BOOK NINTH
��'95
��Twixt day and night, and now from end to
end Night's hemisphere had veiled the horizon
round,
When Satan, who late fled before the threats Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improved In meditated fraud and malice, bent On Man's destruction, maugre what might
hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned. By night he fled, and at midnight returned From compassing the Earth cautious of
day
Since Uriel, Regent of the Sun, descried 60 His entrance, and forewarned the Cheru- bim
That kept their watch. Thence, full of an- guish, driven, The space of seven continued nights he
rode
With darkness thrice the equinoctial line He circled, four times crossed the car of
Night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure On the eighth returned, and on the coast
averse
From entrance or cherubic watch by stealth Found unsuspected way. There was a place (Now not, though Sin, not Time, first
wraught the change) 70
Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise, Into a gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a fountain by the Tree of Life. In with the river sunk, and with it rose, Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought Where to lie hid. Sea he had searched and
land
From Eden over Pontus, and the Pool Mseotis, up beyond the river Ob; Downward as far antartic; and, in length, West from Orontes to the ocean barred 80 At Darien, thence to the land where flows Ganges and Indus. Thus the orb he roamed With narrow search, and with inspection
deep
Considered every creature, which of all Most opportune might serve his wiles, and
found
The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field. Him, after long debate, irresolute Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence
chose
Fit vessel, fittest Imp of fraud, in whom To enter, and his dark suggestions hide 90 From sharpest sight; for in the wily snake
��Whatever sleights none would suspicious
mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety Proceeding, which, in other beasts observed, Doubt might beget of diabolic power Active within beyond the sense of brute. Thus he resolved, but first from inward
grief His bursting passion into plaints thus
poured: " O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not
preferred More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as
built ioo
With second thoughts, reforming what was
old! For what God, after better, worse would
build? Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other
Heavens, That shine, yet bear their bright officious
lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems, In thee concentring all their precious beams Of sacred influence ! As God in Heaven Is centre, yet extends to all, so thou Centring receiv'st from all those orbs; in
thee, Not in themselves, all their known virtue
appears, no
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth Of creatures animate with gradual life Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up
in Man. With what delight could I have walked
thee round,
If I could joy in aught sweet interchange Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains, Now land, now sea, and shores with forest
crowned, Rocks, dens, and caves ! But I in none of
these
Find place or refuge; and the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel 120 Torment within me, as from the hateful
siege
Of contraries ; all good to me becomes Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be
my state.
But neither here seek I, no, nor in Heaven, To dwell, unless by maistring Heaven's
Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself less miserable By what I seek, but others to make such i As I, though thereby worse to me redound.
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