Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/376

Us, haply too secure of our discharge
From penalty, because from death released
Some days; how long, and what till then our life,
Who knows, or more than this, that we are dust,
And thither must return, and be no more?200
Why else this double object in our sight
Of flight, pursued in the air and o'er the ground,
One way the selfsame hour? Why in the east
Darkness ere day's mid-course, and morning light
More orient in yon western cloud, that draws
O'er the blue firmament a radiant white,
And slow descends, with something heavenly fraught?"
He erred not; for by this the heavenly bands,
Down from a sky of jasper, lighted now
In Paradise, and on a hill made halt;210
A glorious apparition, had not doubt
And carnal fear that day dimmed Adam's eye.
Not that more glorious, when the Angels met
Jacob in Mahanaïm, where he saw
The field pavilioned with his guardians bright;
Nor that which on the flaming mount appeared,
In Dothan, covered with a camp of fire,
Against the Syrian king, who to surprise
One man, assassin-like, had levied war,
War unproclaimed. The princely Hierarch220
In their bright stand there left his powers, to seize
Possession of the garden: he alone,