Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/82

76 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 Heaven Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first begins Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire, As from, her outmost works, a broken 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 the empyreal Heaven, extended wide In circuit, undetermined square or round, With opal towers and battlements adorned 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, Accursed, and in a cursed hour, he hies.