Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/178

Of warring Spirits? how, without remorse,
The ruin of so many glorious once,
And perfect while they stood? how last unfold
The secrets of another world, perhaps
Not lawful to reveal? Yet for thy good570
This is dispensed; and what surmounts the reach
Of human sense I shall declineate so,
By likening spiritual to corporal forms,
As may express them best. Though what if Earth
Be but the shadow of Heaven, and things therein
Each to other like, more than on Earth is thought!
"As yet this World was not, and Chaos wild
Reigned where these heavens now roll, where earth now rests
Upon her centre poised; when on a day—
For time, though in eternity, applied580
To motion, measures all things durable
By present, past, and future—on such day
As Heaven's great year brings forth, the empyreal host
Of Angels, by imperial summons called,
Innumerable before the Almighty's throne
Forthwith from all the ends of Heaven appeared,
Under their hierarchs in orders bright.
Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced,
Standards and gonfalons, 'twixt van and real,