W

HEN 1

beheld the poet blind, yet bold,

In flender book his vast design unfold;

Meffiah crown'd, God's reconcil'd decree,
Rebelling angels, the forbidden tree,
Heav'n, hell, earth, chaos, all; the argument
Held me a while misdoubting his intent,
That he would ruin (for I faw him strong)
The facred truths to fable and old fong;
(So Samson grop'd the temple's pofts in spite)
The world o'erwhelming to revenge his fight.
Yet as I read, still growing less severe,
I lik'd his project, the fuccefs did fear;
Through that wide field how he his way should find,
O'er which lame faith leads understanding blind;
Left he perplex'd the things he would explain,
And what was eafy he should render vain.

Or if a work so infinite he spann'd,
Jealous I was that some less skilful hand
(Such as difquiet always what is well,
And by ill-imitating would excel,)
Might hence prefume the whole creation's day.
To change in scenes, and show it in a play.

Pardon me, mighty Poet, nor despise
My cameless, yet not impious furmife.
But I am now convinc'd, and none will dare
Within thy labours to pretend a share.
Thon haft not miss'd one thought that could be fit,
And all that was improper doft omit :
So that no room is here for writers lest,
But to detect their ignorance or thefr.

That majesty which through thy work doth reign,
Draws the devout, deterring the profane.
And things divine thou treat'st of in such state
As them preserves, and thee, inviolate.
At once delight and horror on us seize,
Thou fing'ft with so much gravity and ease;
And above human flight doft foar aloft,
With plume so strong, so equal, and fo foft.
The bird nam'd from that Paradite you fing
So never flags, but always keeps on wing.

Where could'st thou words of fuch a compass find!
Whence furnish such a vast expence of mind?
Just Heav'n thee, like Tiressus, to requite,
Rewards with prophecy thy loss of fight.

Well might'st thou scorn thy readers to allure
With tinkling-rhyme, of thy own sense secure;.

While

While the Town-Bays writes all the while and spells,
And, like a pack-horse, tires without his bells :
Their fancies like our bushy-points appear,
The poets tag them, we for fashion wear :
I too transported by the mode offend,

And while I meant to praise thee, must commend.
'Thy verse created like thy theme fublime,

In number, weight, and measure, needs not rhyme.

ANDREW MARVEL.

T

THE VERSE.

HE meafure is English Heroic Verfe, without rhyme, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to fet off wretched matter and lame metre; graced indeed since by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custom; but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint, to express many things otherwise, and, for the most part, worse than clse they would have expressed them. Not without cause, therefore, fome, both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme, both in longer and shorter works, as have alfo long fince our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial, and of no true musical delight; which confifts only in apt numbers, fit quantity of fyllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling found of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned ancients both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect then of rhyme so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may feem so perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be esteemed an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem, from the troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming.

PARADISE

PARADISE LOST,

A POEM,

IN TWELVE BOOKS.

DS

ARGU

This First Book proposes, first, in brief, the whole fubjett, Man's disobedience, and the lofs thereupon of Paradise wherein he was placed: Then touches the prime cause of his fall, the ferpent, or rather Satan in the ferpent; who, revolting from God, and drawing to bis fide many legions of angels, was, by the command of God driven out of heaven, with all his crew, into the great deep. Which action passed over, the Poem haftes into the midst of things, presenting Satan, with his angets, now fallen into hell, defcribed here, not in the centre, (for heaven and earth may be fuppofed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed), but in a place of utter darkness, fitlieft called Chaos. Here Satan, with his angels, lying on the burning lake, thunder-struck and astonished, after a certain space recovers, as from confufion, calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him: They confer of their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded: They rife; their numbers, array of battle, their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining heaven ; but tells them, lastly, of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in heaven; for that angels were long before this visible creation, was the opinion of many ancient fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his affociates thence attempt. Pandamonium, the palace of Satan, rifes, fuddenly built out of the deep: The infernal peers there fit in council.

PARADISE

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK I.

Fman's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,

With lofs of Eden, till one greater Man..
Restore us, and regain the blífsful feat,
Sing heav'nly Mufe, that on the fecret top
Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire
That shepherd, who first taught the chosen feed,,
In the beginning how the heav'ns and earth:

5>

Rofe out of Chaos: or if Sion hill

10

Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd

Fast by the oracle of God; I thence

Invoke thy aid to my advent'rous fong,
That with no middle flight intends to foar

Above th' Aonian mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme.

15

And chiefly thou, O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all temples th' upright heart and pure,... Instruct me, for thou know'st; thou from the first Wast prefent, and with mighty wings outspread 20

Dove-like fat'st brooding on the vast abyss,
And mad'st it pregnant: what in me is dark,
Illumine; what is low, raise and support.
That to the height of this great argument