If ye be found obedient, and retain
Unalterably firm his love entire

Whose progeny you are. Meanwhile enjoy
Your fill what happiness this happy state
Can comprehend, incapable of more."

To whom the Patriarch of Mankind replied:

"O favourable Spirit, propitious guest,

Well hast thou taught the way that might direct
Our knowledge, and the scale of Nature set
From centre to circumference, whereon,

In contemplation of created things,

By steps we may ascend to God.

But say,

What meant that caution joined, If ye be found
Obedient? Can we want obedience, then,

To him, or possibly his love desert,

Who formed us from the dust, and placed us here
Full to the utmost measure of what bliss

Human desires can seek or apprehend?"

510

520

To whom the Angel :—“ Son of Heaven and Earth, Attend! That thou art happy, owe to God; That thou continuest such, owe to thyself, That is, to thy obedience; therein stand. This was that caution given thee; be advised. God made thee perfect, not immutable; And good he made thee; but to persevere He left it in thy power-ordained thy will By nature free, not over-ruled by fate Inextricable, or strict necessity.

Our voluntary service he requires,

Not our necessitated. Such with him

530

Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how

Can hearts not free be tried whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By destiny, and can no other choose?
Myself, and all the Angelic Host, that stand

In sight of God enthroned, our happy state

Hold, as you yours, while our obedience holds.
On other surety none: freely we serve
Because we freely love, as in our will

To love or not; in this we stand or fall.
And some are fallen, to disobedience fallen,
And so from Heaven to deepest Hell. O fall
From what high state of bliss into what woe!"
To whom our great Progenitor:-"Thy words
Attentive, and with more delighted ear,
Divine instructor, I have heard, than when
Cherubic songs by night from neighbouring hills
Aerial music send. Nor knew I not

540

550

To be, both will and deed, created free.
Yet that we never shall forget to love
Our Maker, and obey him whose command.
Single is yet so just, my constant thoughts
Assured me, and still assure; though what thou tell'st
Hath passed in Heaven some doubt within me move,

But more desire to hear, if thou consent,

The full relation, which must needs be strange,

Worthy of sacred silence to be heard.

And we have yet large day, for scarce the Sun
Hath finished half his journey, and scarce begins
His other half in the great zone of heaven."

Thus Adam made request; and Raphael,

After short pause assenting, thus began:—

"High matter thou enjoin'st me, O prime of MenSad task and hard; for how shall I relate

To human sense the invisible exploits

Of warring Spirits? how, without remorse,

The ruin of so many, glorious once

And perfect while they stood? how, last, unfold

The secrets of another world, perhaps

Not lawful to reveal? Yet for thy good

560

570

This is dispensed; and what surmounts the reach
Of human sense I shall delineate so,

By likening spiritual to corporal forms,

As may express them best-though what if Earth
Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein
Each to other like more than on Earth is thought?

"As yet this World was not, and Chaos wild Reigned where these heavens now roll, where Earth

now rests

Upon her centre poised, when on a day

(For Time, though in Eternity, applied To motion, measures all things durable

By present, past, and future), on such day

580

As Heaven's great year brings forth, the empyreal host

Of Angels, by imperial summons called,

Innumerable before the Almighty's throne

Forthwith from all the ends of Heaven appeared
Under their hierarchs in orders bright.

Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced,
Standards and gonfalons, 'twixt van and rear
Stream in the air, and for distinction serve
Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees;
Or in their glittering tissues bear emblazed
Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love
Recorded eminent. Thus when in orbs
Of circuit inexpressible they stood,
Orb within orb, the Father Infinite,
By whom in bliss embosomed sat the Son,
Amidst, as from a flaming mount, whose top
Brightness had made invisible, thus spake :-

Hear, all ye Angels, Progeny of Light,
Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,
Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand!

This day I have begot whom I declare

My only Son, and on this holy hill

590

600

Him have anointed, whom ye now behold

At my right hand.

Your head I him appoint,

And by myself have sworn to him shall bow

All knees in Heaven, and shall confess him Lord.
Under his great vicegerent reign abide,
United as one individual soul,

For ever happy. Him who disobeys

Me disobeys, breaks union, and, that day,
Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
Into utter darkness, deep engulfed, his place
Ordained without redemption, without end.'

610

"So spake the Omnipotent, and with his words
All seemed well pleased; all seemed, but were not all.
That day, as other solemn days, they spent
In song and dance, about the sacred hill-
Mystical dance, which yonder starry sphere
Of planets and of fixed in all her wheels
Resembles nearest; mazes intricate,
Eccentric, intervolved, yet regular

Then most when most irregular they seem ;
And in their motions harmony divine

So smooths her charming tones that God's own ear
Listens delighted. Evening now approached
(For we have also our evening and our morn—
We ours for change delectable, not need),
Forthwith from dance to sweet repast they turn

620

630

Desirous all in circles as they stood,

Tables are set, and on a sudden piled

With Angels' food; and rubied nectar flows

In pearl, in diamond, and massy gold,

Fruit of delicious vines, the growth of Heaven.

On flowers reposed, and with fresh flowerets crowned, They eat, they drink, and in communion sweet

Quaff immortality and joy, secure

Of surfeit where full measure only bounds.

Excess, before the all-bounteous King, who showered With copious hand, rejoicing in their joy.

641

Now, when ambrosial Night, with clouds exhaled
From that high mount of God whence light and shade
Spring both, the face of brightest Heaven had changed.
To grateful twilight (for Night comes not there

In darker veil), and roseate dews disposed

All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest,
Wide over all the plain, and wider far
Than all this globous Earth in plain outspread
(Such are the courts of God), the Angelic throng,
Dispersed in bands and files, their camp extend
By living streams among the trees of life-
Pavilions numberless and sudden reared,

Celestial tabernacles, where they slept,

650

Fanned with cool winds; save those who, in their course,

Melodious hymns about the sovran throne
Alternate all night long. But not so waked
Satan-so call him now; his former name
Is heard no more in Heaven. He, of the first,
If not the first Archangel, great in power,
In favour, and pre-eminence, yet fraught
With envy against the Son of God, that day
Honoured by his great Father, and proclaimed
Messiah, King Anointed, could not bear,

660

Through pride, that sight, and thought himself impaired.
Deep malice thence conceiving and disdain,
Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hour
Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolved
With all his legions to dislodge, and leave
Unworshiped, unobeyed, the Throne supreme,
Contemptuous, and, his next subordinate
Awakening, thus to him in secret spake :-

670

"Sleep'st thou, companion dear? what sleep can close

Thy eyelids? and rememberest what decree