And dictates to me flumb'ring, or infpires
Eafy my unpremeditated verse :
Since first this fubject for heroic fong
Pleas'd me long choofing, and beginning late;
Not fedulous by nature to indite
Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroic deem'd, chief maft'ry to diffect
With long and tedious havoc fabled knights
In battels feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroic martyrdom
Unfung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields,
Impreffes quaint, caparisons and steeds;
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At jouft and torneament; then marshal'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with fewers, and fenefhals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,
Not that which justly gives heroic name
To perfon or to poem. Me of these
Nor fkill'd nor ftudious, higher argument
Remains, fufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years damp my intended wing
Deprefs'd, and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.
The fun was funk, and after him the ftar Of Hesperus, whofe office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, fhort arbiter
'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end Night's hemifphere had veil'd th' horizon round:
When Satan who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd
In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On Man's deftruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd.
By night he fled, and at midnight return'd
From compaffing the earth, cautious of day,
Since Uriel regent of the fun descry'd
His entrance, and forewarn'd the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of sev'n continued nights he rode
With darkness, thrice the equinoctial line
He circled, four times crofs'd the car of night
From pole to pole, travérfing each colúre;
On th' eighth return'd, and on the coast averse
From entrance or Cherubic watch, by stealth
Found unfufpected way. There was a place,
Now not, though fin, not time, firft wrought the change,
Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rofe up a fountain by the tree of life;
In with the river funk, and with it rose
Satan involv'd in rifing mift, then fought
Where to lie hid; fea he had fearch'd and land
From Eden over Pontus, and the pool
Mæotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctic; and in length
Weft from Orontes to the ocean barr'd
At Darien, thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd
With narrow fearch, and with inspection deep
Confider'd every creature, which of all
Moft opportune might serve his wiles, and found 85
The Serpent fubtlest beast of all the field.
Him after long debate, irresolute
Of thoughts revolv'd, his final fentence chofe
Fit veffel, fitteft imp of fraud, in whom
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest fight: for in the wily snake,
Whatever fleights none would fufpicious mark,
As from his wit and native fubtlety
Proceeding, which in other beafts obferv'd
Doubt might beget of diabolic power
Active within beyond the fense of brute.
Thus he refolv'd, but first from inward grief
His bursting paffion into plaints thus pour'd.
O Earth, how like to Heav'n, if not preferr'd
More juftly, feat worthier of Gods, as built
With fecond thoughts, reforming what was old!
For what God after better worfe would build?
Terreftrial Heav'n, danc'd round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as feems,
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of facred influence! As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all, fo thou
Centring receiv'st from all those orbs; in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue' appears 110 Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Of growth, fenfe, reafon, all fumm'd up in Man.
With what delight could I have walk'd thee round,
If I could joy in ought, sweet interchange
Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,
Now land, now fea, and fhores with foreft crown'd,
Rocks, dens, and caves! but I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I fee
Pleafures about me, fo much more I feel
Torment within me', as from the hateful siege
Of contraries; all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heav'n much worse would be my ftate. But neither here feek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by maft'ring Heav'n's Supreme; 125
Nor hope to be myself lefs miferable
By what I feek, but others to make fuch
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and him destroy'd,
Or won to what may work his utter lofs,
For whom all this was made, all this will foon
Follow, as to him link'd in weal or woe;
In woe then; that deftruction wide may range:
To me fhall be the glory fole among
Th' infernal Pow'rs, in one day to have marr'd
What he Almighty ftil'd, fix nights and days
Continued making, and who knows how long
Before had been contriving, though perhaps
Not longer than fince I in one night freed
From fervitude inglorious well nigh half
Th' angelic name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: he to be aveng'd,
And to repair his numbers thus impair'd,
Whether fuch virtue spent of old now fail'd
More Angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or to fpite us more,
Determin'd to advance into our room
A creature form'd of earth, and him endow,
Exalted from fo base original,
With heav'nly spoils, our fpoils: What he decreed
He' effected; Man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and earth his feat,
Him lord pronounc'd, and, O indignity!
Subjected to his fervice Angel wings,
And flaming minifters to watch and tend
Their earthly charge: Of thefe the vigilance
I dread, and to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapor glide obfcure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find
The ferpent fleeping, in whofe mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring.
O foul defcent! that I who erft contended
With Gods to fit the high’est, am now constrain’d
Into a beaft, and mix'd with beftial flime,
To baseft things. Revenge, at first though sweet,
Bitter ere long back on itself recoils;
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