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Perhaps our vacant room; though more removed,
Lest heaven, surcharged with potent multitude,
Might hap to move new broils. Be this, or ought
Than this more secret, now design'd, I baste

To know; and, this once known, shall soon return
And bring ye to the place where thou and Death
Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen
Wing silently the buxom air, embalm'd

With odours; there ye shall be fed and fill'd
Immeasurably; all things shall be your prey."
He ceas'd, for both seem'd highly pleas'd, and
Death

Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear

His famine should be fill'd; and blest his maw
Destined to that good hour: no less rejoiced
His mother bad, and thus bespake her sire:
"The key of this infernal pit by due,
And by command of heaven's all-powerful King,
I keep, by him forbidden to unlock

These adamantine gates; against all force
Death ready stands to interpose his dart,
Fearless to be o'ermatch'd by living might.
But what owe I to his commands above
Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down
Into this gloom of Tartarus profound,

To sit in hateful office here confined,
Inhabitant of heaven, and heavenly-born,
Here, in perpetual agony and pain,

With terrors and with clamours compass'd round
Of mine own brood that on my bowels feed?
Thou art my father, thou my author, thou
My being gavest me; whom should I obey
But thee? whom follow? thou wilt bring me soon
To that new world of light and bliss among
The gods who live at ease; where I shall reign
At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems
Thy daughter and thy darling, without end."
Thus saying, from her side the fatal key,
Sad instrument of all our woe, she took ;
And, toward the gate rolling her bestial train,
Forth with the huge portcullis high up-drew,

Which, but herself, not all the Stygian powers
Could once have moved; then in the key-hole turns
The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar
Of massy iron or solid rock with ease
Unfastens. On a sudden open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus. She open'd, but to shut

Excell'd her power: the gates wide open stood,
That with extended wings a banner'd host

Under spread ensigns marching, might pass through
With horse and chariots rank'd in loose array;
So wide they stood! and like a furnace mouth
Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.
Before their eyes in sudden view appear
The secrets of the hoary deep; a dark
Illimitable ocean, without bound,

[height,

Without dimension, where length, breadth, and
And time and place, are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.

For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring

Their embryon atoms; they around the flag
Of each his faction, in their several clans,
Light-arm'd, or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow
Swarm populous, unnumber'd as the sands
Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring winds, and poise
Their lighter wings.
To whom these most adhere,
He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits,
And by decision more embroils the fray
By which he reigns: next him high arbiter
Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss,
The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more world's;
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend

Stood on the brink of bell, and look'd a while,
Pondering his voyage, (for no narrow frith
He had to cross): nor was his ear less peal'd
With noises loud and ruinous (to compare
Great things with small), than when Bellona storms,
With all her battering engines bent to raze
Some capital city; or less than if this frame
Of heaven were falling, and these elements
In mutiny had from her axle torn

The steadfast earth. At last his sail-broad vans
He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke
Uplifted spurns the ground; thence many a league,
As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides

Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuity: all unawares

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathom deep; and to this hour
Down had been falling, had not by ill chance
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
As many miles aloft: that fury staid,
Quench'd in a boggy syrtis, neither sea
Nor good dry land, nigh founder'd on he fares
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.
As when a gryphon through the wilderness
With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloin'd
The guarded gold: so eagerly the fiend
O'er bog, or steep, through straight, rough, dense,

or rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.
At length a universal hubbub wild

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused,
Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear
With loudest vehemence: thither he plies,
Undaunted, to meet there whatever power

Which, but herself, not all the Stygian powers
Could once have moved; then in the key-hole turns
The intricate wards, and every bolt and bar
Of massy iron or solid rock with ease

Unfastens.

On a sudden open fly

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound
The infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
Of Erebus. She open'd, but to shut

Excell'd her power: the gates wide open stood,
That with extended wings a banner'd host
Under spread ensigns marching, might pass through
With horse and chariots rank'd in loose array;
So wide they stood! and like a furnace mouth
Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.
Before their eyes in sudden view appear
The secrets of the hoary deep; a dark
Illimitable ocean, without bound,

[height,

Without dimension, where length, breadth, and And time and place, are lost; where eldest Night And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.

For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring
Their embryon atoms; they around the flag
Of each his faction, in their several clans,
Light-arm'd, or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow
Swarm populous, unnumber'd as the sands
Of Barea or Cyrene's torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring winds, and poise
Their lighter wings.
To whom these most adhere,
He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits,
And by decision more embroils the fray
By which he reigns: next him high arbiter
Chance governs all. Into this wild abyss,
The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,
Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,
But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless the Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more worlds;
Into this wild abyss the wary fiend

Stood on the brink of bell, and look'd a while,
Pondering his voyage, (for no narrow frith
He had to cross): nor was his ear less peal'd
With noises loud and ruinous (to compare
Great things with small), than when Bellona storms,
With all her battering engines bent to raze
Some capital city; or less than if this frame
Of heaven were falling, and these elements
In mutiny had from her axle torn

The steadfast earth. At last his sail-broad vans
He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke
Uplifted spurns the ground; thence many a league,
As in a cloudy chair, ascending rides

Audacious; but, that seat soon failing, meets
A vast vacuity: all unawares

Fluttering his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathom deep; and to this hour
Down had been falling, had not by ill chance
The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
As many miles aloft: that fury staid,
Quench'd in a boggy syrtis, neither sea
Nor good dry land, nigh founder'd on he fares
Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
Half flying; behoves him now both oar and sail.
As when a gryphon through the wilderness
With winged course, o'er hill or moory dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloin'd
The guarded gold: so eagerly the fiend
O'er bog, or steep, through straight, rough, dense,

or rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet, pursues his way,
And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.
At length a universal hubbub wild

Of stunning sounds, and voices all confused,
Borne through the hollow dark, assaults his ear
With loudest vehemence: thither he plies,
Undaunted, to meet there whatever power

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