100

For never can true reconcilemenť grow,
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierc'd so deep:
Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall: fo should I purchase dear

1
Short intermillion bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher : therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging peace:
All hope excluded thus, behold in stead

105.
Of us outcalt, exil'd, his new delight,
Mankind created, and for him this world.
So farewel hope, and with hope farewel fear,
Farewel remorse: all good to me is lost ;
Evil be thou my good; by thee at least

110 Divided empire with heaven's King I hoid, By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign; As man ere long, and this new world, thall know.

Thus while he spake, each pallion dimnid his face
Thrice chang'd with pale ire, envy, and despair; 115
Which marr'd his borrow'd visage, and betray'd
Him counterfeit, if any eye beheld.
For heav'nly minds from such distempers foul
Are ever clear. Whereof he foon aware,
Each perturbation smooth'd with outward calm, 120
Artificer of fraud; and was the first
That pra&tis'd falsehood under faintly show;
Deep malice to conceal, couch'd with revenge:
Yet not enough had practis’d to deceive
Uriel once warn’d; whose eye. pursu'd him down 125
The way

he went, and on th' Affyrian mount
Saw him disfigur’d, more than could befall
Spirit of happy fort ; his gestures fierce
He mark'd, and mad demeanour, then alone,..
As he suppos'd, all unobserv'd, unseen.

1307
So on he fares, and to the border comes.»
Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,
Now nearer, crowns with her inclosure green.

145

As with a rural mound, the champaign head
Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy fides

135
With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,
Access deny’d; and over head up grew
Insuperable height of loftiest shade,
Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,
A fylvan scene, and as the ranks afcend, 140
Shade above shade, a woody theatre
Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops
The verd'rous wall of Paradise up sprung:
Which to our general fire gave profpe& large
Into his nether empire neighb'ring round.
And higher than that wall a circling row
Of goodliest trees, loaden with faireft fruit,
Bloffoms and fruits at once of golden hue,
Appear'd, with gay enamellid colours mix'd :
On which the fun more glad impressid his beams 150
Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,
When God hath shower'd the earth; fo lovely seem'd
That landfcape: and of pure now purer air
Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires
Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

155 AH fadness but despair: now gentle gales, Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense Nacive perfumes, and whifper whence they stole Those balmy spoils. As when to them who fail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past 160 Mozambique, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabéan odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Bless'd; with such delay Well pleas'd they flack their course, and many a league Cheer'd with the grateful smell old Ocean fmiles: 165 So entertain'd these odorous sweets the fiend, Who came their bane; though with them better Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume [pleas'd That drove bin, though enamour'd, from the spouse

Of

180

Of Tobit's son, and with a vengeance fent 170
From Media post to Egypt, there fait bound.

Now to th' ascent of that steep favage hill
Satan had journey'd on, pensive and flow;
But further way found none, so thick intwin'd,
As one continu'd brake, the undergrowth

175
Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplex'd
All path of man or beast that pass’d that way.
One gate there only was, and that look'd east
On th' other side: which when th'arch-felon law,
Due entrance he disdain'd, and, in contempt,
At one flight bound high overleap'd all bound
Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within
Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,
Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,
Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve 185
In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,
Leaps o'er the fence with ease into the fold:
Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash
Of fome rich burgher, whose substantial doors,
Cross-barr'd and bolted fast, fear no assault, 190
In at the window climbs, or o'er the tiles :
So clomb this first grand thief into God's fold;
So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.
Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,
The middle tree, and highest there that grew, 195
Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life
Thereby regain'd, but fat devising death
To them who liv'd; nor on the virtue thought
Of that life-giving plant, but only us’d,
For prospect, what well us'd had been the pledge 200
Of immortality. So little knows
Any, but God alone, to value right
The good before him, but perverts best things
To worft abuse, or to their meanest use.

Beneath

Beneath him with new wonder now he views, 205
To all delight of human sense expos'd
In narrow room, nature's whole wealth, yea more,
A heav'n on earth : for blissful Paradise
Of God the garden was, by him in th'east
Of Eden planted ; Eden stretch'd her line 210
From Auran eastward to the royal towers
Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,
Or where the sons of Eden long before
Dwelt in Telaffar: in this pleasant foil
His far more pleasant garden God ordain'd; 215
Out of the fertile ground he caus'd to grow
All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste ;
And all amid them stood the tree of life,
High eminent, blooming ambtofial fruit
Of vegetable gold: and next to life,

220
Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by;
Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.
Southward through Eden went a river large,
Nor chang'd his course, but through the shaggy hill
Pass'd underneath ingulf?d; for God had thrown 225
That mountain as his garden-mould high rais’d
Upon the rapid current, which, through veins
Of porous earth with kindly thirst up drawn;
Rofe a fresh fountain, and with many a rill
Water'd the garden ; thence united fell 230
Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,
Which from his darksome passage now appears ;
And now divided into four main streams,
Runs diverse, wand'ring many a famous realm
And country, whereof here needs no account; 235
But rather to tell how, if art could tell,
llow from that faphir fount the crisped brooks,
Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold,
With
mazy error under pendent shades

Ran

Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed

240
Flowers, worthy' of Paradise, which not nice art
In beds and curious knots, but nature boon
Pour'd forth profuse on hill, and dale, and plain,
Both where the morning-fun first warmly fmote
The open field, and where the unpierc'd shade 245
Imbrown'd the noontide-bow'rs. Thus was this place
A happy rural feat of various view;
Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm;
Others whose fruit, burnish'd with golden rind,
Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true,

250
If true, here only', and of delicious taste:
Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks
Grafing the tender herb, were interpos’d,
Or palmy hillock; or the flow'ry lap
Of some irriguous valley spread her store, 255
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the role :
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves
Of cool recess, o'er which the mantling vine
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps
Luxuriant; meanwhile murm’ring waters fall 260
Down the slope hills, difpers'd, or in a lake,
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown'd
Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams.
The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs,
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune

265
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan,
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance,
Led on th'eternal spring. Not that fair field
Of Enna, where Prosérpine gathering Howers,
Herself a fairer flow'r, by gloomy Dis

270
Was gather'd, which cost Ceres all that pain
To seek her through the world; nor that sweet

grove Of Daphne by Orontes, and th' infpir'd Caltalian spring, might with this Paradise

Of