Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/233

Thee also happier, shall not be withheld
Thy hearing; such commission from above
I have received, to answer thy desire
Of knowledge within bounds; beyond abstain120
To ask, nor let thine own inventions hope
Things not revealed, which the invisible King,
Only omniscient, hath suppressed in night,
To none communicable in Earth or Heaven;
Enough is left besides to search and know.
But knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her temperance over appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain;
Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.130
"Know then, that after Lucifer from Heaven
—So call him, brighter once amidst the host
Of Angels, than that star the stars among—
Fell with his flaming legions through the Deep
Into his place, and the great Son returned
Victorious with his Saints, the omnipotent,
Eternal Father from his throne beheld
Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake:
"'At least our envious foe hath failed, who thought
All like himself rebellious, by whose aid140
This inaccessible high strength, the seat
Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed,
He trusted to have seized, and into fraud