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oft times may succeed, so as perhaps

      Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb

      His inmost counsels from their destind aim.

      But see the angry Victor hath recall’d

      His Ministers of vengeance and pursuit

      Back to the Gates of Heav’n: The Sulphurous Hail

      Shot after us in storm, oreblown hath laid

      The fiery Surge, that from the Precipice

      Of Heav’n receiv’d us falling, and the Thunder,

      Wing’d with red Lightning and impetuous rage,

      Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now

      To billow through the vast and boundless Deep.

      Let us not slip th’ occasion, whether scorn,

      Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.

      Seest thou yon dreary Plain, forlorn and wilde,

      The seat of desolation, voyd of light,

      Save what the glimmering of these livid flames

      Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend

      From off the tossing of these fiery waves,

      There rest, if any rest can harbour there,

      And reassembling our afflicted Powers,

      Consult how we may henceforth most offend

      Our Enemy, our own loss how repair,

      How overcome this dire Calamity,

      What reinforcement we may gain from Hope,

      If not what resolution from despare.

      Thus Satan talking to his neerest Mate

      With Head up-lift above the wave, and Eyes

      That sparkling blaz’d, his other Parts besides

      Prone on the Flood, extended long and large

      Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge

      As whom the Fables name of monstrous size,

      Titanian, or Earth-horn, that warr’d on Jove,

      Briarios or Typhon, whom the Den

      By ancient Tarsus held, or that Sea-beast

      Leviathan, which God of all his works

      Created hugest that swim th’ Ocean stream:

      Him haply slumbring on the Norway foam

      The Pilot of some small night-founder’d Skiff,

      Deeming some Island, oft, as Sea-men tell,

      With fixed Anchor in his skaly rind

      Moors by his side under the Lee, while Night

      Invests the Sea, and wished Morn delayes:

      So stretcht out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay

      Chain’d on the burning Lake, nor ever thence

      Had ris’n or heav’d his head, but that the will

      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

      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’t, but on himself

      Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour’d.

      Forthwith upright he rears from off the Pool

      His mighty Stature; on each hand the flames

      Drivn backward slope their pointing spires, & rowld

      In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid Vale.

      Then with expanded wings he stears his flight

      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

      Of subterranean wind transports a Hill

      Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter’d side

      Of thundring AEtna, whose combustible

      And fewel’d entrals thence conceiving Fire,

      Sublim’d with Mineral fury, aid the Winds,

      And leave a singed bottom all involv’d

      With stench and smoak: Such resting found the sole

      Of unblest feet. Him followed his next Mate,

      Both glorying to have scap’t the Stygian flood

      As Gods, and by their own recover’d strength,

      Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.

       Forthwith upright he rears from off the Pool

      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 hee

      Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid

      What shall be right: fardest from him is best

      Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream

      Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields

      Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail

      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 it self

      Can make a Heav’n Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

      What matter where, if I be still the same,

      And what I should be, all but less than hee

      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 choyce

      To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

      Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav’n.

      But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

      Th’ associates and copartners of our loss

      Lye thus astonisht on th’ o blivious 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

      Regained in Heav’n, or what more lost in Hell?

      So Satan spake, and him Beelzebub

      Thus answer’d. Leader of those Armies bright,

      Which

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