BOOK THIRD
��127
��To that side Heaven from whence your le- gions fell !
If that way be your walk, you have not far ;
So much the nearer danger. Go, and speed;
Havoc, and spoil, and ruin, are my gain." He ceased; and Satan staid not to re- ply, 10 10
But, glad that now his sea should find a
shore,
With fresh alacrity and force renewed Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire, Into the wild expanse, and through the
shock
Of fighting elements, on all sides round Environed, wins his way; harder beset And more endangered than when Argo
passed Through Bosporus betwixt the justling
rocks,
Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned Charybdis, and by the other Whirlpool
steered. 1020
So he with difficulty and labour hard Moved on. With difficulty and labour he ; But, he once passed, soon after, when Man
fell,
Strange alteration ! Sin and Death amain, Following his track (such was the will of
Heaven)
Paved after him a broad and beaten way Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling gulf Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous
length, From Hell continued, reaching the utmost
Orb
��Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse 1030
With easy intercourse pass to and fro To tempt or punish mortals, except whom God and good Angels guard by special
grace.
But now at last the sacred influence Of light appears, and from the walls of
Heaven
Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first
begins
Her fardest verge, and Chaos to retire, As from her outmost works, a broken foe, With tumult less and with less hostile din; That Satan with less toil, and now with ease, 1041
Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious
light,
And, like a weather-beaten vessel, holds Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle
torn ;
Or in the emptier waste, resembling air, Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to be- hold Far off the empyreal Heaven, extended
wide
In circuit, undetermined square or round, With opal towers and battlements adorned Of living sapphire, once his native seat, 1050 And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent World, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude close by the moon. Thither, full fraught with mischievous re- venge, Accurst, and in a cursed hour, he hies.
��BOOK III
��THE ARGUMENT
God, sitting on his throne, sees Satan flying towards this World, then newly created; shews him to the Son, who sat at his right hand ; foretells the success of Satan in perverting mankind ; clears his own Justice and Wis- dom from all imputation, having created Man free, and able enough to have withstood his Tempter ; yet de- clares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious purpose towards Man : but God again declares that Grace cannot be ex- tended towards Man without the satisfaction of Divine Justice ; Man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to Godhead, and therefore, with all his pro- geny, devoted to death, must die, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself ransom for Man : the Father accepts him, ordains his
��incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all Names in Heaven and Earth ; commands all the Angels to adore him. They obey, and, hymning to their harps in full quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Meanwhile Satan alights upon the bare convex of this World's outermost orb ; where wandering he first finds a place since called the Limbo of Vanity ; what persons and things fly up thither : thence comes to the gate of Hea- ven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it. His passage thence to the orb of the Sun : he finds there Uriel, the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner Angel, and, pretending a zealous desire to be- hold the new Creation, and Man whom God had placed here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed : Alights first on Mount Niphates.
HAIL, holy Light, offspring of Heaven
first-born !
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam May I express thee unblamed ? since God
is light,
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