Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon His swift pursuers from Heav'n gates discern Th' advantage, and, descending, tread us down Thus drooping; or with linked thunder-bolts Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf.
Awake, arise, or be for ever 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 nether, and surrounding fires; upper, Till, at a signal giv'n, th' 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 Denaw, 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 forms
Excelling human, princely Dignities,
And Pow'rs 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 books of life.
Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve
Got them new names, till, wandering o'er the earth,
Through God's high sufferance for the tri'al of man,
By falsities and lies the greatest part
Of mankind they corrupted to forsake God their Creator, and the invisible Glory of him that made them to transform Oft to the image of a brute, adorn'd
With gay religions, full of pomp and gold,
And Devils to adore for Deities :
Then were they known to men by various names,
And various idols through the Heathen world.
Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last, Rous'd from the slumber, on that fiery couch, At their great empe'ror's call, as next in worth Came singly where he stood on that bare strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof. The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix Their seats long after next the seat of God, Their altars by his altar; Gods ador'd Among the nations round; and durst abide Jehovah thund'ring out of Sion, thron'd Between the Cherubim; yea, often plac'd Within his sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations; and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts profan'd, And with their darkness durst affront his light. First Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;
Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd thro' fire To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite Worshipp'd in Rabba and her wat'ry plain,
In Argob and in Basan, to the stream
Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart Of Solomon he led by fraud to build His temple right against the temple' of God, On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove The pleasant valley' of Hinnom, Tophet thence And black Gehenna call'd, the type of Hell. Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moab's sons, From Aroar to Nebo, and the wild
Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon
And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond
The flow'ry dale of Sibma clad with vines, And Elëalé to th' Asphaltic pool.
Peor his other name, when he entic'd
Israel in Sittim on their march from Nile
To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarg'd
Ev'n to that hill of scandal, by the grove
Of Moloch homicide, lust hard! by hate;
Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.
With these came they, who, from the bord'ring flood
Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose,
To bestial Gods; for which their heads as low Bow'd down in battle sunk before the spear Of despicable foes. With these in troop Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians call'd Astarte, queen of Heav'n, with crescent horns; To whose bright image nightly by the moon Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs, In Sion also not unsung, where stood
Her temple on th' offensive mountain, built
By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large, Beguil'd by fair idolatresses, fell
To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allur'd
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day, While smooth Adonis from his native rock Ran purple to the sea, suppos'd with blood Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale Infected Sion's daughters with like heat, Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch Ezekiel saw, when, by the vision led,
His eye survey'd the dark idolatries Of alienated Judah. Next came one
Who mourn'd in earnest, when the captive ark Maim'd his brute image, head and hands lopt off In his own temple, on the grunsel edge, Where he fell flat, and sham'd his worshippers; Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man And downward fish: yet had his temple high Rear'd in Azotus, dreaded through the coast Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon, And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds. Him follow'd Rimmon, whose delightful seat Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams. He also' against the house of God was bold. A leper once he lost, and gain'd a king,
Ahaz, his sottish conqu'ror, whom he drew God's altar to disparage and displace
For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn
His odious offerings, and adore the Gods
Whom he had vanquish'd. After these appear'd
A crew, who, under names of old renown,
Osiris, Isis, Orus, and their train,
With monstrous shapes and sorceries abus'd Fanatic Egypt and her priests, to seek
Their wand'ring Gods, disguis'd in brutish forms
Rather than human. Nor did Israel 'scape
Th' infection, when their borrow'd gold compos'd The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan, Likening his Maker to the grazed ox, Jehovah, who in one night, when he pass'd From Egypt marching, equall'd with one stroke Both her first-born and all her bleating Gods. Belial came last, than whom a Spi'rit more lewd Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love Vice for itself: to him no temple stood, Nor altar smok'd; yet who more oft than he In temples and at altars, when the priest Turns atheist, as did Eli's sons, who fill'd With lust and violence the house of God? In courts and palaces he also reigns, And in luxurious cities, where the noise Of ri'ot ascends above their loftiest towers, And injury and outrage: and, when night Darkens the streets, then wander forth the sons Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine. Witness the streets of Sodom, and that night
In Gibeah, when the hospitable door
Expos'd a matron to avoid worse rape.
These were the prime in order and in might;
The rest were long to tell, though far renown'd; Th' Ionian Gods, of Javan's issue held
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