PARADISE REGAINED THE FIRST BOOK I, WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung By one man's firm obedience fully tried And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness. Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite Into the desert, his victorious field Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10 By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute, And bear through highth or depth of Nature's bounds, And unrecorded left through many an age: 20 Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon "O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World (For much more willingly I mention Air, Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound |