Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/63

Of good and evil much they argued then.
Of happiness and final misery,
Passion and apathy, and glory and shame—
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy!
Yet, with a pleasing sorcery, could charm
Pain for awhile or anguish, and excite
Fallacious hope, or arm the obdured breast
With stubborn patience as with triple steel.
Another part, in squadrons and gross bands,570
On bold adventure to discover wide
That dismal world, if any clime perhaps
Might yield them easier habitation, bend
Four ways their flying march, along the banks
Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge
Into the burning lake their baleful streams;
Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
Sad Acheron of sorrow, black and deep;
Cocytus, named of lamentation loud
Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegeton580
Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage.
Far off from these a slow and silent stream,
Lethè, the river of oblivion, rolls
Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks
Forthwith his former state and being forgets,
Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain,
Beyond this flood a frozen continent
Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms