Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/16

Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hughest that swim the ocean-stream—
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway-foam,
The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays—
So stretched out huge in length the Arch-Fiend lay,
Chained on the burning lake, nor even thence210
Had risen or heaved his head, but that the will
And high permission of all-ruling Heaven
Left him at large to his own dark designs,
That with reiterated crimes he might
Heap on himself damnation, while he sought
Evil to others, and enraged might see
How all his malice served but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shewn
On Man by him seduced, but on himself
Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance poured.220
Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool
His mighty stature. On each hand the flames
Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and, rolled
In billows, leave in the midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steers his flight