But perhaps

His own invented torments.
The way seems difficult, and steep to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe!
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat; descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy, then;
The event is feared! Should we again provoke

Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction, if there be in Hell

Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be worse

Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned
In this abhorrèd deep to utter woe;

Where pain of unextinguishable fire

Must exercise us without hope of end

The vassals of his anger, when the scourge

Inexorably, and the torturing hour,

Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus,

We should be quite abolished, and expire.

What fear we then? what doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the highth enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential - happier far
Than miserable to have eternal being!.
Or, if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge."
He ended frowning, and his look denounced
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
To less than gods. On the other side up rose
Belial in act more graceful and humane.
A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed
For dignity composed, and high exploit.

But all was false and hollow; though his tongue
Dropt manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low-
To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds

Belia

Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear,
And with persuasive accent thus began:

"I should be much for open war, O Peers,
As not behind in hate, if what was urged
Main reason to persuade immediate war
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success;
When he who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels and in what excels
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled
With armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable: oft on the bordering Deep
Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing
Scout far and wide into the realm of Night,
Scorning surprise. Or, could we break our way
By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise
With blackest insurrection to confound
Heaven's purest light, yet our great Enemy,
All incorruptible, would on his throne
Sit unpolluted, and the ethereal mould,
Incapable of stain, would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair: we must exasperate

The Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;

And that must end us; that must be our cure-
To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,

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Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,

Them in his anger whom his anger saves

To punish endless? 'Wherefore cease we, then?'
Say they who counsel war; 'we are decreed,
Reserved, and destined to eternal_woe;

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Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,

What can we suffer worse?' Is this, then, worst

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Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What when we fled amain, pursued and strook
With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought
The Deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed
A refuge from those wounds. Or when we lay
Chained on the burning lake? That sure was worse.
What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,
Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames; or from above
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us? What if all
Her stores were opened, and this firmament
Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey

Of racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,

Ages of hopeless end? This would be worse.
War, therefore, open or concealed, alike

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My voice dissuades; for what can force or guile

With Him, or who deceive His mind, whose eye

Views all things at one view? He from Heaven's highth

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All these our motions vain sees and derides,

Not more almighty to resist our might

Than wise to frustrate all our plots and wiles.

Shall we, then, live thus vile the race of Heaven

Thus trampled, thus expelled, to suffer here

Chains and these torments? Better these than worse,
By my advice; since fate inevitable

Subdues us, and omnipotent decree,

The Victor's will. To suffer, as to do,
Our strength is equal; nor the law unjust
That so ordains. This was at first resolved,
If we were wise, against so great a foe
Contending, and so doubtful what might fall.
I laugh when those who at the spear are bold
And venturous, if that fail them, shrink, and fear
What yet they know must follow- -to endure
Exile, or ignominy, or bonds, or pain,
The sentence of their conqueror. This is now
Our doom; which if we can sustain and bear,
Our Supreme Foe in time may much remit

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His anger, and perhaps, thus far removed,

Not mind us not offending, satisfied

With what is punished; whence these raging fires
Will slacken, if his breath stir not their flames.

Our purer essence then will overcome

Their noxious vapour; or, inured, not feel;

Or, changed at length, and to the place conformed
In temper and in nature, will receive

Familiar the fierce heat; and, void of pain,
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light;
Besides what hope the never-ending flight

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ACity

as

Of future days may bring, what chance, what change
Worth waiting-since our present lot appears
For happy though but ill, for ill not worst,
If we procure not to ourselves more woe."
Thus Belial with words clothed in reason's garb,
Counselled ignoble ease and peaceful sloth,"
Not peace; and after him this Mammon spake :
Either to disenthrone the King of Heaven
We war, if war be best, or to regain
Our own right lost. Him to unthrone we then
May hope, when everlasting Fate shall yield
To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.
The former, vain to hope, argues as vain
The latter; for what place can be for us
Within Heaven's bound, unless Heaven's Lord Supreme
We overpower? Suppose he should relent,
And publish grace to all, on promise made
Of new subjection; with what eyes could we
Stand in his presence humble, and receive
Strict laws imposed, to celebrate his throne
With warbled hymns, and to his Godhead sing
Forced Halleluiahs, while he lordly sits
Our envied sovran, and his altar breathes
Ambrosial odours and ambrosial flowers,
Our servile offerings? This must be our task
In Heaven, this our delight. How wearisome
Eternity so spent in worship paid

To whom we hate! Let us not then pursue,
By force impossible, by leave obtained
Unacceptable, though in Heaven, our state
Of splendid vassalage; but rather seek

Our own good from ourselves, and from our own
Live to ourselves, though in this vast recess,
Free and to none accountable, preferring
Hard liberty before the easy yoke

Of servile pomp. Our greatness will appear

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Then most conspicuous when great things of small,
Useful of hurtful, prosperous of adverse,

"We can create, and in what place soe'er
Thrive under evil, and work ease out of pain
Through labour and endurance.

Of darkness do we dread? How oft amidst

This deep world

Thick clouds and dark doth Heaven's all-ruling Sire
Choose to reside, his glory unobscured,
And with the majesty of darkness round

Covers his throne, from whence deep thunders roar,
Mustering their rage, and Heaven resembles Hell!
As He our darkness, cannot we His light
Imitate when we please? This desert soil
Wants not her hidden lustre, gems and gold;
Nor want we skill or art from whence to raise
Magnificence; and what can Heaven show more?
Our torments also may, in length of time,
Become our elements, these piercing fires
As soft as now severe, our temper changed
Into their temper; which must needs remove
The sensible of pain. All things invite
To peaceful counsels, and the settled state
Of order, how in safety best we may
Compose our present evils, with regard
Of what we are and where, dismissing quite
All thoughts of war.

Ye have what I advise."

He scarce had finished, when such murmur filled
The assembly as when hollow rocks retain

The sound of blustering winds, which all night long
Had roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lull
Seafaring men o'erwatched, whose bark by chance,
Or pinnace, anchors in a craggy bay

After the tempest. Such applause was heard
As Mammon ended, and his sentence pleased,
Advising peace: for such another field

They dreaded worse than Hell; so much the fear
Of thunder and the sword of Michaël

Wrought still within them; and no less desire

To found this nether empire, which might rise,
By policy and long process of time,

In emulation opposite to Heaven.

Which when Beelzebub perceived-than whom,
Satan except, one higher sat— with grave
Aspect he rose, and in his rising seemed

A pillar of state. Deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat, and public care;

And princely counsel in his face yet shone,

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