14 REDEMPTION.
T* have been the chosen messenger of grace; Sole emulation of angelic minds, T' excel in offices of love, and strive, Who, ready, most shall serve, who best obey, With pinions aerose eager to fly, And execute the high behests of heav'n. Nor waited Abdiel; but, swift as thought, On azure wings uplifted, tinted o'er With amethystine hues, dedalian shades Burnish'd with gold, he urged his liquid way. Cherubic hosts thronging the battlements And crystal towers of heav'n, admiring, gaze As he onward sped. Another sun, he Seem'd, suspended in cerulean depths, or, Aery-light swift shot athwart the sky; Long way I ween, through upper, nether, cross Mid-air; farther than e'er astronomer, On some proud eminence, hath scann'd, aided By optic tube, ether's expansive depths; Adown the milky way, not dallying, He sped, at Capricorn th' ecliptic cut, Nor ceased, until on Thabor's fertile top, Succinct he stood. No errant course, nor doubt, Distracts his flight, divergent: way well known, And travell'd oft by couriers of heav'n. 'Twas this the patriarch saw, when in the field Of Luz, the radiant path wide open stood, Throng'd to and fro with heav'nly habitants; Through this th' archangel Raphael after pass'd, To bless the house of Tobit, sore oppress'd, And guide his son to Gabclus, dwelling At Rages, in mount of Ecbatana,
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