第 19 页

That wished the mountains now might be again

Thrown on them, as a shelter from his ire.

Nor less on either side tempestuous fell

His arrows, from the fourfold-visaged Four

Distinct with eyes, and from the living wheels

Distinct alike with multitude of eyes;

One Spirit in them ruled; and every eye

Glared lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire

Among the accursed, that withered all their strength,

And of their wonted vigour left them drained,

Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fallen.

Yet half his strength he put not forth, but checked

His thunder in mid volley; for he meant

Not to destroy, but root them out of Heaven:

The overthrown he raised, and as a herd

Of goats or timorous flock together thronged

Drove them before him thunder-struck, pursued

With terrours, and with furies, to the bounds

And crystal wall of Heaven; which, opening wide,

Rolled inward, and a spacious gap disclosed

Into the wasteful deep: The monstrous sight

Struck them with horrour backward, but far worse

Urged them behind: Headlong themselves they threw

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Down from the verge of Heaven; eternal wrath

Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.

Hell heard the unsufferable noise, Hell saw

Heaven ruining from Heaven, and would have fled

Affrighted; but strict Fate had cast too deep

Her dark foundations, and too fast had bound.

Nine days they fell: Confounded Chaos roared,

And felt tenfold confusion in their fall

Through his wild anarchy, so huge a rout

Incumbered him with ruin: Hell at last

Yawning received them whole, and on them closed;

Hell, their fit habitation, fraught with fire

Unquenchable, the house of woe and pain.

Disburdened Heaven rejoiced, and soon repaired

Her mural breach, returning whence it rolled.

Sole victor, from the expulsion of his foes,

Messiah his triumphal chariot turned:

To meet him all his Saints, who silent stood

Eye-witnesses of his almighty acts,

With jubilee advanced; and, as they went,

Shaded with branching palm, each Order bright,

Sung triumph, and him sung victorious King,

Son, Heir, and Lord, to him dominion given,

Worthiest to reign: He, celebrated, rode

Triumphant through mid Heaven, into the courts

And temple of his Mighty Father throned

On high; who into glory him received,

Where now he sits at the right hand of bliss.

Thus, measuring things in Heaven by things on Earth,

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At thy request, and that thou mayest beware

By what is past, to thee I have revealed

What might have else to human race been hid;

The discord which befel, and war in Heaven

Among the angelick Powers, and the deep fall

Of those too high aspiring, who rebelled

With Satan; he who envies now thy state,

Who now is plotting how he may seduce

Thee also from obedience, that, with him

Bereaved of happiness, thou mayest partake

His punishment, eternal misery;

Which would be all his solace and revenge,

As a despite done against the Most High,

Thee once to gain companion of his woe.

But listen not to his temptations, warn

Thy weaker; let it profit thee to have heard,

By terrible example, the reward

Of disobedience; firm they might have stood,

Yet fell; remember, and fear to transgress.

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Book VII

Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name

If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine

Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,

Above the flight of Pegasean wing!

The meaning, not the name, I call: for thou

Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top

Of old Olympus dwellest; but, heavenly-born,

Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,

Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,

Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play

In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased

With thy celestial song. Up led by thee

Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,

An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,

Thy tempering: with like safety guided down

Return me to my native element:

Lest from this flying steed unreined, (as once

Bellerophon, though from a lower clime,)

Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,

Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.

Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound

Within the visible diurnal sphere;

Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,

More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged

To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,

On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;

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In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,

And solitude; yet not alone, while thou

Visitest my slumbers nightly, or when morn

Purples the east: still govern thou my song,

Urania, and fit audience find, though few.

But drive far off the barbarous dissonance

Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race

Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard

In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears

To rapture, till the savage clamour drowned

Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend

Her son. So fail not thou, who thee implores:

For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream.

Say, Goddess, what ensued when Raphael,

The affable Arch-Angel, had forewarned

Adam, by dire example, to beware

Apostasy, by what befel in Heaven

To those apostates; lest the like befall

In Paradise to Adam or his race,

Charged not to touch the interdicted tree,

If they transgress, and slight that sole command,

So easily obeyed amid the choice

Of all tastes else to please their appetite,

Though wandering. He, with his consorted Eve,

The story heard attentive, and was filled

With admiration and deep muse, to hear

Of things so high and strange; things, to their thought

So unimaginable, as hate in Heaven,

And war so near the peace of God in bliss,

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With such confusion: but the evil, soon

Driven back, redounded as a flood on those

From whom it sprung; impossible to mix

With blessedness. Whence Adam soon repealed

The doubts that in his heart arose: and now

Led on, yet sinless, with desire to know

What nearer might concern him, how this world

Of Heaven and Earth conspicuous first began;

When, and whereof created; for what cause;

What within Eden, or without, was done

Before his memory; as one whose drouth

Yet scarce allayed still eyes the current stream,

Whose liquid murmur heard new thirst excites,

Proceeded thus to ask his heavenly guest.

Great things, and full of wonder in our ears,

Far differing from this world, thou hast revealed,

Divine interpreter! by favour sent

Down from the empyrean, to forewarn

Us timely of what might else have been our loss,

Unknown, which human knowledge could not reach;

For which to the infinitely Good we owe

Immortal thanks, and his admonishment

Receive, with solemn purpose to observe

Immutably his sovran will, the end

Of what we are. But since thou hast vouchsafed

Gently, for our instruction, to impart

Things above earthly thought, which yet concerned

Our knowing, as to highest wisdom seemed,

Deign to descend now lower, and relate

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What may no less perhaps avail us known,

How first began this Heaven which we behold

Distant so high, with moving fires adorned

Innumerable; and this which yields or fills

All space, the ambient air wide interfused

Embracing round this floried Earth; what cause

Moved the Creator, in his holy rest

Through all eternity, so late to build

In Chaos; and the work begun, how soon

Absolved; if unforbid thou mayest unfold

What we, not to explore the secrets ask

Of his eternal empire, but the more

To magnify his works, the more we know.

And the great light of day yet wants to run

Much of his race though steep; suspense in Heaven,

Held by thy voice, thy potent voice, he hears,

And longer will delay to hear thee tell

His generation, and the rising birth

Of Nature from the unapparent Deep:

Or if the star of evening and the moon

Haste to thy audience, Night with her will bring,

Silence; and Sleep, listening to thee, will watch;

Or we can bid his absence, till thy song

End, and dismiss thee ere the morning shine.

Thus Adam his illustrious guest besought:

And thus the Godlike Angel answered mild.

This also thy request, with caution asked,

Obtain; though to recount almighty works

What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice,

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Or heart of man suffice to comprehend?

Yet what thou canst attain, which best may serve

To glorify the Maker, and infer

Thee also happier, shall not be withheld

Thy hearing; such commission from above

I have received, to answer thy desire

Of knowledge within bounds; beyond, abstain

To ask; nor let thine own inventions hope

Things not revealed, which the invisible King,

Only Omniscient, hath suppressed in night;

To none communicable in Earth or Heaven:

Enough is left besides to search and know.

But knowledge is as food, and needs no less

Her temperance over appetite, to know

In measure what the mind may well contain;

Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns

Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.

Know then, that, after Lucifer from Heaven

(So call him, brighter once amidst the host

Of Angels, than that star the stars among,)

Fell with his flaming legions through the deep

Into his place, and the great Son returned

Victorious with his Saints, the Omnipotent

Eternal Father from his throne beheld

Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake.

At least our envious Foe hath failed, who thought

All like himself rebellious, by whose aid

This inaccessible high strength, the seat

Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed,

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He trusted to have seised, and into fraud

Drew many, whom their place knows here no more:

Yet far the greater part have kept, I see,

Their station; Heaven, yet populous, retains

Number sufficient to possess her realms

Though wide, and this high temple to frequent

With ministeries due, and solemn rites:

But, lest his heart exalt him in the harm

Already done, to have dispeopled Heaven,

My damage fondly deemed, I can repair

That detriment, if such it be to lose

Self-lost; and in a moment will create

Another world, out of one man a race

Of men innumerable, there to dwell,

Not here; till, by degrees of merit raised,

They open to themselves at length the way

Up hither, under long obedience tried;

And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth,

One kingdom, joy and union without end.

Mean while inhabit lax, ye Powers of Heaven;

And thou my Word, begotten Son, by thee

This I perform; speak thou, and be it done!

My overshadowing Spirit and Might with thee

I send along; ride forth, and bid the Deep

Within appointed bounds be Heaven and Earth;

Boundless the Deep, because I Am who fill

Infinitude, nor vacuous the space.

Though I, uncircumscribed myself, retire,

And put not forth my goodness, which is free

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To act or not, Necessity and Chance

Approach not me, and what I will is Fate.

So spake the Almighty, and to what he spake

His Word, the Filial Godhead, gave effect.

Immediate are the acts of God, more swift

Than time or motion, but to human ears

Cannot without process of speech be told,

So told as earthly notion can receive.

Great triumph and rejoicing was in Heaven,

When such was heard declared the Almighty’s will;

Glory they sung to the Most High, good will

To future men, and in their dwellings peace;

Glory to Him, whose just avenging ire

Had driven out the ungodly from his sight

And the habitations of the just; to Him

Glory and praise, whose wisdom had ordained

Good out of evil to create; instead

Of Spirits malign, a better race to bring

Into their vacant room, and thence diffuse

His good to worlds and ages infinite.

So sang the Hierarchies: Mean while the Son

On his great expedition now appeared,

Girt with Omnipotence, with radiance crowned

Of Majesty Divine; sapience and love

Immense, and all his Father in him shone.

About his chariot numberless were poured

Cherub, and Seraph, Potentates, and Thrones,

And Virtues, winged Spirits, and chariots winged

From the armoury of God; where stand of old

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Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged

Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand,

Celestial equipage; and now came forth

Spontaneous, for within them Spirit lived,

Attendant on their Lord: Heaven opened wide

Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound

On golden hinges moving, to let forth

The King of Glory, in his powerful Word

And Spirit, coming to create new worlds.

On heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore

They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss

Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,

Up from the bottom turned by furious winds

And surging waves, as mountains, to assault

Heaven’s highth, and with the center mix the pole.

Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou Deep, peace,

Said then the Omnifick Word; your discord end!

Nor staid; but, on the wings of Cherubim

Uplifted, in paternal glory rode

Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;

For Chaos heard his voice: Him all his train

Followed in bright procession, to behold

Creation, and the wonders of his might.

Then staid the fervid wheels, and in his hand

He took the golden compasses, prepared

In God’s eternal store, to circumscribe

This universe, and all created things:

One foot he centered, and the other turned

Round through the vast profundity obscure;

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And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds,