Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/237

 BOOK NINTH

��'95

��Twixt day and night, and now from end to

end Night's hemisphere had veiled the horizon

round,

When Satan, who late fled before the threats Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improved In meditated fraud and malice, bent On Man's destruction, maugre what might

hap

Of heavier on himself, fearless returned. By night he fled, and at midnight returned From compassing the Earth cautious of

day

Since Uriel, Regent of the Sun, descried 60 His entrance, and forewarned the Cheru- bim

That kept their watch. Thence, full of an- guish, driven, The space of seven continued nights he

rode

With darkness thrice the equinoctial line He circled, four times crossed the car of

Night

From pole to pole, traversing each colure On the eighth returned, and on the coast

averse

From entrance or cherubic watch by stealth Found unsuspected way. There was a place (Now not, though Sin, not Time, first

wraught the change) 70

Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise, Into a gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a fountain by the Tree of Life. In with the river sunk, and with it rose, Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought Where to lie hid. Sea he had searched and

land

From Eden over Pontus, and the Pool Mseotis, up beyond the river Ob; Downward as far antartic; and, in length, West from Orontes to the ocean barred 80 At Darien, thence to the land where flows Ganges and Indus. Thus the orb he roamed With narrow search, and with inspection

deep

Considered every creature, which of all Most opportune might serve his wiles, and

found

The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field. Him, after long debate, irresolute Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence

chose

Fit vessel, fittest Imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide 90 From sharpest sight; for in the wily snake

��Whatever sleights none would suspicious

mark,

As from his wit and native subtlety Proceeding, which, in other beasts observed, Doubt might beget of diabolic power Active within beyond the sense of brute. Thus he resolved, but first from inward

grief His bursting passion into plaints thus

poured: " O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not

preferred More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as

built ioo

With second thoughts, reforming what was

old! For what God, after better, worse would

build? Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other

Heavens, That shine, yet bear their bright officious

lamps,

Light above light, for thee alone, as seems, In thee concentring all their precious beams Of sacred influence ! As God in Heaven Is centre, yet extends to all, so thou Centring receiv'st from all those orbs; in

thee, Not in themselves, all their known virtue

appears, no

Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth Of creatures animate with gradual life Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up

in Man. With what delight could I have walked

thee round,

If I could joy in aught sweet interchange Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains, Now land, now sea, and shores with forest

crowned, Rocks, dens, and caves ! But I in none of

these

Find place or refuge; and the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel 120 Torment within me, as from the hateful

siege

Of contraries ; all good to me becomes Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be

my state.

But neither here seek I, no, nor in Heaven, To dwell, unless by maistring Heaven's

Supreme;

Nor hope to be myself less miserable By what I seek, but others to make such i As I, though thereby worse to me redound.

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