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-founder’d 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:

205

So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay, Chain'd on the burning lake, nor ever thence 210 Had ris'n or heav'd his head, but that the will

205 Deeming some island] At Sir William Drury's house in Hawstead in Suffolk (built in regn. Elizab.), is a closet with painted pannels of the age of James I. One (no. 36.) is a ship that has anchored on a whale which is in motion. The motto, · nusquam tuta fides.' See Cullum's Hist. of Hawstead, p. 164, where is an engraving of it.

205 island] Thus Dionysii Perieg. 598.

ἀμφὶ δὲ πάντη

Κήτεα θῖνες ἔχουσιν, ἐρυθραίου βοτὰ πόντου,

Οὔρεσιν ἠλιβάτοισιν ἐοικότα.

And so in the Orlando Innam. of Boiardo, rifac. da Berni, lib. ii. canto xiii. stan. 60.

Il dosso sol mostrava ch' è maggiore
Ch' undici passi, ed anche più d'altezza,
E veramente, a chi la guarda, pare

Un' isoletta nel mezzo del mare.'

Compare also Avieni Disc. Orbis, p. 784-5, and Pia Hilaria, p. 92. Basil affirms that whales are equal to the greatest mountains, and their backs, when they show above the water, like to islands.' v. Brerewood on Languages, p. 133.

208 Invests] v. Stat. Theb. lib. v. 51.

tellurem proximus umbrâ,

Vestit Athos.'

And high permission of all-ruling heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs;
That with reiterated crimes he might

Heap on himself damnation, while he sought 215
Evil to others, and enrag'd might see

How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy shewn
On man by him seduc'd; but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance pour'd. 220
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames
Driv'n backward slope their pointing spires, and
In billows leave i' th' midst a horrid vale. [roll'd
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight 225
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 230
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thund'ring Etna, whose combustible
And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublim'd with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom, all involv'd
With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole
Of unbless'd feet. Him follow'd his next mate,

232 Pelorus] See Dante, Paradiso, c. 8. ver. 68.

Tra Pachino e Peloro sopra 'l golfo,

Che riceve da Euro maggior briga.'

235

Both glorying to have scap'd the Stygian flood, As Gods, and by their own recover'd strength, 240 Not by the sufferance of supernal pow'r.

Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, Said then the lost Arch-Angel, this the seat That we must change for heav'n, this mournful gloom

For that celestial light? be it so, since he, Who now is Sov'reign, can dispose and bid What shall be right: farthest from him is best, Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made

supreme

245

Above his equals. Farewell happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells: hail horrors; hail 250
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,

255

And what I should be, all but less than he
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:

260

240 recover'd strength] Revigorate, resumed, recovering, reviving, self-raised, self-recovered. Bentl. Conj. MSS. 241 sufferance] Compare Hom. Od. iv. 503.

Φῆ ῥ' ἀέκητι θεῶν φυγέειν μέγα λαῖτμα θαλάσσης.

Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th' associates and copartners of our loss,
Lie thus astonish'd on th' 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

265

Regain'd in heav'n, or what more lost in hell? 270 So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub

275

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 battel when it rag'd, in all assaults
Their surest signal, they will soon resume
New courage and revive, though now they lie
Grov❜ling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,
As we erewhile, astounded and amaz'd,
No wonder, fall'n such a pernicious highth.
He scarce had ceas'd, when the superior fiend
Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous

shield,

280

285

Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,
Behind him cast; the broad circumference
Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

263 Better] See Æschyli Prometheus, ver. 976.

Κρέισσον γὰρ οἶμαι τῇδε λατρεύειν πέτρα,
Η πατρὶ φῦναι Ζηνὶ πιστὸν ἄγγελον.

Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views.
At ev❜ning, from the top of Fesole
Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,
Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe.
His spear, to equal which the tallest pine,
Hewn on Norwegian hills to be the mast
Of some great Ammiral, were but a wand,
He walk'd with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle, not like those steps
On heaven's azure, and the torrid clime
Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.
Nathless he so indur'd, till on the beach
Of that inflamed sea he stood, and call'd

288

st. 91.

290

295

300

optic glass] See Henry More's Poems (Inf. of Worlds):

But that experiment of the optick glasse,'

and Davenant's Gondibert, p. 188.

'Or reach with optick tubes the ragged moon.' 293 mast] See Lucilii Sat. lib. xv. 1. p. 132. porro huic majus bacillum

Quam malus navi in corbitâ maximus ullà.'

And Ovid Metam. xiii. 783.

'Cui postquam pinus, baculi quæ præbuit usum,
Ante pedes posita est, antennis apta ferendis.'

Cowley's Davideis, lib, iii. ver. 47.

His spear the trunk was of a lofty tree,

Which nature meant some tall ship's mast to be.' Keysler's Travels, ii. 117. They shew here the mast of a ship, which the common people believe to be the lance of Rolando the great.' Pope probably mistook the sense, when, in Hom. Il. xiii. 494, he says,

'Or pine, fit mast for some great admiral.'

Mr. Dyce refers to Quintus Smyrnæus, lib. v. ver. 118.