第 10 页

How dearly I abide that boast so vain,

Under what torments inwardly I groan,

While they adore me on the throne of Hell.

With diadem and scepter high advanced,

The lower still I fall, only supreme

In misery: Such joy ambition finds.

But say I could repent, and could obtain,

By act of grace, my former state; how soon

Would highth recall high thoughts, how soon unsay

What feigned submission swore? Ease would recant

Vows made in pain, as violent and void.

For never can true reconcilement grow,

Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep:

Which would but lead me to a worse relapse

And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear

Short intermission bought with double smart.

This knows my Punisher; therefore as far

From granting he, as I from begging, peace;

All hope excluded thus, behold, in stead

Mankind created, and for him this world.

So farewell, hope; and with hope farewell, fear;

Farewell, remorse! all good to me is lost;

Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least

Divided empire with Heaven’s King I hold,

By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;

As Man ere long, and this new world, shall know.

Thus while he spake, each passion dimmed his face

Paradise Lost

97 of 374

Thrice changed with pale, ire, envy, and despair;

Which marred his borrowed visage, and betrayed

Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld.

For heavenly minds from such distempers foul

Are ever clear. Whereof he soon aware,

Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm,

Artificer of fraud; and was the first

That practised falsehood under saintly show,

Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge:

Yet not enough had practised to deceive

Uriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down

The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount

Saw him disfigured, more than could befall

Spirit of happy sort; his gestures fierce

He marked and mad demeanour, then alone,

As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.

So on he fares, and to the border comes

Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,

Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,

As with a rural mound, the champaign head

Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides

Access denied; and overhead upgrew

Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,

A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend,

Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops

The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung;

Paradise Lost

98 of 374

00081429

Which to our general sire gave prospect large

Into his nether empire neighbouring round.

And higher than that wall a circling row

Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,

Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,

Appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed:

On which the sun more glad impressed his beams

Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed

That landskip: And of pure now purer air

Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires

Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

All sadness but despair: Now gentle gales,

Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole

Those balmy spoils. As when to them who fail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past

Mozambick, off at sea north-east winds blow

Sabean odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the blest; with such delay

Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league

Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:

So entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend,

Who came their bane; though with them better pleased

Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume

That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse

Of Tobit’s son, and with a vengeance sent

From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.

Paradise Lost

99 of 374

Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill

Satan had journeyed on, pensive and slow;

But further way found none, so thick entwined,

As one continued brake, the undergrowth

Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed

All path of man or beast that passed that way.

One gate there only was, and that looked east

On the other side: which when the arch-felon saw,

Due entrance he disdained; and, in contempt,

At one flight bound high over-leaped all bound

Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within

Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,

Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,

Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve

In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,

Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold:

Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash

Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,

Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault,

In at the window climbs, or o’er the tiles:

So clomb this first grand thief into God’s fold;

So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.

Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,

The middle tree and highest there that grew,

Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life

Thereby regained, but sat devising death

To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought

Of that life-giving plant, but only used

For prospect, what well used had been the pledge

Paradise Lost

100 of 374

Of immortality. So little knows

Any, but God alone, to value right

The good before him, but perverts best things

To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.

Beneath him with new wonder now he views,

To all delight of human sense exposed,

In narrow room, Nature’s whole wealth, yea more,

A Heaven on Earth: For blissful Paradise

Of God the garden was, by him in the east

Of Eden planted; Eden stretched her line

From Auran eastward to the royal towers

Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,

Of where the sons of Eden long before

Dwelt in Telassar: In this pleasant soil

His far more pleasant garden God ordained;

Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow

All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;

And all amid them stood the tree of life,

High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit

Of vegetable gold; and next to life,

Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by,

Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.

Southward through Eden went a river large,

Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill

Passed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown

That mountain as his garden-mould high raised

Upon the rapid current, which, through veins

Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,

Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill

Paradise Lost

101 of 374

Watered the garden; thence united fell

Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,

Which from his darksome passage now appears,

And now, divided into four main streams,

Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm

And country, whereof here needs no account;

But rather to tell how, if Art could tell,

How from that sapphire fount the crisped brooks,

Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,

With mazy errour under pendant shades

Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed

Flowers worthy of Paradise, which not nice Art

In beds and curious knots, but Nature boon

Poured forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,

Both where the morning sun first warmly smote

The open field, and where the unpierced shade

Imbrowned the noontide bowers: Thus was this place

A happy rural seat of various view;

Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm,

Others whose fruit, burnished with golden rind,

Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,

If true, here only, and of delicious taste:

Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks

Grazing the tender herb, were interposed,

Or palmy hillock; or the flowery lap

Of some irriguous valley spread her store,

Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose:

Another side, umbrageous grots and caves

Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine

Paradise Lost

102 of 374

Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps

Luxuriant; mean while murmuring waters fall

Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake,

That to the fringed bank with myrtle crowned

Her crystal mirrour holds, unite their streams.

The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,

Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune

The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,

Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,

Led on the eternal Spring. Not that fair field

Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers,

Herself a fairer flower by gloomy Dis

Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain

To seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove

Of Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired

Castalian spring, might with this Paradise

Of Eden strive; nor that Nyseian isle

Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham,

Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove,

Hid Amalthea, and her florid son

Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea’s eye;

Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard,

Mount Amara, though this by some supposed

True Paradise under the Ethiop line

By Nilus’ head, enclosed with shining rock,

A whole day’s journey high, but wide remote

From this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend

Saw, undelighted, all delight, all kind

Of living creatures, new to sight, and strange

Paradise Lost

103 of 374

Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,

Godlike erect, with native honour clad

In naked majesty seemed lords of all:

And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine

The image of their glorious Maker shone,

Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure,

(Severe, but in true filial freedom placed,)

Whence true authority in men; though both

Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed;

For contemplation he and valour formed;

For softness she and sweet attractive grace;

He for God only, she for God in him:

His fair large front and eye sublime declared

Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks

Round from his parted forelock manly hung

Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad:

She, as a veil, down to the slender waist

Her unadorned golden tresses wore

Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved

As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied

Subjection, but required with gentle sway,

And by her yielded, by him best received,

Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,

And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.

Nor those mysterious parts were then concealed;

Then was not guilty shame, dishonest shame

Of nature’s works, honour dishonourable,

Sin-bred, how have ye troubled all mankind

With shows instead, mere shows of seeming pure,

Paradise Lost

104 of 374

And banished from man’s life his happiest life,

Simplicity and spotless innocence!

So passed they naked on, nor shunned the sight

Of God or Angel; for they thought no ill:

So hand in hand they passed, the loveliest pair,

That ever since in love’s embraces met;

Adam the goodliest man of men since born

His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.

Under a tuft of shade that on a green

Stood whispering soft, by a fresh fountain side

They sat them down; and, after no more toil

Of their sweet gardening labour than sufficed

To recommend cool Zephyr, and made ease

More easy, wholesome thirst and appetite

More grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell,

Nectarine fruits which the compliant boughs

Yielded them, side-long as they sat recline

On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers:

The savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind,

Still as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream;

Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles

Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems

Fair couple, linked in happy nuptial league,

Alone as they. About them frisking played

All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase

In wood or wilderness, forest or den;

Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw

Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,

Gambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant,

Paradise Lost

105 of 374

To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed

His?kithetmroboscis; close the serpent sly,

Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine

His braided train, and of his fatal guile

Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass

Couched, and now filled with pasture gazing sat,

Or bedward ruminating; for the sun,

Declined, was hasting now with prone career

To the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale

Of Heaven the stars that usher evening rose:

When Satan still in gaze, as first he stood,

Scarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad.

O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!

Into our room of bliss thus high advanced

Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps,

Not Spirits, yet to heavenly Spirits bright

Little inferiour; whom my thoughts pursue

With wonder, and could love, so lively shines

In them divine resemblance, and such grace

The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.

Ah! gentle pair, ye little think how nigh

Your change approaches, when all these delights

Will vanish, and deliver ye to woe;

More woe, the more your taste is now of joy;

Happy, but for so happy ill secured

Long to continue, and this high seat your Heaven

Ill fenced for Heaven to keep out such a foe

As now is entered; yet no purposed foe

To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,

Paradise Lost

106 of 374

Though I unpitied: League with you I seek,

And mutual amity, so strait, so close,

That I with you must dwell, or you with me

Henceforth; my dwelling haply may not please,

Like this fair Paradise, your sense; yet such

Accept your Maker’s work; he gave it me,

Which I as freely give: Hell shall unfold,

To entertain you two, her widest gates,

And send forth all her kings; there will be room,

Not like these narrow limits, to receive

Your numerous offspring; if no better place,