To me are all my works; nor Man the least, Though last created, that for him I spare bosom and right hand, to save, restored Thee from my By losing thee a while, the whole race lost! 280 Thou, therefore, whom thou only canst redeem, Their nature also to thy nature join ;
And be thyself Man among men on Earth, Made flesh, when time shall be, of virgin seed, By wondrous birth; be thou in Adam's room The head of all mankind, though Adam's son. As in him perish all men, so in thee, As from a second root, shall be restored As many as are restored; without thee, none. His crime makes guilty all his sons; thy merit, Imputed, shall absolve them who renounce Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds, And live in thee transplanted, and from thee Receive new life. So Man, as is most just, Shall satisfy for Man, be judged and die, And dying rise, and, rising, with him raise His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life. So Heavenly love shall outdo Hellish hate, Giving to death, and dying to redeem, So dearly to redeem what Hellish hate So easily destroyed, and still destroys In those who, when they may, accept not grace. Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume Man's nature, lessen or degrade thine own. Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss Equal to God, and equally enjoying God-like fruition, quitted all to save A world from utter loss, and hast been found By merit more than birthright Son of God,- Found worthiest to be so by being good,
Thee, Father, first they sung, Omnipotent, hymn the Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,
Father Eternal King; thee, Author of all being, and the Fountain of light, thyself invisible
Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitt'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 bright thy skirts appear, 380 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 nowhere 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, enclosed 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 Imaus 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
Satan alights upon the
globe
The Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams, Limbo of But in his way lights on the barren plains Vanity 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 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 aerial 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, Naught 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
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, 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 Sennaar, 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 Etna flames, Empedocles; and he who, to enjoy Plato's Elysium, leaped into the sea, Cleombrotus; and many more, too long, Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
White, black, and grey, with all their trumpery. Here pilgrims roam, that strayed so far to seek In Golgotha him dead who lives in Heaven; And they who, to be sure of Paradise, Dying put on the weeds of Dominic, Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised. They pass the planets seven, and pass the fixed, And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs The trepidation talked, and that first moved; And now Saint Peter at Heaven's wicket seems To wait them with his keys, and now at foot Of Heaven's ascent they lift their feet, when, lo! A violent cross wind from either coast
Blows them transverse ten thousand leagues awry, Into the devious air. Then might ye see Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers,
And fluttered into rags; then reliques, beads, Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls, The sport of winds: all these, upwhirled aloft, Fly o'er the backside of the World far off Into a Limbo large and broad, since called The Paradise of Fools; to few unknown Long after, now unpeopled and untrod.
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 500
where all foolish things
are tost about
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