Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/149

 BOOK FIRST

��107

��Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy

cloud 340

Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh

hung Like Night, and darkened all the land of

Nile;

So numberless were those bad Angels seen Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell, 'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires ; Till, as a signal given, the uplifted spear Of their great Sultan waving to direct Their course, in even balance down they

light On the firm brimstone, and fill all the

plain: 35 o

A multitude like which the populous North Poured never from her frozen loins to pass Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous

sons Came like a deluge on the South, and

spread

Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands. Forthwith, from every squadron and each

band, The heads and leaders thither haste where

stood Their great Commander godlike Shapes,

and Forms

Excelling human; princely Dignities; And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on

thrones, 360

Though of their names in Heavenly records

now

Be no memorial, blotted out and rased By their rebellion from the Books of Life. Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve Got them new names, till, wandering o'er

the earth, Through God's high sufferance for the trial

of man,

By falsities and lies the greatest part Of mankind they corrupted to forsake God their Creator, and the invisible Glory of Him that made them to trans- form 370 Oft to the image of a brute, adorned With gay religions full of pomp and gold, And devils to adore for deities: Then were they known to men by various

names, And various idols through the heathen

world. Say, Muse, their names then known, who

first, who last,

��Roused from the slumber on that fiery

couch, At their great Emperor's call, as next in

worth Came singly where he stood on the bare

strand, While the promiscuous crowd stood yet

aloof. 380

The chief were those who, from the pit

of Hell Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst

fix Their seats, long after, next the seat of

God,

Their altars by His altar, gods adored Among the nations round, and durst abide Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned Between the Cherubim ; yea, often placed Within His sanctuary itself their shrines, Abominations; and with cursed things His holy rites and solemn feasts pro- faned, 390 And with their darkness durst affront His

light. First, Moloch, horrid King, besmeared with

blood

Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears; Though, for the noise of drums and tim- brels loud, Their children's cries unheard that passed

through fire

To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain, In Argob and in Basan, to the stream Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest

heart 400

Of Solomon he led by fraud to build His temple right against the temple of

God On that opprobrious hill, and made his

grove The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet

thence

And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell. Next Chemos, the obscene dread of Moab's

sons,

From A roar to Nebo and the wild Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon And Horouaim, Seon's realm, beyond The flowery dale of Sibma clad with

vines, 410

And Eleale to the Asphaltick Pool: Peor his other name, when he enticed Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,

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