Or do him mightier service as his thralls
By right of war, whate'er his business be Here in the heart of hell to work in fire, Or do his errands in the gloomy deep; What can it then avail though yet we feel Strength undiminish'd, or eternal being. To undergo eternal punishment?
Whereto with speedy words the arch-fiend reply'd. Fallen cherub, to be weak is miserable
Doing or suffering: but of this be sure, To do ought good never will be our task, But ever to do ill our sole delight, As being the contrary to his high will Whom we resist. If then his providence Out of our evil seek to bring forth good, Our labour must be to pervert that end, And out of good still to find means of evil; Which oft times may succeed, so as perhaps Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb His inmost councils from their destin'd aim.
But see the angry victor hath recall'd
His ministers of vengeance and pursuit
Back to the gates of heaven: the sulphurous hail
Shot after us in storm, o'erblown hath laid The fiery surge, that from the precipice Of heaven receiv'd us falling, and the thunder, Wing'd with red lightning and impetuous rage, Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now To bellow through the vast and boundless deep. Let us not slip the occasion, whether scorn, Or satiate fury yield it from our foe. Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild, The seat of desolation, void of light, Save what the glimmering of these livid flames Casts pale and dreadful? thither let us tend From off the tossing of these fiery waves, There rest, if any rest can harbour there, And re-assembling our afflicted powers, Consult how we may henceforth most offend Our enemy, our own loss how repair, How overcome this dire calamity, What reinforcement we may gain from hope, If not what resolution from despair.
Thus Satan talking to his nearest mate With head up-lift above the wave, and eyes That sparkling blaz'd, his other parts besides,
Prone on the flood, extended long and large, Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size, Titanian, or earth-born, that warr'd on Jove, Briareos or Typhon, whom the den
By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea beast Leviathan, which God of all his works Created hugest that swim the ocean stream: Him haply slumbering on the Norway foam, The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff, Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell, With fixed anchor in his scaly rind, Moors by his side under the lee, while night Invests the sea, and wished morn delays:
So stretch'd out huge in length the arch-fiend lay, Chain'd on the burning lake, nor ever thence Had risen or heav'd his head, but that the will And high permission of all-ruling heaven Left him at large to his own dark designs, That with reiterated crimes he might Heap on himself damnation, while he sought Evil to others, and enrag'd might see
How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodness, grace and mercy shown On man by him seduc'd, but on himself Treble confusion, wrath and vengeance pour'd. Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool His mighty stature; on each hand the flames Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and, roll'd In billows, leave i' the midst a horrid vale. Then with expanded wings he steers his flight Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air
That felt unusual weight, till on dry land He lights, if it were land that ever burn'd With solid, as the lake with liquid fire; And such appear'd in hue, as when the force Of subterranean wind transports a hill Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side Of thundering Etna, whose combustible And fuel'd entrails thence conceiving fire, Sublim'd with mineral fury, aid the winds, And leave a singed bottom all involv'd
With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate, Both glorying to have scap'd the Stygian flood As gods, and by their own recovered strength,
Not by the sufferance of supernal power.
Is this the region, this the soil, the clime, Said then the lost arch-angel, this the seat
That we must change for heaven, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? be it so, since he
Who now is sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: farthest from him is best Whom reason hath equal'd, force hath made supreme
Above his equals. Farewell happy fields,
Where joy for ever dwells: hail horrors, hail Infernal world, and thou profoundest hell Receive thy new possessor: one who brings A mind not to be chang'd by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. What matter where, if I be still the same, And what I should be, all but less than he Whom thunder hath made greater? here at least We shall be free; the almighty hath not built Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition, though in hell: Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven.
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