Puslapio vaizdai
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Unargued I obey; so God ordains:

God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.
With thee conversing I forget all time;

All seasons, and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charin of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering star-light, without thee, is sweet.
But wherefore all night long shine these? for whom
This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?"

To whom our general ancestor replied:
Daughter of God and man, accomplish'd Eve,
These have their course to finish round the earth,
By morrow evening, and from land to land
In order, though to nations yet unborn,
Ministering light prepar'd, they set and rise;
Lest total darkness should by night regain
Her old possession, and extinguish life
In nature and all things; which these soft fires
Not only' enlighten, but with kindly heat
Of various influence foment and warm,
Temper or nourish, or in part shed down
Their stellar virtue on all kinds that grow
On earth, made hereby apter to receive
Perfection from the sun's more potent ray.
These then, though unbeheld in deep of night,
Shine not in vain; nor think, though men were none,
That heaven would want spectators, God want praise:
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth

Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep:
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night: how often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to others note,
Singing their great Creator! oft in bands

While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk,
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds,
In full harmonic number join'd, their songs

Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to Heaven.”

Thus talking, hand in hand alone they pass'd
On to their blissful bower: it was a place
Chos'n by the sov'ran Planter, when he fram'd
All things to man's delightful use; the roof
Of thickest covert was inwoven shade
Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew
Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side
Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub,

Fenc'd up the verdant wall; each beauteous flower,
Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine,

Rear'd high their flourish'd heads between, and wrought
Mosaic; under foot the violet,

Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay

Broider'd the ground, more color'd than with stone
Of costliest emblem: other creatures here,

Bird, beast, insect, or worm, durst enter none,
Such was their awe of man. In shadier bower
More sacred and sequester'd, though but feign'd,
Pan or Sylvanus never slept, nor Nymph
Nor Faunus haunted.

THE REBEL ANGELS DRIVEN OUT FROM HEAVEN BY

MESSIAH.

"So said, he, o'er his sceptre bowing, rose

From the right hand of glory where he sat ;
And the third sacred morn began to shine,

Dawning through heaven: forth rush'd with whirlwind round
The chariot of paternal Deity,

Flashing thick flames, wheel within wheel undrawn,

Itself instinct with spirit, but convoy'd

By four cherubic shapes; four faces cach

Had wondrous; as with stars their bodies all

And wings were set with eyes, with eyes the wheels
Of beryl, and careering fires between;

Over their heads a crystal firinament,

Whereon a sapphire throne inlaid with pure
Amber, and colours of the showery arch.
He in celestial panoply all arm'd
Of radiant Urim, work divinely wrought,
Ascended; at his right hand Victory

Sat eagle wing'd; beside him hung his bow
And quiver with three-bolted thunder stor'd,
And from about him fierce effusion rol'd

Of smoke and bickering flame and sparkles dire:

Attended with ten thousand thousand saints
He onward came, far off his coning shone;
And twenty thousand (I their number heard)
Chariots of God, half on each hand were seen:
He on the wings of cherub rode sublime
On the crystalline sky, in sapphire thron'd,
Illustrious far and wide, but by his own
First seen; them unexpected joy surpris'd,
When the great ensign of Messiah blaz'd
Aloft by angels borne, his sign in heaven;
Under whose conduct Michael soon reduc'd
His army, circumfus'd on either wing,
Under their head embodied all in one.
Before him power divine his way prepar'd:
At his command th' uprooted hills retir'd
Each to his place: they heard his voice, and went
Obsequious; heaven his wonted face renew'd,
And with fresh flowerets hill and valley smil'd.

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"So spake the Son, and into terror chang'd
His count'nance too severe to be beheld.
And full of wrath bent on his enemies.

At once the Four spread out their starry wings
With dreadful shade contiguous, and the orbs
Of his fierce chariot roll'd, as with the sound
Of torrent floods, or of a numerous host.
He on his impious foes right onward drove,
Gloomy as night; under his burning wheels
The steadfast empyrean shook throughout,
All but the throne itself of God. Full soor
Among them he arriv'd, in his right hand
Grasping ten thousand thunders, which he sent
Before him, such as in their souls infix'd
Plagues; they, astonish'd, all resistance lost,
All courage; down their idle weapons dropt;
O'er shields and helms, and helmed heads he rode
Of thrones and mighty Seraphim prostate,
That wish'd the mountains now might be again
Thrown on them as a shelter from his ire.
Not less on either side tempestuous fell
His arrows, from the four-fold visag'd Four
Distinct with eyes, and from the living wheels
Distinct alike with multitude of eyes;
One spirit in them rul'd, and every eye
Glar'd lightning, and shot forth pernicious fire
Among the accurs'd, that wither'd all their strength,
And of their wonted vigor left them drain'd,
Exhausted, spritless, afflicted, fall'n.

et half his strength he put not forth, but check'd His thunder in inid volley; for he meant

Not to destroy, but root them out of Heaven;
The overthrown he rais'd, and as a herd
Of goats or timorous flock together throng'd
Drove them before him thunderstruck, pursued
With terrors and with furies to the bounds
And crystal wall of Heav'n, which, opening wide,
Roll'd inward, and a spacious gap disclos'd
Into the wasteful deep; the monstrous sight
Struck them with horror backward, but far worse
Urged them behind; headlong themselves they threw
Down from the verge Heav'n; eternal wrath
Burnt after them to the bottomless pit.

SATAN ASSEMBLES HIS INFERNAL LEGIONS AFTER THEIR FALL FROM HEAVEN.

HE scarce had ceas'd, when the superior Fiend Was moving to'ward the shore; his pond'rous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb
Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views
At evening from the top of Fesole,
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 admiral, 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, where th' Etrurian shades
High over-arch'd imbow'r; or scatter'd sedge
Afloat when with fierce winds Orion arm'd
Hath vex'd the Red-sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew
Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursu'd

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, cov'ring the flood,
Under amazement of their hideous change.
He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep
Of hell resounded. "Princes, Potentates,

Warriors, the flow'r of Heaven! once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal Spirits; or have ye chos'n 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 Conqueror, 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 forever fall'n!

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;
Yet to their general's voice they soon obey'd,
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son in Egypt's evil day,

Wav'd round the coast, up call'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 form
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 book of life.

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