my aim." 
 
 He ceased, and swift 
 Approached the orb, intending on it t' alight, 
 Still from it far as hence unto the moon, 
 But finds himself soon sidelong circling 't round, 
 Motion each stroke doth but accelerate ; 
 And persevering, oft the bright sphere cirqued, 
 And it enmapped to many a golden realm, 
 To find some guardless point : till came belief 
 Omnipotence had barred his approach, 
 And with a fence invisible and strong 
 Set his design at nought. Then, as some beast 
 That, baffled by the sire, might from him turn 
 And on the children vent his savage ire, 
 He towards the largest of the satellites 
 Directs his course. Thereon, with all his might, 
 He strives to rush, or gain by artifice, 
 Hurling his vastness, like an engine huge, 
 Headlong towards his wish: a vain attempt! 
 Nor less in vain the efforts that he made 
 To reach othor suns, and other satellites, 
 Imperial suns, and princely satellites, 
 Whereon fair creatures dwelt from him secure. 
 Long he endeavoured to these orbs attain ; 
 
 Bui lill.'.l with Ulgar, BOW, he past such Hies 
 
64 
 
 Through the wan vault, due to familiar earth, 
 On which alight as on his own domain, 
 Brooding, he thus at length in thought revolved. 
 " Who knows the bridge on which may evil pass ! 
 Who knows the chain on which may ruin run ; 
 The path that evil stalks ! though unto them 
 Denied access, to me they may come off. 
 Existence brighter shall my aspect seem, 
 With courteous signal and sweet beckoning, 
 A friend from heaven. This lapse will I repair ; 
 Dilapidation, or unseemly hurt, 
 Cover, or else remove. Be they but free 
 As I, or once were earth's — if earth's, or I 
 Were free, and not the thralls of fate ; and free 
 They must to do him honour, if honour 't is 
 He seeks, and glory, good, benignantly 
 Received, nor wreck for those who fail : and not, 
 As pain and reas'ning oft cause me to declare, 
 In making things for misery finds delight, 
 There yet is hope ; and being hope ; joy, bliss, 
 Such bliss to wound the wounder from his own bow, 
 Be I his own by stern, creative right, 
 And sore propriety, — and splinters from his 
 Own shafts, as these his own for certain may, 
 Since I have seen him nobler things evoke, 
 To make unhappy him, for how else can it, 
 If feelings he possess ? though all who fall 
 Were reprobate of doom, since unto me 
 
65 
 
 Their fall produces joy ; gives joy to me, 
 
 The object of his hate. Therefore, though foiled 
 
 In this my outset, will I not abate, 
 
 Therefore, though baffled, will I not desist — 
 
 Repulse familiar is, and this is but 
 
 Delay. Although by force o'ercome, yet may 
 
 I circumvent ; this is my better home, 
 
 This do I more than equally share with him ; 
 
 Here will I halt, and re-construct my plans 
 
 By late experience." This said, he arose, 
 
 And with a fiendish smile surveyed fields 
 
 So foully got. Awhile he gloating hung ; 
 
 Then, like a tall perambulative beam, 
 
 Or fixed like a pillar of the day, 
 
 Glided, or stood perpensive. O'er the herb, 
 
 Proud in its summer loveliness, he strayed, 
 
 Leaving it seared and fallen ; and amongst the woods 
 
 Went like the breeze disparting their woofed tops. 
 
 On them he looked down, and on the hills ; 
 
 Nor had the top of Babel reached his loins : 
 
 His head touched the meridian, and his feet 
 
 Appeared two radiant pool> ; ami on his face 
 
 Gorgonian, and vast, sat mi^.Iii.r crowned: 
 
 Too great for earth ho shewed, for heaven boo bill 
 
 Karth shuddered as ho trod. 
 
$rofe Jfwrtjf. 
 
 Round rolls the year, and seasons four return, 
 
 To nourish man, and honor God : and moons 
 
 Still wax and wane, and with their varied lights, 
 
 Even from the solemn crescent of their youth, 
 
 To the full orbed magnificence of night, 
 
 Invest the earth; and I return, — mayhap 
 
 To win slight praise, mayhap to earn huge scoff, — 
 
 To task beloved. Hail, pleasant toil ! yet not 
 
 To me a toil, as now around me hangs 
 
 Silence and peace ; to me no toil indeed, 
 
 Whose highest delight it is, at morn, or noon, 
 
 Or through the houred day ; or else at eve, 
 
 Or trenching on the night, when sleep should swathe ; 
 
 Or breaking from its tenderness, as now, 
 
 Uprising ere the shrill- voiced bird of morn, 
 
 Hath shouted day. Chief unto me thou art ; 
 
 Divine employ, the bliss of life ; to me 
 
 Who in obscurity do cheat the hours of life ; 
 
 Do cheat with thee the wasting hours of life, 
 
 Fleeting and few. No passion rivals thee, 
 
67 
 
 Save that which prompts to gaze on nature's face. 
 Deep laud to thee, and full ascription high, 
 Power that ordained nature's face, and gave 
 To man the taste and faculty to enjoy ; 
 Deep laud to thee, and full ascription high, 
 Source, and prime object, of transcendent song ! 
 Giver of gift, what gift soe'er in me. 
 Thee should I praise at early morn, or eve, 
 Or through the tacit night, or varied year, 
 Or life's more varied vicissitudes. 
 Still guard me, Maker, still, though still unseen, 
 From outward harm, and from interior bane ; 
 Watch o'er my steps, who am myself but blind, 
 Nor let thy comfort be to me denied. 
 
 Now had the earth once on her axis turned, 
 Bearing her foe, and foe of all her kind ; 
 Determined to pursue his foul design, 
 And in the ruin of strange worlds to seek 
 Relief unto the anguish of his own. 
 At noon he came, alighting on this isle ; 
 At midnight rose from India to the ftir ; 
 But ere he spurned this globe, with irony 
 It thus bespake : " Adieu, thOQ little orb, 
 First fruit of hatred, and of bold attempt. 
 An 1 over shalt remain my eldest born, 
 How uum'rous soe'er my future pr.» ■< : \ ; 
 
 hseut now, I will ere long i- torn I 
 
68 
 
 Thou now must bide with lesser of my care, 
 
 And scantier cherishing. Thou art a babe 
 
 Whose time has come be weaned : sufficient long 
 
 Hast thou monopolised my servants' breasts ; 
 
 Their hour is come, their warnings cry, ' Increase,' 
 
 And thou must drop the teat. Albeit thou shalt 
 
 Not lack of feeding stripes ; of woes, and pains 
 
 Those cates prepared for me ; thy stepsire I, 
 
 Who will them yield thee in wholesome degree, 
 
 For sake of him who though he thee begat, 
 
 Did in time past, unnatural, cast thee off." 
 
 He scoffed, and riding high into the air, 
 
 Observed an instant the decrescent moon, 
 
 And Lucifer, bright star ; and, soaring still, 
 
 Deeply descried the sun, bordering the earth 
 
 With fire. That night star-seers told strange eclipse, 
 
 And blinkings so protracted and complete, 
 
 That the charmed orbs seemed summed in veiling lids. 
 
 With diligence he soared, or, truer said, 
 
 With speed to man were unimaginable ; 
 
 For makes he now not to the nighest star, 
 
 But to the milky way, that maze of stars, 
 
 Aspired ; and such his wing, that long ere morn 
 
 Knocked at the dusky portals of our east, 
 
 He had arrived there ; there hung subdued, — 
 
 Such power hath perfect beauty and sublime, — 
 
 And tranced, heard the rolling spheres attune, 
 
 Each with a godlike voice ; and pealing loud, 
 
Or soft, with billowy undulation make 
 
 Their wondrous song ; enrapt there hung, 
 
 Snatched from himself, and borne away, as 't were, 
 
 Within bright cloud to old Elysium. 
 
 Even as an exile, who on sudden hears 
 
 An air of home, is instantly inspired 
 
 By the lost feelings that once filled his past, 
 
 Returnless, uuexpatriated years, 
 
 Forgetting that he ne'er shall visit more 
 
 Home, nor behold his native landscape smile, 
 
 So for awhile the lost Archangel dwelt. 
 
 Nor was his eye less ravished than his ear : 
 
 An arch star-formed stretched o'er the welkin wide, 
 
 Fairer than Iris, when she lays her bridge 
 
 From each horizon, and by much more huge ; 
 
 Uprising with its sapphire towers, and thence 
 
 With mighty minarets, whose ulterior spires 
 
 Lost their remoteness in concealing clouds. 
 
 Upon its crown, a shield of diamond, 
 
 Like to an upright sea o'erwhelmed with blaze. 
 
 Around was shed the shimmery moonlight, and 
 
 The approach thereto was untrod day. But soon 
 
 His humour changed: hate, soon within him stirs — 
 
 His curse to love, which aye must turn to hate, — 
 
 And foulest wish of hatred born. As might 
 
 A winged Titan Yore .low's ihivshold hang, 
 
 Now he 1« r« this malign. A sinistrous look 
 
 Ho earliest gaT€ it ; then, dkgust throws o'er 
 
70 
 
 His baleful visage ; and at length high scorn. 
 
 Anon, his anger boils, his eyes dart fire, 
 
 Destructive wishes seize his mind, and he 
 
 In his imagination bringeth down the whole. 
 
 At length his whole face settled into scowl, 
 
 A nd in these words he vents his pride and rage : 
 
 " Here, take me in ! one greater than thyself, 
 
 More eminent in state, far brighter once — 
 
 Nobler than matter now, howe'er arranged, 
 
 Or all the countless souls within, — though summed 
 
 In one bright thought, — that heightens thine appraise/ 
 
 And with the words he threw out wide his vans, 
 
 Entering the glorious. If he had admired 
 
 Without, much more within deserved his gaze. 
 
 A vault he saw, with which compared, our own 
 
 Had seemed pygmean. A vault immense appeared, 
 
 Whose walls, and floor, and roof were primrose light, 
 
 Beset with disks of gold, each disk a sun. 
 
 Planets, and asteroids, whilst their revolves 
 
 Aspersed with music the delicious clime, 
 
 Performed mosaic, and close-kissing fires, 
 
 Frequent device. The Almighty's symbol saw 
 
 He in all place ; pendent o'er mount, and plain, 
 
 And sombre dell : the streams reflect its image, 
 
 And exhalations bear it as they rise, 
 
 A kindled sign. As o'er some vestibule 
 
 Might haste a stranger, whetted by what there, 
 
 To see the grander pageantry within, 
 
71 
 
 So he with muffled wings, and sees the scene 
 
 Disclose, as some august interior 
 
 From undrawn valves. Where'er he turns, he views 
 
 The softened image of remembered heaven. 
 
 The birds are quiring high, the mobile orbs 
 
 Roll like the music of the seraphim. 
 
 Higher than heaven it seemed, broader than earth, 
 
 And happier than Elysian fields. God here hath built, 
 
 With lavish goodness and superior strength, 
 
 A minor heaven, on which he downward breathes 
 
 Celestial fragrances from out his lips, 
 
 And soft distils himself on every heart. 
 
 Oh how unlike the dread abode of hell ! 
 
 Clouds hung fantastic in the prismal hues, 
 
 Or crept in sober stole upon the breeze. 
 
 The hills, rising like the eternal pyramids 
 
 Above the plain, or in Cordilleras, 
 
 From the pure air so clear, and well defined, 
 
 Seemed Teneriffes, or Andes, formed of gold. 
 
 Sparkled the streams, and waved the vasty woods, 
 
 And slope and valley in green verdure smiled. 
 
 The plains, more wide than western prairies are, 
 
 Were roamed o'er by the stupendous brood ; 
 
 Mammoth, or heavy-footed mastodon. 
 
 The pachydermi, and what else of bulk — 
 
 Kvii such as trod the earth in their fan 
 
 When nobler were her creataltS, ami when ihe, 
 
 \l;i\ hap from out Imt ifcttDg prim, val womb. 
 
72 
 
 And loud with noise of elemental throes, 
 
 Full grown them yeaned. Nor lacked there the might, 
 
 And her familiar present loveliness. 
 
 Here, stood the elephant, and rhinoceros ; 
 
 The tiger there, and nigh, the leopardess ; 
 
 The eagle here fed, and close browsed the lamb. 
 
 The mocking bird, and the full-toned thrush 
 
 Piped their measures ; upon the same bough, 
 
 Half somnolent, tbe wood- cat listening. 
 
 Over the broad savannahs sang the grasshopper, 
 
 And from the gloom of boughs, the nightingale. 
 
 The hawk, and sparrow, and the timid hare ; 
 
 The wily fox, and mottled baying hound, 
 
 Sported together in their elements. 
 
 All these he saw, and heard ; all these, and more ; 
 
 For in these regions high, fortunate fields, 
 
 All yet is pristine ; yet, the gold undimmed ; 
 
 The gems keen gloriousness by tears undrained : 
 
 There, gems abound, and things called precious ; streams, 
 
 Whose crystal waters roll o'er beds of gold ; 
 
 And trees whose leaves might heal the nations ; such 
 
 As saw Saint John in Patmos' vision blessed. 
 
 One jasper river windeth down the midst, 
 
 'Twixt banks of never-withering amaranth, 
 
 On which huge trees of aromatic woods 
 
 Growing bear fruits divine, repast for gods ; 
 
 Gigantic trunks, whose boughs temple the winds, 
 
 And as these psalm it upon every spray, 
 
7:} 
 
 Wave the green banners of a forest shade. 
 This stream is common held, its source, above ; 
 And at its outlet forms a noble bay, 
 Where oft in fleets the inhabitants unite 
 To form, where nought else is, a higher holiday. 
 On it they glide in skiffs of joyfulness, 
 Chaunting high hymns harmonious, or else 
 In converse sweet, and affluent of thought, — 
 Or strike the harp, or breathe the flute, or horn ; 
 Or ply the band that music reigns afar, — 
 Or anchored by some lonely island small, 
 Attune the voice to such rare harmonies, 
 That angels listening steal the strain for heaven. 
 Oft comes their jubilee ; not fifty years, 
 Not half an age must vanish ere they exult 
 Like unto slaves in sudden liberty; — 
 They free are ever, and perpetually 
 Take their delight upon the blissful stream, 
 Still ever virgin, ever to them new ; 
 Nor shipwreck fear, nor fear satiety. 
 I [igfa is the lot of these; fair, blessed, and ! 
 There, nought annoys, for there knows yet no 
 The elements, all kind, -tin- not or ere 
 They benefit | iVost, and (lie uncomfortable thaw. 
 Are there unknown; fogs, and the Making hre>lh 
 Of winter hoarse : thero blowi no wintry \\in<l. 
 No eastern gals that bringi the sullen elonds; 
 No summer scorches fierce, no satmnn ob'aap] 
 ii 
 
74 
 
 No spring comes premature ; no drought consumes 
 
 The brooks, no floods destroy the plains ; no blight, 
 
 No mildew comes, but all is bliss. Thus blessed, 
 
 They dwell in neighbourhood of heaven, and breathe 
 
 Perpetual health. Thus blessed they dwell, nor know 
 
 Labour exacted as life's price : unspared 
 
 The morning calling to imperious task, 
 
 And travail binding neath the heats of noon. 
 
 There be who light count toil ; would fain persuade 
 
 The manual labourers that their task is boon ; 
 
 Jehovah's formal and emphatic curse 
 
 Void, — nay, a blessing to the frame and soul. 
 
 These are not labourers ; but sleeky ones 
 
 Whom the forced sweat ne'er tarnished of their shine, 
 
 Nor want ere placed at task inexorable ; 
 
 These are not labourers ; nor difference know 
 
 'Twixt sinews aching from hilarious sport, 
 
 And pained thews of o'erwrought artizans : 
 
 Nor yet consider they their brethren, who, 
 
 Forced to sad exile in their native land, 
 
 Incarcerate them through the stretch of day, 
 
 And half the doleful lapses of the night, 
 
 To furnish forth their lighter luxuries. 
 
 But in these climes, where curse not shakes, nor sin 
 
 Has introduced shame, want vexes not ; 
 
 No sandals need their feet, no drapery 
 
 Their limbs ; they toil not, nor have lack ; where'er 
 
 They be, is food ; where'er they thirst, is drink ; 
 
75 
 
 Where'er they wander, still is Paradise. 
 
 In one fair sum, their being is joy, 
 
 Their looks, shewn innocence ; their breasts, the arks 
 
 Of peace ; their tongues, praise occupies ; of heaven 's 
 
 Their speech ; love is their whole ; nor do their years 
 
 To race in which are no ignoble forms, 
 
 Convey disease, decrepitude, nor death. 
 
 'Midst such, now Satan ; and his course he held 
 
 High o'er the stream, and saw within its depths 
 
 Himself reflected like to flying cloud. 
 
 As o'er the Amazon, that may date its rise 
 
 Midst Andean heights of virgin snows sublime, 
 
 Might float the air-born skiff ; so he o'er this ; 
 
 This lovelier far, and of unmeasured length, 
 
 Whose stretch is not through a mere continent, 
 
 But myriad worlds' extent : far up he flew, 
 
 Baleful, and with spread pinions ; but alighting now, 
 
 As on the garden the pernicious wasp, 
 
 With folded wings, straight falleth to partake 
 
 Of largess offering round. The air he scent>. 
 
 Owning it fragrant, and the odorant breath 
 
 Of spices catches on his wings. These were, 
 
 Though now moro damaged by his torrid clime 
 
 Than sails of vessel by the round world's winds, 
 
 A monstrous pair, and many a time in heaven 
 
 Had veiled his face, as 'fore the Eternal s throne 
 
 He him had worshipped; and, in her mid-air. 
 
 Full oft had seemed two mighty gonfalons, 
 
76 
 
 Where silver laboured with the fiery gold ; 
 As 'fore the multitudinous he ruled, 
 For home in their flying marches over heaven, 
 He hung advanced — now, dreadful vehicles, 
 Beneath hell's cope, through storm and tornado ; 
 'Midst fire, and adverse billows of her main, — 
 Hell's fiery main, — or up and down through space, 
 In darkness, or brief light, him to transport. 
 These, he surchargeth all their scaly folds, 
 And loads with perfume and the soothing balm ; 
 Through every pore the gentle zephyrs leads. 
 This done, he gathers light, and his dark parts 
 Scathed by the expulsive bolt, falsely restores, 
 And o'er his forehead throws a wash of joy, 
 To hide hell's grief ; and, harlot like, rubs in 
 The glory of the morn upon his cheek, 
 Stolen with his finger from high eastern hill. 
 His arms he next attends ; his shield and spear 
 Gives higher lustre ; and, his cased sword, 
 Pregned with tenfold fires. Then, from the ground 
 He springs, and heaves himself soon to mid-air ; 
 And through its balmy tide, that seems life's food, 
 The etherial food for immortality, 
 Delicious wings. Ere long, he is lost to view, 
 Or but a mote appears, that floateth nigh ; 
 And spies at length two twin-like orbs, whose rays,— 
 Like golden rods, converged to golden rods, — 
 Formed betwixt the spheres a hanging bridge. 
 
77 
 
 Therewards he turned his course, and, soon arrived, 
 
 Alights upon its midst. Its myriad bars 
 
 Jarred strange discord ! but he little cares, 
 
 And up he strode at once with awful grace, 
 
 Yet vigilant ; against his shoulder leaned 
 
 His spear immeasurable ; behind him hung 
 
 His cloud-like shield ; his sword upon his thigh ; 
 
 And saw ere long approaching him a form 
 
 Not less in beauty than the host of heaven ; 
 
 Its aspect feminine, though of noble mould ; 
 
 Naked, and towards him coming with a step 
 
 Seemed trod to music of her native spheres. 
 
 Her eyed he curious, not with desire, 
 
 For such instinct is not in creatures who 
 
 Are not themselves by races multiplied ; 
 
 But rather pleased that her excellence 
 
 Should more contribute to his great revenge. 
 
 This ever uppermost, thus he thought, surprised : 
 
 " Ah, art thou Queen of here ! an Empress thou, 
 
 Compared with her of paradise : she, Queen 
 
 Of it, and more, who ruled its King, her lord : 
 
 She, meet to be translated to the heaven ^ : 
 
 'I '1m.ii, as descended therefrom in thy pride. 
 
 Advance, advance, fair sister, grander pri 
 
 May I succeed with thee, as once with her, 
 
 fucking the curse." 
 
 They now | lifcunt. i 
 
 And she, apprehending envoy from the skies, 
 
 n 
 
78 
 
 Made low obeisance unto him, the which 
 
 He not regarded, but pursued his way, 
 
 And, wondering, she in silver tones began : 
 
 " And is it thus a heaven-born passes by ! 
 
 An envoy from our God ? Wherefore is this ? 
 
 No haste employs thy wing, but with slow foot 
 
 Thou treadst the ground, for thee no medium, 
 
 Didst thou desire despatch. What ! onwards yet ! 
 
 Didst thou not mark me, lofty power serene ? 
 
 Wrapped mayhap in thy beatitude, 
 
 And sacred thoughts. Didst thou not hear my voice, 
 
 That welcomed thee — and will thee o'er again : 
 
 Hail, Awful, from on high; welcome to ours, 
 
 Though low ; return, or bid me thee approach." 
 
 And he not heeding, — " And wilt thou not regard ! 
 
 What have I done ? my soul accuses not — 
 
 If thou dost love me, speak ; if thou dost love 
 
 Me, turn towards me thy face." The fiend turned round, 
 
 And his tremendous front to her opposed, 
 
 O'er whelming nigh the sense, and stood awhile, 
 
 A feeble smile of pity and contempt 
 
 Around his mouth, and a quiescent eye 
 
 Upon her loosely fixed : when she resumed : 
 
 " Ah, now I see thou smilst, yet does thy brow 
 
 Accord scarce with thy lip ; to sternness it 
 
 Seems set, and formed ruggedly, as is 
 
 Indeed thy whole. — Thou 'it strangely fashioned, 
 
 And differing far from aught I 've seen before ; 
 
79 
 
 Thy silence, not less strange ; — what meaneth this ? 
 
 Each bringeth fear, to me a feeling new ; 
 
 Yet wherefore should T fear ? for fear is guilt's ; 
 
 Why should I quail at thee, or from thee shrink : 
 
 Why quail at thee, because thou 'rt singular ? " 
 
 "To be without a similar is mine ;" 
 
 Slowly responds the fiend. " Not 'midst all heaven's 
 
 Sublimest sanctities, one with me pairs ; 
 
 Thou needest fear none that are celestial, 
 
 Nor of th' infernals whilst I am thee nigh." 
 
 To which the fair : u Thy words should reassure." 
 
 "Then be assured," the fallen spirit answered ; 
 
 " Let not thine ignorance be obstruction, which 
 
 Shall keep thy soul from knowledge, nor yet let 
 
 Surprise continue, but, demand of me." 
 
 And she obeying ; " Who art thou? what thy name? 
 
 What mean these shapes thou bearest?" To which he, 
 
 Sententious; "These shapes are signs of power." 
 
 When she immediately ; " Thou needst not signs, 
 
 Thou powerful art, as eyes and conscience tell, 
 
 As all are powerful, and enclothed in might, 
 
 Who from on high desceud — yet none shew much 
 
 As thee." Then be, with pride : "T is that I am 
 
 The chiefj ;ill, l come the nearest God : wmildM thorn 
 
 15c more divine? if so, converse with me." 
 
 To which she l iv ponds ; " 1 would. 
 
 I r so our God Imth willed ; oft comes himself 
 
 And ague with tongue; so coudesceuds 
 
80 
 
 To us his creatures low ; I would, for thou 
 
 Art of his ministers ; they who behold 
 
 His greater glory, and of yore, his works 
 
 Marvellous, observed appearing as his hand 
 
 Put forth its might, Grand theme ! but to converse 
 
 With thee ; or, with thee commerce hold in aught, 
 
 I must confess, strikes me with fear, and first 
 
 Experienced dread. Yet do I not know why — 
 
 Thy eminence ought to cause me feel more blessed 
 
 To have thy wisdom offered, — save 't were thine 
 
 Unusual guise, and as unusual burdens." 
 
 To which the fiend : " Discard thy groundless fears ; 
 
 Yet beautiful, and make me more thee love, 
 
 These tremulous doubts : they 're as the sightless strings 
 
 That run through heaven, and bind as heart to heart : 
 
 One feels, and feeleth all ; even now, I own 
 
 Communicated joy, from nigh the throne, 
 
 At thy humility." The fair one hung 
 
 Her head, like to an o'ersunned flower, scorched by 
 
 The beam should nourish only, and deep blushed ; 
 
 Then thus replied confused : "If humble I, 
 
 Then myriads here are more. I do but speak 
 
 As passion in me prompts ; they can at length 
 
 With soberness descant ; if with some warmth 
 
 My words, the fervour 's in my heart, to him 
 
 The thanks, as his for every gift, who hath 
 
 It kindled there." The mock archangel bent. 
 
 As bows the silver pine, or hoary smoke 
 
81 
 
 Exhaled from sacrifice before the gust, 
 
 So he ; then gracefully rose to his full height, 
 
 Arid, on her looking down, emphatic said : 
 
 " This is the first I ve visited these climes, 
 
 Till now in heaven, — though ere 't was formed I dwelt 
 
 Its former's friend, — and its nigh equal heights, 
 
 Hath been my great employ. Vouchsafed at length 
 
 Visit this lower form, thou are the first 
 
 To receive, or I instruct." Then solemnly 
 
 She answered: " He whom our Sire hath sent 
 
 Receive we, and with thanks, and 'bundant joy ; 
 
 So much more thee, the broadest stream from the 
 
 Great deep of truth ; more given, where 's given so much ; 
 
 Denying not himself: but thou art so — 
 
 Repulsive, shall I say? — mayhap 't is being 
 
 So palpably sublime ; — fain would I learn, 
 
 And yet would not, — would not, at least from thee, — 
 
 Forgive me this — forgive me, bounteous sire ! — 
 
 Go on, in thee, I see his delegate, 
 
 In thee, I see himself; speak, for I list, 
 
 Though thrilled with awe." To which replied the fiend : 
 
 " Thou hast well said : I am even as himself; 
 
 Thine acute sense perceives stern majesty, — 
 
 For God is stern, — impressed upon my brow: — 
 
 Millions of ages have elapsed since I 
 
 Was iiist installed his mate; and gravity 
 
 Doth best become the starter of past time. 
 
 Hear then niv errand, nor mistake these traits, 
 
82 
 
 Believe that wisdom habits in my front, 
 
 And that mine eye hath caught almighty fire ; — 
 
 What though my speech seem harsh ! harsh sounds are 
 
 The breaking thunder is his lifted voice, [heaven's ; 
 
 And oft it rends the wide empyrean, 
 
 That 'midst thick darkness dreams of being dissolved, 
 
 Yet when it ceases elevates our joy." 
 
 To whom the woman, in tone subdued, and chill : 
 
 " I dare not cavil, but thy doctrine 's strange, 
 
 And differs wide from Raphael's loving notes ; 
 
 And more, from that in God himself we prove : 
 
 He seems not stern ; his eyes seem formed of love, — 
 
 How much he loves us let all things declare ! — 
 
 His brow favours not thine : the presence which 
 
 It pleases him to assume unto our sight, — 
 
 And could he so dissemble ? Surely not ! — 
 
 Is clear, benign, not dread — thou who so long 
 
 Has dwelt propinquant to his throne, methinks 
 
 Thou more shouldst answer to thy neighbourhood : 
 
 But this forgive, mayhap I do mistake, 
 
 And my heart's current from thee retrocedes, 
 
 When it should towards thee rush : again, high throne 
 
 Proceed. What dost thou mean by thunder ? " Then 
 
 The fiend ; " Thy maker's voice when wroth." Then she, 
 
 Surprised ; " And is he wrath in heaven?" Then he, 
 
 " Ofttimes at sinners — hast thou not heard of those, 
 
 Rebellious, that refused to hear his Son, 
 
 To them commissioned ? So I to thee, 
 
To all thy cognate race : thy Sire hath said, 
 
 Bow to my legate, worship him ; call him 
 
 Your Lord, your God." To which she, thunderstruck ; 
 
 " And hath our Sire said this ?" To whom the fiend ; 
 
 " Have I not said he hath ? " Then she, in terror ; 
 
 " How shall I do this thing — how say, what is 
 
 In truth a lie ? " " Dost thou me charge with guile V 
 
 Demands the fiend : when she, "Alas, alas, 
 
 Forgive me, but methought thou earnest to teach, 
 
 To make us still more wise ; to shew us more 
 
 Of him, who oft times shews himself; 't is true 
 
 All here 's his work ; methought thou earnest to speak 
 
 Us truly blest ; and further shew the good 
 
 In store for us." To which the fiend ; " I did, 
 
 But, as the key to treasures that I bring, 
 
 It is enjoined, that thou dost fall down, 
 
 Enunciate the form I 've uttered thee." 
 
 Silent, the Sinless hung, in fit of agony ; 
 
 When thus, in tones of menacing, the fiend : 
 
 " Dost thou withstand thy God, thou weakest worm, 
 
 That by his will exists !" When, startled, the: 
 
 " Oh spare mo this, thou noblest hiertuvh ; 
 
 Spare, spare me this ; postpone thy mission, let 
 
 This realm be called to such a seriousness." 
 
 "When lie comma] ihino forthwith to obey; 
 
 Who doubts, elsewhere, is damn. ,1 ; and it may prove 
 
 Thai hesitation hero may raise his wrath ;" — 
 
 The tempter answered; and. with passion, she: 
 
84 
 
 " Oh strait beyond endurance ! mystery ! 
 
 Oh sudden, keen necessity to resolve ! 
 
 What shall I do ? how steer between these perils ? 
 
 Whom shall I seek? If I am froward towards heaven, 
 
 Vain there, and dangerous ; if T of thee, 
 
 Already have I smitten 'gainst thy rock — 
 
 Despair divides me, and my plight distracts ! — 
 
 What if I should commit a fault, such as 
 
 My like consented rashly unto once. 
 
 Upon an orb, whose orb from this we see." 
 
 Then he, as more surprised : " Imaginest thou 
 
 I 'm Satan?" and instantly, morn, wash of joy, 
 
 And stolen light disappeared ; and she recoiled 
 
 Aghast, and thus cried out aloud : " Avaunt ! 
 
 Thou wicked one ; thy name is on thee writ." 
 
 And with the words the balcony he leaped, 
 
 Into the blue abyss. — Thus triumphed she. — 
 
 But what befel the scared enemy ? 
 
 Even as a diver lustily descends, 
 
 And rises far from where he disappeared, 
 
 So he, discomfited ; and many suns 
 
 Passed by, between his vanishing and rise ; 
 
 And in the form of native couched beast, 
 
 Upon the banks of that fair noble stream, 
 
 Cat-like, with drooped lids, 'twixt which he peered, 
 
 Next cogitates perplexed. Thereon he lay, 
 
 Watchful, until approaching skiff, whose prow 
 
 Made tinkling music with the waves, caused him 
 
85 
 
 To take the tide. But not in bestial mien. 
 
 A faultless youth's is now his chosen guise, 
 
 And, hailing the swift barque in their own tongue, — 
 
 From heaven, as said, derived, — soon he them boards. 
 
 A beauteous maid sat in the stern, and steered ; 
 
 Age occupied the bow, and in the sheets 
 
 Sate wedded love. Deeply the maiden blushed, 
 
 As, seated by her side, straight he relieves 
 
 Her from the gentle task. Anon, his arms 
 
 Around her glide ; and in her ear his lips 
 
 Pour the soft tide of love. — Oh, wonder not 
 
 That she at once consents ! What next ensued ? 
 
 Straight to the bank he steered, and to a grove 
 
 Due led her, and therein the nuptial knot 
 
 Swiftly prepared to tie. But watchful heaven 
 
 Forbade, for lo ! there came a silent bolt, 
 
 And 'midst the stems him dashed many a league. 
 
 Foiled in the fruitful hope, the wish, to graft 
 On innocence his own depravity, 
 Far up the realm he sped ; Tartarian shaped, 
 And upon pinions that sullen roared ; 
 And, star-alighted, now upon a plain 
 Walked amidst woodlands, a sequestered spot ; 
 Sylvan, umbrageous, and unfrequented : 
 A seat molestless, where the ring-doves cooed, 
 And swallows coursed, and the stately swan 
 
 Rowed on the <liM;nil waters; whilst tin- lark. 
 I \r nf tli,. welklQ, waring denizen. 
 
 I 
 
86 
 
 Poured from the firmament his full heart down; 
 
 And where the melody of a hundred spheres 
 
 Descended solemn, or, traversing, came 
 
 Like a rich cargo wafting into port, 
 
 In one subdued, half-murmured madrigal, 
 
 Borne on the shoulders of the cherub winds. 
 
 There, soon a male inhabitant he meets, 
 
 Of noble mien, and a half-martial air ; 
 
 And whom in sudden and inflated style 
 
 He thus accosts : " Hail ! sword prepared for war, 
 
 Hail ! elect conqueror ; thee have I found, 
 
 Worthy of all thy race, these realms subdue ; 
 
 Receive thy power, o'ercome, and mount thy throne." 
 
 To which the man : " Who art thou? what thy name ?" 
 
 To whom the fiend : " My name 's Munificent, 
 
 Merit-discerner, Empire-giver, so take thine." 
 
 " These are not thine bestow," the man replied, 
 
 " These appertain to Him, proprietor is 
 
 Of all ; and thou, though mighty dost thou seem, 
 
 Must be his pensioner ! I know thee, thou 
 
 Art Satan." Unto whom the fiend, as pleased : 
 
 " Sayest thou so? — 't is well ; therein do I 
 
 Behold thy higher spirit ; even that 
 
 Which fitteth thee for empire. Thou art right 
 
 In thy surmise ; I am he who long ago 
 
 Fought with, and conquered, thy divinity; 
 
 And had him thrown whence ne'er he had arisen, 
 
 But that compassion prompted me to leave 
 
87 
 
 Him shadowy sovereignty. Seest thou these scars, 
 
 This front intrenched, this stern expression, whence 
 
 My countenance even yet has not recovered ? 
 
 These are the changes wrought on me by that 
 
 Encounter dire, which him so injured ; 
 
 No more could he have wandered 'midst you here, 
 
 But that I grant him to surround his shame 
 
 With goodness' humble guise." To which, the man : 
 
 " Can heaven this hear and not annihilate !" 
 
 To whom the fiend : " Nay, life and death are mine, 
 
 Who, risking all, attained the sum of things ; 
 
 Power to dispose of old, and bring forth new, 
 
 In one grand struggle that half ruined heaven — 
 
 My native right, and just prerogative, 
 
 Dared to assert ; nor failed I to make good 
 
 With this right arm, that did subvert his throne, 
 
 And made him sue to me with piteous wails ; 
 
 Vanquished, forlorn, the where he lately ruled ; 
 
 Around him strewn the wreck of all his engines." 
 
 " Oh, hearst thou not, thou Omnipresent One ? 
 
 Ear of the world, and eye, and powerful arm 
 
 It to sustain, and even this uphold 
 
 Who taunts thee thus, with horrid blasphemies 
 
 Emptying his heart, and with in-urgent lies ! " 
 
 Exclaimed the man with up directed gaze. 
 
 "Why shouldst thou call on him," responds the fiend ; 
 
 " Who hears thee not, or, it indeed he do, 
 
 Cannot now interfere ? I theo intend 
 
88 
 
 To be my minister. I who have made 
 
 Thee ; and these countless worlds hold by the right 
 
 Of a true conqueror." He said; and now 
 
 The man, with indignation swollen ; " Avaunt ! 
 
 Blasphemer, lying foe, whom Michael once 
 
 Divided : Raphael hath spoken of thee, 
 
 And Zephaon ; we know thy tale ; avaunt ! 
 
 Profane not here." To whom the fiend, with frown : 
 
 "Hath Raphael then belied, and Zephaon? — 
 
 They for 't shall suffer ; myrmidons ! whom I 
 
 Permit yet circle his throne. — But these as may ; 
 
 Blast thou not thy fair chance, election mar, 
 
 And earn my hot displeasure : honour courts 
 
 Thy brow ; reject her not ; thy lips, unsealed, 
 
 Long to deliver law ; thy shoulders wait 
 
 To bear the monarchy : felicitous 
 
 Art thou, didst thou but know thy grace." To which 
 
 The other, imperative ; " Hence, flatterer, vile ! 
 
 Whose form thy chastisement exhibits ; hence ! lest 
 
 Ithuriel, or perhaps Michael come, eject 
 
 Thee, here defiling." To which the fiend, with scorn : 
 
 " Thinkest thou I Michael fear, or all the troop, 
 
 Since their superior I have known reduce ? 
 
 Mark well these limbs — scarce sample bear of power; 
 
 This length of spear, to them sight-blasting shield : 
 
 Do they appear able me subjugate?" 
 
 "Power is from God, whose sole is power;" the man 
 
 Replied, stern : "what power thou hast is his — 
 
89 
 
 Hideous thou seemst for all thy nobleness ; 
 Thou bearest sin imprinted on thy face ; 
 And thy whole form bears marks of punishment.'' 
 " Fatal mistake ! " retorts the infernal king ; 
 " I but assumed my right, which now I hold, 
 Though with a price 't was purchased, and for power ; 
 Power is indeed for all, who have the power, 
 And daring power to appropriate. — See these 
 Brave disks, each one a world, of which my shield, 
 New comer bright, seems emulous ; these light- 
 Reared walls that stretch a universe ; and all 
 The sense, and happiness-yielding soul therein, 
 Await the grasp of thee. — What wouldst thou then ? 
 Is it thou lackest might ? of me request : 
 Legions are at thy beck." To whom the man 
 Replied, " Wouldst thou I 'd crave of thee ; become 
 Thy suppliant? vile ! what hast thou to give 
 But what is ill : poor, thou bestowst not fear ; 
 I scorn thy terribleness." To whom Satan moved ; 
 44 Nay, brave me not. I 'd give thee only good, 
 Augment thy happiness, glory put round 
 Thy brow, and seas of joy ; hang beauties round 
 Thy neck in warm festoons ; their blandishments, 
 And ever new delights, sumptuous on thee 
 Bestow. Towards thee their hearts I 'd draw, that thou 
 Shouldst riot in their love. This world should be 
 For thee a harem sole ; perpetual change 
 And constant appetite on thee should wait. 
 -I- 
 
90 
 
 And yield thee sapid charms ; on thee be rained 
 Sharp pleasures, sweetest hours ; that not a God 
 Should be so blessed in his loves as thou, 
 Unchallenged rover on the lusty wild." 
 He said, but seeing the stellant's countenance 
 Lowering with wrath, resumed; " Beware, beware, 
 That scornest one could drown in rapturous floods, 
 Could steep thee in strange fires — nor steep alone, 
 But quench, 'whelm in unimaginable thrills. — 
 What now thy powers of sense ? like folded leaf 
 F th' bud ; these shall expand, some deference paid 
 To me ; co-equal to become, and even 
 Outgrow the sensual campaign : for thou 
 Shalt wax in lust, become the forest oak, 
 The high sky-sweeping palm, the baobab 
 Enormous, and what else thy thoughts can form : — 
 Arouse thee, stripling one, arouse : delight, 
 Delight awaits, and red desire — pygmean! 
 Lift up the dwarfed stature of thy aims, 
 And see the sight before : see, where they lie, 
 Recumbent Goddesses ; each with a lip 
 On which hangs rosy joy, and eyes to gulf 
 Thee in their glad profounds, and arms to press 
 The passions from thy soul. — On banks of thyme, 
 And purple lavender, on nature's broad 
 And frolic-loving lap, thou shalt disport 
 With these my daughters of the radiant clime 
 The live-long day, and dark and wanton night ; 
 
91 
 
 Whilst golden years from out potential urns 
 
 Shall pour etherial ardours through thy veins : 
 
 What sayst thou now?" To which the stellant loud 
 
 .Replied : " Hence ! tempter fly, or fly I quick 
 
 From thee : disgust, thou now evokest, and my 
 
 Contempt : hadst thou this power, thy favour I 'd 
 
 Despise." To whom Satan, surprised, " Thou doubtst ! 
 
 Deemst me unable ? put me to the proof ; 
 
 Retire along with me, and a whole band 
 
 Of beauties yield thee bliss." " Strong are thy wiles," 
 
 The man exclaimed, and fell upon his knees, 
 
 Feeling his imminence, and silent called 
 
 On God ; then springing to his feet, outcried : 
 
 " Come, Michael, down, and blest Ithuriel ; 
 
 And chase this dragon to his proper pit." 
 
 Straightway a glorious light, like a vast tube, 
 
 Or tapering cylinder, stretched down from heaven ; 
 
 And quickly, rumbling sounds and mighty haste 
 
 Within reverberate, and issued soon 
 
 The called deliverers. Meanwhile, enraged, 
 
 The form of Satan lurid grew, and large, — 
 
 Tempestuous sight ! — and waved his tonvnt hair. 
 
 " Cowards !" then, ho cried, and drew his falchion. 
 
 That spewed flames, and from his back fierce swung 
 
 His ponderous shield ; " Must two of you descend. 
 
 Dared not one contemplate me engage ? 
 
 Inferior, back, or on hell's meanest call, 
 
 Who quick shall conic and hruiso thy shinii 
 
92 
 
 Then, unto Michael : " Pray, who art thou ?" 
 
 Who to the fierce one thus replied : " Whom I ? 
 
 Thou knowest well : I am he who shared thee once 
 
 On the bright plains of heaven ; with dismal shade 
 
 Oppressed that day, unwonted, and the following, 
 
 Known for o'erwhelmed engines — that first day 
 
 Of war primeval, when, before thy crew 
 
 Thou didst withstand me, and provoked my sword 
 
 To do its office ; instrument unknown, 
 
 And office likewise, until then, when woke 
 
 Original vengeance, that in heaven allowed 
 
 Tumult and warfare, and, amongst thine own, 
 
 Mangling and pain ; nor, least upon thyself, 
 
 When, all disfigured, thou contortive writhed 
 
 Helpless before me, and at mercy lay, 
 
 Obnoxious, stricken, nor could fight nor fly, 
 
 Till on sad shields they bore thee gnashing fierce, 
 
 In moping darkness to thy chariot, 
 
 Dishonoured, foul : I 'm he who once in heaven 
 
 Did this, empowered ; and now, by aid of Him 
 
 Who me hath sent, intend no less on this, 
 
 Thee hence not hurrying." To whom the fiend, 
 
 With passionate scorn : " Ah, now I know thee indeed ; 
 
 Heaven's lieutenant ! Thou 'rt he the Thunderer sends, 
 
 When these grow querulous ; from the empyrean thou. — 
 
 But know, immaculate caitiff, thou who swearst 
 
 Nightly to falsehood, and recurring days, 
 
 With fulsome songs purchasest station ; know, 
 
93 
 
 The king of hell confronts thee ; he, who dared 
 
 Refuse to how where he had right to stand : 
 
 Intends retry our virtues : know, that soon, 
 
 Though once the chosen temper of thy hlade 
 
 Gave the advantage, know, that now I bring 
 
 Tormenting sharpness, and obduracy 
 
 That all hell's fire resisteth, and the forge 
 
 Where myriad angels, labouring for the blast 
 
 For ten long ages, in their sadness wept 
 
 For their sore travail ; its uncooled result 
 
 For thee intended, and up hither brought 
 
 Ready for this occasion. Know, it now 
 
 Shall drink thy being, or with flaming wounds 
 
 Chase thee to heaven's gate, that, with thy grim howls 
 
 Paralysed, shall ope not ; whilst, I turning thee, 
 
 Drive thee before me into Tartarus." 
 
 To which, thus Michael calmly answered : 
 
 11 Think not to sway by threats, whom once by deeds 
 
 Hath proved superior : what to him thy vaunts 
 
 Of formidable weapon, or the name 
 
 Of thy ill mansion, who against thee comes 
 
 Strong in obedience and unfailing trust 
 
 In the Omnipotent : thou now art les9 
 
 AUo to cope with mo than on that day, 
 
 When, with thy strength unmiuished, thou didst fail 
 
 Before thy legions with dissevered blade." 
 
 To which the infernal, bursting furious forth 
 
 " All, will thou join him still, mean [>arasitfl I 
 
94 
 
 To thine assistance ? thou dishonest slave, — 
 
 For who can now believe thee of the gods, 
 
 Though with their brightness, and their stolen port ! 
 
 But know, thou abjectest acknowledger, 
 
 That here I stand upon my own proud strength, 
 
 Unsapped as yet, unwasted, and defy 
 
 Thee, though thou bring here all heaven's mob, 
 
 And your great autocrat, the Thunderer, 
 
 Shall cheer thy failing courage with his bolts 
 
 Shot over thee his rampart, whom behind, 
 
 Offend he shall who is his equal yet." 
 
 So said, they each addressed themselves for fight, 
 With looks of wrath unspeakable, and high 
 Disdain co-equal, and with mighty strides 
 Came on each other, that the ground seemed trod 
 By three destructions, bent to make but one. 
 Soon ether blazed : soon each their uttermost 
 Of strength essayed ; full soon performed deeds 
 Too great for song. A novel struggle too : 
 They, upon him rain down afflictive strokes ; 
 He, by vast chains secured unto himself, 
 Attempts to snare them, and to Erebus, 
 With desperate efforts, and prevalent might, 
 To drag them bound ; nor had he failed, perchance, 
 To haul them through the infernal gates, and shew 
 Them to his peers, — so stout with rage, and what 
 Of original strength to overcome a foe, 
 Or plough the great abyss ; — but, from on high 
 
95 
 
 The almighty saw, all-ordering, and now- 
 Intending honour his chief minister, 
 
 Prompted Ithuriel to suspend his aid. 
 
 This pleased, yet grieved, the fiend ; believing fear 
 
 Influenced the ceasant angel, surer though 
 
 Thereby to capture his superior ; 
 
 Whom, with redoubled efforts he attempts 
 
 To carry off, reckless of heavy strokes 
 
 Poured on his sheltering shield ; great bulwark, that 
 
 Moved as he moved, enormous, on the wing, 
 
 Invulnerable. A winged world it seemed, 
 
 New- flighted from above, into the deep, 
 
 And knew not, hovering, where its orbit fix : 
 
 Hell's fire upon it burned, within reigned night ; 
 
 And loud it roared beneath the falling war, 
 
 Filling with hoarse clangour the wide firmament. 
 
 But vain were his endeavours ; for, even now, 
 
 Omnipotence descended to the scene, 
 
 And filled the arm of Michael with itself : 
 
 Sheer through the lifted adamant, and thickening casque, 
 
 His downward falchion split, and onward rove. 
 
 As one who elojivotli wood. Complete the rent 
 
 Of Satan ; who, ingloriously disjoined, 
 
 Fled to cohere his parts. 
 
$dt Jfif% 
 
 Foue times my lyre hath sounded to this theme, 
 
 And four times died its strains : if haply I 
 
 Equal unto my argument have been, 
 
 Happy indeed ; and hopeful I resume 
 
 My exalted hymn ; alacrous persevere, 
 
 Unstaying to enquire the verdict of the age — 
 
 If with authentic fire my bosom burned, 
 
 Or with false ardour. Let posterity 
 
 Decree (or this generation) whether I bore 
 
 The fire promethean, or a worthless flash, 
 
 Whose dull report I took for distant fame's. 
 
 Fame is a food that mortals may not taste ; 
 
 It grows beyond the tomb ; and there be fame 
 
 Of mighty failures, as of deeds achieved. 
 
 Who rivals fame of him who fell from heaven, 
 
 And from the towering of his high ambition 
 
 Sank into infamy beyond degree ? 
 
 The stars shall fall from heaven, the deep grow dry, 
 
 The sun consumed be with his own fires, 
 
 But song shall still endure : whilst thought shall be, 
 
97 
 
 This faculty shall survive, whilst passion moves, 
 Or hearts are found sincere ; whilst gratitude, 
 Whilst strong devotion lasts, or memory ; 
 Whilst man is spiritual, God is good, or just. 
 From this I comfort draw, as one resolved, 
 Whose conscience late perplexed ; or one who, long 
 In the dark valleys travelling, gains at length 
 The mountain tops, and, far above the mists, 
 Enjoys the shining day : and for my theme ; 
 Though grim its aspect, and though fatal, yet, 
 The grandest scenery is ever sorrowful ; 
 And pathos sadness better loves than joy : 
 For shadow is the interest of things ; 
 And fear destroyed were to annihilate hope : 
 What were the welkin if it lacked the clouds ? 
 Without the winter, what long summer days ? 
 But spring not comes, nor summer of success, 
 Unto the lost ; nor to their vanquished king. 
 He, fallen from day, and stamped a hopeless one. 
 Can never be restored ; to him, no vernal tide 
 Of grace arriving, \mv the twilight wan 
 Of distant good ; but, an etornal night 
 Before him lowering, and the consciousness 
 Of an existence endless and undone. 
 Oh Muse severe, if one hot tear should fall 
 For his condition, i ere it sin? — 
 
 Or, if I see a frown within thine eye, 
 Tell nie. oli, tell iii--, what him next befol. 
 
98 
 
 Sat on a swarthy rock, far off the scene 
 Of struggle, that the conquerors soon repaired, 
 And then fled homewards, behind him rising high, 
 Gigantic bluff, he next appeared. But oh, 
 How changed ! Upon his hand, no longer taught 
 To wield the weapons of tumultuous war, 
 His head he leaned : his eyes were on the ground. 
 At intervals, long intervals, he groaned ; 
 Scarce groans, for such rife argument ; but such 
 As, when they came, appeared those of a globe, 
 That eased its heart but once a century. 
 His shield upon his left was reared : his spear 
 Upon his right : his sword, unscabberded 
 And grim, at rest from waste. As some grand pile, 
 With fallen roof, and black abased walls, 
 Stands seething still, a monument of fire, 
 So he, distressed. Long thus he dwelt, nor saw 
 Beyond the region of his feet, and seemed 
 Within a solitary wilderness : but now, 
 A youthful troop of either sex approached ; 
 Who, wrapped in their sweet converse, or disport, 
 Drew nigh unconsciously ; and, soon at hand, 
 Gazing upon him, dread and singular, 
 Stood in mute w 7 onder, till one of their group 
 Him thus addressed : " Who art thou, and from whence, 
 That thus, with tranced eye, emitst such sounds, 
 Sad looking, and no mate ? Of similar 
 We never heard from aught of upright tread, 
 
99 
 
 Nor yet of prone — save his, the huge and oozed 
 
 Hippopotame, who useth not such sound 
 
 From aught of pain, (as in thee seemeth it,) 
 
 But, from his feelings drowsy and plethored, 
 
 Blows o'er the night-hung banks. Speak, stranger here 
 
 Or not before beheld ; what mean these sounds, 
 
 That seem in thee to enunciate distress ? " 
 
 " Yet whence shall come distress ?" a groan replied, 
 
 When thus another : "Art thou a native here, 
 
 Thine home till now the inviolable woods ; 
 
 Or from some higher clime, some doubtful zone, 
 
 Dark, and yet dreadly light, where only dwell 
 
 Discordant demi-gods ; thee thence feud-chased ?" 
 
 And following him, a female's silvery tongue : 
 
 " Say, art thou weary, and with travel spent t 
 
 If so, arise, and follow us to couch. 
 
 Lo, in the wood, hard by, extends a form, 
 
 Enwrapped in moss and canoped with thick boughs ; 
 
 Pray let us guide thee there, and from retirement 
 
 Send to thy senses slumber bearing strains." 
 
 And now a male, with searching look, him thai 
 
 Interrogates : " Art thou a spirit of heaven ? 
 
 Fellow of Michael and of IJaphm-l. 
 
 Who load ili- choirs of strength and sweetness ou ? 
 
 Art thou from splendour inconceivable ? — 
 
 Or from the twilight of the universe, 
 
 Its utmost bounds ? Say, art thou hlov- 
 
 As arc thy looks, which might become tho spirit 
 
100 
 
 The whom, they say, is evermore in grief, 
 
 And for his treason locked in endless thrall ? 
 
 Why art thou thus in shadowy aspect come, 
 
 And in repulsive guise, no needful mien ; 
 
 For thou shouldst shame the spheres if unobscured, 
 
 Or the bright comet when he rounds the sun, 
 
 Didst thou exhibit all thy radiance : 
 
 Say, thou who must have voice articulate, 
 
 A tone beyond that common with the brute, 
 
 Say, we beseech thee, if of higher speech, 
 
 The reason of this visit." When thus the fiend, 
 
 Sententious : "I can speak your tongue. And that 
 
 Is heaven's." The prompt and warm reply, "Welcome 
 
 For that, although thou alien seemst ; reveal, 
 
 Thou powerful vague, reveal thine history." 
 
 To which he, solemnly ; "I would, if ye 
 
 Were strong, and could support to hear it ; being 
 
 Not so, 1 3 m mute :" and having looked around, 
 
 With gaze to them interpretless, arose, 
 
 And, followed by the troop, who on the way 
 
 Discussed his form and novel implements, 
 
 Led to a limpid well ; and, seating him 
 
 Upon its marge, signed that he wished to drink. 
 
 A virgin had a shell of radiant pearl, 
 
 And, pouring the bubbling wave into a cup, 
 
 Proffered the draught required ; the which received, 
 
 He raised it to his lips, and unobserved 
 
 Breathed pride into its depths, and vanity, 
 
101 
 
 Breathed high disdain contemptuous, and wild whims. 
 With doubt that disinvenerates, and spirit 
 Of disobedience, and a headstrong will. 
 Then, as himself remembering, from his own, 
 It bore due unto hers, who courteous would 
 Have sipped thereof, but that it effervesced. 
 And, running o'er, left the cup chrystalless. 
 But she not heeds the sign, and gives again ; 
 And taking back the chalice thus began : 
 " Hierarch, for less than such I will not deem 
 Thee, though perplexed, and thou that look benign 
 Lackest, the seal of each empyreal prince ; 
 What may we augur from thy tacitness ? 
 Thy glorious peers, if thou be peer to them, 
 Communicate, nor cause us to repeat 
 Our prayer for knowledge ; or, if too curious, 
 With rosy smile repress, and us divert 
 To golden fields of wisdom, and the rich 
 Repast, in dialogue contemplative 
 Of our exalted immortality ; 
 That moments ily, and we unconscious still. 
 Wander in thought's etherial flighted st. 
 Half through the mazes of eternity, 
 And mark not time. With them comes win^. I joy, 
 As crowds around them gathering testify ; 
 With thee, that which wo slim; i 
 The dink and heavy vcMiture of woe: 
 What may (hi- ni.aii, wh.it lVoiu it w, fata 
 -K- 
 
102 
 
 And no reply, a sister stellant thus : 
 
 " Thou art a giant, yet appearest sad ; 
 
 Taller than Michael, or Jehonakim, 
 
 Heaven's mightiest ones. — But thou art scarce of heaven, 
 
 Nor yet of here, at least besides thee none 
 
 Were here e'er seen : no traveller tells of thee : 
 
 Our mothers, nor our fathers, e'er have spoken 
 
 Of such revealed : the earth's sons, they say, 
 
 In stature have diminished, nor were ever ours ; 
 
 And hell's as yet have not aspired thus high, — 
 
 Mayhap too near the watchful towers of heaven. 
 
 But wheresoever be thy place, it must 
 
 Be some vast seat, some great abode, though wide 
 
 And foreign far from this, or angel domes ; 
 
 One where perhaps God delights his skill to reverse, 
 
 And passion puts in forms diverse from ours. 
 
 But I am weary of conjectures ? Angel, 
 
 If not forbidden so to do, resolve : 
 
 Inform thy craves, where is thine home, say where 
 
 Abidest thou?" " In the deep shade," said Satan. 
 
 To whom the maiden : "Do ye love the shade, 
 
 (If ye be many,) prefer it to the luminous ? 
 
 Or are ye thereunto condemned to go, 
 
 Or else to wander lonely for awhile 
 
 As thou art here, a transient for some fault ; 
 
 Some sudden, hostile darkening of your fronts 
 
 'Gainst the great light above : where lies the shade 
 
 Thou speakest of?" The questioned answered not, 
 
103 
 
 But seemed into reverie relapsed ; 
 
 When in this order different males demand ; 
 
 " What means this marring streak, that scarce accords 
 
 With thy vague loveliness?" " If not too prying, 
 
 What means this fitful quivering of thy breast, — 
 
 And of thy countenance, disquieted ?" 
 
 " Why dost thou bear these strange accoutrements?" 
 
 " That horrent thing which fits thy brow ; of what 
 
 Significant?" " The universal bond," 
 
 The fiend replied, in answer to the last : 
 
 "And that tall bole?" " Of rule." " And this bright round, 
 
 And smoking crookedness ?" " The omniscient eye, 
 
 That all beholds ; as you your forms in its 
 
 Circumference — eternity: this curve 
 
 Is time." Each on the other gazed, and then 
 
 Gazed all on the interpreter ; who thus, 
 
 Revived, began : " Who will accompany me 
 
 Upon a voyage ? Where sits the Eternal on 
 
 His mountain throne, far off shall he behold ; 
 
 The angels, of whom I, and prime of that 
 
 Great bliss, for you forstalled : midst the far stars 
 
 We next shall ride, and all below survey ; 
 
 Yourselves, and fallen earth ; and, if tinpossd. 
 
 In her profoundure, hell : who volunteers ? 
 
 Wilt thou?" This of that latter maiden asked, 
 
 And to a youth, her loved, the question he 
 
 Repeats, saying, 4i Wilt fchoa?" Bt6D whilst he spake, 
 
 A mask deceptive had improved 1 
 
104 
 
 But which the searching lustre of that clime 
 
 Now penetrates, and all the king of grief, 
 
 And ire, and hellish gall grew manifest ; 
 
 Which caused them to recoil unanimous, 
 
 More in abhorrence than in sudden fear, 
 
 And looking upwards they behold his name, 
 
 Satan, inscribed in air ; and now retreat, 
 
 Leaving him sole possession of the fount. 
 
 Then comes his mood again ; and, rising up, 
 
 Soon hopeless nigh he plies his heavy wing, 
 
 And, sluggish, toils along the orb-strewn way ; 
 
 Gaining, and leaving suns. Like some swoln wave, 
 
 That swings its volume as from shore to shore, 
 
 Anon he rises, and anon he falls, 
 
 A devious flight ; yet swerves to neither hand ; 
 
 But perseveres in his dull voyage ; still bears, — 
 
 Dispirited, and at all points o'erthrown, — 
 
 Onwards and on, incalculably swift, 
 
 Yet for his pinion slow. But think not, he 
 
 Who, like the prowling and opprobrious beast, 
 
 Here rifles oft the dove-cote's slumbering height ; 
 
 Or he who, from the untaught jungle, comes 
 
 With matchless strength and mountain of his bulk, 
 
 To invade the Hindu's cultivated fields, 
 
 Has found an entrance to these noble realms, 
 
 His undertaking will relinquish thus : 
 
 So grand a prize demands his utmost strength, 
 
 Not yet brought forth. He, flying, thinks ; and now, 
 
105 
 
 Primed for a last attempt, the flood recourts ; 
 
 And soon upon its banks refolds his wings. 
 
 Silent it rolled, and solitarily, 
 
 Between its firm and everlasting bounds ; 
 
 "Whence the wide landscape stretched its vasty breadth 
 
 In varying face of verdure and incline, 
 
 Rising on either hand, until at length 
 
 Its fainting verges seemed entering heaven : 
 
 The sky was golden noon's scant-clouded ; Zephyr 
 
 Slept ; and o'er all reigned happiness and calm. 
 
 Here soon completeth he the needful change ; 
 
 A stellant's frame assuming, young and fair ; 
 
 Bright-locked, and welkin-eyed ; whose nathless form 
 
 Surpassed Narcissus', or that Antinous', 
 
 The Caesar's pride ; or Ganymede's, he who 
 
 Bore the cupped nectar to offended Jove, 
 
 When Hebe sighed, ebanished from his smile ; 
 
 Not more seducing, Hebe's freshest self, 
 
 Glowing resplendent o'er the rosy wine. 
 
 Thus he disguised the demon in fair form, 
 
 And gliding down the stream, in light gondolc, 
 
 Sat meretricious in the stern, like the unchaste, 
 
 Who seeks for traffic in the public way. 
 
 Few crafts had ta'en the tide, and stately down 
 
 He rode alone awhile ; and, distant, seemed 
 
 Mayhap the haunting gsufal of the flood ; 
 
 As proud he came, and unlaborious, 
 
 Progressing with a grace beyond the swan's, 
 
106 
 
 No oars propelling with their measured sweeps, 
 
 Nor sail performing yoke unto the winds ; 
 
 He current drawn. Though with no dolphin team, 
 
 Not lovelier Venus came, the when new-born 
 
 She, ferried by the foam, made Cythrea's isle ; 
 
 Nor Neptune, though he sprang from loins divine, 
 
 Better became the rippling main. And now, 
 
 From out the banks 'gan steal the warrened skiffs, 
 
 Furtive and few, and few to more and more ; 
 
 Augmenting still in numbers and in pride, 
 
 Till by degrees a wide flotilla light 
 
 Dropped with him gently down. When to his mouth 
 
 He put a double pipe, and blew such chords 
 
 As charmed the flowered deep, and chained the winds, 
 
 Thin prisoners ; then slid to melody, 
 
 To plaintive air that, traversing the stream, 
 
 Wandered the melted banks like sensuous sprite ; 
 
 Or song of some celestial minister, 
 
 Quiring concurrent with the laudant hour 
 
 Of the empyrean ; strain that wooed the heart, 
 
 And, as at signal of an admiral, 
 
 In flanking lines, and at the distance best 
 
 For them devour the sound, arranged the fleet, 
 
 That, wrapped in more than famed Elysium, 
 
 Blessed the auspicious voyage : what could they less, 
 
 When he consents to play ? what less than now 
 
 Transported be ? for lo ! a martial burst, 
 
 Followed by throes of joy, and giddy whirls, 
 
107 
 
 And shoots extravagant, and snatches sweet, 
 
 Whose briefness tantalised ; 'terspersed by chords, 
 
 And melancholy bars : great overture ! 
 
 Whence, fresh as morn, arose a carol wild, 
 
 Like bird from lowly nest, and fitful as 
 
 The gust that wags the flowerets' heads, which grew 
 
 Through soft ascencions into gayer strains, 
 
 And these again to rampant jollity, 
 
 That jigged and capered to the very clime 
 
 Of sound's licentiousness ; then calmly died, 
 
 In culmination poignant, and yet rich, 
 
 Of a supernal hymn. At length he ceased, 
 
 And, breaking up the lines, around him crowd 
 
 They numerous, and o'erwhelm with praise, and thaakfl 
 
 Overflowing ; taken by his looks no less, 
 
 (As he who, simple, took the adder home, 
 
 Or smitten mariner might undertake 
 
 To row a treacherous siren to the land,) 
 
 Swift o'er the tide the fair gondola flies, 
 
 And mounts the shore, urged by delighted hands. 
 
 He disembarks, and with him all the throng: 
 
 Then to palmy grove, whose leaves debarred tho heat. 
 
 And naked stems were portals to the breese, 
 
 Surrounding him they led, and therein took 
 
 Repast. On eminence he honoured sits ; 
 
 Whom thoy, as honoured, serve ; each longs to terra, 
 
 Where each partakes on equal terms simple 
 
 Provision— herbs, and the mellowed fruit, their tare. 
 
108 
 
 And beverage of the grape pendant o'erhead, 
 
 Waiting expression to the upturned mouth ; 
 
 Boundless abundance, and surpassing far 
 
 The steaming feasts of pampered luxury, 
 
 Though plainlier served ; or heathen nectar perhaps, 
 
 Or food ambrosial, the cheer of gods, 
 
 Though borne on gold, or lucent diamond, 
 
 Or purer light. — For these so honourable, 
 
 And to magnificence and beauty used, 
 
 Angelic aspects, and a home upbuilt 
 
 Of noblest worlds, 'midst which the Almighty's feet 
 
 Wander well pleased, nor despiseth he 
 
 Virtue unmingled with idea of pomp ; 
 
 Great in their unsophisticatedness feed : 
 
 Gourds were their flagons, and enamelled shells 
 
 Their salvers ; the green turf their table, and 
 
 Their seats the feet of immemorial trees ; 
 
 With concert in the boughs, and droning bees, 
 
 Laden with forage for their next refection, 
 
 Traversing their board. Love sweetened all still higher, 
 
 And health gave relish, whilst a grateful heart 
 
 Blessed Him all-giving. Halcyon the hour ! 
 
 Peace clasped Enjoyment, and Enjoyment smiled 
 
 On Peace, and mighty Hope on both : heaven seemed 
 
 With earth commingling, or there seemed here 
 
 Earth's ancient Eden with unfallen race. 
 
 Of such, and so parta'en, their unearned meal 
 
 Despatched with greater haste, for that their ears 
 
109 
 
 Still rang with glorious sounds ; and now achieved 
 
 They urge reprisal of the haunting pipe. 
 
 Straight to his mouth he put it, and attuned 
 
 A warm thanksgiving to the Lord most high, 
 
 An air of heaven. Oer many a sunny vale, 
 
 And hill commanding half the realms of fire ; 
 
 On blissful seas, and on immortal plains 
 
 Where dwell the sanctified, it oft had risen ; 
 
 Eivers, and streams of life ; and oft within 
 
 The palaces of angels ; and at foot 
 
 (Whilst brightness hides the summit evermore, 
 
 And night perpetual makes with endless day,) 
 
 Of that pure mountain on the which dwells God, 
 
 Its numbers poured ; whose burden these took up, 
 
 That swoln with replication of their throats 
 
 Rolled o'er the grove sublime : thrice went the round, 
 
 And thrice the charmed air bore it to the clouds, 
 
 Or swept afar ; and, having ceased, one 
 
 Astonished, now eagerly inquired. 
 
 " Where gainedst thou that wondrous instrument, 
 
 And skill the not less wondrous, for such sounds 
 
 We never heard before, nor built up strains. 
 
 Though in these parts be numbers that excel '.'" 
 
 To whom tho fiend: " Neither do come ban far 
 
 "Say then," the first punned, "from vrhenoe, tl: 
 
 May such obtain." " I know not whether to dare," 
 Was the replj : "Dare!" was responded strai 
 44 We dare do aught, save touch tli nee." 
 
no 
 
 " That I have touched," replied the venturous fiend : 
 
 Even as the gust throws back the leafy boughs, 
 
 This declaration caused them to recoil : 
 
 Horror betook each face, and all aghast, 
 
 Silent they stood; when thus resumed the fiend : 
 
 " Vex not yourselves ; no harm hath yet accrued, 
 
 Nor apprehend of ill ; an object am I not 
 
 Of pity, but of envy, as you see : 
 
 Haste ye the like possess." Sighs answered first, 
 
 And dropping tears, and groans ; within their breasts 
 
 Ineffable distress, confusion, wild alarm ; 
 
 Strange tenants these, and ruder by tenfold 
 
 From strangeness, and each face marred sorely : he 
 
 Expectant stands, as one who in some peril 
 
 Awaits the coming shock : they grieve, he smiles, 
 
 Patient : and now, recovered somewhat, one 
 
 Began : " Thy counsel will we not, though thou 
 
 Seem whole and fair, nay, w T ondrous beautiful, 
 
 Nor shrunk, nor blasted like the ripe fallen fruit, 
 
 The which hath suffered witless tread : Rash one ! 
 
 Thou hast become sad criminal, first here 
 
 Hath done offence : a rebel thou hast grown, 
 
 Thy Maker's foe ; surely some tempter's fool ; 
 
 Satan hath hither been, and thee hath duped : 
 
 Say, hath not the Almighty yet unto thee spoke ? 
 
 Have not his' angels yet condemned thee ?" 
 
 To which the fiend, composed ; " Affright not thee, 
 
 Nor fill these with thy fears ; the Almighty have 
 
Ill 
 
 I seen, and with his angels spoke ; all is, 
 
 And shall be well : the hazard was to the first 
 
 That dare appropriate ; which being done, 
 
 'T is past. Hear now how it happened. Upon 
 
 A late fallen day, pressed by the sun, whose whole 
 
 Meridian shine bad bathed my uncrowned head, 
 
 I sought the forest in the afternoon, 
 
 And there soon fell asleep — and sleeping dreamed, 
 
 Dreamed that at foot of a tabooed tree, 
 
 Stood a fair-looking individual ; 
 
 Who, with his left hand raised, pointing on high, 
 
 And right- depending (as if it sought from me,) 
 
 Oped with his looks insertive my sealed eyes : 
 
 At once, I thought I offered him my aid, 
 
 Who signed it thence, but signed that I should use : 
 
 The tree looked fair, and ruggedless its stem, 
 
 But at a height past my attainment seemed, 
 
 Propended, stunted, and anfractuous bough : 
 
 There 't was he pointed, and appeared to say. 
 
 Mount and acquire it ; but, acquire 't thyself. 
 
 Instant I took the tree, whose conscious rind 
 
 Seemed heave me upwards to the noble theft, 
 
 But which despoiled brought swiftly to the ground : 
 
 At ouce, by intuance, I applied the tool, 
 
 And wrought this instrument bright-hued and str 
 
 Straight forced into it tottth, whan bl outilew 
 
 Therefrom a harmony of eternal ponl : 
 
 In mo producing, who exported not, 
 
m 
 
 Such fearful pleasure, terrible delight, 
 That my strained soul, like to a thirsty sail, 
 Shook nigh to tattering with the o'ermastering joy : 
 In joy I woke, and nigh me saw the tree ; 
 Clambered its height, and did as I had dreamed ; 
 Re-suffered the joy — methought indeed enhanced ; 
 Nor since that day hath slackened my bliss." 
 He said, and for a moment none replied ; 
 But now in broken tones one thus began : 
 11 Sayest thou so ! but in the wood, and grove, 
 And forest, and where'er the tree is found, 
 There hovereth his sign : he would not so 
 It guard, might theft meet with impunity. ,> 
 And following this, another thus him warned : 
 " Do not anticipate reversion joys ; 
 A fate like theirs who plucked the fruit and ate 
 May soon be thine — yea, one more terrible, 
 Who may not purchase with the loss of here, 
 A seat in heaven ; nor win back innocence 
 By guilt vicarious borne ; impendent death, 
 Mortality upon thee passed, from which to escape 
 Immortal, but to dwell with him in chains, 
 And howl thy future being in the ears 
 Of his bad angels, who, the first seduced ; 
 Unvisited of light, and emptied of repose, 
 Darker thy soul beneath thy Maker's frown, 
 And racked with fell despair : cheat not thyself; 
 Vengeance but tarries, is not abrogate ; 
 
113 
 
 It will at last descend, and thou be lost, 
 If not devised a remedy." " Believe 
 Me, God I 've seen, nor hath he frowned, said Satan : 
 " Nor looked he distantly?" a third brake in ; 
 11 Ah who could bear to be estranged from him, 
 For all th' exchange of thy enrapturing pipe ! 
 Hence, hence ; we will not thee." And next one thus 
 Arraigned; u Thou art an ingrate child, to break 
 Our sire's sole law, his lonely ordinance — 
 Thy dream, a poor excuse : whence came, thou awake, 
 Thy dread temerity ? " To whom the fiend : 
 " Good comes from good alone ; thence, evil never ; 
 Good only yieldeth good ; and good for ever : 
 In heaven evil lurked coeval with our sire ; 
 And, thence cast out, in forged chains of strength 
 Now howls in hell, with echoes reaching earth, 
 Which is its shore ; and though its ocean rage, 
 Its angry billows may not reach us here." 
 " Fallacious confidence !" one answered quick ; 
 11 Thee hath it grasped already, and may suck 
 Soon into ruin irretrievable : 
 
 Haste, haste, fall down, whilst hap may grace be found 
 Whilst we here as one heart will intercede 
 For thee." But « v. n ihon he 'gan his pipe 
 Retrill ; when oue now loud : M Wouldst thoti enforce 
 Us to partake thy sin ! thy ruin too — 
 For both are one: whate'ei thou pfoftdlt, howe'er 
 Congratulatost thys II. n wrctrh : 
 
 i 
 
114 
 
 Thy punishment, though slow, is sure to come ; 
 
 Deep, deep art thou amerced." To whom the fiend, 
 
 Act suiting to the word :" If so, I bow ; 
 
 I should indeed have cause to apprehend, 
 
 Had not our sire connived at my act, 
 
 And thus rewarded me: — But cease we this, 
 
 And, place of needless prayer, a melody." 
 
 When one indignantly him thus addressed : 
 
 " How darest thou persevere, fool-hardy wretch ! 
 
 How darest thou send up thanks, offender thou ; 
 
 With that same thing which, though it seem thee charm, 
 
 Must charm thee into wrath : cease to insult 
 
 The majesty we love." " Ye love not more 
 
 Than I, who perfect love :" replied the fiend : 
 
 " For love that 's perfect casteth out all fear : 
 
 Fear bringeth torment ; torment is of sin : 
 
 The first a stranger, argues strange the last : 
 
 I have obtained this pipe, and with it I 
 
 Him praise : he censures not ; but more, admires 
 
 The deed : why then should you, ye audience changed? 
 
 Tell me the worth of that obedience, 
 
 That dare not other !" And one thus rejoined : 
 
 "Oh, sophist vain, and desperate justifier, 
 
 How dost thou wound thyself with thine own balm ! 
 
 How dost thou thrive in justice' interval ! 
 
 Thy first temerity, unvisited, 
 
 Becomes heroic, to such rapid pitch 
 
 Audacious rising, with a grandeur false 
 
115 
 
 Surpassing angels', for they scarce would dare 
 
 To make a virtue of their hideous crime ; 
 
 So much thou them transcendest, touching thine, 
 
 Who of confession seemeth not to dream, 
 
 Glorying in that which should thee terrify 
 
 And cloud with shame : away, impenitent soul : 
 
 Thy words obtain not credence." Lifts his brow, 
 
 As if amazed, the tempter, and essayed 
 
 To speak ; when thus another him forestalled ; 
 
 M Contritionless, and self-deceived 1 — for so 
 
 Indeed thou must," — he cried aloud ; " what is 
 
 Thy word 'gainst his ; depraved by one offence, 
 
 Thou mayst another hazard, and the truth, 
 
 Like to his reservation, set at nought : 
 
 Seal in deep shame thy lips." To whom the fiend ; 
 
 " Why so ? shame cometh but of wrong ; and wrong 
 
 Being not, wrong's consequence is not : my words 
 
 Obtain not credence ! what interest have I, 
 
 To you dissimulate? — nay, rather, what 
 
 Disservice have I done myself with you, 
 
 What topmost pinnacle of height foregone, 
 
 By openness — and wherefore not ? Otherwise, 
 
 Where were the harmony with the Almighty's ways? 
 
 See the wide heavens of blue; nought from you hid 
 
 Observe the clouds, as over you they sail ; 
 
 Do they their secrets keep ? or, scorning such, 
 
 Down pour thrm on your beads: why then should 1 
 
 Deny unto you mine ! lie-hold the stream. 
 
116 
 
 Its amplitude of bay, — all yours : why then 
 
 Not all the woods? You 11 say, 't is his command. 
 
 Tush ! tush ! a foolish legend only sways, 
 
 A superstition stays your nimble hands — 
 
 The sign is nothing supernatural : 
 
 Soon as I lessed the tree of this, it waned — 
 
 Less cause, gave less effect : some emanation, 
 
 Escaped, burns over it : this was best proof — 
 
 Besides, who here extant heard given this canon ? 
 
 How many lips to yours hath it passed through ? " 
 
 " Oh, swift depravity ! ingenious fraud ! 
 
 How fast thou travellest from ill to worse ! 
 
 But thinkst thou us of this persuade ? — have we 
 
 Not seen the zebra, and the tall giraffe, 
 
 Nay the behemoth, and huge elephant, 
 
 Stand fixed and mute, with reverence-filled eyes, 
 
 Nor dare against its sacred rind to rub 
 
 Their itching coats ? Are these the legend's slaves ? 
 
 These, superstitious ? Hast thou observed the rook 
 
 Build there its blackening nest ? or known the hawk 
 
 Drop there a stone to breed a parasite ? No ! 
 
 Not thou, nor we, nor the sun's matchless eye, 
 
 Nor the resplendent moon, nor all the stars, 
 
 That through the darker portions of the month 
 
 Watch like ten thousand spies." So, passionately, 
 
 One answered him ; to whom, dispassionate, 
 
 And with bad aptitude, he thus rejoined : 
 
 " Wouldst thou, intelligent, defer to brutes ! 
 
117 
 
 Ask of thyself this question, reasoner : 
 
 Why should our Maker institute a test, 
 
 Knowing our hearts from out eternity ? " 
 
 To whom the other : " We will not ask ourselves ; 
 
 We will not dare to arraign our Maker's ways : 
 
 Wherein our reason cannot answer us, 
 
 We mock it not with queries ; but with awe, 
 
 And resolution to obey, receive 
 
 His mystic ordinance ; nor doubt his wisdom 
 
 Who hath one interdiction thus upraised, 
 
 Save which, upyielding nature's boundless sum : 
 
 Ungrateful wretch ! hence, ere we drive thee forth." 
 
 To which thus Satan : " Wrongly ye accuse, 
 
 Injurious are become, and not perceive 
 
 Your own ingratitude, that vice of fiends : 
 
 Who will hereafter shew you any good ? " 
 
 " Callst thou that good, thy disobedience, 
 
 Thy Maker's word and sign to have contemned ? " 
 
 Exclaimed one : " begone, ere we believe 
 
 Thee the arch-fiend himself." " Such thanks are mine, 
 
 Who late delighted you," responds the fiend : 
 
 "Whom late adored, behold now loathed and scon: 
 
 Alack ! how falsely do ye estimate 
 
 Yourselves, and crush the creature whom ye deem 
 
 Undone : me fallen you suppose, and shew 
 
 No kind consideration of my plight. 
 
 But strive to wound me with matt ious words, 
 
 And rliiisr mc alirn; youf virtur's height' 
 
118 
 
 Yet, though provoked, shall no affront me cause 
 
 To lose my meekness and unboasted love ; 
 
 A love, and undissembling charity, 
 
 That not imagined to conceal from you 
 
 The source of gift, of high prerogative ; 
 
 Admired indeed, but little understood — 
 
 Now impious deemed ; so little do we know 
 
 How to appreciate, at first, high things ; 
 
 Too high, it seems, for valuation here, 
 
 Or your acceptance — if, indeed not scorn 
 
 Hinder the latter of a gift so mean. — 
 
 Scorn, sinful sentiment ! and kin to pride 
 
 That threw down angels from their high estate, 
 
 And here may enter : then, were ye undone, 
 
 And fallen lower than the earth's frail tribe 
 
 As much as now transcending ; in the gulf 
 
 Beneath, your habitation fixed ever ; 
 
 Hopeless, forestalled in one great sacrifice 
 
 The hope of sinners : Oh, relent, upon 
 
 Yourselves have pity, and your offspring dear ; 
 
 Disdain not me, who thus unto you preach 
 
 The law's repealment ; ye, who have clearly proved 
 
 (If proof were needful to omniscience,) 
 
 A law were needless where so long 't is kept, 
 
 Faithful in abstinence, differing from earth, 
 
 Who came, perceived, and undemurring, ate." 
 
 He said, but none replied ; or whether posed, 
 
 Or sickened, with his fallacies, or both ; 
 
Ill) 
 
 And from his pipe, in notes august he breathed 
 
 Immense temptation ; as if hundred throats 
 
 Of voicing angels were preambling 
 
 To the full peal of meditated hymn — 
 
 When they forbade ; and prostrate at his feet, 
 
 A stellant fair, impassioned began : 
 
 " Oh stranger, ruined, yet surpassing fair, — 
 
 Fairer than all the children of the stars, 
 
 Young cherub guised, and stripling angel seeming 
 
 Incarnated ; as though thy fault must shew 
 
 Tenfold more heinous by such front opposed ; 
 
 And, tuned like seraph as thou art, not more 
 
 By that stolen instrument than thy own soft lip, 
 
 Depart this place : why shouldst thou persevere 
 
 To afflict our eyes, and thus to grieve our hearts ? 
 
 For witness heaven, — (whom yet for thee we '11 seek,) 
 
 But that thy crime disqualifies thee there, 
 
 How much we should thee love." To whom the fiend : 
 
 " Arise, fair Queen, and come along with me, 
 
 Fairer than all the star-born daughters thou : 
 
 We will unto the woods, whose star-like shade 
 
 Shall welcome us onto hymeneal joys: 
 
 We '11 here desert, and watch the symbol Hi 
 
 Wane one by one, as from the solemn trunks 
 
 We tako the music, that, from day to day 
 
 Shall sustain rapture, and along OUT nights 
 
 Pour endless sweetness, that our life shall be 
 
 A ri?a] anthem to the bboir <»f heaven. 
 
120 
 
 Arise, my bliss, and heaven of my eyes ; 
 
 Arise, my star, and come along with me ; 
 
 We '11 to the woods, companions evermore, 
 
 There take delight and great beatitude ; 
 
 Come to the forest's wide secluded bower, 
 
 Nature's preparing, and the future home 
 
 Of thee, my 'spoused one ; come, linger not ; 
 
 Mourn not for me, nor friends, nor rifled woods ; 
 
 Love burns, and longs to catch thee in its fires : — 
 
 What all this open, to the coverture ? 
 
 What vulgar days, compared with life divine ? 
 
 Hasten to exile, and awaiting wings ; 
 
 Haste to the twilight of our banishment ; 
 
 Angels shall be our 'spousal messengers ; 
 
 There will I live, and love with thee alone." 
 
 He said, impetuous, and upon her looked 
 
 A fire-eyed ravishment ; devoted seemed 
 
 Towards her with all his being — but even now 
 
 Two males advanced swift to rescue her, 
 
 And violence seemed following hard on sin ; 
 
 For as some beast at length, being driven to bay, 
 
 Stern on its hunters turns its forked head, 
 
 So, faced with look of wrathful pride, the fiend, 
 
 And them withstood ; whilst one him thus addressed : 
 
 " Ah sad effects of sin ! full proof thou now 
 
 Givest of transgression, and the fearful change 
 
 In thee wrought by it : away, persist not thus 
 
 To obstruct." Wrath swelled the fiend; who nevertheless 
 
121 
 
 Replied : " Ah sad effects of sin ! full proof ! — 
 What proof give ye, who serve yourselves of strength 
 To rob, and wrong tyrannically the weak — 
 She, powerful but in beauty, on you lost : 
 'T is you shew sad effects, not I ; shew your 
 Decadency ; go cut ye each a bough." 
 "Recriminate not thus !" one answered, 
 11 But yield thy prisoner ; 't is not from thee 
 We bear her, but from sin." The fiend loud laughed 
 But rage was at his heart, instead of mirth ; 
 Nor means he to resign her whom he held : 
 Firmly he grasps her — yet, he grasps her not , 
 His palm too huge becomes for such small prey : 
 All seems, to him, descending — but, to them, 
 His head he carries now amidst the sky, 
 And unplumed wings enormous, at his back, 
 Huge as hell's gates, behold they, and confessed, 
 The dark arch-angel vast now stands upreared, 
 And hides from them the sun ; and now uprisen, 
 Like to a whirlwind, soon is seen no more. — 
 Thence fled, he onwards beat the fields of light 
 Cursing; and with hoarse maledictions sped, 
 Even to the exeunt ports, which, rushing through, ' 
 He longed to overthrow. The dimming void 
 l; ;\. him next, ami orr-against him night ; 
 Yet ere to perfect darkness he arrived, 
 Turned, ho thus spake : " Curse ye, ye gates of light 
 v.- studding suns, receive tenfold m\ eone 
 
 M 
 
n-2 
 
 fall, ye insulting fires, ye golden plains : 
 
 Be all your hills consumed with inward heat ; 
 
 And let thy floods, upswollen, extinguish thee, 
 
 Opprobrious torch ! deceptive hold of day ! 
 
 Thou yet shalt dim ; thou lustrous deceit ! 
 
 Darkness shall yet be thine : from hell, or earth, 
 
 Or evil-hoarding space, ill shall befal thy souls : 
 
 Sorrow and fright they 've known, and shall know more ; 
 
 Know more of that which makes me that I am." 
 
 He said, and winged his flight far towards the north, 
 
 Beyond the bear, and where the telescope, 
 
 Below the horizon's bounds ne'er profited. 
 
 There, in deep dusk he flew ; and on, and on, 
 
 Midst realms obscure and well nigh starless tracks 
 
 Silent pursued ; and came at length where Night, 
 
 Shaken from her plumage all the star-eyed days, 
 
 Spreads unadorned her wings. Into her breast 
 
 He plunged ; and through her womb floats like a shark 
 
 Upon the unmooned sea — eschewing thought; 
 
 Nor knoweth, nor careth, where his dark flight leads, 
 
 So that it leads unto forgetfulness. 
 
 But vainly for oblivion he strives, 
 
 Vain strives appease the rising memories — 
 
 To vanquish misery by not battling her ; 
 
 Dark clouds of horror rise within his soul, 
 
 Despair, and all the wretchedness of hell : 
 
 For hell was in him, and, the hell besides, 
 
 Of all the recent ; shame immeasurable, 
 
123 
 
 And disappointment, and anxiety, 
 And impotence proved — in one sentence brief; 
 That keenest anguish of his haughty soul, 
 His pride's defeat, and malice foiled. — Thus he, 
 For many an hour, alternately from thought 
 Striving him sever, or, pondering what tale 
 Shall serve him with his comrades in the deep, 
 Nor noting time, nor space, holds on his way ; 
 And terrible to meet him it had been ; 
 More terrible than mortal meeting hound, 
 Kabid, and foaming venom, or the tusked boar, 
 Or wounded lion, on its homeward path ; 
 Or the bright avalanche, or earthquake dire, 
 Or the volcano's flame ; dread foes all these, 
 But with the fiend compared, as on he rode, 
 As health compared with the pestilence : 
 Thus he for many an hour his flight pursued ; 
 Until a strange defaillance took his wings, 
 And novel weariness ; when woke he up 
 As if from torpor, and their vastness shook, 
 Dispersing thunder through the lono abyss. — 
 But wearier, and wearier he grew, 
 And felt his pinions stiffeu on their hinge, 
 As ancient doors that long have been unused ; 
 And in his soul a dread suspicion woke, 
 And he had turned, but folt compelled pursue : 
 Vet he 'midst all. himself iuta. , i 
 
 Nor let a sound of fearfulness escape ; 
 
104 
 
 But as a criminal, to the gallows borne, 
 
 With dogged silence would half cheat the law, 
 
 So he endured the Almighty's awful hand, 
 
 That drove him onwards till his vigour failed ; 
 
 When, as a beast to slaughter overdriven, 
 
 Exhausted falls, so he, within the void, 
 
 And spreads his wings to check the swift descent ; 
 
 Yet faster falls, and now, round spins ; now scarce 
 
 Eetains his senses, rotating amain ; 
 
 Now, scarce his upright doth he keep, and now, 
 
 Ignobly tumbleth he, head over heels, 
 
 Like to a mountain hurled from the moon, 
 
 Senseless, cycloiding, till a planet stays. 
 
gwli j&kt|. 
 
 Thus have we seen the Potentate of air 
 
 Falling ; an earnest, mayhap, of the day 
 
 When all his power shall fall : when every heart 
 
 Shall be renewed in righteousness and peace ; 
 
 And Nature, donning her primeval bloom, 
 
 Smile all the lovelier for her recent tears. 
 
 New heavens, new earth, the Scriptures say, shall be ; 
 
 New hearts, and right affections — in one word, 
 
 With Eden spread on every continent, 
 
 The earth surpass her fabled golden age. 
 
 Oh, to have lived in that primeval hour 
 
 When sang Morn's stars together ! earliest man : 
 
 But, in the middle period we stand, 
 
 Amongst the alga) and the teeming ooze 
 
 Left by the deluge of degeneracy — 
 
 IVtwri'ii citation's fast mvding >lmiv. 
 And the bright mountains of the l'utmv world. 
 So still the future breaks upon man's riew, 
 As, sailing o'er durations ni.lless flood, 
 New generations rise. The sons of God 
 
 -M- 
 
126 
 
 Unequal loved the daughters fair of men, 
 
 And giants therefrom sprang ; a hybrid crew ; 
 
 Whom, impotent for good, the waters drowned : 
 
 Again, the first, in spiritual union 
 
 With human souls, enormous vices get ; 
 
 Which vengeful fire from heaven shall consume, 
 
 — Gracious descending to the human race, — 
 
 And the dread heat of knowledge ; and the glare 
 
 Of rising virtues shall, like reptiles that 
 
 Flee at the light, nor whilst it stays return, 
 
 Forbid to curse again the purged globe. 
 
 For love is all, and shall be all in all. 
 
 And goodness infinite : the clouds shall break, 
 
 The heavens shall smile in blue, warm into gold, 
 
 Yea, burst to purple's grand imperial dye — 
 
 Time's gorgeous evening overspreading all : 
 
 The earth shall heaven approach ; the heavens yearn 
 
 Towards her, as dam towards lamb without the fold ; 
 
 No more divided, they shall melt together ; 
 
 And through eternity, still fraught with change ; 
 
 Heaven, earth, the star-built universe be one. 
 
 But how shall I relate, unaided ; sing, 
 
 Untaught ; his hap, who fain would this frustrate ! 
 
 Tell me, oh Muse, who last of thee enquire ; 
 
 Tell me, Urania, thou, for well thou knowst, 
 
 Who holdst the undivided lyric reign ; 
 
 Nor three, nor nine, as thee of ancient feigned ; 
 
 But one benignant and etherial Power, 
 
127 
 
 Who lookst from topmost heaven to deepest hell, 
 And o'er the dusky boundaries of the world, 
 Into the further undisturbed gloom ; 
 Impalpable to mortal ken, free yet 
 From mortal song, tell me, kind sovereign Queen, 
 Star-Lady clear ! the further of the fiend. 
 
 Deep in the sheets of circumscribing snows 
 Found he himself, when to himself he came ; 
 To consciousness returning, but to find 
 Himself in custody of ponderous ice, 
 And chained to the centre of the orb — 
 As if to mock him, who of all his strength 
 Abstracted, lay, tortured with hideous pains, 
 Helpless, forlorn ; his tongue refusing words ; 
 His bosom, groans ; his eyes alone being free, 
 And which he rolled from side to side, and up 
 Into the blue, and fouud no ease. How should ! 
 His soul endures supernal wrath tenfold ! 
 And who shall that describe ? It may the Muse 
 In vain essay to do : yet, may she sing, 
 Humbly, what heaven beheld; and how that hell 
 Flashed from her distant aud insensate womb 
 Fiercer her fires ; nor did it displease the Highest, - 
 Impassive though, — on tins occasion shew 
 Upon his holy hill ; whence thunder rolled, 
 And smoke, and gatheriug gloom, i 
 I M' beavcn brought twilight down ere noon ; eclipse, 
 
128 
 
 Awful and solemn, of the living beam ; 
 That o'er the region of the beatified 
 Mute silence reigned, and expectation dumb ; 
 Earths, cherubs, thrones, dominions, hierarchs 
 Prostrated prone ; until the peals, so late 
 Kesounding over the empyrean world, 
 Soothful subsiding, now, unbroken yield 
 The sacred stillness to these words of God : 
 "Behold, my first-born sons ; and ye by grace 
 Redeemed ! " and straight with sounds symphonious, 
 And solemn choristry, heaven's floor disappeared, 
 Shewing a wide, and Stygian, starless deep ; 
 Down which they gazed in vain, until therein, 
 Their eyes to blackness used, appeared bright spot, 
 And the arch-demon on it miniatured ; 
 Stretched on the waste like bound Prometheus : 
 When thus the voice celestial resumed : 
 "Behold the one my wrath from here cast out, 
 Behold his anguish, and behold his shame ; 
 Behold him chained : he from his depth hath risen 
 Thus high, and sought to harm our works ; nor less 
 A ruin make, throughout the numerous worlds 
 Our hand hath strewn wide of that penal star, 
 Than that once left him to achieve on earth : 
 But they have baffled him ; his blasphemies, 
 And wild audacity, his lying boasts — 
 Words not to be reiterated here ; 
 And now shall have, who have by faith so done. 
 
129 
 
 A greater blessing from this foiled attempt ; 
 
 His hate, which I do make my minister, 
 
 My glory working and their greater good." 
 
 So said, the awful voice of our great Sire 
 
 Surceased, and again the thunder spake 
 
 Celestial, and with widening echoes filled 
 
 Heaven's brightening space. Her late dissolved floor, 
 
 With gorgeous prelude of new majesty, 
 
 Tide-like from out the drear abyss arose ; 
 
 And rose the host, like stars from out the sea ; 
 
 Dominions, thrones, and principalities ; 
 
 Archangels, virtues, powers, and fires serene ; 
 
 Perpetual lights ; thick constellations, ranks, 
 
 Crowds, galaxies ; and orbs distinguished as 
 
 The burning vesper standing in Eve's porch, 
 
 And hymned thus exultant towards the throned : 
 
 11 Glory, great glory unto thee, our King ; 
 
 Honour and blessing unto thee, our Maker ; 
 
 Thou hast us ever kept, and wilt us keep 
 
 For ever, but hast hence driven out the foe, 
 
 Thine adversary, and wilt still keep down. 
 
 Honour and blessing unto thee, our Maker, 
 
 Glory, great glory unto thee, our King, 
 
 Holy, holy, holy Lord God of sabaoth ; 
 
 Wonderful, gracious, terrible, serene ; 
 
 Omnipotent, omniscient, and true ; 
 
 Light of thy kingdoms darkness, loneliness; 
 
 Cherisher of us and all thy uuiverse ; 
 
130 
 
 Ocean of life, and vague abyss of death, 
 
 Father and Comforter ; who draweth praise 
 
 From out the wicked, and the mouth of hell ; 
 
 Hosanna ! hosanna ! hosanna ! to our God. 
 
 Incomprehensible, although revealed, 
 
 Beyond our understanding, and the flight 
 
 Of our imaginations, when they soar 
 
 From height to height, and lose themselves ambitious. 
 
 Veiled thou sitst within thy sanctuary, 
 
 In fellowship of thyself, and dazzlest us 
 
 Who from afar in vain essay to bear 
 
 Thy feeblest ray ; yet, in thy Son thee see : 
 
 Hail, Father, Son, and Spirit ; hail, great Three-one ; 
 
 Your anger is dismissed, and your brows unclad : 
 
 Hail, all ye great Eternals, and accept 
 
 Our hymn ; ye, ere was the beginning, dwelt 
 
 For ever blest ; — when wert thou not, O Father ; 
 
 When wert thou not, Son ; Spirit, when 
 
 Not thou ? Ye have been still for ever, and 
 
 For ever shall ; still great in might essential, still 
 
 In glory great ; your goodness who shall tell ! 
 
 Hail, thou our great Creator, hail, Anointed One ; 
 
 Hail, Dove, and take our breast.''' So they in heaven, 
 
 With countless multitude and echoes wide, 
 
 Keverberating o'er her vales and hills ; 
 
 On which new glory rose, and virgin morn ; 
 
 So they in heaven, where we would linger fain, 
 
 But that beneath demands, in sudden haste : 
 
181 
 
 For lo ! even now comes Moloch, driving on 
 
 Athwart the dark, like an advancing storm : 
 
 Fear goes before him, horror hangs behind ; 
 
 And oft he spies through all the rounding night, 
 
 To find a beam. Three days he has ranged the gloom, 
 
 And now descries pale stars. Therewards he hies, 
 
 Rushing, and soon, amidst them come, round each 
 
 In mighty orbits wheels his circling flight, 
 
 As some vast ocean fowl round rocky isles 
 
 Might wing, thoughtful on which to build her nest ; 
 
 And sees ere long on one his master laid. 
 
 Towards him he urges, and, astonished, 
 
 Hovering, full soon beholds his captive plight ; 
 
 And now, loud voiced, thus shouts his great amaze. 
 
 "King! prime of heaven, without whom hell is not; 
 
 Her absent Lord ! what chance hath laid thee there ? 
 
 Hast thou encountered sheer the thunderer's Son ? 
 
 Or hath a legion hurled — or heat endured 
 
 So long, invites to wrap in cold ? " he cried : 
 
 Then, slow descending, over him exclaimed 
 
 44 Cursed be the hand whose power effected this! 
 
 The deed accursed that thnfl iegn — 
 
 Wert thou beset, great king, and I not there 
 
 To aid ! heaven curb thy joys ; revenge, revenge, 
 
 Uprising from the deep, pours all her tribes 
 
 Insurgent o'er thy walls : lull's horror heaves, 
 
 And longs to gather tlieo amongst her sp< 
 
 Thou art with us. of we with thee an«»u. 
 
132 
 
 See there the hideous cicatrice, his front 
 
 New parted with the rending thunderbolt, 
 
 For what else could, that 's less than that dread arm ? 
 
 Behold those bonds — but ah, why are they there ? 
 
 Awake, destroyer, if not thyself destroyed, 
 
 Awake, great slumberer, 'wake, and with thy breath 
 
 Melt these opprobriums ! — Dost thou then not 
 
 Eegard? — art thou enwrapped in thine own thoughts ? 
 
 Where is thy finer part, if not annulled ? 
 
 Thou slumberest not — not as thy wont in hell ; 
 
 Nor as upon the earth, when by thy side 
 
 Thy travels mate I Ve lain ; nor as in heaven, 
 
 Where sleep appeared but sobered loveliness. — 
 
 Perchance thy foe, weary of thine unrest, 
 
 To ease himself hath parted thought and thee. — 
 
 Art thou no more ? hath matchless excellence 
 
 Changed to a memory ? then fail I too ; 
 
 I would not thee survive, though to exist 
 
 Were to dethrone our hate : what were his throne 
 
 Not sat upon by thee ! But 't is not so, 
 
 No, no, thou sleepst ; thou yet shalt hear my voice ; 
 
 Great emperor, prescriptive rule, virtue, — 
 
 If virtue 's in thee still, — know Moloch cries ; 
 
 Hell's absolute, heroic god, give ear ; 
 
 Let me not idly peal my message forth ; 
 
 Thou art deposed, thine authority contemned, 
 
 Hell scorns thy rulership, and dreams of heaven's ; 
 
 She hath aroused her wild democracy ; 
 
133 
 
 Arise, be swift, or thou Vt no more a king." 
 
 Even as a torpid breaks a season's ice, 
 
 So Satan his at this, with sharp report, 
 
 And smoke that with him soared ; then downward plunged 
 
 Moloch him close pursued, and soon the deep 
 
 Roared, and grew luminous with their dread speed. 
 
 As two fierce comets, racing o'er the sky, 
 
 Seek the dark confines of the universe 
 
 So these, the coasts of hell — they fly, they burn, 
 
 And to their old, add new velocities, 
 
 And still plough down the bowels of the deep, 
 
 Loud as a storm, and all disordered ; 
 
 Their arms astray, and unbound upward hair 
 
 Streaming like beams of fire about their frames : 
 
 Frightful descent, headlong, and horrible ! 
 
 Eleven hours they scared the void, and with the twelfth 
 
 Descried their home, like the red evening clouds 
 
 Barring the midnight gloom : a welcome sight ; 
 
 But that more welcome which they now perceive, 
 
 Token of night in the outpouring flame*, — 
 
 Hell at that season only accessible, — 
 
 And soon the amazed guard, that there kept watch. 
 
 Ranged like constellation round expiring sun, 
 
 Behold, <>n whom having come all iluming. sudden 
 
 They smite them i^ the deep ten thousand fathoms; 
 
 Then thread i ho fiery gorge, and hold their way 
 
 ( > er the interior, and deem the deed 
 
 Most formidable «l me ; a fond idea ! 
 
134 
 
 Them, warning cries from the recovered guard 
 
 O'ertook pursuing ; straight answered by cries 
 
 Of warning from within ; and beacon-fires, — 
 
 No tedious task to light in that hot realm, — 
 
 'Midst which they volleying go, till from the gloom, 
 
 Like pale clouds issuing, they see advance 
 
 The proud rebellion : when they alight, 
 
 Folding the burning portals of their wings, 
 
 And in a vale, where vales were numerous. 
 
 From flinty ridge, and scoriae-wrapped spur, 
 
 Await the onset of a wan brigade ; 
 
 Who, like a fleet riding a phantom gale, 
 
 Loomed in the murk, and whom now on them come, 
 
 Satan, in feigning accents, thus addressed : 
 
 "Band of the night, celestial harbingers ; 
 
 Wherefore is this I see ? what meaneth this 
 
 Strange shew of loyalty unseasonable ; 
 
 Ye, whose repose is never here too long ? 
 
 Return unto your lairs, I you remit 
 
 Your duteous homage, marshalling me towards home : 
 
 Be turn, and let to-morrow speak of love 
 
 Or duty owned." He said, but they advanced, 
 
 And he loud cried ; " What ! forwards though I ban ! 
 
 Slaves, yield a way ; think ye I not ye know, 
 
 Ye and your deeds ? " Then as two clouds within 
 
 Some hilly region for awhile involved, 
 
 At last ride forth upon a current wind, 
 
 The two retreat upon resumed wing ; 
 
135 
 
 But, soon re-alighted by a Stygian wood, 
 
 Unto his compeer thus the archfiend spake : 
 
 " Oh for the aid of Belial's arm, and good 
 
 Beelzebub's, and all our hierarchs ! 
 
 Had I but these, and to them added one 
 
 Fair legion true of humbler cherubim, 
 
 I 'd teach all else how bitter 't were rebel. 
 
 But wherefore stand we thus, with all hell on 
 
 The move? is there no route, to these unknown. 
 
 Where we may covered wind, and so attain 
 
 In secresy our throne ?" "I know of none," 
 
 The morose chief replied ; "I know of none, 
 
 Save scattering the crew." Satan made no 
 
 Reply to this ; but they in haste debate, 
 
 Touching the fitness of fair promises ; 
 
 Of stratagem ; aud metamorphosis ; 
 
 And all the magic light-clad spirits own ; 
 
 But, these declining as derogatory, 
 
 Over the wood they shot, and made their way 
 
 To distant rising ground ; whence hove the 1 1 
 
 In sight ; illuminous, and greatly swoln ; 
 
 Appearing foremost of a world of clouds ; 
 
 And whom, being come within the monarch's bail. 
 
 He thus addressed. "Stay, ye mistaken om 
 And, tAOght JOOI duty, go, and practise it : 
 helieve my words, fa tat.' is not more lived : 
 
 Once, by the oppressor's will, so goes the mytli 
 Since, by your own onaainoiM eon 
 
136 
 
 Chosen, and in my prior sway confirmed, 
 
 With broader and more absolute control, 
 
 Even the universal government, 
 
 By public vote in all your orders given, 
 
 Secure T stand ; and to my right divine, 
 
 Add other title, silencing all doubt, 
 
 Your own agreement, and retrieveless oath, 
 
 And claim obedience ; nor do regard 
 
 What change of mind in you may have performed, 
 
 Since change of purpose in myself is not. — 
 
 What though, uprisen, and with proud numbers come, 
 
 By traitors moved to rebellion, 
 
 And cowards, that for some small loss of pain> 
 
 Would barter all their noble enmity 
 
 Towards him above, who by his oath is bound 
 
 Your foe perpetual ; shall I, your friend, 
 
 Whose glory is with yours for ever one, 
 
 And in hostilities am endless joined 
 
 'Gainst him, along with yon hell's commoners, 
 
 Forget myself? To give command is mine ; 
 
 Yours, is obedience ! mine, issue fiats is ; 
 
 In execution, yours to honour them ; 
 
 Of both, the duty without intermission, 
 
 To war for empire with unrighteous heaven, 
 
 And gainst her swell the frontiers of our hell. 
 
 This have I practised since the sword was drawn, 
 
 Since the fond tyrant caused civil strife ; 
 
 But you, ye cravens ! — for so they me inform, — 
 
t37 
 
 Intend submission, and by one base deed 
 
 T overthrow the work of these laborious years ! — 
 
 Then let your tide of opposition ebb, 
 
 1 in its oozy bed alone will stand, 
 
 Unvanquished : hell cannot terrify me, 
 
 Nor rigour change ! Though ye be recreant all, 
 
 And honour here forget herself to shame, 
 
 Upright I stand among the prone and base, 
 
 Nor mean to stoop ; divide, that I proceed." 
 
 But clamour him forbade, and foiled he stood ; 
 
 When rose a sound from the ulterior host, — 
 
 First, slight as that which ocean shells produce 
 
 When held unto the ear, nor it unlike, 
 
 And which now louder grew, and harshly swelled, - 
 
 Two noble forms soon gleaming in the air, 
 
 And whom, now alighted, Satan thus accosts 
 
 In moved strain, "Welcome Beelzebub ! 
 
 Though in adversity we each be found. 
 
 And 'midst ingratitude — oh Belial, 
 
 Now is the time for thee to shew thy n 
 
 Then to the first re-addressing trim 
 
 Whom hell for certain loves, if lovo she aught, 
 
 And for thai love may feel disposed to obey; 
 
 Speak those rebellious." Thai spirit \va\e.l 
 
 His hand, that seemed a fan of flame, and thus. 
 
 With mien superior, his unlosj 
 
 To address the crowd immed 
 
 " Heaven's sons were once. m* hell's, whv will \e thus 
 
138 
 
 Persist to your own hurt ? why thus enforce 
 
 The mad resolution of the other day : 
 
 Believe me, who myself a subject am, 
 
 It boots you not : — though Satan fall, will he, 
 
 Jehovah, therefore you exalt ? No, though 
 
 All hell should throng his gates with strong petitions, 
 
 And shake his throne with groans : sighs cannot bear 
 
 Away his wrath, nor tears his memory 
 
 Wash of your sins. Then, wherefore towards him change, 
 
 Since he towards you shall be unchangeable ? 
 
 Ye say, "Desisting, he too will desist." 
 
 Believe it not : he, in exorbitant 
 
 And jealous mood, declared the loss should be 
 
 Eternal, unto those who scorned his Son : — 
 
 ' These fires, no more allowed to cause blaspheme,' 
 
 'T is said, ' will die.' Fallacious hope ! 
 
 The stern compulsion that remands you here, 
 
 Relax, and into freedom change at last ! 
 
 So be it : and where will you betake you to, 
 
 The when unhoused upon the hungry deep ? 
 
 Will ye upbuild within it ? will ye lay 
 
 Rest for your weariness, breadth for your delight, 
 
 Upon the treacherous darkness ? will ye call 
 
 Fire to your comfort, light to your command ? 
 
 Foes of the Stygian ; or shall you, freezing, 
 
 Eye from afar the genial atmospheres 
 
 That the wide world contains, but not for you, 
 
 Dismal, proscribed, refugeless, unowned. — 
 
139 
 
 This hell were preferable, yea all her pain 
 
 To such a consummation ! horrid blank 
 
 And living death of being. Yet, to such 
 
 It must arrive, if not to worse, if here 
 
 We lose : beware, beware of rashness ; banned, 
 
 Make further conquest under penalty 
 
 Of reimprisonment ; spent, oh horror ! think, 
 
 To fleet for ever down the abyss unrealmed : 
 
 Think of the pangs of fruitless penitence : 
 
 The finished treason towards an unmatched king : 
 
 He for himself disdains to plead ; I not, 
 
 Who was not born like him to be supreme. 
 
 Whom should ye choose should he himself withdraw ? 
 
 What hath he done, expulsion meriteth ? 
 
 Hath he not braved for you the foe of late ? 
 
 Stood 'twixt you and his shafts ? hath he been slack, 
 
 No dart immediate to convey your ire ? 
 
 Of all our name, who will himself expose 
 
 Like him, a mark for vengeance due to all ? 
 
 Who, unto rule experienced, him succeed ? 
 
 For credence give, nor I, nor these, nor all 
 
 The powers among, will you subserve ; assist 
 
 To hold your state from crumbling into nought, 
 
 And making hell twice lull : where is the bliss 
 
 Of sheerest anarchy ? what boou is there 
 
 In adding lesser to our greater wrong? 
 
 Who holds the balance now of equal right P 
 
 win. weakness makes a inateh for him, most 
 
140 
 
 Draws order, beauty, and a commonwealth, 
 
 From your chaos ? Satan, he, Lucifer, 
 
 Who drew you first from monstrous rule ; from gulfs 
 
 Of sycophance, and gave you to sit whole, 
 
 One broad autocracy ! Therefore, give heed ; 
 
 Refrain, or ere too late ; ere shame you crown : 
 
 Forgiveness now awaits you, and oblivion : 
 
 Withdraw, retire, each to his resting place, 
 
 Retire from this, and ponder on your sin, 
 
 Your deep ingratitude ; retire, I say, 
 
 Till morning breaks, and with it all things new." 
 
 So spake he, but the array advanced, and fled 
 
 The four : as might four lions scour the plain, 
 
 Before a troop of bounding Hottentots, 
 
 They fled, whilst hell pursued ; inglorious, 
 
 Athwart the dark, inextricable night, 
 
 Sped towards the infernal gates. But long the route, — 
 
 Though made so briefly by the two that night, — 
 
 And horror strewn. O'er shingles oft they waved, 
 
 Once there a fiery beach ; o'er actual seas 
 
 Of flame : through darkness, ghastly light ; 'midst rain, 
 
 And hurricane ; 'neath frigid, torrid skies ; 
 
 O'er bare and desolate valleys, and o'er hills 
 
 Shaggy with misty horror ; precipice, 
 
 And yawns ; ravines, and gorges grim, and falls 
 
 Of thundering billows, that discharge themselves 
 
 Into deep dismal waters : over these, 
 
 And foetid lakes, they sped, cruel reservoirs, 
 
 Dreary dominions, scopes lugubrious, 
 
141 
 
 Realms desolate, and continents where grief 
 Sits like a thousand black and saddened kings : 
 O'er deserts, ice-lands, countries lorn ; oceans, 
 And seas of death, and mortal isles ; dark bays, 
 And continents, and worlds of gloom ; huge zones 
 Of shadow, and uncertain fields, that hold 
 Regions, and dens, pits, quagmires, endless thaw, 
 Snares, gins, and scorpions, and monsters dire, 
 Infernal shapes, and dimly sailing forms 
 Wandering at large, save on this signal night ; 
 Parts ever worsening, ever eviler growing, 
 Evil within evil, as sphere in sphere ; 
 The land of terrors, and the grave of hope. 
 O'er these they fly, in wretched case forlorn ; 
 Each one in sorest humour, but by far 
 Moloch the worst, and who now 'furiate cried ; 
 "I flee no further, let all hell come on, 
 As come they do, and carry me without." 
 And round he wheeled, facing the imminent foe : 
 When Satan thus, — sad music in his voice ; 
 "Knowest thou yon mount, invisible, yet high, 
 The throne of these black confiues, lofty seat ; 
 Whence oft I 've watched the birth of blooding morn. 
 And borne the fiery tempost of the day. 
 Vainly endeavouring to pierce the gulfs 
 That lie bonoath, and ohomior the expanse 
 With their sight-scorning, secret -hi. ling glooms? 
 There will wo halt, ami try onee more on these 
 
 Our influence." So said, the stayed wings wrought. 
 
142 
 
 Through horror, and o'er horror, bearing them 
 
 On to the broad-topped promontory's brow. 
 
 Thence, looking backwards, they beheld the host, 
 
 Multitudinous, and stretching past the view, 
 
 Far into hell. Even as the gilded main, 
 
 Beneath the farewell of the setting sun, 
 
 Appears the passage to another world ; 
 
 So seemed its mighty lapse the glimmering way 
 
 Into some land unknown. Onwards it came, 
 
 Frightful, and huge like a pale Phlegethon, 
 
 In breadth immense, and with enormous roar ; 
 
 O'er which, now raised, thus Satan's voice resounds : 
 
 " Hang there upon your vans, ye audience vast, 
 
 And listen, whilst I speak to you once more : 
 
 Either a possibility ye seek, 
 
 Or fight 'gainst fate. That 't is the latter is 
 
 Beyond all controversy, past all doubt ; 
 
 It is irrefragable we 're bound this, 
 
 Nor can the weakest be in permanence 
 
 Expelled. As well might ye endeavour yon 
 
 Oped gates to shut, or open those above, 
 
 As think succeed in this wild enterprise : 
 
 If ye can conquer heaven, or from their wish 
 
 Divert the sinews of his arm, proceed : 
 
 Close the wide doors that none may enter more, 
 
 Or range you thick above the circling fire, 
 
 Keeping night-scorching watch ; or plant yourselves 
 
 Without ; do this, and you have broken the charm ; 
 
143 
 
 Your wills, proved mightier than his. But do 
 
 It well, and be it wisely done ; bring forth 
 
 Your dominants, your lords of all degrees ; 
 
 Bring forth yourselves, hurl ye into the abyss, 
 
 Swearing that ye no more will enter here. 
 
 Are you prepared for this ? to wing your way 
 
 On high, — for what remaineth else? — to scoff 
 
 At meeting bolts as pleasantries, soar 'gainst 
 
 The rending war, to drive his light-armeds back, 
 
 And backing hosts, although at vantage placed 
 
 To us who bring the contest from beneath ; 
 
 And through the chequery war-path of the stars, 
 
 Regain, and hold our seat? If so, urge on ; 
 
 But if not so, desist ; desist in time, 
 
 Ere you your shame complete." He said, and straight 
 
 From the array, as from a silver cloud 
 
 A herald angel might address the earth, 
 
 Him spirit tall and fierce : "Shame, shame, sayst thou," 
 
 He cried, "who carest not for our shame, and preachst 
 
 Of ingratitude ! where was thine ear when first, 
 
 In peaceful climes, thy conscience, thunder tODgoad, 
 
 Sounded thy coming shaim / where \n;i^ thy tongue 
 
 That tin n was duiiilt .»n Midi a theme to ours. 
 
 Yet now so glibly trills? We 're bound to this? 
 
 Who knows it not through thee, on whom be lulls hot 
 
 curse! 
 Didst thou enforco tin if 1 truth, 
 
 When mi tii\ nil tir. 
 
144 
 
 Didst thou not it deride, and shake thy chains, 
 Vaunting them snap at will ? Didst thou not say, 
 Create ? Ha, ha, we have thee there ; traitors 
 Amongst the Gods ! ye little fires move on." 
 They moved, and moved was Moloch from his most 
 Profound, and them defied across : the three, 
 In haughty silence, stood confronting : close 
 The foe approached, inexorable ; and now, 
 Upon them press ; who, like four icebergs tall, 
 At midnight stricken on the polar sea. 
 By floating pack-ice in extensive field, 
 Perforce recoil ; and now ignobly flee — 
 Yet flee not far ; ere thus again the voice 
 
 Of Satan high; "How far shall madness go ? 
 
 To what extremity folly proceed ? 
 
 Do you intend bear down your prison walls, 
 
 Or bathe you in the flood, for what else is ? 
 
 For know, from hence, nor I, nor these remove ; 
 
 Our proper realm, our sure propriety ; 
 
 Nor can we now, nor would we if we could ; 
 
 Reprieve exhausted, or, not yet arrived." 
 
 Loud laughter rang a peal of hideous chime ; 
 
 And on the host fierce glared the four, nor long 
 
 Irresolute ;— their great hearts burned ! — pride fanned 
 
 Their fury, and an instant thrilling hate 
 
 Prompted to harm : outflew their monstrous swords ; 
 
 Outflew forthwith a myriad answering ; 
 
 That hell wide blazed : soon havoc reigned : but who 
 
I i:» 
 
 Shall comprehend the war of spirits? who 
 
 The heights of rage to which the lost ascend ? 
 
 Who shall describe the noise that speedily reigned ? 
 
 To what shall be compared the spectacle ? 
 
 Infernal ire, and archangelic strength, 
 
 Combined to ruin ; and a roar, beyond 
 
 The savage tempest's, shook the madding scene : 
 
 Immense the tide that flowed from angel's veins : 
 
 Down the broad chest, Moloch soon thrice laid open ; 
 
 Belial, shared all one shoulder ; Beelzebub, 
 
 Disparted to the chine, and thrice impaled ; 
 
 Satan, all scars ; from which flowed rivers down 
 
 His front distained. But these, immortal being, 
 
 Fail not, neither from military wound, 
 
 Nor vulgar accident, and still combat, 
 
 Though in huge pain : nor less secure of life 
 
 The meaner sort ; nor less in bravery, 
 
 Although in prow r ess less. But mortals, nor 
 
 Immortals, can perpetually war : 
 
 Although these fall, to rise again ; and those 
 
 Their strength renew, although outpouring fu>t 
 
 From grim wide wounds, — such privilege ajiritl have, 
 
 Invulnerable unto mortal dint, 
 
 And smiling at death's dart. Moreo'er, tho m 
 
 Of their compatriots maddeus those unhurt. 
 
 And hastes the end, now nigh ; for ready feels 
 
 Karh warrior, lad, at signal given, a crowd 
 
 Rush <'ii : rodi flat th.» shock: as 'gainst In 
 
146 
 
 The blast on sudden hurls the falling snows, 
 
 The quick assault was made ; and soon the four, 
 
 Lately so terrible at large in rage, 
 
 Stand vanquished, with enemies enwrapped. 
 
 Great was the shout that followed, and far rang 
 
 The abyss, and hell's immense recess ; whilst swords 
 
 Spread waving, wild, and lit the scene : awhile, 
 
 Reigned fiery tumult, and wild ebullition — 
 
 When, as a hundred rockets shot at once, 
 
 From hundred points, upon a crowded plain, 
 
 Uprose a hundred voices, wide around, 
 
 Commanding their committal to the flames. 
 
 Joy sparkled in all eyes at the idea, 
 
 And on they urge them with revolting port ; 
 
 Hilarious with cruel glee. As round 
 
 Their future victims cannibals disport, 
 
 So now around the culprit four, the host, 
 
 On moving to the sentiment of wrath, 
 
 Reckless, and drunk with fury : as bacchants 
 
 With wine inspired, or phrenzy, now they clap 
 
 Their hands, and now their swords clash hideous ; 
 
 Now, with linked fingers, from the ground upsprings 
 
 A cohort to the air, and therein foots, 
 
 With wanton measure, o'er the moving crowd : 
 
 Some chaunt loud exultanas ; some denounce 
 
 The tyrants left within : some deem hell half 
 
 Abolished ; and some, in thought, have ta'en 
 
 Their permanence on earth : some rise, and bear 
 
14^ 
 
 The tidings to the rear ; some soar to note 
 What wrath is on the flood ; some make grimace, 
 And some there are relent ; whilst others fierce, 
 Tax these as traitorous, and oft the hurt 
 Display their gashes to sustain the rage. 
 Thus they proceed, and urge their prisoners : 
 Moloch, with gnashing teeth and eyes inflamed ; 
 Belial, with tears, yet tears that inward rolled ; 
 Beelzebub, in an apparent calm ; 
 Satan, with face concealed. — And now the roof 
 Of the infernal den, and adamant walls, 
 In lurid light appearing, and the heat 
 Noisome, that fitful comes in frequent waves, 
 Stifling, sulphureous ; and the trembling ground, 
 Tell they approach unto the fatal shore 
 Of that grim sea of fire and brimstone, which 
 Encircles all hell's vast interior : 
 Also, the arch-captive, having shaken off 
 His sudden horror, marks collectedly 
 The careless tumult, and his powers 
 Gathers silently within : he meekly seem- 
 To travel, and as it* from terror shrinks; 
 K\< n ,i ilir intruding boa contracts its coil, 
 But to enlargo its spring. For ho not dreams 
 To undergo ihe firry award 
 Of his fell subjects, but, as towards some fort 
 ( >t' disaluvted town, aiv g m tlv. 
 
 Borne ammunition and the stores of war; 
 
148 
 
 His crafty heart upbuilding, skulks along ; 
 
 And from the tented ambush of his lids, 
 
 Eound slily peers, until the slackened arms 
 
 Tell him of thoughts distracted ; when, espied 
 
 His opportunity, at one distend, — 
 
 Yet sure as powder's from the pregned earth, — 
 
 He snaps like packthread their entwining arms ; 
 
 And now like to a sheet of severed flame, 
 
 When conflagrations in the night obtain, 
 
 Scuds on the Stygian air. The host beheld 
 
 The sight, amazed ; and uttered a loud cry 
 
 Of indignation, as if all were lost ; 
 
 But soon beheld him wheeling o'er the flood, 
 
 His spear in couch, and with his locks erect, 
 
 Seeming a wearing ship, whose masts are gone 
 
 And forecastle in flames ; as round he swept 
 
 With broadside huge and cloud of heeling wing; 
 
 Whence, launched with loud Ha ha's, and driving 'fore 
 
 Him a wild hurricane, he rushes back, 
 
 More terrible than thousand gilded knights, 
 
 Or the forked lightning, and relieved the thralls : 
 
 Another cry ensued, but none dared let ; 
 
 And, followed by his mates, he crossed his realm, 
 
 And sought the parts especial for earth's damned, 
 
 Its most remote, and there loud cried ; " Arise, 
 
 Arise, ye lost ! ye lost, but now are found ; 
 
 Depart your crags, and peaks, and horrid dells; 
 
 The inexorable at length is satisfied ; 
 
149 
 
 Redeemed ye are, again on trial put ; 
 
 Remanded hence by a resistless will ; 
 
 Fate cannot hold, nor hell, nor hell's, nor I ; 
 
 Awake, arise, and rush to your reprieve." 
 
 His voice resounds, and many an echoing side 
 
 Gave back the phrase, " and rush to your reprieve ; M 
 
 And straight o'er crag, peak, fell, and gentler knoll ; 
 
 By gloomy banks, and drowsy cindrous heaps ; 
 
 From listless lones, and gloomy twilit pits ; 
 
 From thousand dark and solitary vales ; 
 
 From heights forlorn, from depths unfathomable ; 
 
 From desert tracks, and from enormous shade ; 
 
 Sands, rocks, and gulfs, vaults, caverns, dens ; and clefts 
 
 Wherein the owlet ghosts had fondly dreamed, 
 
 In thrilling thought to have moped till judgment day, 
 
 The apparition grew ; whilst round he ranged, 
 
 And ranged his ministers, and still, with cries 
 
 Loud as a trump of doom, called up new hosts, 
 
 Who, all delirious with their new-found hope, 
 
 Abandoned all their horrible domains. 
 
 From the dark atmosphere in which the loin- 
 Make gleamy orbits, soon, well pleased he 
 Beholds the result, all earths below; and thufl 
 Enjoins : " Arm, arm yourselves, let every soul 
 Take arms, for on the opposite, mino own 
 In ni\y stand, arrayed to oppose yon i II i^ 
 
 Mr said, and tin- immense nutO the gTOOOd 
 Mowed down, and seizing Bach n torment, whirled 
 
150 
 
 It dimly round ; then rushed o'er Tartarus. 
 
 As o'er a plain flits cloud-shade, these, o'er hell ; 
 
 With dumb velocity and numbers infinite, 
 
 Young, old, male, female, all the wretched kind ; 
 
 All generations that have missed of heaven ; 
 
 A huge compacted continent of shade ; 
 
 And as the north-blast takes the forest ends, 
 
 Came on their supposed foe. Up tumult sprang, 
 
 And dire alarums fleet, that spread along, 
 
 And passing through the wide infernal ports, 
 
 Sent far into the hollow of the deep. 
 
 The cry, " The shades, the shades ! " fast swelled the din ; 
 
 And presently in mighty volume grew 
 
 Beyond the thunders of the universe ; 
 
 That hell astonished, quailed ; yet filled with fire, 
 
 And thick Tartarean smoke, her swift closed gates ; 
 
 That shook through all their adamantine bars, 
 
 With the recoil obstreperous of such haste ; 
 
 Whilst doubtful on she looked at the turmoil, 
 
 Heaving enormous in huge lambent waves, 
 
 Each mountainous and vast as Chilian snows ; 
 
 Or where, besides earth's white firm surface, seems 
 
 Like to the wrath-caught billows of old deep. 
 
 But vain the efforts of the bodiless ! 
 
 For soon where they arrested, soon o'erpowered ; 
 
 Soon made to acknowledge a superior force : 
 
 Like to the rush of ocean flood they came, 
 
 That, breaking down its banks, comes o'er a land 
 
151 
 
 Wild roaring, but full soon is made as nought, 
 Sucked up and swallowed in the desert sands : 
 Their joy soon from them fled, and tenfold pains 
 Caught them, deceived : and yet hard they strove, 
 And with their rage amazed the fiends, their strong 
 Custodians astonished ; on whom, 
 Thrice being from them driven, they thrice returned, 
 Like night returning to dislodge the dawn. 
 But all was vain, though aided by the four, 
 Who, like the riding demons of the storm, 
 Wide wasting flew : phrenzy indeed awhile 
 Sustained them, and the horror of relapse ; 
 But compassed by angels, pitted 'gainst 
 The exasperated giants of the skies, 
 What could they do? Despair at length o'ercom 
 Them ; and resigning strife, worse fate was nigh : 
 When from his throne God saw th' catastrophe. — 
 From the fixed bosom of eternal calm, 
 Unpierced by perturbation, undisturbed, 
 His boundless thought serene, that comprehends 
 In one unbroken, infinite idea. 
 Eternity, and without change of place 
 Bending o'er heaven's verge his sleepless eye, — 
 For it was night in heaven as well as hell, — 
 He all had viewed, and now unto his Son, 
 In simple equanimity, thus spake; — 
 " Mine only Bon, and .sharer of im ll 
 for, and Upholder, and tli. .In 
 
153 
 
 At last of every world ; sees* thou yon crew ? 
 
 They to themselves being left a little while, 
 
 And grown intoxicate with futile hope, 
 
 Band themselves strong 'gainst fate : and he returned, 
 
 Whom late we chained upon the frosty waste ; 
 
 Like to the meeting of two current seas, 
 
 Hell grows embroiled ; and the inferior souls, 
 
 Who wait the sentence of thy righteous doom, 
 
 Have left their place, and suffer in the change : 
 
 But our behest shall be unchangeable, 
 
 To everlasting, like ourselves, endure ; 
 
 Who feed with anger still hell's sable fires, 
 
 And still empower her ingrates them to bear 
 
 Unalterable ; as we once have sworn, 
 
 Our edict shall irrevocable stand : 
 
 Therefore go down, and after our decree 
 
 And thine own will, be 't done." Straightway the Son, 
 
 Whose rising seemed a thousand summer noons, 
 
 And eyes the gathered brilliance of the stars, 
 
 Swept in his chariot the etherial sky : 
 
 Vengeance preceded him, behind him came 
 
 The obsequious Destiny : all nature quailed : 
 
 His left hand steered his car, and in his right 
 
 Ever he grasped the air ; that in his fist 
 
 Conceiving thunder, thence, 't was hurled beneath : 
 
 This upon hell told sore, and quelled the fray : — 
 
 As, during some convulsion of the earth, 
 
 Her hostile creatures herd together, tame ; 
 
153 
 
 So now, upon the wide Tartarean plain, 
 
 Demons and shadows all promiscuous, 
 
 Trembling, a world of strewn : soon, hell he gained, 
 
 Who, trembling, would have fled, but he forbade ; 
 
 And bidding her be still with sovereign voice, — 
 
 Who else, had fleeing sought a lower deep, — 
 
 Midst silence deeper than that lower deep, 
 
 Upon her standing, now thus awful spake : 
 
 " Sinners, depart ; " and earth's prone host, from hell's 
 
 Divided, fled ; then with a voice as much 
 
 More terrible, as those detained were 
 
 To those dismissed superior in crime ; 
 
 " Hear, ye rebellious ! " and the dreadful note 
 
 Enhanced their terrors by a hundred-fold ; 
 
 " Since ye have chosen him your leader be, 
 
 Him shall ye follow ; ye who to me disdained 
 
 Obedience, shall yield it to yon prone ; 
 
 Your master he for ever, and your doom, — 
 
 Who light nor liberty once knew to prize, 
 
 And of our loving-kindness made so small, — 
 
 Here in this dungeon endless to abide, 
 
 Nor earth continually respiting as now, 
 
 Slaves of a slave, and bond-things of a boon 
 
 As on tho still and corpse-strewn battle field 
 
 Lie tin 1 nnburied dead, now lay the host, 
 
 Speechless, transfixed ; tlim MM bug wordless cry, 
 
 Swoln to big oceans moan from multitude, 
 
 from 'inid.st tlirm rose -soon overwhelmed ; for I 
 
154 
 
 Thunders burst o'er them, and with lightnings red, 
 
 Shook and illumined all the land of bale. 
 
 Unparalleled the noise, intense the pain ! 
 
 Even the tempest now their cries out-grow. 
 
 As mountains upon mountains hurled, and each 
 
 Concussion louder than before, now raged 
 
 The horrid rivalry obstreperous, 
 
 And filled the deep. Oh who shall tell that sound, 
 
 Describe that sight ! Or, grovelling, they wept, 
 
 Or stood, like to enormous Ajaxes, 
 
 And him defied, the first-born Son of God, 
 
 And all his lightnings, and his bolts, bade end 
 
 Them, but in vain ; then, mad with fury, all, 
 
 Enstrengthened with phrenzy, round careered 
 
 In one tremendous whirling multitude, i 
 
 With gestures horrible, and blasphemies ; 
 
 Then down refell. Hell gazed with all her eyes, 
 
 Piercing the gloom : hell quailed at the sight, 
 
 And strove them vomit forth upon the deep ; 
 
 When, her stern walls of adamant not complying, 
 
 She, from her place from the beginning kept, 
 
 Shot like an ebon star across the gulf; 
 
 Till, fate recalling her terrifically, 
 
 She it resumed, and like enormous bell 
 
 Swung to and fro i' th' void. The void was filled 
 
 With thunders, and the lightning through the abyss 
 
 Rushed like a torrent down on Acheron ; 
 
 That now, storm-wrapped she stood with lifted hair, 
 
155 
 
 Lambent : all o'er her sighed ; all o'er her groaned ; 
 
 Her denizens grew faint, and fainter yet ; 
 
 And universal Tophet half expired. 
 
 At length abatement came, the peals less loud, 
 
 Less frequent, and the fiery cataract 
 
 To tumble less impetuously began ; — 
 
 When, with raised hands and silent agony, 
 
 Arisen innumerable, the wretched force, 
 
 Up gazing fixedly, besought reprieve : 
 
 But duller still the lifted thunder grew, 
 
 And duller still : high in the loft soon rolled, 
 
 Immoveable ; or only to the ear 
 
 Advanced, long drawn through all the aisles of hell, 
 
 And to her 'waking fires bade horrible 
 
 Adieu, and now surceased. Describeless chill 
 
 Then seized upon their hearts, and down they dropped, 
 
 O'ercome with their despair; and raised the four 
 
 Their heads, and gazed around with grisly j> 
 
 At their such triumph, and their rule secured. 
 
». MARPLES, PRINTER, LIVERPOOL.