Than peace or faith or charitable love,
'Twixt thee and me, accursed, and forsworn,
Such sweet society as wolves and lambs
Combine, this shall be ours, nor less, nor more,
While on the many-heaving breezy waves
Of the etherial sky, Aurora drives
Her purple wheels, and silent-pacing Night
Doth in her starry mantle wrap the earth,
Such be our compact, our confederacy.
Satan. O spare thyself this thunder! Mighty chiefs
Like thee should waste no strength on feeble foes,
They who wage war on weak, and on base things,
Themselves are baser. Mark the forest king-
The lion-dost thou ever see him spoil
Poor sheep, or rend the innocent bleating lamb?
No, he disdains such conquest, but he loves
To engage the rival lion of his hate
In his swollen rage, or grapple to the death
With the throat-throttling tiger, or grim bear,
Sparing the weak and trampling on the strong.
Thou thinkst that I can harm thee—lay aside
This idle terror, this ridiculous fright
Of one so lost, so fallen-one so base,
So little worthy of your hate, and make
This most political compact without fear.
Adam. Thou sayst right well, thou art not worth my hate,
Much less, foul demon, art thou worth my love.
Satan. Nay, nay, not quite so abject; let no vain
Or false conceit delude thee. We have store
Of wit and counsel, power and agency
Thou little reckst of; but perchance mayst need
Hereafter on occasion. God, forsooth,
Hath robbed us of good luck, and the fair smiles
Of fortune: but he hath not yet despoiled
The antique glory of our souls, the full
Keen armoury of thought made thunder-proof,
Nor yet the invincible will to dare or do.
Ay, and we still have kingdoms, princedoms, powers,
Gorgeously bright, right glowing, tho' too low
To suit our aspirations. God, meanwhile,
Sits thundering thro' his empty halls of heaven-
There let him reign. To thee a better sway,
O'er this fair earth, he yields-the purple air,
The immeasurable and hollow-sounding main,
And all that it inhabit. Unto us
Belongs the nether empire, which the gods
Do courteously call Hell and Tartarus-
Such is the subterranean territory
We exiled heroes hold. Here the august
Titanic brood of murmuring demons wield
The sceptre over Chaos, and the shades
Of the jarred elements,-now let us rule
Together, as our kingdoms stand so nigh.
Adam. Whate'er the Thunderer gave to me and mine
Of lordship or authority, he gave
But on condition of pure stainless faith
And fealty to Him. This we maintain
Rejoicing, and, still serving him, desire
No other service, nor impatient seek
To extend our proper bounds, thinking all gained
By impious disobedience worse than lost.
Satan. But who but fools good offers will refuse?
Adam. They who their virtue prize above all gifts.
Satan. To wage perpetual war can profit none.
Adam. Thou canst not harm me, hoping, fearing nought.
Satan. But our confederacy may profit both;
He that relieves misfortune is twice blest.
Adam. But piety is blest, and nought beside.
Satan. And what religion bars an honest bargain?
Adam. Confederacy in vice you compact call.
Satan. Most truly, since whatever now is mine
Will then become your own unalterably.
Adam. Ah, thou hast nought but evil to bestow.
Satan. I'll never hurt, but help you when I can.
Adam. And what security have I for this?
Satan. I promise, swear, pledge, and engage myself.
Adam. An exile, an apostate, and a devil!
Satan. I swear by the great name of the Eternal.
Adam. Whom thou of late didst seek to hurl from heaven!
Satan. Ay, but his wrath would follow broken vows.
Adam. Thou fearest pain it seems, tho' not transgression.
Satan. I like to assist my friends now grown too few.
Adam. That with thee they may perish, is it not?
Satan. Since with this pertinacious insolence
Peace thou refusest, crossing fair design,
Now learn my hate, my vengeance. I will plague
Thy blind soul with the vehement craft of hell,
And thy pride-bloated impudence chastise
As with a scorpion scourge. Aye, know me now
Thy everlasting foe, damning and damned,
Smitten and smiting, crushed and crushing all-
Ay, know me now. By day I will beset
Thy path with torturing doubts, even when thou prayest;
By night I'll watch beside thee, and distil
Such diabolical spirit-racking dreams
On thy sick phantasy, that thou shalt start
From haunted couch, and think thyself in hell;
Thou, who deniest my fellowship, shalt feel
How sweet my vengeance, and how blest
Adam. Begone, accursed deceiver, savage fiend;
Monster, begone; I dread thee not, nor heed
Thy impotent rage! The God in whom I trust
Hath with his favour, as a triple shield,
Girded my heart; thy fury I defy,
For, fearing God alone, I nothing fear
Thee or thy exiled demons-hence, away!
Satan. Thou shalt be exiled too-if not to-day.
The stream of Eden nobly flows,
And on its banks of emerald green
Each glorious tree of pure life grows;
The plant of knowledge shines between,
And hangs its golden-tingèd fruit
To tempt, alas, and to destroy !-
Such knowledge, sure, can never suit
Immortal hope or mortal joy!
Adam reposes in the shade,
His brow with laurel chaplet bound,
With his espoused matchless maid;
He listens to the harmonic sound
Of falling leaves, and fleeting waves,
And light birds' singing, wild and free,
While in his joyous heart he braves
All sorrow, doubt, despondency.
O man! thou wonderful and fair,
Pensive and passion-taming king
Of this new planet, we can share
In all thy bright imagining.
Ah never let the shade of ill
Wither the bloom or mar the bliss!
But be as pure and tranquil still
In unborn ages as in this
Sweet hour of perfect blessedness.
Ye too, who born of grosser dust,
Children of your mother clay,
Whose souls are doomed to quench the lust
Of cursed ambition, day by day,
In solid forms of quick decay,
Chaunt your praise to him who lends
So much enjoyment to a life
Which once, and now, wild passion blends
With desolating guilt and strife.
Ah! the foe is hasting on
To the stern work of blood and tears;
The dread ordeal is begun
Which wakes our longings and our fears.
Will these glorious beings foil
The keen temptation, or be cast
To grief and suffering and harsh toil?
Soon the trial will be past!
Eve. What animal is this that coils and winds
How he rears
His oblique course toward me?
Aloft his scaly, mottled head; and forth
Launches his triple tongue: his glittering eye
Glares with an indescribable fire, that burns
And scintillates, and seems to scorch my soul
With horrible fascination. Now his neck,
Burnished with many-flashing gold, he bends,
And swells his purple breast, whereon bright stars
Now he rests
Flash, dazzling with strange lustre.
His cheek upon his flexile neck, and looks
In cautious calmness round him; while, behind,
His length of tail against the opposing light
Burns like a fallen comet.
His name or nature, this way straight he comes,
And spreads his mazy labyrinths athwart
My chosen path, and with his spiral coils
Surrounds me. Lo, he lifts his sparkling head,
And doth address himself to motion like
As he would speak ;-I wonder if he can!
Satan. Ay, I can speak: my tongue shall ne'er be dumb
In thy fair service. Goddess, Queen of Earth!
I do protest my soul's best homage due :
And it delights me well thus to have fallen
Beneath so exquisite a regency
Of love and beauty; and with me no less,
Whate'er the involving amplitude of air
Contains of choice or precious. For we all
(Though not with equal eloquence of voice)
Rejoice in such a princess. Lady fairest,
'Tis sweet to obey maternal majesty
Like thine; to bow to godlike human sway,
Not cruel, insolent tyrants. Here, indeed,
Reason doth rule our rulers; and her rule
Is freedom and delight. One thing alone
Doth much amaze thy subjects-that the Power
Sometimes invoked as Giver of all good
(Forsooth, his favourite title), should forbid
To eat the very fruits his bounty gave.
Can envy such as this so vilify
Celestial minds; can he who did bestow
A planet thus refuse one little garden?
Eve. Yet hath He given us all things to enjoy
Most generously. He gives the tree of Life,
Of which we eat, and live immortally..
So bountiful a King would not deny
This sole exception but for reason good;
Nor else would he have warned us that to eat
The plant of this false knowledge shall destroy
Our best apotheosis, and reveal-
That dark strange mystery-the doom of death.
Satan. Nay, nay; believe it not. Can thy clear soul,
Thy fine fixed intellectual reason, dream
So vain a phantasy? Canst thou
suppose
That on the loss of one poor pitiful apple
Death shall ensue? Consider, can those die
Whom God to everlasting life foredooms?
All things by one eternal fate are swayed:
We work but things foreseen, and we endure
None but foreknown calamities. For thus
Divine decrees of prescience ever stand
Read through all causes, wrought in all effects-
Unalterable series, settled order,
And dire necessity, in one vast stream
Compel our dim futurities.
Have willed your death, prepare yourselves to die;
If they have not willed, wherefore should you fear
To pluck this mystic fruitage? Therefore think
No more of this vain spectral phantasm,
This idle bugbear. No, believe me, death
Is nothing but perpetual change; no more
Than sweet variety; still opening new
Bright metamorphoses of raptured soul-
Metempsychosis, and the exquisite scale
Of gorgeous transmigrations. All that is
Shall live, and cannot perish, though it seem
To die a thousand deaths; for life and death
Alternate every day and every hour.
These sympathetic contraries, these fond
Antitheses of being, now embrace
And now contend, and now embrace again.
Nay, death itself is life, and life is death:
Each is the source of other, and the grave-
Death is but nature; 'tis no punishment:
"Twere folly, cowardice, to dread a thing
So genial and so very common. True,
You may just possibly die; but if you die,
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