John Milton - Paradise Lost (An Extract)

Lyrics

'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 sovereign can dispose and bid What shall be right: furthest from him is best Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme Above his equals. Farewell happy fields Where joy for ever 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 copartners 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 th' 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 such a pernicious height!" He scare 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 Fesole 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 marl, 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 inflamed sea he stood, and called His legions--Angel Forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge Afloat, when with 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 bestrown 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 Th' 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!" They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men won't to watch On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel; Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud 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, th' 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: 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, form 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 Though on 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 th' invisible Glory of him that made them to transform 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