第 8 页

Atonement for himself, or offering meet,

Indebted and undone, hath none to bring;

Behold me then: me for him, life for life

I offer: on me let thine anger fall;

Account me Man; I for his sake will leave

Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee

Freely put off, and for him lastly die

Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage.

Under his gloomy power I shall not long

Lie vanquished. Thou hast given me to possess

Life in myself for ever; by thee I live;

Though now to Death I yield, and am his due,

All that of me can die, yet, that debt paid,

$ thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave

His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul

For ever with corruption there to dwell;

But I shall rise victorious, and subdue

My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.

Death his death’s wound shall then receive, and stoop

Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed;

I through the ample air in triumph high

Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell, and show

The powers of darkness bound. Thou, at the sight

Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,

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While, by thee raised, I ruin all my foes;

Death last, and with his carcase glut the grave;

Then, with the multitude of my redeemed,

Shall enter Heaven, long absent, and return,

Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud

Of anger shall remain, but peace assured

And reconcilement: wrath shall be no more

Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire.

His words here ended; but his meek aspect

Silent yet spake, and breathed immortal love

To mortal men, above which only shone

Filial obedience: as a sacrifice

Glad to be offered, he attends the will

Of his great Father. Admiration seized

All Heaven, what this might mean, and whither tend,

Wondering; but soon th’ Almighty thus replied.

O thou in Heaven and Earth the only peace

Found out for mankind under wrath, O thou

My sole complacence! Well thou know’st how dear

To me are all my works; nor Man the least,

Though last created, that for him I spare

Thee from my bosom and right hand, to save,

By losing thee a while, the whole race lost.

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Thou, therefore, whom thou only canst redeem,

Their nature also to thy nature join;

And be thyself Man among men on Earth,

Made flesh, when time shall be, of virgin seed,

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By wondrous birth; be thou in Adam’s room

The head of all mankind, though Adam’s son.

As in him perish all men, so in thee,

As from a second root, shall be restored

As many as are restored, without thee none.

His crime makes guilty all his sons; thy merit,

Imputed, shall absolve them who renounce

Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds,

And live in thee transplanted, and from thee

Receive new life. So Man, as is most just,

Shall satisfy for Man, be judged and die,

And dying rise, and rising with him raise

His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life.

So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,

Giving to death, and dying to redeem,

So dearly to redeem what hellish hate

So easily destroyed, and still destroys

In those who, when they may, accept not grace.

Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume

Man’s nature, lessen or degrade thine own.

Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss

Equal to God, and equally enjoying

God-like fruition, quitted all, to save

A world from utter loss, and hast been found

By merit more than birthright Son of God,

Found worthiest to be so by being good,

Far more than great or high; because in thee

Love hath abounded more than glory abounds;

Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt

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With thee thy manhood also to this throne:

Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign

Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man,

Anointed universal King; all power

I give thee; reign for ever, and assume

Thy merits; under thee, as head supreme,

Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions, I reduce:

All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide

In Heaven, or Earth, or under Earth in Hell.

When thou, attended gloriously from Heaven,

Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send

The summoning Arch-Angels to proclaim

Thy dread tribunal; forthwith from all winds,

The living, and forthwith the cited dead

Of all past ages, to the general doom

Shall hasten; such a peal shall rouse their sleep.

Then, all thy saints assembled, thou shalt judge

Bad Men and Angels; they, arraigned, shall sink

Beneath thy sentence; Hell, her numbers full,

Thenceforth shall be for ever shut. Mean while

The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring

New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell,

And, after all their tribulations long,

See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,

With joy and peace triumphing, and fair truth.

Then thou thy regal scepter shalt lay by,

For regal scepter then no more shall need,

God shall be all in all. But, all ye Gods,

Adore him, who to compass all this dies;

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Adore the Son, and honour him as me.

No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all

The multitude of Angels, with a shout

Loud as from numbers without number, sweet

As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung

With jubilee, and loud Hosannas filled

The eternal regions: Lowly reverent

Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground

With solemn adoration down they cast

Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold;

Immortal amarant, a flower which once

In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,

Began to bloom; but soon for man’s offence

To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,

And flowers aloft shading the fount of life,

And where the river of bliss through midst of Heaven

Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream;

With these that never fade the Spirits elect

Bind their resplendent locks inwreathed with beams;

Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright

Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone,

Impurpled with celestial roses smiled.

Then, crowned again, their golden harps they took,

Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side

Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet

Of charming symphony they introduce

Their sacred song, and waken raptures high;

No voice exempt, no voice but well could join

Melodious part, such concord is in Heaven.

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Thee, Father, first they sung Omnipotent,

Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,

Eternal King; the Author of all being,

Fonntain of light, thyself invisible

Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit’st

Throned inaccessible, but when thou shadest

The full blaze of thy beams, and, through a cloud

Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine,

Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,

Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim

Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.

Thee next they sang of all creation first,

Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,

In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud

Made visible, the Almighty Father shines,

Whom else no creature can behold; on thee

Impressed the effulgence of his glory abides,

Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests.

He Heaven of Heavens and all the Powers therein

By thee created; and by thee threw down

The aspiring Dominations: Thou that day

Thy Father’s dreadful thunder didst not spare,

Nor stop thy flaming chariot-wheels, that shook

Heaven’s everlasting frame, while o’er the necks

Thou drovest of warring Angels disarrayed.

Back from pursuit thy Powers with loud acclaim

Thee only extolled, Son of thy Father’s might,

To execute fierce vengeance on his foes,

Not so on Man: Him through their malice fallen,

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Father of mercy and grace, thou didst not doom

So strictly, but much more to pity incline:

No sooner did thy dear and only Son

Perceive thee purposed not to doom frail Man

So strictly, but much more to pity inclined,

He to appease thy wrath, and end the strife

Of mercy and justice in thy face discerned,

Regardless of the bliss wherein he sat

Second to thee, offered himself to die

For Man’s offence. O unexampled love,

Love no where to be found less than Divine!

Hail, Son of God, Saviour of Men! Thy name

Shall be the copious matter of my song

Henceforth, and never shall my heart thy praise

Forget, nor from thy Father’s praise disjoin.

Thus they in Heaven, above the starry sphere,

Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent.

Mean while upon the firm opacous globe

Of this round world, whose first convex divides

The luminous inferiour orbs, enclosed

From Chaos, and the inroad of Darkness old,

Satan alighted walks: A globe far off

It seemed, now seems a boundless continent

Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of Night

Starless exposed, and ever-threatening storms

Of Chaos blustering round, inclement sky;

Save on that side which from the wall of Heaven,

Though distant far, some small reflection gains

Of glimmering air less vexed with tempest loud:

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Here walked the Fiend at large in spacious field.

As when a vultur on Imaus bred,

Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,

Dislodging from a region scarce of prey

To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids,

On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs

Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams;

But in his way lights on the barren plains

Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With sails and wind their cany waggons light:

So, on this windy sea of land, the Fiend

Walked up and down alone, bent on his prey;

Alone, for other creature in this place,

Living or lifeless, to be found was none;

None yet, but store hereafter from the earth

Up hither like aereal vapours flew

Of all things transitory and vain, when sin

With vanity had filled the works of men:

Both all things vain, and all who in vain things

Built their fond hopes of glory or lasting fame,

Or happiness in this or the other life;

All who have their reward on earth, the fruits

Of painful superstition and blind zeal,

Nought seeking but the praise of men, here find

Fit retribution, empty as their deeds;

All the unaccomplished works of Nature’s hand,

Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mixed,

Dissolved on earth, fleet hither, and in vain,

Till final dissolution, wander here;

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Not in the neighbouring moon as some have dreamed;

Those argent fields more likely habitants,

Translated Saints, or middle Spirits hold

Betwixt the angelical and human kind.

Hither of ill-joined sons and daughters born

First from the ancient world those giants came

With many a vain exploit, though then renowned:

The builders next of Babel on the plain

Of Sennaar, and still with vain design,

New Babels, had they wherewithal, would build:

Others came single; he, who, to be deemed

A God, leaped fondly into Aetna flames,

Empedocles; and he, who, to enjoy

Plato’s Elysium, leaped into the sea,

Cleombrotus; and many more too long,

Embryos, and idiots, eremites, and friars

White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery.

Here pilgrims roam, that strayed so far to seek

In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven;

And they, who to be sure of Paradise,

Dying, put on the weeds of Dominick,

Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised;

They pass the planets seven, and pass the fixed,

And that crystalling sphere whose balance weighs

The trepidation talked, and that first moved;

And now Saint Peter at Heaven’s wicket seems

To wait them with his keys, and now at foot

Of Heaven’s ascent they lift their feet, when lo

A violent cross wind from either coast

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Blows them transverse, ten thousand leagues awry

Into the devious air: Then might ye see

Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tost

And fluttered into rags; then reliques, beads,

Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,

The sport of winds: All these, upwhirled aloft,

Fly o’er the backside of the world far off

Into a Limbo large and broad, since called

The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown

Long after; now unpeopled, and untrod.

All this dark globe the Fiend found as he passed,

And long he wandered, till at last a gleam

Of dawning light turned thither-ward in haste

His travelled steps: far distant he descries

Ascending by degrees magnificent

Up to the wall of Heaven a structure high;

At top whereof, but far more rich, appeared

The work as of a kingly palace-gate,

With frontispiece of diamond and gold

Embellished; thick with sparkling orient gems

The portal shone, inimitable on earth

By model, or by shading pencil, drawn.

These stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw

Angels ascending and descending, bands

Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled

To Padan-Aram, in the field of Luz

Dreaming by night under the open sky

And waking cried, This is the gate of Heaven.

Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood

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There always, but drawn up to Heaven sometimes

Viewless; and underneath a bright sea flowed

Of jasper, or of liquid pearl, whereon

Who after came from earth, failing arrived

Wafted by Angels, or flew o’er the lake

Rapt in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds.

The stairs were then let down, whether to dare

The Fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate

His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss:

Direct against which opened from beneath,

Just o’er the blissful seat of Paradise,

A passage down to the Earth, a passage wide,

Wider by far than that of after-times

Over mount Sion, and, though that were large,

Over the Promised Land to God so dear;