That with the Mightiest rais'd me to contend,
And to the fierce contention brought along
Innumerable force of Spirits arm'd,

That durst dislike his reign, and me preferring,
His utmost power with adverse power oppos'd
In dubious battle on the plains of Heaven,

And shook his throne. What, though the field be lost!
All is not lost th' unconquerable will,

And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield,
And what is else not to be overcome;
That glory never shall his wrath or might
Extort from me. To bow and sue for
grace
With suppliant knee, and deify his power,
Who from the terror of this arm so late
Doubted his empire; that were low indeed,
That were an ignominy, and shame beneath
This downfall: since, by fate, the strength of Gods
And this empyreal substance cannot fail:
Since through experience of this great event,
In arms not worse, in foresight much advanc'd,
with more successful hope resolve
To wage by force or guile eternal war,
Irreconcileable to our grand foe,
Who now triumphs, and, in th' excess of joy
Sole reigning, holds the tyranny of Heaven. »>

We

may

So spake the apostate Angel, though in pain, Vaunting aloud, but rack'd with deep despair: And him thus answer'd soon his bold compeer.

« O Prince, O Chief of many throned Powers, That led th' embattled Seraphim to war Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds

Fearless, endanger'd Heaven's perpetual king,
And put to proof his high supremacy,
Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate;
Too well I see, and rue the dire event,

That with sad overthrow, and foul defeat,
Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host
In horrible destruction laid thus low,
As far as Gods and heavenly essences
Can perish for the mind and spirit remains
Invincible, and vigour soon returns,

Though all our glory extinct, and happy state
Here swallow'd up in endless misery.

But what if He, our conqueror (whom I now
Of force believe Almighty, since no less

Than such could have o'erpower'd such force as ours),

Have left us this our spirit and strength entire

Strongly to suffer and support our pains,
That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,
Or do him mightier service as his thralls
By right of war, whate'er his business be,
Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,
Or do his errands in the gloomy deep?
What can it in then avail, though yet we feel
Strength undiminish'd, or eternal being
To undergo eternal punishment? »

Whereto with speedy words the'Arch-fiend replied.
« Fall'n Cherub, to be weak is miserable,

Doing or suffering: but of this be sure,
To do aught good never will be our task;
But ever to do ill our sole delight,
As being the contrary to his high will
Whom we resist. If then His providence

Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,
Our labour must be to pervert that end,
And out of good still to find means of evil,
Which oft-times may succeed, so as perhaps
Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb
His inmost counsels from their destin'd aim.
But see, the angry victor hath recall'd

His ministers of vengeance and pursuit,

Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid
The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of Heaven receiv'd us falling; and the thunder,
Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage,
Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now
To bellow 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 wild,
The seat of desolation, void 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 re-assembling 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 despair.

Thus Satan, talking to his nearest 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-born, that warr'd on Jove;
Briareus 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, slumbering 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:

So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay
Chain'd on the burning lake; nor ever thence
Had risen, 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, shown
On man by him seduc'd; 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,
Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and roll'd
In billows, leave i' th' midst a horrid vale.

Then with expanded wings he steers 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 thundering Ætna, 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 unblest feet. Him follow'd his next mate:
Both glorying to have 'scap'd the Stygian flood
As Gods, and by their own recover'd strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.

« Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, Said then the lost Arch-angel,» this the seat

That we must change for Heaven; 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

Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

Where joy for ever dwells. Hail, horrors! 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 itself
Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be; all but less than He
Whom thunder hath made greater?