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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.

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Awake, arise, or be for ever fall'n!"

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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

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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

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Their great commander: godlike shapes and forms

Excelling human, princely Dignities,

And Pow'rs that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;

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Though of their names in heavenly records now
Be no memorial, blotted out and ras'd

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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,

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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.

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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;

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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,

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose,

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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

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Her temple on th' offensive mountain, built

By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large,
Beguil'd by fair idolatresses, fell

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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,

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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

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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

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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

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In Gibeah, when the hospitable door

Expos'd a matron to avoid worse rape.

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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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