CONCLUSION.

THE first two books constitute an interlude, or perhaps rather a link, between the two tragic motives of the poem: the fall of Satan, and the fall of Adam. Interest is to be sustained in the preceding action upon the vast stage of infinity by the very act of advance towards that limited field of Adam's struggle. The greater portion of the opening books is devoted to the delineation of the character of Satan and of his principal associates; it is only toward the close of the second book that, in the departure of Satan from Pandemonium, the former action is resumed and the latter assumed. Henceforth the arena of action is to be steadily narrowed, to the stellar universe, to the earth, to the country of Eden, and finally to that fateful garden in which human and heavenly and infernal powers are to meet and make their first sad adjustment.

Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure Empyrean where he sits

High throned above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view:
Above him all the Sanctities of Heaven

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only Son. On Earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy garden placed,

Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivalled love,

In blissful solitude. He then surveyed
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of Heaven on this side Night,
In the dun air sublime, and ready now

To stoop with wearied wings and willing feet
On the bare outside of this World, that seemed
Firm land embosomed, without firmament,
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.

(III. 56-76.)

In point of space, the action is to be gradually contracted; but presently we are given a further vista of its scope in point of time. The Father, communing with the Son,

foretells the success of Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own justice and wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free and able enough to have withstood his tempter; yet declares his purpose of grace towards him, in regard he fell not of his own malice, as did Satan, but by him seduced. The Son of God renders praises to his Father for the manifestation of his gracious purpose towards Man; but God again declares that grace cannot be extended towards Man without the satisfaction of divine justice; Man hath offended the Majesty of God by aspiring to Godhead, and, therefore, with all his progeny, devoted to death, must die, unless some one can be found sufficient to answer for his offence, and undergo his punishment. The Son of God freely offers himself a ransom for Man; the Father accepts him, ordains his incarnation, pronounces his exaltation above all names in Heaven and Earth; commands all the Angels to adore him; they obey, and hymning to their harps in full choir, celebrate the Father and the Son.

(Argument, Bk. III.)

Thus they in Heaven, above the Starry Sphere,
Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent.
Meanwhile upon the firm opacous globe

Of this round World, whose first convex divides

The luminous inferior orbs, enclosed

From Chaos and the inroad of Darkness old,
Satan alighted walks. A globe far off

It seemed, now seems a boundless continent,
Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of Night
Starless exposed, and ever-threatening storms
Of Chaos blustering round, inclement sky,
Save on that side which from the wall of Heaven,
Though distant far, some small reflection gains
Of glimmering air less vexed with tempest loud:
Here walked the Fiend at large in spacious field.
As when a vulture on Imaus bred,

Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,
Dislodging from a region scarce of prey,

To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids
On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs

Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams;

But in his way lights on the barren plains

Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With sails and wind their cany wagons light:
So on this windy sea of land, the Fiend
Walked up and down alone, bent on his prey:
Alone; for other creature in this place,

Living or lifeless, to be found was none.

(III. 416-443.)

Passing over this vast unpeopled tract, Satan's eye is at last caught by a distant gleam, which, upon nearer approach, he perceives to be the shining gate of Heaven, down from which extends a passage to an opening in the shell of the stellar World, or universe, and farther, to earth itself.

Satan from hence, now on the lower stair
That scaled by steps of gold to Heaven gate,
Looks down with wonder at the sudden view
Of all this World at once. As when a scout
Through dark and desert ways with peril gone
All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn

Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
Which to his eye discovers unaware

The goodly prospect of some foreign land
First seen, or some renowned metropolis
With glistering spires and pinnacles adorned,
Which now the rising Sun gilds with his beams:
Such wonder seized, though after Heaven seen,
The Spirit malign, but much more envy seized,
At sight of all this World beheld so fair.

Round he surveys (and well might, where he stood
So high above the circling canopy

Of Night's extended shade) from eastern point
Of Libra to the fleecy star that bears
Andromeda far off Atlantic seas

Beyond the horizon; then from pole to pole
He views in breadth, and without longer pause
Down right into the World's first region throws
His flight precipitant, and winds with ease
Through the pure marble air his oblique way
Amongst innumerable stars, that shone
Stars distant, but nigh-hand seemed other worlds;
Or other worlds they seemed, or happy isles,
Like those Hesperian gardens famed of old,
Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales,
Thrice happy isles! But who dwelt happy there
He stayed not to inquire: above them all
The golden Sun, in splendor likest Heaven,
Allured his eye: thither his course he bends
Through the calm firmament (but up or down,
By centre, or eccentric, hard to tell,

Or longitude) where the great luminary
Aloof the vulgar constellations thick,

That from his lordly eye keep distance due,
Dispenses light from far.

(III. 540-579.)

Here Satan alights, and, scanning the clear landscape, in which is no shadow, he presently descries another being, whom he recognizes as one of the sons of God.

His back was turned, but not his brightness hid:
Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar

Circled his head, nor less his locks behind
Illustrious on his shoulders fledge with wings

Lay waving round. On some great charge employed
He seemed, or fixed in cogitation deep.

Glad was the Spirit impure, as now in hope

To find who might direct his wandering flight
To Paradise, the happy seat of Man,

His journey's end, and our beginning woe.
But first he casts to change his proper shape,
Which else might work him danger or delay:
And now a stripling Cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb
Suitable grace diffused, so well he feigned:
Under a coronet his flowing hair

In curls on either cheek played; wings he wore
Of many a colored plume, sprinkled with gold;
His habit fit for speed succinct, and held
Before his decent steps a silver wand.

He drew not nigh unheard: the Angel bright,
Ere he drew nigh, his radiant visage turned,
Admonished by his ear, and straight was known
The Archangel Uriel, one of the seven

Who in God's presence, 'nearest to his throne,
Stand ready at command.

(III. 624-650.)

Safe in his disguise, Satan boldly accosts his former foe, asserts that he has wandered from Heaven in the hope of beholding the wonderful new creature of the divine power; and asks Uriel to direct him to the home of Man. Uriel praises the supposed angel for his zeal, and pictures to him the grandeur of God's might, and its evidencing in the act of creation just accomplished, of which he has been eye-wit

ness:

'I saw when at his word the formless mass,
This World's material mould, came to a heap: