{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/milton/pl01.htm","path":"chr/milton/pl01.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/milton/pl01.htm","text":"Paradise Lost and Regained, by John Milton, [1667 and 1671]\nThe First Book proposes, first in brief, the whole subject, Man's disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise, wherein he was plac\u2019t: then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent; who, revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of Angels, was, by the command of God, driven out of Heaven, with all his crew, into the great Deep. Which action passed over, the Poem hastes into the midst of things; presenting Satan, with his Angels, now fallen into Hell-described here not in the Centre (for heaven and earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed), but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest called Chaos. Here Satan, with his Angels lying on the burning lake, thunderstruck and astonished after a certain space recovers, as from confusion; calls up him who, next in order and dignity, lay by him: they confer of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded. They rise: their numbers; array of battle; their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech; comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven; but tells them, lastly, of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy, or report, in Heaven-for that Angels were long before this visible creation was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his associates thence attempt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the Deep: the infernal Peers there sit in council.\nOf Man's first disobedience, and the fruit\n Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste\n Brought death into the World, and all our woe,\n With loss of Eden, till one greater Man\n Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,\n Sing, Heav\u2019nly Muse, that, on the secret top\n Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire\n That Shepherd who first taught the chosen seed\n In the beginning how the heavens and earth\n Rose out of Chaos: or, if Sion hill\n Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flowed\n Fast by the oracle of God; I thence\n Invoke thy aid to my adventrous song,\n That with no middle flight intends to soar\n Above the Aonian mount, while it pursues\n Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.\n And chiefly Thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer\n Before all temples th\u2019 upright heart and pure,\n Instruct me, for Thou knowst; Thou from the first\n Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread,\n Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss,\n And mad\u2019st it pregnant: what in me is dark\n Illumine, what is low raise and support;\n That, to the highth of this great argument,\n I may assert Eternal Providence,\n And justify the ways of God to men.\n \u00a0\u00a0Say first, for Heaven hides nothing from thy view,\n Nor the deep tract of Hell, say first what cause\n Mov\u2019d our Grand Parents, in that happy state,\n Favour\u2019d of Heaven so highly, to fall off\n From their Creator, and transgress his will\n For one restraint, lords of the World besides.\n Who first seduced them to that foul revolt?\n Th\u2019 infernal Serpent; he it was whose guile,\n Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived\n The Mother of Mankind, what time his Pride\n Had cast him out from Heaven, with all his host\n Of rebel Angels, by whose aid, aspiring\n To set himself in glory above his peers,\n He trusted to have equalled the Most High,\n If he oppos\u2019d, and, with ambitious aim\n Against the throne and monarchy of God,\n Raised impious war in Heav\u2019n and battle proud,\n With vain attempt. Him the Almighty Power\n Hurled headlong flaming from th\u2019 Ethereal sky,\n With hideous ruin and combustion, down\n To bottomless perdition, there to dwell\n In adamantine chains and penal fire,\n Who durst defy the Omnipotent to arms.\n Nine times the space that measures Day and Night\n To mortal men, he, with his horrid crew,\n Lay vanquished, rowling in the fiery Gulf,\n Confounded, though immortal. But his doom\n Reserved him to more wrath; for now the thought\n Both of lost happiness and lasting pain\n Torments him: round he throws his baleful eyes,\n That witnessed huge affliction and dismay,\n Mixed with obdurate pride and steadfast hate.\n At once, as far as Angel's ken, he views\n The dismal situation waste and wild.\n A dungeon horrible, on all sides round,\n As one great furnace flamed; yet from those flames\n No light; but rather darkness visible\n Served only to discover sights of woe,\n Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace\n And rest can never dwell, hope never comes\n That comes to all, but torture without end\n Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed\n With ever-burning sulphur unconsumed.\n Such place Eternal Justice had prepared\n For those rebellious; here their prison ordained\n In utter darkness, and their portion set,\n As far removed from God and light of Heaven\n As from the centre thrice to the utmost pole.\n Oh how unlike the place from whence they fell!\n There the companions of his fall, o\u2019erwhelmed\n With floods and whirlwinds of tempestuous fire,\n He soon discerns; and, weltering by his side,\n One next himself in power, and next in crime,\n Long after known in Palestine, and named\n Beelzebub. To whom th\u2019 Arch-Enemy,\n And thence in Heaven called Satan, with bold words\n Breaking the horrid silence, thus began.\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\"If thou beest he; but Oh how fallen! how changed\n From him, who, in the happy realms of light,\n Clothed with transcendent brightness, didst outshine\n Myriads, though bright-if he whom mutual league,\n United thoughts and counsels, equal hope\n And hazard in the glorious enterprise,\n Joined with me once, now misery hath joined\n In equal ruin; into what pit thou seest\n From what highth fallen: so much the stronger proved\n He with his thunder: and till then who knew\n The force of those dire arms? Yet not for those,\n Nor what the potent Victor in his rage\n Can else inflict, do I repent, or change,\n Though changed in outward lustre, that fixed mind,\n And high disdain from sense of injur\u2019d merit,\n That with the Mightiest raised me to contend,\n And to the fierce contention brought along\n Innumerable force of Spirits arm\u2019d,\n That durst dislike his reign, and, me preferring,\n His utmost power with adverse power opposed\n In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,\n And shook his throne. What though the field be lost?\n All is not lost-the unconquerable will,\n And study of revenge, immortal hate,\n And courage never to submit or yield:\n And what is else not to be overcome.\n That glory never shall his wrath or might\n Extort from me. To bow and sue for grace\n With suppliant knee, and deify his power\n Who, from the terror of this arm, so late\n Doubted his empire-that were low indeed;\n That were an ignominy and shame beneath\n This downfall; since, by fate, the strength of Gods,\n And this empyreal substance, cannot fail;\n Since, through experience of this great event,\n In arms not worse, in foresight much advanced,\n We may with more successful hope resolve\n To wage by force or guile eternal war,\n Irreconcilable to our grand Foe,\n Who now triumphs, and in the excess of joy\n Sole reigning holds the tyranny of Heaven.\"\nSo spake the apostate Angel, though in pain,\n Vaunting aloud, but racked with deep despair;\n And him thus answered soon his bold Compeer; -\n\"O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers\n That led the embattled Seraphim to war\n Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds\n Fearless, endangered Heaven's perpetual King,\n And put to proof his high supremacy,\n Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate!\n Too well I see and rue the dire event\n That, with sad overthrow and foul defeat,\n Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host\n In horrible destruction laid thus low,\n As far as Gods and Heavenly Essences\n Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains\n Invincible, and vigour soon returns,\n Though all our glory extinct, and happy state\n Here swallowed up in endless misery.\n But what if He our Conqueror (whom I now\n Of force believe Almighty, since no less\n Than such could have o'erpowered such force as ours)\n Have left us this our spirit and strength entire,\n Strongly to suffer and support our pains,\n That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,\n Or do him mightier service as his thralls\n By right of war, whate'er his business be,\n Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,\n Or do errands in the gloomy Deep?\n What can it then avail though yet we feel\n Strength undiminished, or eternal being\n To undergo eternal punishment?\"\nWhereto with speedy words the Arch-Fiend replied:\u2014\n \"Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,\n Doing or suffering: but of this be sure\u2014\n To do aught good never will be our task,\n But ever to do ill our sole delight,\n As being the contrary to His high will\n Whom we resist. If then His providence\n Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,\n Our labour must be to pervert that end,\n And out of good still to find means of evil;\n Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps\n Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb\n His inmost counsels from their destined aim.\n But see! the angry Victor hath recalled\n His ministers of vengeance and pursuit\n Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,\n Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid\n The fiery surge that from the precipice\n Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,\n Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,\n Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now\n To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.\n Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn\n Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.\n Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,\n The seat of desolation, void of light,\n Save what the glimmering of these livid flames\n Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend\n From off the tossing of these fiery waves;\n There rest, if any rest can harbour there;\n And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,\n Consult how we may henceforth most offend\n Our Enemy, our own loss how repair,\n How overcome this dire calamity,\n What reinforcement we may gain from hope,\n If not what resolution from despair.\"\nThus Satan, talking to his nearest Mate,\n With head uplift above the wave, and eyes\n That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides\n Prone on the flood, extended long and large,\n Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge\n As whom the fables name of monstrous size,\n Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,\n Briareos or Typhon, whom the den\n By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast\n Leviathan, which God of all his works\n Created hugest that swim the ocean-stream.\n Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,\n The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,\n Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,\n With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,\n Moors by his side under the lee, while night\n Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.\n So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay,\n Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence\n Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will\n And high permission of all-ruling Heaven\n Left him at large to his own dark designs,\n That with reiterated crimes he might\n Heap on himself damnation, while he sought\n Evil to others, and enraged might see\n How all his malice served but to bring forth\n Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn\n On Man by him seduced, but on himself\n Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured.\nForthwith upright he rears from off the pool\n His mighty stature; on each hand the flames\n Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and, rowled\n In billows, leave i' the midst a horrid vale.\n Then with expanded wings he steers his flight\n Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,\n That felt unusual weight; till on dry land\n He lights-if it were land that ever burned\n With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,\n And such appeared in hue as when the force\n Of subterranean wind transports a hill\n Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side\n Of thundering Aetna, whose combustible\n And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,\n Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,\n And leave a singed bottom all involved\n With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole\n Of unblest feet. Him followed his next Mate;\n Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood\n As gods, and by their own recovered strength,\n Not by the sufferance of supernal power.\n\"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,\"\n Said then the lost Archangel, \"this the seat\n That we must change for Heaven?-this mournful gloom\n For that celestial light? Be it so, since He\n Who now is sovran can dispose and bid\n What shall be right: fardest from Him is best,\n Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme\n Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,\n Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,\n Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,\n Receive thy new possessor-one who brings\n A mind not to be changed by place or time.\n The mind is its own place, and in itself\n Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.\n What matter where, if I be still the same,\n And what I should be, all but less than he\n Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least\n We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built\n Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:\n Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,\n To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:\n Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.\n But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,\n The associates and co-partners of our loss,\n Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,\n And call them not to share with us their part\n In this unhappy mansion, or once more\n With rallied arms to try what may be yet\n Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?\"\nSo Satan spake; and him Beelzebub\n Thus answered:\u2014\"Leader of those armies bright\n Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foiled!\n If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge\n Of hope in fears and dangers-heard so oft\n In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge\n Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults\n Their surest signal-they will soon resume\n New courage and revive, though now they lie\n Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,\n As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;\n No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth!\"\nHe scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend\n Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,\n Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,\n Behind him cast. The broad circumference\n Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb\n Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views\n At evening, from the top of Fesole,\n Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,\n Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.\n His spear-to equal which the tallest pine\n Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast\n Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand\u2014\n He walked with, to support uneasy steps\n Over the burning marle, not like those steps\n On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime\n Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.\n Nathless he so endured, till on the beach\n Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called\n His legions-Angel Forms, who lay entranced\n Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks\n In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades\n High over-arched imbower; or scattered sedge\n Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed\n Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew\n Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,\n While with perfidious hatred they pursued\n The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld\n From the safe shore their floating carcases\nAnd broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,\n Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,\n Under amazement of their hideous change.\n He called so loud that all the hollow deep\n Of Hell resounded:\u2014\"Princes, Potentates,\n Warriors, the Flower of Heaven-once yours; now lost,\n If such astonishment as this can seize\n Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place\n After the toil of battle to repose\n Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find\n To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?\n Or in this abject posture have ye sworn\n To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds\n Cherub and Seraph rowling in the flood\n With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon\n His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern\n The advantage, and, descending tread us down\n Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts\n Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?\u2014\n Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!\"\nThey heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung\n Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch,\n On duty sleeping found by whom they dread,\n Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.\n Nor did they not perceive the evil plight\n In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;\n Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed\n Innumerable. As when the potent rod\n Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,\n Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud\n Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,\n That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung\n Like Night, and darkened all the land of Nile;\n So numberless were those bad Angels seen\n Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,\n 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;\n Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear\n Of their great Sultan waving to direct\n Their course, in even balance down they light\nOn the firm brimstone, and fill the plain:\n A multitude like which the populous North\n Poured never from her frozen loins to pass\n Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons\n Came like a deluge on the South, and spread\n Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.\n Forthwith, from every squadron and each band,\n The heads and leaders thither haste where stood\n Their great Commander-godlike Shapes, and Forms\n Excelling human; princely Dignities;\n And powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones,\n Though of their names in Heavenly records now\n Be no memorial, blotted out and rased\n By their rebellion from the Books of Life.\n Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve\n Got them new names, till, wondering o'er the earth,\n Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,\n By falsities and lies the greatest part\n Of mankind they corrupted to forsake\n God their Creator, and the invisible\n Glory of Him that made them to transform\n Oft to the image of a brute, adorned\n With gay religions full of pomp and gold,\n And devils to adore for deities:\n Then were they known to men by various names,\n And various idols through the heathen world.\nSay, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,\n Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch,\n At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth\n Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,\n While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof.\nThe chief were those who, from the pit of Hell\n Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix\n Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,\n Their altars by His altar, gods adored\n Among the nations round, and durst abide\n Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned\n Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed\n Within His sanctuary itself their shrines,\n Abominations; and with cursed things\n His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,\n And with their darkness durst affront His light.\n First, Moloch, horrid King, besmeared with blood\n Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;\n Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,\n Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire\n To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite\n Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,\n In Argob and in Basan, to the stream\n Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such\n Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart\n Of Solomon he led by fraud to build\n His temple right against the temple of God\n On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove\n The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence\n And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.\n Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's sons,\n From Aroar to Nebo and the wild\n Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon\n And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond\n The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,\n And Eleale to the Asphaltick Pool:\n Peor his other name, when he enticed\n Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,\n To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.\n Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged\n Even to that hill of scandal, by the grove\n Of Moloch homicide, lust hard by hate,\n Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.\n With these came they who, from the bordering flood\n Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts\n Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names\n Of Baalim and Ashtaroth-those male,\n These feminine. For Spirits, when they please,\n Can either sex assume, or both; so soft\n And uncompounded is their essence pure,\n Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,\n Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,\n Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose,\n Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,\n Can execute their aery purposes,\n And works of love or enmity fulfil.\n For those the race of Israel oft forsook\n Their Living Strength, and unfrequented left\n His righteous altar, bowing lowly down\n To bestial gods; for which their heads, as low\n Bowed down in battle, sunk before the spear\n Of despicable foes. With these in troop\n Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians called\n Astarte, queen of heaven, with cresent horns;\n To whose bright image nightly by the moon\n Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;\n In Sion also not unsung, where stood\n Her temple on the offensive mountain, built\n By that uxorious king whose heart, though large,\n Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell\n To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,\n Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured\n The Syrian damsels to lament his fate\n In amorous ditties all a summer's day,\n While smooth Adonis from his native rock\n Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood\n Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale\n Infected Sion's daughters with like heat,\n Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch\n Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,\n His eye surveyed the dark idolatries\n Of alienated Judah. Next came one\n Who mourned in earnest, when the captive Ark\n Maimed his brute image, head and hands lopt off,\n In his own temple, on the grunsel-edge,\n Where he fell flat and shamed his worshipers:\n Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man\n And downward fish; yet had his temple high\n Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast\n Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,\n And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.\n Him followed Rimmon, whose delightful seat\n Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks\n Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.\n He also against the house of God was bold:\n A leper once he lost, and gained a king\u2014\n Ahaz, his sottish conqueror, whom he drew\n God's altar to disparage and displace\n For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn\n His odious offerings, and adore the gods\n Whom he had vanquished. After these appeared\n A crew who, under names of old renown\u2014\n Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train\u2014\n With monstrous shapes and sorceries abused\n Fanatic Egypt and her priests to seek\n Their wandering gods disguised in brutish forms\n Rather than human. Nor did Israel scape\n The infection, when their borrowed gold composed\n The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king\n Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,\n Likening his Maker to the grazed ox\u2014\n Jehovah, who, in one night, when he passed\n From Egypt marching, equalled with one stroke\n Both her first-born and all her bleating gods.\n Belial came last; than whom a Spirit more lewd\n Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love,\n Vice for itself. To him no temple stood\n Or altar smoked; yet who more oft than he\n In temples and at altars, when the priest\n Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who filled\n With lust and violence the house of God?\n In courts and palaces he also reigns,\n And in luxurious cities, where the noise\n Of riot ascends above their loftiest towers,\n And injury and outrage; and, when night\n Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons\n Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.\n Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night\n In Gibeah, when the hospitable door\n Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape.\nThese were the prime in order and in might:\n The rest were long to tell; though far renowned\n The Ionian gods-of Javan's issue held\n Gods, yet confessed later than Heaven and Earth,\n Their boasted parents;-Titan, Heaven's first-born,\n With his enormous brood, and birthright seized\n By younger Saturn: he from mightier Jove,\n His own and Rhea's son, like measure found;\n So Jove unsurping reigned. These, first in Crete\n And Ida known, thence on the snowy top\n Of cold Olympus ruled the middle air,\n Their highest heaven; or on the Delphian cliff,\n Or in Dodona, and through all the bounds\n Of Doric land; or who with Saturn old\n Fled over Adria to the Hesperian fields,\n And o'er the Celtic roamed the utmost Isles.\nAll these and more came flocking; but with looks\n Downcast and damp; yet such wherein appeared\n Obscure some glimpse of joy to have found their Chief\n Not in despair, to have found themselves not lost\n In loss itself; which on his countenance cast\n Like doubtful hue. But he, his wonted pride\n Soon recollecting, with high words, that bore\n Semblance of worth, nor substance, gently raised\n Their fainting courage, and dispelled their fears:\n Then straight commands that, at the war-like sound\n Of trumpets loud and clarions, be upreared\n His mighty standard. That proud honour claimed\n Azazel as his right, a Cherub tall:\n Who forthwith from the glittering staff unfurled\n The imperial ensign; which, full high advanced,\n Shon like a meteo\u00a0 streaming to the wind,\n With gems and golden lustre rich imblazed,\n Seraphic arms and trophies; all the while\n Sonorous metal blowing martial sounds:\n At which the universal host up-sent\n A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond\n Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.\n All in a moment through the gloom were seen\n Ten thousand banners rise into the air,\n With orient colours waving: with them rose\n A forest huge of spears; and thronging helms\n Appeared, and serried shields in thick array\n Of depth immeasurable. Anon they move\n In perfect phalanx to the Dorian mood\n Of flutes and soft recorders-such as raised\n To highth of noblest temper heroes old\n Arming to battle, and instead of rage\n Deliberate valour breathed, firm, and unmoved\n With dread of death to flight or foul retreat;\n Nor wanting power to mitigate and swage\n With solemn touches troubled thoughts, and chase\n Anguish and doubt and fear and sorrow and pain\n From mortal or immortal minds. Thus they,\n Breathing united force with fixed thought,\n Moved on in silence to soft pipes that charmed\n Their painful steps o'er the burnt soil. And now\n Advanced in view they stand-a horrid front\n Of dreadful length and dazzling arms, in guise\n Of warriors old, with ordered spear and shield,\n Awaiting what command their mighty Chief\n Had to impose. He through the armed files\n Darts his experienced eye, and soon traverse\n The whole battalion views-their order due,\n Their visages and stature as of Gods;\n Their number last he sums. And now his heart\n Distends with pride, and, hardening in his strength,\n Glories: for never, since created Man,\n Met such imbodied force as, named with these,\n Could merit more than that small infantry\n Warred on by cranes-though all the giant brood\n Of Phlegra with the heroic race were joined\n That fought at Thebes and Ilium, on each side\n Mixed with auxiliar gods; and what resounds\n In fable or romance of Uther's son,\n Begirt with British and Armoric knights;\n And all who since, baptized or infidel,\n Jousted in Aspramont, or Montalban,\n Damasco, or Marocco, or Trebisond,\n Or whom Biserta sent from Afric shore\n When Charlemain with all his peerage fell\n By Fontarabbia. Thus far these beyond\n Compare of mortal prowess, yet observed\n Their dread Commander. He, above the rest\n In shape and gesture proudly eminent,\n Stood like a tower. His form had yet not lost\n All her original brightness, nor appeared\n Less than Archangel ruined, and the excess\n Of glory obscured: as when the sun new-risen\n Looks through the horizontal misty air\n Shorn of his beams, or, from behind the moon,\n In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds\n On half the nations, and with fear of change\n Perplexes monarchs. Darkened so, yet shon\n Above them all the Archangel: but his face\n Deep scars of thunder had intrenched, and care\n Sat on his faded cheek, but under brows\n Of dauntless courage, and considerate pride\n Waiting revenge. Cruel his eye, but cast\n Signs of remorse and passion, to behold\n The fellows of his crime, the followers rather\n (Far other once beheld in bliss), condemned\n For ever now to have their lot in pain\u2014\n Millions of Spirits for his fault amerced\n Of Heaven, and from eternal splendours flung\n For his revolt-yet faithful how they stood,\n Their glory withered; as, when heaven's fire\n Hath scathed the forest oaks or mountain pines,\n With singed top their stately growth, though bare,\n Stands on the blasted heath. He now prepared\n To speak; whereat their doubled ranks they bend\n From wing to wing, and half enclose him round\n With all his peers: Attention held them mute.\n Thrice he assayed, and thrice, in spite of scorn,\n Tears, such as Angels weep, burst forth: at last\n Words interwove with sighs found out their way:\u2014\n\"O myriads of immortal Spirits! O Powers\n Matchless, but with the Almighty!-and that strife\n Was not inglorious, though the event was dire,\n As this place testifies, and this dire change,\n Hateful to utter. But what power of mind,\n Foreseeing or presaging, from the depth\n Of knowledge past or present, could have feared\n How such united force of gods, how such\n As stood like these, could ever know repulse?\n For who can yet believe, though after loss,\n That all these puissant legions, whose exile\n Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to reascend,\n Self-raised, and re-possess their native seat?\n For me, be witness all the host of Heaven,\n If counsels different, or danger shunned\n By me, have lost our hopes. But he who reigns\n Monarch in Heaven till then as one secure\n Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute,\n Consent or custom, and his regal state\n Put forth at full, but still his strength concealed\u2014\n Which tempted our attempt, and wrought our fall.\n Henceforth his might we know, and know our own,\n So as not either to provoke, or dread\n New war provoked: our better part remains\n To work in close design, by fraud or guile,\n What force effected not; that he no less\n At length from us may find, Who overcomes\n By force hath overcome but half his foe.\n Space may produce new Worlds; whereof so rife\n There went a fame in Heaven that He ere long\n Intended to create, and therein plant\n A generation whom his choice regard\n Should favour equal to the Sons of Heaven.\n Thither, if but to pry, shall be perhaps\n Our first eruption-thither, or elsewhere;\n For this infernal pit shall never hold\n Caelestial Spirits in bondage, nor the Abyss\n Long under darkness cover. But these thoughts\n Full counsel must mature. Peace is despaired;\n For who can think submission? War, then, war\n Open or understood, must be resolved.\"\n He spake; and, to confirm his words, out-flew\n Millions of flaming swords, drawn from the thighs\n Of mighty Cherubim; the sudden blaze\n Far around illumined Hell. Highly they raged\n Again the Highest and fierce with grasped arms\n Clashed on their sounding shields the din of war,\n Hurling defiance toward the vault of Heaven.\n There stood a hill not far, whose griesly top\n Belched fire and rowling smoke; the rest entire\n Shown with a glossy scurf-undoubted sign\n That in his womb was hid metallic ore,\n The work of sulphur. Thither, winged with speed,\n A numerous brigad hastened: as when bands\n Of pioners, with spade and pickaxe armed,\n Forerun the royal camp, to trench a field,\n Or cast a rampart. Mammon led them on\u2014\n Mammon, the least erected Spirit that fell\n From Heaven; for even in Heaven his looks and\n thoughts\nWere always downward bent, admiring more\n The riches of Heaven's pavement, trodden gold,\n Than aught divine or holy else enjoyed\n In vision beatific. By him first\n Men also, and by suggestion taught\n Ransacked the Centre, and with impious hands\n Rifled the bowels of their mother Earth\n For treasures better hid. Soon had his crew\n Opened into the hill a spacious wound,\n And digged out ribs of gold. Let none admire\n That riches grow in Hell: that soil may best\n Deserve the pretious bane. And here let those\n Who boast in mortal things, and wondering tell\n Of Babel and the works of Memphian kings,\n Learn how their greatest monuments of fame,\n And strength, and art, are easily outdone\n By Spirits reprobate, and in an hour\n What in an age they, with incessant toil\n And hands innumerable, scarce perform.\n Nigh on the plain, in many cells prepared,\n That underneath had veins of liquid fire\n Sluiced from the lake, a second multitude\n With wondrous art founded the massy ore,\n Severing each kind, and scummed the bullion-dross.\n A third as soon had formed within the ground\n A various mould, and from the boiling cells\n By strange conveyance filled each hollow nook;\n As in an organ, from one blast of wind,\n To many a row of pipes the sound-board breathes.\n Anon out of the earth a fabric huge\n Rose like an exhalation, with the sound\n Of dulcet symphonies and voices sweet\u2014\n Built like a temple, where pilasters round\n Were set, and Doric pillars overlaid\n With golden architrave; nor did there want\n Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven:\n The roof was fretted gold. Not Babilon\n Nor great Alcairo such magnificence\n Equalled in all their glories, to inshrine\n Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat\n Their kings, when Aegypt with Assyria strove\n In wealth and luxury. The ascending pile\n Stood fixed her stately highth; and straight the doors\n Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide\n Within, her ample spaces o'er the smooth\n And level pavement: from the arched roof,\n Pendent by subtle magic, many a row\n Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed\n With naphtha and asphaltus, yielded light\n As from a sky. The hasty multitude\n Admiring entered; and the work some praise,\n And some the Architect. His hand was known\n In Heaven by many a towered structure high,\n Where sceptred Angels held their residence,\n And sat as Princes, whom the supreme King\n Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,\n Each in his hierarchy, the Orders bright.\n Nor was his name unheard or unadored\n In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land\n Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell\n From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove\n Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn\n To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,\n A summer's day, and with the setting sun\n Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star,\n On Lemnos, the Aegaean isle. Thus they relate,\n Erring; for he with this rebellious rout\n Fell long before; nor aught availed him now\n To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did he scape\n By all his engines, but was headlong sent,\n With his industrious crew, to build in Hell.\nMeanwhile the winged Haralds, by command\n Of sovran power, with awful ceremony\n And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim\n A solemn council forthwith to be held\n At Pandaemonium, the high capital\n Of Satan and his peers. Their summons called\n From every band and squared regiment\n By place or choice the worthiest: they anon\n With hundreds and with thousands trooping came\n Attended. All access was thronged; the gates\n And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall\n (Though like a covered field, where champions bold\n Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan's chair\n Defied the best of Panim chivalry\n To mortal combat, or career with lance),\n Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air,\n Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees\n In spring-time, when the Sun with Taurus rides,\n Pour forth their populous youth about the hive\n In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers\n Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,\n The suburb of their straw-built citadel,\n New rubbed with balm, expatiate, and confer\n Their state-affairs: so thick the aerie crowd\n Swarmed and were straitened; till, the signal given,\n Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed\n In bigness to surpass Earth's giant sons,\n Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room\n Throng numberless-like that pygmean race\n Beyond the Indian mount; or faery elves,\n Whose midnight revels, by a forest-side\n Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,\n Or dreams he sees, while overhead the Moon\n Sits arbitress, and nearer to the Earth\n Wheels her pale course: they, on their mirth and dance\n Intent, with jocond music charm his ear;\n At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.\n Thus incorporeal Spirits to smallest forms\n Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,\n Though without number still, amidst the hall\n Of that infernal court. But far within,\n And in their own dimensions like themselves,\n The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim\n In close recess and secret conclave sat,\n A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,\n Frequent and full. After short silence then,\n And summons read, the great consult began.","title":"Paradise Lost and Regained: Paradise Lost: Book 1","type":"page"}