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His utmost pow'r with adverse pow'r oppos'd
In dubious battle on the plains of heav'n,

And shook his throne. What though the field be lost
All is not lost th' unconquerable will,
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome;
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power,
Who from the terror of this arm so late
Doubted his empire; that were low indeed,
That were an ingnominy, and shame beneath
This downfal; since, by fate, the strength of gods
And this empyreal substance cannot fail;

Since, through experience of this great event.
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanc'd,
We may with more successful hope, resolve
To wage, by force or guile, eternal war,
Irreconcileable to our grand foe,

Who now triumphs, and, in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning, holds the tyranny of heaven.

So spake th' apostate angel, though in pain,
Vaunting aloud, but rack'd with deep despair:
And him thus answer'd soon his bold compeer:
O prince, O chief of many throned powers,
That led th' embattl'd seraphim to war,
Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds
Fearless, endanger'd heav'n's perpetual King,
And put to proof his high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate
foo well I see and rue the dire event,
That with sad overthrow and foul defeat
Hath lost us Heav'n, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as gods and heav'nly essences
Can perish for the mind and spirit remain
Invincible, and vigour soon returns,

Though all our glory extinct, and happy state

Here swallow'd up in endless misery.

But what if he our conqueror (whom, I now
Of force believe Almighty, since no less

Than such could have o'erpower'd such force as our:
Have left us in this our spirit and strength entire.
Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
Or do him mightier service as his thralls
By right of war, whate'er his bus'ness be,
Here in the heart of hell to work in fire,
Or do his errands in the gloomy deep;
What can it then avail, though yet we feel
Strength undiminish'd, or eternal being,
To undergo eternal punishment?

Whereto with speedy words th' arch-fiend replied:
Fall'n cherub! to be weak is miserable,
Doing or suff'ring; but of this be sure,
To do aught good, never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from their destin'd aim.
But see! the angry victor hath recall'd
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit,
Back to the gates of heav'n; the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid
The fiery surge, that from the precipice

Of heav'n receiv'd us falling; and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Let us not slip th' occasion whether scorn,
Or satiate fury, yield it from Spe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild.

The seat of desolation, void of light,

Save what the glimmering of these livid flanies
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;
There rest if any rest can harbour there:
And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy; our own loss how repair;
How overcome this dire calamity;
What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not what resolution from despair.

Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate,
With head uplift above the wave, and eyes
That sparkling blaz'd, his other parts beside,
Prone on the flood, extended long and large,
Lay floating many a rood; in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or earth-born, that warr'd on Jove:
Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream:
Him, haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night founder'd skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fix'd anchor in his scaly rind

Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wish'd morn delays:

So stretched out huge in length, the arch-fiend lay
Chain'd on the burning lake: nor ever thence
Had risen or heav'd his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling heav'n
Left him at large to his own dark designs;
That with reiterated crimes, he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others; and, enrag'd, might see
How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy shown
On man by him seduced, but on himself

Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance pour'd.
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames,
Driv'n backward, slope their pointing spires, and roll'd
In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale.

Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air

That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights, if it were land that ever burn'd
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire;
And such appear'd in hue: as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thund'ring Etna, whose combustible
And fuell'd entrails, thence conceiving fire,
Sublim'd with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involv'd

With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him follow'd his next mate,
Both glorying to have 'scap'd the Stygian flood
As gods, and by their own recover'd strength,
Not by the suff'rance of supernal power.

Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,
Said then the lost arch-angel, this the seat

That we must change for heaven; this mournful
For that celestial light? Be it so! since he [gloom
Who now is sov'reign can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best,
Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme
Above his equals! Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells. Hail horrors! hail
Infernal world! and thou profoundest hell,
Receive thy new possessor! one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
What matter where if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free: th' Almighty hath not built
Here, for his envy will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice,
To reign is worth ambition, though in hell:
Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n'
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th' associates and copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd on th' oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part,
In this unhappy mansion; or once more
With ralli'd arms, to try what may be yet
Regain'd in heav'n, or what more lost in hell?
So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub

Thus answer'd: Leader of those armies bright,
Which but th' Omnipotent none could have foued
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle when it rag'd, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage, and revive, though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we ere while, astounded and amaz'd;
No wonder, fall'n such a pernicious height.

He scarce had ceas'd, when the superior fiend
Was moving to the shore: his pond'rous shield,
Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views.
At evening from the top of Fesole,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great admiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On heaven's azure; and the torrid clime

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