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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

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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 from which 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. 430
As when a vulture on Imaüs 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
Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams;
But in his way lights on the barren plains

413. matter, subject.

415. disjoin, disjoin thy praise. 418. See II. 1034-1055, and III. 70-76.

419. World. See line 74, and note.first convex, outermost sphere, enclosing the inferior orbs. The Earth, according to

436

the ancient astronomy, was in the centre of this sphere. divides, sets apart; separates from Chaos.

431. Imaus, a range of mountains on the north of India. 436. Hydaspes, a branch of the Indus.

Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With sails of wind their cany wagons light:
So on this windy sea of land the Fiend
Walked up and down alone, bent on his prey;
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 aërial vapors 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,

Nought 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 neighboring moon, as some have drea
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 renown

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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,
Cleómbrotus; and many more too long,
Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars,
White, black, and gray, 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,

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466. Babel. See Genesis xi. Carmelites or White-friars wear1-9.

467. Sennaar, Shinar, the plain of Babylon.

468. had they wherewithal, if they had the materials.

471. Empedocles was a celebrated philosopher of Sicily, who lived in the fifth century before Christ. Tradition related that he leaped fondly (foolishly) into Etna's flames, that he might, in consequence of his sudden disappearance, be deemed a god. One of his sandals, however, was thrown out by the volcano, and the manner of his death thus made known. - he. Cleombrotus, a Grecian youth, is said to have destroyed himself by leaping into the sea, after reading Plato's description of the happiness of a future state, that he might at once enjoy it.

473. too long, of whom it would be too long to tell.

474. eremites, hermits.

475. The different orders of friars in the Roman church are distinguished by their dress, the

ing a white robe, the Dominicans or Black-friars a black robe, and the Franciscans or Gray-friars a gray or lightbrown robe.

476. pilgrims, to Jerusalem and the Holy Sepulchre. 477. Golgotha. See Matthew xxvii. 33.

478. to be sure of Paradise. It was once a superstition of some members of the church of Rome, that to be clothed at the time of death in a friar's habit or weeds, insured an entrance into heaven.

481-483. This is according to the notions of the ancient, or Ptolemaic, system of astronomy. From the Earth, the centre of the Universe, they pass the planets seven, our planetary or solar system, and beyond this pass the fixed, the firmament or sphere of the fixed stars, and still beyond, that crystalline sphere, the heaven clear as crystal, to which the Ptolemaics attributed a sort of libration or shaking (the trepi

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And that crystalline sphere whose balance weig
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 aw
Into the devious air: then might ye see

Cowls, hoods, and habits, with their wearers, tos
And fluttered into rags; then relics, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,

The sport of winds: all these, up-whirled 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 thitherward in haste
His travelled steps: far distant he descries,
Ascending by degrees magnificent

Up to the wall of Heaven, a structure high,
At top whereof, but far more rich, appeared
The work as of a kingly palace-gate,

dation so much talked of) to account for certain irregularities in the motions of the heavenly bodies, and farthest that first moved, the Primum Mobile, the sphere which was both the first moved and the first mover, communicating its motion to all the lower or interior spheres. The Crystalline is described either as external to the Primum Mobile, or as combined with it.

484, 485. Milton alludes here to the notion that Saint Peter literally holds the keys of Heaven and keeps the gate.

489. devious, out of thei or road.

492. In the Roman chur dulgences are remissions penalties of sin, granted Pope. dispenses, or dis tions, are permissions to di with certain rules of the c He also grants pardons f committed. Certain letters contain his decrees or de are called bulls.

495. Limbo, a bordering or place of confinement. 500. thitherward, to itsel 502. degrees, stairs. See li

With frontispiece of diamond and gold
Embellished; thick with sparkling orient gems
The portal shone, inimitable on earth
By model, or by shading pencil drawn.
The stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw
Angels ascending and descending, bands
Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled
To Padan-aram, in the field of Luz
Dreaming by night under the open sky,
And waking cried, This is the gate of Heaven.
Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood
There always, but drawn up to Heaven sometimes
Viewless; and underneath a bright sea flowed
Of jasper, or of liquid pearl, whereon

Who after came from Earth sailing arrived
Wafted by angels, or flew o'er the lake

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Rapt in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds.

The stairs were then let down, whether to dare

The Fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate

His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss;

Direct against which opened from beneath,
Just o'er the blissful seat of Paradise,

A passage down to the Earth, a passage wide,
Wider by far than that of after-times

Over mount Sion, and, though that were large,
Over the Promised Land to God so dear,

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By which, to visit oft those happy tribes,
On high behests his angels to and fro

Passed frequent, and his eye with choice regard
From Paneas, the fount of Jordan's flood,

506. frontispiece, the face of a building.

509. By model, or by shading pencil drawn, by sculpture or by painting.

510-515. See Gen. xxviii. 518. Viewless, was viewless; beyond the sight.

520. Who, whoever.

535

522. fiery steeds. See 2 Kings ii. 11.

530. and, and wider than that. 534. with choice regard, passed with choice regard, with special favor.

535. Paneas, Dan. This was a town in the northernmost part of Palestine or the Holy Land, near

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