1 Hell's court is built deep in a gloomy vale,
High walled with strong damnation, moated round
With flaming brimstone: full against the hall
Roars a burnt bridge of brass: the yards abound
With all envenomed herbs and trees, more rank
And fruitless than on Asphaltites' bank.
2 The gate, where Fire and Smoke the porters be,
Stands always ope with gaping greedy jaws.
Hither flocked all the states of misery;
As younger snakes, when their old serpent draws
Them by a summoning hiss, haste down her throat
Of patent poison their awed selves to shoot.
3 The hall was roofed with everlasting pride,
Deep paved with despair, checkered with spite,
And hanged round with torments far and wide:
The front displayed a goodly-dreadful sight,
Great Satan's arms stamp'd on an iron shield,
A crowned dragon, gules, in sable field.
4 There on 's immortal throne of death they see
Their mounted lord; whose left hand proudly held
His globe, (for all the world he claims to be
His proper realm,) whose bloody right did wield
His mace, on which ten thousand serpents knit,
With restless madness gnawed themselves and it.
5 His awful horns above his crown did rise,
And force his fiends to shrink in theirs: his face
Was triply-plated impudence: his eyes
Were hell reflected in a double glass,
Two comets staring in their bloody stream,
Two beacons boiling in their pitch and flame.
6 His mouth in breadth vied with his palace gate
And conquered it in soot: his tawny teeth
Were ragged grown, by endless gnashing at
The dismal riddle of his living death:
His grizzly beard a singed confession made
What fiery breath through his black lips did trade.
7 Which as he oped, the centre, on whose back
His chair of ever-fretting pain was set,
Frighted beside itself, began to quake:
Throughout all hell the barking hydras shut
Their awed mouths: the silent peers, in fear,
Hung down their tails, and on their lord did stare.
1 When this last night had sealed
And opened heaven's, whose countenance now was
And trimmed with every star; on his soft wing
A nimble vision me did thither bring.
2 Quite through the storehouse of the air I passed
Where choice of every weather treasured lies:
Here, rain is bottled up; there, hail is cast
In candied heaps: here, banks of snow do rise;
There, furnaces of lightning burn, and those
Long-bearded stars which light us to our woes.
3 Hence towered I to a dainty world: the air
Was sweet and calm, and in my memory
Waked my serener mother's looks: this fair
Canaan now fled from my discerning eye;
The earth was shrunk so small, methought I read,
By that due prospect, what it was indeed.
4 But then, arriving at an orb whose flames,
Like an unbounded ocean, flowed about,
Fool as I was, I quaked; till its kind beams
Gave me a harmless kiss. I little thought
Fire could have been so mild; but surely here
It rageth, 'cause we keep it from its sphere.
5 There, reverend sire, it flamed, but with as sweet An ardency as in your noble heart
That heavenly zeal doth burn, whose fostering heat Makes you Heaven's living holocaust: no part dream's tender wing felt any harm;
Our journey, not the fire, did keep us warm.
6 But here my guide, his wings' soft oars to spare, On the moon's lower horn clasped hold, and whirled Me up into a region as far,
In splendid worth, surmounting this low world
As in its place for liquid crystal here
Was the tralucid matter of each sphere.
7 The moon was kind, and, as we scoured by, Showed us the deed whereby the great Creator Instated her in that large monarchy
She holdeth over all the ocean's water:
To which a schedule was annexed, which o'er
All other humid bodies gives her power.
8 Now complimental Mercury was come
To the quaint margin of his courtly sphere,
And bid us eloquent welcome to his home.
Scarce could we pass, so great a crowd was there
Of points and lines; and nimble Wit beside
Upon the back of thousand shapes did ride.
9 Next Venus' face, heaven's joy and sweetest pride, (Which brought again my mother to my mind,) Into her region lured my ravished guide.
This strewed with youth, and smiles, and love we find;
And those all chaste: 'tis this foul world below
Adulterates what from thence doth spotless flow.
10 Then rapt to Phoebus' orb, all paved with gold,
The rich reflection of his own aspect:
Most gladly there I would have stayed, and told
How many crowns and thorns his dwelling decked,
What life, what verdure, what heroic might,
What pearly spirits, what sons of active light.
11 But I was hurried into Mars his sphere,
Where Envy, (oh, how curs'd was its grim face!)
And Jealousy, and Fear, and Wrath, and War
Quarrelled, although in heaven, about their place.
Yea, engines there to vomit fire I saw,
Whose flame and thunder earth at length must
know.
12 Nay, in a corner, 'twas my hap to spy
Something which looked but frowardly on me:
And sure my watchful guide read in mine eye
My musing troubled sense; for straightway he,
Lest I should start and wake upon the fright,
Speeded from thence his seasonable flight.
13 Welcome was Jupiter's dominion, where
Illustrious Mildness round about did flow;
Religion had built her temple there,
And sacred honours on its walks did grow:
No mitre ever priest's grave head shall crown,
Which in those mystic gardens was not sown.
14 At length, we found old Saturn in his bed;
And much I wondered how, and he so dull,
Could climb thus high: his house was lumpish lead,
Of dark and solitary corners full;
Where Discontent and Sickness dwellers be,
Damn'd Melancholy and dead Lethargy.
15 Hasting from hence into a boundless field,
Innumerable stars we marshall'd found
In fair array: this earth did never yield
Such choice of flowery pride, when she had crown'd
The plains of Shechem, where the gaudy Spring
Smiles on the beauties of each verdant thing,
1 Within, rose hills of spice and frankincense,
Which smiled upon the flowery vales below,
Where living crystal found a sweet pretence
With musical impatience to flow,
And delicately chide the gems beneath
Because no smoother they had paved its path.
2 The nymphs which sported on this current's side
Were milky Thoughts, tralucid, pure Desires,
Soft turtles' Kisses, Looks of virgin brides,
Sweet Coolness which nor needs nor feareth fires,
Snowy Embraces, cheerly-sober Eyes,
Gentleness, Mildness, Ingenuities.
3 The early gales knocked gently at the door
Of every flower, to bid the odours wake;
Which, catching in their softest arms, they bore
From bed to bed, and so returned them back
To their own lodgings, doubled by the blisses
They sipped from their delicious brethren's kisses.
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