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He arrives at
the throne of

Chaos and
Night.

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Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.
As when a griffin through the wilderness
With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloined
The guarded gold; so eagerly the Fiend
O'er bog or steep, through straight, rough, dense,

or rare,

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With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.
At length a universal hubbub wild
Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused,
Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear
With loudest vehemence. Thither he plies
Undaunted, to meet there whatever Power
Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss
Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask
Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies
Bordering on light when straight behold the

throne

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Of Chaos, and his dark pavilion spread

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Wide on the wasteful Deep! With him enthroned
Sat sable-vested Night, eldest of things,

The consort of his reign; and by them stood
Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name
Of Demogorgon; Rumor next, and Chance,
And Tumult, and Confusion, all embroiled,
And Discord with a thousand various mouths.
To whom Satan, turning boldly, thus:

Powers

And Spirits of this nethermost Abyss,

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Ye

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Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy,
With purpose to explore or to disturb
The secrets of your realm; but, by constraint
Wandering this darksome desert, as my way
Lies through your spacious empire up to light,
Alone and without guide, half lost, I seek
What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds to bring the
Confine with Heaven; or, if some other place,
From your dominion won, the Ethereal King
Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound. Direct my course;
Directed, no mean recompense it brings
To your behoof, if I that region lost,
All usurpation thence expelled, reduce
To her original darkness and your sway

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(Which is my present journey), and once more 985
Erect the standard there of ancient Night.
Yours be the advantage all, mine the revenge.'
Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old,
With faltering speech and visage incomposed,
Answered: I know thee, stranger, who thou art
That mighty leading Angel, who of late
Made head against Heaven's King, though over-
thrown.

I saw and heard, for such a numerous host
Fled not in silence through the frighted Deep
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

Confusion worse confounded; and Heaven-gates
Poured out by millions her victorious bands,
Pursuing. I upon my frontiers here

Keep residence — if all I can will serve
That little which is left so to defend,

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new world under their dominion.

Chaos directs Encroached on still through our intestine broils

his further

course.

Satan resumes his journey.

Weak'ning the sceptre of old Night: first, Hell,
Your dungeon, stretching far and wide beneath;
Now lately, Heaven and Earth, another World,
Hung o'er my realm, linked in a golden chain 1005
To that side Heaven from whence your legions fell.
If that way be your walk, you have not far;
So much the nearer danger. Go, and speed;
Havoc, and spoil, and ruin are my gain.'

He ceased; and Satan stayed not to reply, 1010
But, glad that now his sea should find a shore,
With fresh alacrity, and force renewed,
Springs upward like a pyramid of fire

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Into the wild expanse, and, through the shock
Of fighting elements, on all sides round
Environed, wins his way; harder beset
And more endangered than when Argo passed
Through Bosporus, betwixt the justling rocks,
Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned
Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steered. 1020
So he with difficulty and labor hard

Moved on, with difficulty and labor he;

But, he once passed, soon after, when man fell,
Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain

Following his track (such was the will of Heaven),
Paved after him a broad and beaten way
Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling gulf

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Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length,
From Hell continued, reaching the utmost orb
Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse
With easy intercourse pass to and fro

To tempt or punish mortals, except whom

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God and good Angels guard by special grace.
But now at last the sacred influence

Of light appears, and from the walls of Heaven
Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night

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He at length pauses, and contemplates the new

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A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first begins
Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,
As from her outmost works, a broken foe,
With tumult less, and with less hostile din;
That Satan with less toil, and now with ease,
Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light,
And, like a weather-beaten vessel, holds
Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn;
Or in the emptier waste, resembling air,
Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold
Far off the empyreal Heaven, extended wide
In circuit, undetermined square or round,
With opal towers and battlements adorned
Of living sapphire, once his native seat;
And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent World, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.
Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,
Accursed, and in a cursèd hour, he hies.

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