From either end of Heaven the welkin' burns.
Others, with vast Typhoan2 rage more fell,
Rend up both rocks and hills, and ride the air
In whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild uproar.
As when Alcides3, from Echalia1 crowned
With conquest, felt the envenomed robe, and tore
Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines,
And Lichas from the top of Eta threw
Into the Euboic sea. Others more mild,
Retreated in a silent valley, sing
With notes angelical to many a harp
Their own heroic deeds and hapless fall
By doom of battle;

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Their song was partial; but the harmony

(What could it less when Spirits immortal sing?) Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment

The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet,
(For eloquence5 the soul, song charms the sense,)
Others apart sat on a hill retired

In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate.
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wandering mazes lost.
Another part, in squadrons and gross bands,
On bold adventure to discover wide
That dismal world, if any clime perhaps
Might yield them easier habitation, bend
Four ways their flying march, along the banks
Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge
Into the burning lake their baleful streams;
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron, of sorrow, black and deep;
Cocýtus, named of lamentation loud

Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon,
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.

1 The expanse of clouds.

2 Typhœan, from Typhôn; a giant celebrated in Greek mythology.

3 Alcides (Hercules) was driven mad by the poison contained in a garment steeped in the blood of the centaur Nessus which Deïanira his wife had sent him, imagining it would be the means of preserving her husband's affection.

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4 A town in Euboea, destroyed by Hercules, according to Strabo. 5 Charms (understood).

6 The etymology of the names of these rivers agrees with this description; Styx, Acheron. Cocftus, and Phlegethon, signifying respectively, Hate, Sorrow, Lamentation, and Flame.

Far off from these, a slow and silent stream,
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls

Her watery labyrinth1, whereof who drinks,
Forthwith his former state and being forgets,
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
Beyond this flood a frozen continent

Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms
Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land
Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems
Of ancient pile ; * the parching air

Burns frore, and cold performs the effect of fire.
Thither by harpy-footed Furies haled3
At certain revolutions, all the damned

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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

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Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine

Immoveable, infixed, and frozen round,

Periods of time, thence hurried back to fire.

They ferry over this Lethéan sound
Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment,

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And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach

The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose
In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe,

All in one moment, and so near the brink;

But fate withstands, and to oppose the attempt
Medusa with Gorgonian terror guards
The ford, and of itself the water flies

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All taste of living wight5, as once it fled
The lip of Tantalus.6 Thus roving on

In confused march forlorn, the adventurous bands
With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast,
Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found
No rest through many a dark and dreary vale
They passed, and many a region dolorous,

1 Lethe-Forgetfulness. This passage is a beautiful example of our poet's power in adapting sound to

sense.

3 Hauled.

2 Frosty. 4 One of the Gorgons; an imaginary phantom, whose face was of so fearful an appearance, that it turned the beholder to stone.

5 Wight, an individual.

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6 Tantalus, a king of Lydia, who is represented as punished in hell by having everything gratifying to the senses placed within his reach, but snatched away the moment he attempted to possess himself of it. Hence our word" tantalize."

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

Meanwhile, the Adversary of God and man,
Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest design,
Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of Hell
Explores his solitary flight: sometimes

He scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left;
Now shaves with level wing the deep, then soars
Up to the fiery concave towering high.
As when far off at sea a fleet descried
Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds
Close sailing from Bengala, or the isles

Of Ternate and Tidore1, whence merchants bring
Their spicy drugs; they, on the trading flood,
Through the wide Ethiopian to the Cape,

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Ply stemming nightly toward the Pole: so seemed
Far off the flying Fiend. At last appear

Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,

And thrice three-fold the gates; three folds were brass,

Three iron, three of adamantine rock,

Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,

Yet unconsumed. * * *

* * *On a sudden open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus. She opened, but to shut
Excelled her power; the gates wide open stood,
That with extended wings a bannered host,

Under spread ensigns marching, might pass through
With horse and chariots ranked in loose array;
So wide they stood, and, like a furnace mouth,
Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.
Before their eyes in sudden view appear
The secrets of the hoary deep; a dark
Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension, and where Eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

1 Two islands in the Indian Archipelago.

2 A son of Chaos: the name means darkness, and was applied to the

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gloomy space under the earth through which the shades passed into Hades. 3 Sin, the portress of hell-gates.

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.

For hot, cold, moist, and dry1, four champions fierce
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring

Their embryon atoms; they around the flag
Of each his faction, in their several clans,

Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow,
Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands
Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,

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Levied to side with warring winds, and poise

Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere,
He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits,

And by decision more embroils the fray

By which he reigns: next him, high arbiter
Chance governs all. *

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Into this wild abyss the wary Fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell, and looked awhile,

Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith

He had to cross. Nor was his ear less pealed

With noises loud and ruinous, (to compare

Great things with small,) than when Bellona3 storms,
With all her battering engines bent to rase

Some capital city; or less than if this frame

Of Heaven were falling, and these elements
In mutiny had from her axle torn

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The steadfast earth. At last his sail-broad vans
He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke
Uplifted spurns the ground; thence many a league,
As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides
Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuity: all unawares,

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathom deep; and to this hour

Down had been falling, had not by ill chance

The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
As many miles aloft: that fury stayed,
Quenched in a boggy Syrtis", neither sea,
Nor good dry land: nigh foundered on he fares,
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.

1 See Ovid's Metamorph., lib. i. 19. 2 A city and province of N. Africa. 5 The goddess of war among the Romans.

4 "Plumb" down;bum, lead; i. e. as lead. 5 A quicksand.

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As when a griffon, through the wilderness
With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold: so eagerly the Fiend

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:
At length a universal hubbub wild

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused,
Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear
With loudest vehemence: thither he plies,
Undaunted to meet there whatever Power
Or Spirit of the nethermost abyss

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Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies

Bordering on light; when straight behold the throne
Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread

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Wide on the wasteful deep; with him enthroned
Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,

The consort of his reign; and by them stood
Orcus2 and Hades 2, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon2; Rumour next and Chance,
And Tumult and Confusion all embroiled,
And Discord with a thousand various mouths.

SATAN.

To whom Satan turning boldly, thus: "Ye Powers
And Spirits of this nethermost abyss,
Chaos, and ancient Night! I come no spy,

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With purpose to explore or to disturb

The secrets of your realm; but, by constraint
Wandering this darksome desert, as my way
Lies through your spacious empire up to light
Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek

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What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds
Confine with Heaven; or if some other place,
From your dominion won, the ethereal King
Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound3; direct my course;

1 A one-eyed people of Scythia, who are said to have made war on the griffins-monsters who collected the gold of the river Arimaspias.

2 Deities of the infernal regions.

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3 The neuter adjective for the

noun.