So much the nearer danger: go 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 alacrity, and force renew'd, Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire, Into the wild expanse; and through the shock Of fighting elements, on all sides round Environ'd, wins his way; harder beset, And more endanger'd, than when Argo pass'd Through Bosporus betwixt the justling rocks; Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunn'd Charybdis, and by th' other whirlpool steer'd. So he with difficulty and labour hard Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he;
But he 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 a bridge of wondrous length,
From Hell continu'd, reaching th' utmost orb
Of this frail world; by which the spirits perverse,
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 Heav'n Shoots far into the bosom of dim night A glimmering dawn: here Nature first begins Her furthest verge, and Chaos to retire As from her utmost 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 leisure to behold Far off th' empyreal Heav'n, extended wide In circuit, undetermin'd square or round,- With opal towers and battlements adorn'd Of living sapphire, once his native seat! 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 revenge, Accurst, and in a cursed hour, he hies.
THE ARGUMENT.—God, sitting on his throne, sees Satan flying towards this world, then newly created; shows 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 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 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 die, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a 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 Heaven, 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 behold 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 Heav'n first-born! Or of th' Eternal co-eternal beam
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is Light, And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity; dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate. Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Before the Heav'ns thou wert; and at the voice
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun-
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 revisit now with bolder wing,
Escap't the Stygian pool, though long detain'd In that obscure sojourn; while in my flight, Through utter and through middle darkness borne, With other notes than to th' Orphean lyre
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night; Taught by the heav'nly muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to re-ascend, Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene hath quencht their orbs, Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the muses haunt Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill, Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief Thee, Sion! and the flowry brooks beneath That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget Those other two equall'd with me in fate, So were I equall'd with them in renown, Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides, And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old: Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off! and, for the book of knowledge fair, Presented with a universal blank Of Nature's works, to me expung'd and ras'd, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out! So much the rather, thou celestial Light!
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate there plant eyes; all mist from thence
Purge and disperse; that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he sits
High thron'd above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view. About him all the sanctities of Heav'n
Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd Beatitude past utterance; on his right The radiant image of his glory sat, His only Son. On Earth he first beheld Our two first parents, yet the only two Of mankind, in the happy garden plac't,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,— Uninterrupted joy, unrivall❜d love,- In blissful solitude. He then survey'd Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there Coasting the wall of Heav'n on this side Night In the dun air sublime; and ready now To stoop, with wearied wings and willing feet, On the bare outside of this world, that seem'd Firm land imbosom'd without firmament, Uncertain which, in ocean or in air. Him God beholding from his prospect high, Wherein past, present, future he beholds, Thus to his only Son, foreseeing, spake:
Only begotten Son! seest thou what rage Transports our adversary? whom no bounds Prescrib'd, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains Heapt on him there, nor yet the main abyss Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems On desperate revenge, that shall redound Upon his own rebellious head. And now, Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way Not far off Heav'n, in the precincts of light, Directly towards the new created world, And man there plac't, with purpose to assay If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert : For Man will heark'n to his glozing lies, And easily transgress the sole command, Sole pledge of his obedience; so will fall, He and his faithless progeny. Whose fault? Whose but his own? Ingrate! he had of me
All he could have: I made him just and right, Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall. Such I created all th' ethereal powers
And spirits, both them who stood and them who fail'd:
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have giv'n sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith, or love,
Where only what they needs must do appear'd,
Not what they would? what praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason, (reason also is choice,) Useless and vain,-of freedom both despoil'd, Made passive both,-had serv'd necessity,
Not me? They therefore, as to right belong'd, So were created; nor can justly accuse Their Maker, or their making, or their fate: As if predestination over-rul'd
Their will, dispos'd by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge. They themselves decreed Their own revolt, not I: if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault, Which had no less prov'd certain unforeknown. So, without least impulse, or shadow of fate, Or aught by me immutably foreseen, They trespass; authors to themselves in all,
Both what they judge and what they choose: for so
I form'd them free, and free they must remain,
Till they enthral themselves: I else must change Their nature, and revoke the high decree, Unchangeable, eternal, which ordain'd
Their freedom: they themselves ordain'd their fall. The first sort by their own suggestion fell, Self tempted, self-deprav'd; Man falls, deceiv'd By the other first: man therefore shall find grace, The other none: in mercy and justice both, Through Heav'n and Earth so shall my glory excel; But mercy first and last shall brightest shine." Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill’d
All Heav'n, and in the blessed spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffus'd.
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen Most glorious: in him all his Father shon Substantially express'd; and in his face Divine compassion visibly appear'd, Love without end, and without measure grace; Which uttering, thus he to his Father spake:
66 O Father! gracious was that word which clos'd Thy sovran sentence, that Man should find grace; For which both Heav'n and Earth shall high extol Thy praises, with th' innumerable sound
Of hymns and sacred songs, wherewith thy throne Encompass'd shall resound thee ever bless'd. For should Man finally be lost? should Man, Thy creature late so lov'd, thy youngest son, Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though join'd With his own folly? That be from thee far, That far be from thee, Father, who art Judge Of all things made, and judgest only right. Or shall the Adversary thus obtain His end, and frustrate thine? shall he fulfil His malice, and thy goodness bring to naught; Or proud return, though to his heavier doom, Yet with revenge accomplish't, and to Hell Draw after him the whole race of mankind, By him corrupted? Or wilt thou thyself Abolish thy creation, and unmake,
For him, what for thy glory thou hast made?
« AnteriorContinuar » |