No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all The multitude of Angels, with a shout Loud as from numbers without number, sweet As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung With jubilee, and loud Hosannas filled The eternal regions: lowly reverent
Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground With solemn adoration down they cast
Their crowns inwove with amaranth and gold;
Immortal amaranth1, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man's offence
To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,
And flowers aloft, shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of heaven Rolls o'er Elysian flowers her amber stream; With these, that never fade, the Spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks inwreathed with beams;
Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone,
Empurpled with celestial roses smiled.
Then, crowned again, their golden harps they took,
Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side
Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet
Of charming symphony they introduce
Their sacred song, and waken raptures high; No voice exempt, no voice but well could join Melodious part, such concord is in Heaven.
Thee, Father, first they sung Omnipotent, Immutable, Immortal, Infinite",
Eternal King; the Author of all being, Fountain of light, thyself invisible
Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit'st Throned inaccessible, but when thou shad'st The full blaze of thy beams, and through a cloud Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine, Dark with excessive light thy skirts appear,
man; but God the Father declares that man cannot be saved without the satisfaction of Divine justice. God the Son offers himself as a ransom for man; the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, and com
mands the angels to adore him above all names in heaven and earth.
1 The amaranth, from the durability of its flowers, was considered by the poets as an emblem of immortality. 2 See book ii. line 181.
Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes. Thee, next they sang of all creation first, Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,
In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud Made visible, the Almighty Father shines, Whom else no creature can behold; on thee Impressed the effulgence of his glory abides, Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests.
He Heaven of Heavens and all the Powers therein By thee created; and by thee threw down The aspiring Dominations; thou that day Thy Father's dreadful thunder didst not spare, Nor stop thy flaming chariot-wheels, that shook Heaven's everlasting frame, while o'er the necks Thou drov'st of warring Angels disarrayed. Back from pursuit thy Powers with loud acclaim Thee only extolled, Son of thy Father's might, To execute fierce vengeance on his foes,
Not so on Man: him through their malice fallen, Father of mercy and grace, thou didst not doom So strictly, but much more to pity incline: No sooner did thy dear and only Son Perceive thee purposed not to doom frail Man So strictly, but much more to pity inclined, He to appease thy wrath, and end the strife Of mercy and justice in thy face discerned, Regardless of the bliss wherein he sat Second to thee, offered himself to die For Man's offence. O unexampled love, Love no where to be found less than Divine! Hail, Son of God, Saviour of men! Thy name Shall be the copious matter of my song Henceforth, and never shall my harp thy praise Forget, nor from thy Father's praise disjoin.
Thus they in Heaven, above the starry sphere, Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent. Meanwhile, upon the firm opacous globe
Of this round world, whose first convex divides The luminous inferior orbs, inclosed From Chaos, and the inroad of Darkness old, Satan alighted walks: a globe far off It seemed, now seems a boundless continent,
Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of Night Starless exposed, and ever-threatening storms Of Chaos blustering round, inclement sky; Save on that side which from the wall of Heaven, Though distant far, some small reflection gains Of glimmering air less vexed with tempest loud: Here walked the Fiend at large in spacious field. As when a vulture on Imaüs1 bred, Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds, Dislodging from a region scarce of prey
To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids,
On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs 180 Of Ganges or Hydaspes2, Indian streams;
But in his way lights on the barren plains Of Sericana, where Chineses drive
With sails and wind their cany waggons light: So, on this windy sea of land, the Fiend Walked up and down alone, bent on his prey; Alone, for other creature in this place, Living or lifeless, to be found was none; None yet, but store hereafter from the earth Up hither like aëreal vapours flew
Of all things transitory and vain, when sin With vanity had filled the works of men: Both all things vain, and all who in vain things Built their fond hopes of glory or lasting fame, Or happiness in this or the other life;
All who have their reward on earth, the fruits Of painful superstition and blind zeal, Nought seeking but the praise of men, here find Fit retribution, empty as their deeds;
All the unaccomplished works of Nature's hand, Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mixed, Dissolved on earth, fleet hither, and in vain,
Till final dissolution, wander here;
Not in the neighbouring moon as some have dreamed; Those argent fields more likely habitants, Translated Saints, or middle Spirits hold Betwixt the angelical and human kind. Hither of ill-joined sons and daughters born
1 A mountain of Scythia.
2 One of the five rivers of the Punjaub, now called the Jhilum, or Behut.
5 Sericana terra, the land of the Seres, an eastern nation, supposed by some to have been the Chinese.
First from the ancient world those giants came With many a vain exploit, though then renowned: The builders next of Babel on the plain Of Sennaär, and still with vain design,
New Babels, had they wherewithal, would build : Others came single; he, who, to be deemed A god, leaped fondly into Ætna's flames, Empedocles; and he, who, to enjoy Plato's Elysium, leaped into the sea, Cleombrotus 2; and many more too long, Embryos, and idiots, eremites 3, and friars White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery.
All this dark globe the Fiend found as he passed, And long he wandered, till at last a gleam Of dawning light turned thither-ward in haste His travelled steps: far distant he descries Ascending by degrees magnificent
Up to the wall of Heaven a structure high; At top whereof, but far more rich, appeared The work as of a kingly palace-gate, With frontispiece of diamond and gold Embellished; thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone, inimitable on earth By model, or by shading pencil, drawn. The stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw Angels ascending and descending, bands Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled To Padan-Aram, in the field of Luz 4 Dreaming by night under the open sky,
And waking cried, "This is the gate of Heaven." 5 Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood There always, but drawn up to Heaven sometimes Viewless; and underneath a bright sea flowed Of jasper, or of liquid pearl, whereon
Who after came from earth, sailing arrived Wafted by Angels, or flew o'er the lake Rapt in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds.
1 A philosopher of Agrigentum, in Sicily, who flourished about 444 years before Christ.
2 An academic philosopher of Ambracia, who is said to have thrown himself down a precipice to exchange this life for a better.
3 Eremite, a hermit; one who lives in solitude, from leños, a desert.
4 The original name of Bethel, a border city between the tribes of Ephraim and Benjamin.
5 See Genesis xxviii. 10-12. &c. 6 Hurried along (Lat. raptus).
The stairs were then let down, whether to dare The Fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate
His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss: Direct against which opened from beneath, Just o'er the blissful seat of Paradise,
A passage down to the Earth, a passage wide, Wider by far than that of after times
Over mount Sion, and, though that were large, Over the Promised Land to God so dear; By which, to visit oft those happy tribes, On high behest his angels to and fro
Passed frequent, and his eye with choice regard From Paneas1, the fount of Jordan's flood,
To Beërsheba 2, where the Holy Land
Borders on Egypt and the Arabian shore;
So wide the opening seemed, where bounds were set To darkness, such as bound the ocean wave. Satan from hence, now on the lower stair, That scaled by steps of gold to Heaven gate, Look down with wonder at the sudden view Of all this world at once. As when a scout, Through dark and desert ways with peril gone All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill, Which to his eye discovers unaware The goodly prospect of some foreign land First seen, or some renowned metropolis With glistering spires and pinnacles adorned, Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams: Such wonder seized, though after Heaven seen, The Spirit malign, but much more envy seized, At sight of all this world beheld so fair. Round he surveys (and well might where he stood So high above the circling canopy
Of night's extended shade,) from eastern point Of Libra to the fleecy star that bears Andromeda 3 far off Atlantic seas
1 The Jordan is formed by the junction of two small streams; one issuing from a spacious cavern near the village of Paneas; the other rising at Tel-el-Kadi, about three miles west of Paneas.
2 A town in Judæa, twenty-seven
miles S. of Hebron; at the S. extremity of Canaan.
3 A daughter of Cepheus, king of Ethiopia. To free the country from an inundation, she was bound to a rock, and delivered over to a sea monster. Perseus slew the monster,
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