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　　SELECTIONS FROM PARADISE LOST.

　　SATAN.

　　After having been thrown out of Heaven with his crew, Satan lay nine days in the burning lake into which he fell. Then, rousing himself, he rose from the liquid flames, flew over the lake, and alighting upon the solid though burning land, thus addressed Beelzebub, who had accompanied him.

　　"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"

　　Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat

　　That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom

　　For that celestial light? Be it so, since He

　　Who now is sovran can dispose and bid

　　What shall be right: farthest from Him is best,

　　Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme

　　Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

　　Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,

　　Infernal World! and thou, profoundest Hell,

　　Receive thy new possessor—one who brings

　　A mind not to be changed 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? Here at least

　　We shall be free; the Almighty hath not built

　　Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

　　Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,

　　To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

　　Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

　　But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

　　The associates and co-partners of our loss,

　　Lie thus astonished on the oblivious 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 Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?"

　　So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub

　　Thus answered:—"Leader of those armies bright

　　Which, but the Omnipotent, none could have foiled!

　　If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge

　　Of hope in fears and dangers—heard so oft

　　In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge

　　Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults

　　Their surest signal—they will soon resume

　　New courage and revive, though now they lie

　　Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,

　　As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;

　　No wonder, fallen from such pernicious highth!"

　　He scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend

　　Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,

　　Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,

　　Behind him cast. The broad circumference

　　Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

　　Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views

　　At evening, from the top of Fesolè,

　　Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,

　　Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.

　　His spear—to equal which the tallest pine

　　Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast

　　Of some great ammiral, were but a wand—

　　He walked with, to support uneasy steps

　　Over the burning marle, not like those steps

　　On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime

　　Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.

　　Nathless he so endured, till on the beach

　　Of that inflamèd sea he stood, and called

　　His legions—Angel Forms, who lay entranced

　　Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

　　In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades

　　High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge

　　Afloat, when the fierce winds Orion armed

　　Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew

　　Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

　　While with perfidious hatred they pursued

　　The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld

　　From the safe shore their floating carcases

　　And broken chariot wheels. So thick bestrewn,

　　Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,

　　Under amazement of their hideous change.

　　He called so loud that all the hollow deep

　　Of Hell resounded:—"Princes, Potentates,

　　Warriors, the Flower of Heaven—once yours; now lost,

　　If such astonishment as this can seize

　　Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place

　　After the toil of battle to repose

　　Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find

　　To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?

　　Or in this abject posture have ye sworn

　　To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds

　　Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood

　　With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon

　　His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern

　　The advantage, and descending, tread us down

　　Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts

　　Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf?—

　　Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"

　　Book I., 240-330.

　　'TROPHE TO LIGHT.

　　This passage forms the beginning of Book III., in which the poet visits the realms of light after having described Hell and its inhabitants.

　　Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!

　　Or of the Eternal coeternal beam

　　May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,

　　And never but in unapproachèd light

　　Dwelt from eternity—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 revisit now with bolder wing,

　　Escaped the Stygian Pool, though long detained

　　In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight,

　　Through utter and through middle Darkness borne,

　　With other notes than to the Orphean lyre

　　I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,

　　Taught by the Heavenly 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 l& 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 quenched their orbs,

　　Or dim suffusion veiled. 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 flowery brooks beneath,

　　That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,

　　Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget

　　Those other two equalled with me in fate,

　　So were I equalled 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 even 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 expunged and rased,

　　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.

　　Book III National Epics