Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood
As gods, and by their own recover'd strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.

Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat That we must change for Heaven; this mournful gloom, For that celestial light? Be it so! since he,

Who now is Sovran, can dispose, and bid

What shall be right farthest from Him is best,
Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrours! hail,
Infernal world! And thou, profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessour!-one who brings
A mind not to be changed by place or time :
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be-all but less than He
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence :
Here we may reign secure, and, in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven!
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
The associates and copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd on the oblivious pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy mansion; or once more,
With rallied arms, to try what may be yet
Regain'd in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?
So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub

Thus answer'd. Leader of those armies bright,

Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foil'd!
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle when it rag'd, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage and revive; though now they lie
Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amaz'd;
No wonder, fallen such a pernicious highth.

He scarce had ceas'd, when the superiour Fiend Was moving toward the shore: his ponderous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optick glass the Tuscan artist1 views
At evening from the top of Fesolé,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine,
Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast
Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with, to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire:
Nathless he so endur'd, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd
His legions, Angel forms, who lay intranc'd
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa,2 where the Etrurian shades,
High over-arch'd, imbower; or scatter'd sedge

Tuscan artist:' Galileo.- Vallombrosa:' a beautiful wooded vale, eighteen miles from Florence.

Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion1 arm'd

Hath vex'd the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris 2 and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued
The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld
From the safe shore their floating carcasses
And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrown,
Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of Hell resounded!-Princes, potentates,
Warriours, the flower of heaven! once yours, now lost,
If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal Spirits! or have ye chosen this place
After the toil of battle to repose

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find
To slumber here as in the vales of Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
To adore the Conquerour? who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood,
With scatter'd arms and ensigns; till anon
His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern
The advantage, and, descending, tread us down
Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts
Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?
Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!

They heard, and were abash'd, and up they sprung
Upon the wing; as when men, wont to watch
On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.
Nor did they not perceive the evil plight

In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;

'Orion' the warrior constellation, symbolizing storms. .2 Busiris:'

Pharaoh.

Yet to their General's voice they soon obey'd,
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son,1 in Egypt's evil day,
Wav'd round the coast, upcall'd a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,
'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear
Of their great Sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain;
A multitude, like which the populous North
Pour'd never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons
Came like a deluge on the South, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Lybian sands.
Forthwith from every squadron and each band,
The heads and leaders thither haste, where stood
Their great Commander; Godlike shapes and forms
Excelling human; princely Dignities

And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;
Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial; blotted out and ras'd
By their rebellion from the books of life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

Got them new names; till wandering o'er the earth,
Through God's high sufferance, for the trial of man,
By falsities and lies, the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake
God their Creator, and the invisible

1 'Amram's son:' Moses.

Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorn'd
With gay religions, full of pomp and gold,
And Devils to adore for Deities:

Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the Heathen world.

Say, Muse, their names then known; who first, who last, Rous'd from the slumber, on that fiery couch, At their great Emperour's call, as next in worth Came singly where he stood on the bare strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof. The chief were those, who, from the pit of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix Their seats long after next the seat of God, Their altars by his altar; gods adored Among the nations round; and durst abide Jehovah thundering out of Sion, thron'd Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed Within his sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations; and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts profan'd, And with their darkness durst affront his light.

First, Moloch,1 horrid king, besmear'd with blood
Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;

Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,
Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd through fire
To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite
Worshipp'd in Rabba and her watery plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon; nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build

Moloch:' god of the Ammonites, by some supposed identical with the

Mars of the Greeks.