Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/17

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BOOK I.
11

Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,
That felt unusual weight, till on dry land
He lights; if it were land that ever burned
With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,
And such appeared in hue, as when the force230
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thundering Ætna, whose conbustible
And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involved
With stench and smoke—such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate,
Both glorying to have 'scaped the Stygian flood
As Gods, and by their own recovered strength,240
Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.
"Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,"
Said then the lost Archangel, "this the seat,
That we must change for Heaven? this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since he,
Who now is sovran, can dispose and bid
What shall be right; furthest from him is best,
Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells! hail, horrors! hail,250