Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/299

 BOOK FIRST

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��Who, leagued with millions more in rash

revolt, 359

Kept not my happy station, but was driven

With them from bliss to the bottomless

Deep

Yet to that hideous place not so confined By rigour uncouniving but that oft, Leaving my dolorous prison, I enjoy Large liberty to round this globe of Earth, Or range in the Air; nor from the Heaven

of Heavens

Hath he excluded my resort sometimes. I came, among the Sons of God, when he Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job, 369 To prove him, and illustrate his high worth; And, when to all his Angels he proposed To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud, That he might fall in Ramoth, they demur- ring,

I undertook that office, and the tongues Of all his flattering prophets glibbed with

lies

To his destruction, as I had in charge: For what he bids I do. Though I have lost Much lustre of my native brightness, lost To be beloved of God, I have not lost 379 To love, at least contemplate and admire, What I see excellent in good, or fair, Or virtuous ; I should so have lost all sense. What can be then less in me than desire To see thee and approach thee, whom I

know

Declared the Son of God, to hear attent Thy wisdom, and behold thy godlike deeds ? Men generally think me much a foe To all mankind. Why should I ? they to

me

Never did wrong or violence. By them I lost not what I lost; rather by them 390 I gained what I have gained, and with them

dwell

Copartner in these regions of the World, If not disposer lend them oft my aid, Oft my advice by presages and signs, And answers, oracles, portents, and dreams, Whereby they may direct their future life. Envy, they say, excites me, thus to gain Companions of my misery and woe ! At first it may be ; but, long since with woe Nearer acquainted, now I feel by proof 400 That fellowship in pain divides not smart, Nor lightens aught each man's peculiar

load;

Small consolation, then, were Man ad- joined.

��This wounds me most (what can it less ?) that Man,

Man fallen, shall be restored, I never more." To whom our Saviour sternly thus re- plied:

"Deservedly thou griev'st, composed of lies

From the beginning, and in lies wilt end,

Who boast'st release from Hell, and leave to come

Into the Heaven of Heavens. Thou com'st, indeed, 4 io

As a poor miserable captive thrall

Comes to the place where he before had sat

Among the prime in splendour, now de- posed,

Ejected, emptied, gazed, unpitied, shunned,

A spectacle of ruin, or of scorn,

To all the host of Heaven. The happy place

Imparts to thee no happiness, no joy

Rather inflames thy torment, representing

Lost bliss, to thee no more communicable;

So never more in Hell than when in Heaven. 420

But thou art serviceable to Heaven's King !

Wilt thou impute to obedience what thy fear

Extorts, or pleasure to do ill excites ?

What but thy malice moved thee to mis- deem

Of righteous Job, then cruelly to afflict him

With all inflictions ? but his patience won.

The other service was thy chosen task,

To be a liar in four hundred mouths;

For lying is thy sustenance, thy food.

Yet thou pretend'st to truth ! all oracles 430

By thee are given, and what confessed more true

Among the nations ? That hath been thy craft,

By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies.

But what have been thy answers ? what but dark,

Ambiguous, and with double sense de- luding,

Which they who. asked have seldom under- stood,

And, not well understood, as good not known ?

Who ever, by consulting at thy shrine,

Returned the wiser, or the more instruct 439

To fly or follow what concerned him most,

And run not sooner to his fatal snare ?

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