Heav'n's cheerful face, the louring element
Scowls o'er the darken'd landscape, snow or shower; If chance the radiant sun with farewell sweet Extend his evening beam, the fields revive, The birds their notes renew, and bleating herds Attest their joy, that hill and valley rings. O shame to men! Devil with Devil damn'd Firm concord holds, men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of heav'nly grace: and God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, Wasting the earth, each other to destroy: As if (which might induce us to accord) Man had not hellish foes enow besides, That day and night for his destruction wait. The Stygian council thus dissolved; and forth In order came the grand infernal peers : Midst came their mighty paramount, and seem'd Alone th' antagonist of heav'n, nor less Than hell's dread emperor, with pomp supreme, And godlike imitated state; him round A globe of fiery Seraphim enclos'd
With bright emblazonry, and horrent arms. Then of their session ended, they bid cry With trumpet's regal sound, the great result: Towards the four winds four speedy Cherubim Put to their mouths the sounding alchymy By heralds' voice explain'd; the hollow abyss Heard far and wide, and all the host of hell With deaf'ning shout return'd them loud acclaim. Thence more at ease their minds, and somewhat rais'd By false presumptuous hope, the ranged Powers Disband, and wand'ring, each his several way Pursues, as inclination or sad choice
Leads him perplex'd, where he may likeliest find Truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain The irksome hours, till his great chief return. Part on the plain, or in the air sublime,
Upon the wing, or in swift race contend, As at th' Olympian games or Pythian fields; Part curb their fiery steeds, or shun the goal With rapid wheels, or fronted brigades form. As when to warn proud cities, war appears Wag'd in the troubled sky, and armies rush To battle in the clouds, before each van
Prick forth the airy knights, and couch their spears Till thickest legions close: with feats of arms From either end of heav'n the welkin burns. Others with vast Typhœan rage more fell Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air In whirlwind; hell scarce holds the wild uproar. As when Alcides, from Echalia crown'd With conquest, felt th' envenom'd robe, and tore Through pain, up by the roots Thessalian pines, And Lichas from the top of Eta threw Into th' Euboic sea. Others more mild, Retreated in a silent valley, sing With notes angelical to many a harp Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall By doom of battle; and complain that fate Free virtue should inthral to force or chance. Their song was partial, but the harmony (What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?) Suspended hell, and took with ravishment
The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet (For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense,) Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,
In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix'd fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost. Of good and evil much they argued, then Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory, and shame, Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy : Yet with a pleasing sorcery could charm Pain for a while, or anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm th' obdured breast With stubborn patience as with triple steel. Another part in squadrons and gross bands, On bold adventure to discover wide That dismal world, if any clime perhaps Might yield them easier habitation, bend Four ways their flying march, along the banks Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge
Into the burning lake their baleful streams; Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus nam'd, of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream: fierce Phlegethon, Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe the river of oblivion rolls
Her wat'ry labrinth, whereof who drinks, Forthwith his former state and being forgets, Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain. Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems Of ancient pile; all else deep snow and ice: A gulf profound as that Serbonion bog Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire. Thither by harpy footed furies haul'd
At certain revolutions all the damn'd
Are brought; and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce, From beds of raging fire, to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immoveable, infix'd, and frozen round
Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire. They ferry over this Lethean sound
Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment, And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach
The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and wo,
All in one moment, and so near the brink; But fate withstands, and to oppose th' attempt Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on In confus'd march forlorn, th' advent'rous bands With shudd'ring horror pale, and eyes aghast, View'd first their lamentable lot, and found No rest through many a dark and dreary vale They pass'd, and many a region dolorous,
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp.
Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death,
A universe of death, which God by curse
Created evil, for evil only good,
Where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds Perverse all monstrous all prodigious things,
Abominable, unutterable, and worse
Than fables yet have feign'd, or fear conceiv'd, Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimeræas dire.
Meanwhile the Adversary of God and Man, Satan, with thoughts inflam'd of highest design, Puts on swift wings, and tow'rds the gates of hell Explores his solitary flight: sometimes
He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left, Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars Up to the fiery concave, tow'ring high. As when far off at sea a fleet descry'd Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles
Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs: they on the trading flood Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape Ply, stemming nightly tow'rd the pole. So seemed Far off the flying Fiend: at last appear Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid roof,
And thrice threefold the gates; three folds were brass, Three iron, three of adamantine rock Impenetrable, empal'd with circling fire,*
Yet unconsum'd. Before the gates there sat On either side a formidable shape;
The one seem'd woman to the waist, and fair, But ended foul in many a scaly fold Voluminous and vast, a serpent arm'd
With mortal sting: about her middle round A cry of hell hounds never ceasing bark'd With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung A hideous peal; yet when they list, would creep, If ought disturb'd their noise into her womb, And kennel there, yet there still bark'd and howl'd Within, unseen. Far less abhorr'd than these Vex'd Scylla bathing in the sea that parts Calabria from the hoarse Trinacrian shore: Nor uglier follow the night-hag, when call'd In secret; riding through the air she comes, Lur'd with the smell of infant blood, to dance With Lapland witches, while the lab'ring moon Eclipses at their charms. The other shape, If shape it might be call'd, that shape had none Distinguishable, in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd For each seem'd either; black it stood as Night, Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. Satan was now at hand, and from his seat The monster moving onward, came as fast With horrid strides, hell trembled as he strode. Th' undaunted Fiend what this might be admir'd, Admir'd, not fear'd: God and his Son except, Created thing naught valu'd he nor shunn'd; And with disdainful look thus first began: Whence and what art thou, execrable shape!
"Empal'd with circling fire;" paled or hedged in.
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