In discourse more sweet;

For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense.
Others apart sat on a hill retir'd,

In thoughts more elevate, and reason'd high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute;
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.

Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 555.

Vain wisdom all and false philosophy.

Arm th' obdur'd breast

With stubborn patience as with triple steel.

A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog
Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old,

Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire.
Thither by harpy-footed Furies hal'd,

At certain revolutions all the damn'd

Line 565.

Line 568.

Are brought, and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, - extremes by change more fierce;
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice

Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round,

Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.

Line 592.

O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp,

Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death.

Gorgons and Hydras and Chimæras dire.

The other shape,

If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either, black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,

And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

Satan was now at hand.

Line 620.

Line 628.

Line 666.

Whence and what art thou, execrable shape?

Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 681.

Back to thy punishment,

False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings.

So spake the grisly Terror.

Incens'd with indignation Satan stood
Unterrify'd, and like a comet burn'd
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.

Line 699.

Line 704.

Line 707.

Their fatal hands

No second stroke intend.

Hell

Grew darker at their frown.

I fled, and cry'd out, DEATH!

Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh'd

From all her caves, and back resounded, DEATH!

Line 712.

Line 719.

Line 787.

Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate

For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,

Strive here for mast'ry.

Line 894.

Into this wild abyss,

The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave.

Line 910.

Great things with small.1

To compare

Paradise Lost. Book ii. Line 921.

O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,
Confusion worse confounded.

So he with difficulty and labour hard
Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he.
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.
Hail holy light! offspring of heav'n first-born.

The rising world of waters dark and deep.
Thoughts that voluntary move

Harmonious numbers.

Thus with the year

Line 948.

Line 995.

Line 1021.

Line 1051.

Book iii. Line 1.

Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me; from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and raz'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,
With joy and love triumphing.

Line 11.

Line 37.

Line 40.

Line 99.

Line 337.

1 Compare great things with small. - VIRGIL: Eclogues, i. 24; Georgics, iv. 176. COWLEY: The Motto. DRYDEN: Ovid, Metamorphoses, book i. line 727. TICKELL: Poem on Hunting. POPE: Windsor Forest.

Dark with excessive bright.

Paradise Lost. Book iii. Line 380.

Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery.

Since call'd

The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown.

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps
At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity

Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems.

The hell within him.

Now conscience wakes despair

Line 474.

Line 495.

Line 686.

Book iv. Line 20.

Of what he was, what is, and what must be

By owing owes not, but still pays, at once

Indebted and discharg'd.

Which way shall I fly

Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,

Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.

Such joy ambition finds.

Vows made in pain, as violent and void.

Ease would recant

Line 55.

Line 73.

Line 92.

Line 96.

So farewell hope, and with hope farewell fear,

Farewell remorse; all good to me is lost.

Evil, be thou my good.

Line 108.

1 Ye little stars! hide your diminished rays. - POPE: Moral Essays, epistle iii. line 282.

Of Araby the Blest.

That practis'd falsehood under saintly shew,
Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge.

Paradise Lost. Book iv. Line 122.

Sabean odours from the spicy shore

And on the Tree of Life,

Line 162.

Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.1

Line 256.

Proserpine gathering flowers,

Herself a fairer flower.

Line 269.

For contemplation he and valour form'd,
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only, she for God in him.

His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.

Implied

Subjection, but requir'd with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best receiv'd, -
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.

Adam the goodliest man of men since born
His sons, the fairest of her daughters Eve.

And with necessity,

Line 297.

Line 307.

Line 323.

The tyrant's plea, excus'd his devilish deeds.

Line 393.

1 See Herrick, page 203

2 Necessity is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves. LIAM PITT: Speech on the India Bill, November, 1783.