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original darkness and your sway

      (Which is my present journey) and once more

      Erect the Standerd there of ancient Night;

      Yours be th’ advantage all, mine the revenge.

      Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old

      With faultring speech and visage incompos’d

      Answer’d. I know thee, stranger, who thou art,

      That mighty leading Angel, who of late

      Made head against Heav’ns King, though overthrown.

      I saw and heard, for such a numerous host

      Fled not in silence through the frighted deep

      With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

      Confusion worse confounded; and Heav’n Gates

      Pourd out by millions her victorious Bands

      Pursuing. I upon my Frontieres here

      Keep residence; if all I can will serve,

      That little which is left so to defend

      Encroacht on still through our intestine broiles

      Weakning the Scepter of old Night: first Hell

      Your wide stretching far and wide beneath;

      Now another World and Earth, another World

      Hung ore my Realm, link’d in a golden Chain

      To that side Heav’n from whence your Legions fell:

      If that way be your walk, you have not farr;

      So much the neerer danger; goe and speed;

      Havock and spoil and ruin are my gain.

      He ceas’d; and Satan staid not to reply,

      But glad that now his Sea should find a shore,

      With fresh alacritie and force renew’d

      Springs upward like a Pyramid of fire

      Into the wilde Expanse, and through the shock

      Of fighting Elements, on all sides round

      Environ’d wins his way; harder beset

      And more endanger’d, then when Argo pass’d

      Through Bosporus betwixt the justling Rocks:

      Or when Ulysses on the Larbord shunnd

      Charybdis, and by th’ other whirlpool steard.

      So he with difficulty and labour hard

      Mov’d on, with difficulty and labour hee;

      But hee once past, soon after when man fell,

      Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain

      Following his track, such was the will of Heav’n,

      Pav’d after him a broad and beat’n way

      Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling Gulf

      Tamely endur’d Bridge of wondrous length

      From Hell continu’d reaching th’ utmost Orbe

      Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse

      With easie 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 Heav’n

      Shoots farr 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 brok’n foe

      With tumult less and with less hostile din,

      That Satan with less toil, and now with ease

      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 leasure to behold

      Farr off th’ Empyreal extended wide

      In circuit, undetermind square or round,

      With Opal Towrs and Battlements adorn’d

      Of living Saphire, once his native Seat;

      And fast by hanging in a golden Chain

      This pendant world, in bigness as a Starr

      Of smallest Magnitude close by the Moon.

      Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,

      Accurst, and in a cursed hour he hies.

      Book III

      The Argument

      Table of Contents

      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 Wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free and able enough to have withstood his Tempter; yet declares his Purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduc’t. 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 extended towards Man without the satisfaction of divine justice; Man hath offended the majesty of God by aspiring to Godhead, and therefore with all his Progeny devoted to death must dye, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergoe his Punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a Ransome 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. Mean while Satan alights upon the bare convex of this Worlds outermost Orb; where wandring he first finds a place since call’d The Lymbo of Vanity; what persons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the Gate of Heaven, describ’d 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 behold the new Creation and Man whom God had plac’t here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights first on Mount Niphates.

      HAIL holy light, ofspring of Heav’n first-born,

      Or of th’ Eternal Coeternal beam

      May I express thee unblam’d? since God is light,

      And never but in unapproached light

      Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,

      Bright effluence of bright essence increate.

      Or hear’st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,

      Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,

      Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice

      Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest

      The rising world of waters dark and deep,

      Won from the void and formless infinite.

      Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,

      Escap’t the Stygian Pool, though long detain’d

      In that

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