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Can perish for the mind and spi'rit remains
Invincible, and vigour soon returns,
Though all our glory' extinct, and happy state
Here swallow'd up in endless misery.

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But what if he our Conqu'ror (whom I now

Of force believe almighty, since no less

Than such could have o'erpow'r'd such force as ours)

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Have left us this our spi'rit and strength entire,

Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire
Or do him mightier service as his thralls
By right of war; whate'er his business be,
Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,
Or do his errands in the gloomy deep:
What can it then avail, though yet we feel
Strength undiminish'd, or eterual being,

To undergo eternal punishment?"

Whereto with speedy words th' Arch Fiend reply'd.
"Fall'n Cherub, to be weak is miserable,

Doing or suffering: but of this be sure,
To do ought good never will be our task,
But ever to do ill our sole delight:
As be'ing the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then his providence
Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,

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And out of good still to find means of evil;
Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps

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Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,

Short after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid

The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of Heav'n receiv'd us falling; and the thunder,

Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,

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Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow through the vast and boundless deep.
Let us not slip th' occasion, whether scorn
Or satiate fury yield it from our foe.
Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,
The seat of desolation, void of light,
Save what the glimmering of these livid flames
Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
From off the tossing of these fiery waves;

There rest, if any rest can harbour there;
And, re-assembling our afflicted Powers,
Consult how we may henceforth most offend
Our enemy, our own loss how repair;
How overcome this dire calamity;

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What reinforcement we may gain from hope;
If not, what resolution from despair."

Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate
With head uplift above the wave and eyes
That sparkling blaz'd; his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extending long and large,
Lay flooting many a rood, in bulk as huge
As whom the fables name of monstrous size,
Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove;
Briareos, or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th' ocean stream:
Him, haply slumb'ring on the Norway foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,

Moors by his side under the lee, while night

Invests the sea, and wished morn delays :

So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch Fiend lay,
Chain'd on the burning lake ; nor ever thence

Had ris'n, or heav'd his head, but that the will
And high permission of all ruling Heaven

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Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might

Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others; and, enrag'd, might see
How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shown
On Man, by him seduc'd; but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance, pour'd.
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames,

Driv'n backward, slope their pointing spires, aud, roll'd
In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale.

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Then with expanded wings he steers his flight

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Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,

That felt unusual weight; till on dry land

He lights, if it were land that ever burn'd
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire;

And such appear'd in hue, as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thund'ring Etna, whose combustible

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And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire,

Sublim'd with mineral fury, aid the winds,

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And leave a singed bottom all involv'd

With stench and smoke; such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him follow'd his next mate,
Both glorying to have 'scap'd the Stygian flood
As gods, and by their own recover'd strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.

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"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"

Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat

That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom

For that celestial light? Be' it so, since he

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Who now is Sov'reign can dispose and bid

What shall be right: farthest from him is best,

Whom reas'on hath equal'd, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

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Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors; hail,
Infernal world! and thou profoundest Hell,
Receive thy new possessor; one who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by place or time.
The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he

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Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence :
Here we may reign secure; and in my choice
To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

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Th' associates and copartners of our loss,

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Lie thus astonished on the oblivious pool,

And call them not to share with us their part

In this unhappy mansion, or once more
With rallied arms to try what may be yet
Regain'd in Heav'n, or what more lost in Hell?"
So Satan spake, and him Beëlzebub
Thus answer'd. "Leader of those armies bright,
Which but th' Omnipotent none could have foil'd,
If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge
Of hope in fears and dangers, heard so oft
In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge
Of battle when it rag'd, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage, and revive, though now they le
Groveling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,

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As we erewhile, astounded and amaz'd,

No wonder, fall'n such a pernicious height.”
He scarce had ceas'd when the superior Fiend

Was moving tow'ard the shore; his pond'rous shield
Etherial temper, massy, large, and round,

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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 Fesolé,
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers, or mountains, on 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 Heav'n's azure; and the torrid clime
Smote on him sove 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 entranc'd
Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks
In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades

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High over-arch'd imbow'r ; or scatter'd sedge

Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd

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Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew

Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued

The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld

From the safe shore their floating carcases

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And broken chariot-wheels: so thick bestrown,

Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,

Under amazement of their hideous change.

He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep

Of Hell resounded. 6.6 Princes, Potentates,

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Warriors, the flow'r of Heav'n, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal Spi'rits: or have ye chosen this place

After the toil of battle to repose

Your varied virtue, for the ease you find

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To slumber here, as in the vales of Heav'n?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn

To' adore the Conqueror? who now beholds

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