Here swallow'd up in endless misery.
But what if he our Conqueror (whom I now Of force believe Almighty, since no less
Than such could have o'erpower'd such force as curs) Have left us this our spirit and strength entire, Strongly to suffer and support our pains, That we may so suffice his vengeful ire, Or do him mightier service as his thralls By right of war, whate'er his business be, Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire, Or do his errands in the gloomy deep; What can it then avail, though yet we feel Strength undiminish'd, or eternal being, To undergo eternal punishment?"
Whereto with speedy words the Arch-Fiend replied. "Fall'n cherub, to be weak is miserable,
Doing or suffering: but of this be sure, To do aught good never will be our task, But ever to do ill our sole delight, As being the contrary to his high will Whom we resist. If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labor must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil; Which ofttimes may succeed, so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb His inmost counsels from their destined aim. But see! the angry Victor hath recall'd His ministers of vengeance and pursuit Back to the gates of Heaven; the sulphurous hail, Shot after us in storm, o'erblown, hath laid The fiery surge, that from the precipice
Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder, Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage, Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now To bellow through the vast and boundless deep. Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn, Or satiate fury, yield it from our foe. Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, The seat of desolation, void of light, Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend From off the tossing of these fiery waves:
There rest, if any rest can harbor there; And, reassembling our afflicted Powers, Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our Enemy; our own loss how repair; How overcome this dire calamity; What reinforcement we may gain from hope: If not, what resolution from despair."
Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate, With head uplift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides Prone on the flood, extended long and large, Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size, Titanian, or Earth-born, that warr'd on Jove; Briareus, or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held; or that sea-beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream: Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam, The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, With fixéd anchor in his scaly rind Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wishéd morn delays:
So stretch'd out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay, Chain'd on the burning lake; nor ever thence
Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling Heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs; That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others; and, enraged, might see How all his malice served but to bring forth Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shown On man, by him seduced; but on himself Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance pour'd. Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; on each hand the flames,
Driven backward, slope their pointing spires, and, roll'u In billows, leave i' the midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight; till on dry land
He lights, if it were land that ever burn'd With solid, as the lake with liquid fire: And such appear'd in hue, as when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side Of thundering Etna, whose combustible And fuell'd entrails thence conceiving fire, Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds, And leave a singéd bottom all involved
With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole 237 Of unblest feet. Him follow'd his next mate; Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood As gods, and by their own recover'd strength, Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
"Is this the region, this the sil, the clime," Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat
That we must change for Heaven; this mournfu. gloom For that celestial light? Be it so! since he Who now is Sov'reign can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best.
Whom reason hath equall'd, force hath made supreme 249 Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,
Where joy forever 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 astonish'd 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 Regain'd in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?”
So Satan spake; and him Beëlzebub
Thus answer'd. "Leader of those armies bright, Which but the Omnipotent none could have foil'd! 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 scarce 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 Fesolé, 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 walk'd with to support uneasy steps Over the burning marle, 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 inflaméd sea he stood, and call'd His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades High overarch❜d imbower; or scatter'd sedge Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd
Hath vex'd 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 call'd 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 scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern The advantage, and, descending, tread us down Thus drooping; or with linkéd thunderbolts Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf. Awake, arise, or be forever fallen!"
They heard, and were abash'd, and up they sprung Upon the wing, as when men wont 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 obey'd Innumerable. As when the potent rod Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day, Waved round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind, That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung Like night, and darken'd 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, at 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; A multitude, like which the populous north Pour'd 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
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