WORKS.
33
For thrice ten thousand holy demons rove
This breathing world,[1] the delegates of Jove.
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys
The upright judgments and th' unrighteous ways.[2]
A virgin pure is Justice: and her birth,
August, from him who rules the heavens and earth:
A creature glorious to the gods on high,
Whose mansion is yon everlasting sky.
Driven by despiteful wrong she takes her seat
In lowly grief at Jove's eternal feet.
This breathing world,[1] the delegates of Jove.
Guardians of man, their glance alike surveys
The upright judgments and th' unrighteous ways.[2]
A virgin pure is Justice: and her birth,
August, from him who rules the heavens and earth:
A creature glorious to the gods on high,
Whose mansion is yon everlasting sky.
Driven by despiteful wrong she takes her seat
In lowly grief at Jove's eternal feet.
- ↑ Holy demons rove
This breathing world.] Milton is thought to have copied Hesiod in this passage:But the coincidence seems merely incidental, as the parallel wants completeness. There is nothing of angelic guardianship or judicial inspection in the spirits of Milton: he says only,Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep.All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night. How often from the steep
Of echoing hill, or thicket, have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive to each other's note,
Singing their great Creator?Par. Lost, iv. - ↑ Their glance alike surveys
The upright judgments and th' unrighteous ways.] The eyes of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. Proverbs, xv. 3.
