With opal tow'rs and battlements adorn'd
Of living faphir, once his native feat;
And fast by hanging in a golden chain

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This pendent world, in bigness as a itar
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.

Thither full fraught with anischievous revenge,
Accurs'd, and in a curfed hour he hies..

The End of the Second Book.

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BOOK III.

The Argument.

God fitting on his throne fees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; fhows him to the Son who fat at his right hand; foretells the fuccefs of Satan in perverting Mankind; clears his own juftice and wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free and able enough to have withstood his Tempter; yet declares his purpofe of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him feduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifeftation of his gracious purpose towards Man; but God again declares, that grace cannot be extended towards Man without the fatisfaction of divine juftice; Man hath offended the majesty of God by afpiring to Godhead, and therefore with all his progeny devoted to death muft die, unless fome one can be found fufficient to answer for his offence, and undergo his punish ment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ranfome for Man : the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in heaven and earth; commands all the angels to adore him; they obey, and hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Mean while Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world's outermoft orb; where wandering he first finds a place, fince call'd the Limbo of Vanity; what perfons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the gate of Heaven, defcrib'd afcending by ftairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it: his paffage thence to the orb of the fun; he finds there Uriel the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the fhape of a meaner angel; and pretending a zealous defire to behold the new creation, and Man whom God had plac'd here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights firft on Mount Niphates.

HAIL holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born,

Or of th' Eternal coeternal beam

May I express thee' unblam'd? fince God is light,
And never but in unapproached light

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright effence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the fun,
Before the heav'ns thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle didst invest
The rifing world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee 1 revifit now with bolder wing,

Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obfcure fojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne
With other notes than to th' Orphéan lyre

I fung of Chaos and eternal Night,

20

Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy fovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop ferene hath quench'd their orbs, 25
Or dim fuffufion veil'd. Yet not the more

Ceafe I to wander where the Mufes haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or funny hill,
Smit with the love of facred fong; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I vifit: nor fometimes forget

30

Thofe other two equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tirefias and Phineus prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seafons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or fight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of Knowledge fair
Prefented with a universal blank

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40

45

Of Nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd, '
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celeftial Light,
Shine inward, and the Mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mift from thence
Purge and difperfe, that I may fee and tell

Of things invifible to mortal fight.

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Now had th' almighty Father from above,

From the pure empyréan where he fits

High thron'd above all highth, bent down his eye, His own works and their works at once to view: About him all the fanctities of Heaven

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,

Stood thick as stars, and from his fight receiv'd

Beatitude past utterance; on his right

The radiant image of his glory fat,

His only Son; on earth he first beheld
Our two first Parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy garden plac'd,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivall'd love
In blissful folitude; he then furvey'd
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of Heav'n on this side Night
In the dun air sublime, and ready now

To stoop with wearied wings and willing feet
On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd
Firm land imbofom'd, without firmament,
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.

Him God beholding from his profpect high,
Wherein past, prefent, future, he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.

Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our adversary? whom no bounds
Prefcrib'd, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heap'd on him there, nor yet the main abyss'
Wide interrupt can hold; so bent he seems

On defperate revenge, that shall redound

Upon his own rebellious head. And now

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80

85

Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way
Not far off Heav'n, in the precincts of light,

Volume I.

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