Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK III.

BOOK III.

F 2

[ocr errors]

ARGUMENT.

God, sitting on his throne, sees Satan, flying towards this world, then newly created; shews him to the Son who sat at his right hand; 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 quire, celebrate the Father and, the Son. Meanwhile Satan alights upon the bare convex of this world's outermost orb ; where, wandering, he first finds a place, since called The Limbo of Vanity; what persons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the gate of Heaven, described ascending by stairs, and the waters above the firmament that flow about it. His passage thence to the orb of the sun he finds there Uriel, the regent of that orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner Angel, and, pretending a zealous desire to behold the new creation, and Man whom God had placed here, enquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights first on mount Niphates.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK. III.

HAIL, holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first-born!
Or of th' Eternal coeternal beam

May I express thee' unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather, pure etherial stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the sun,
Before the Heav'ns thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle didst invest

10

The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,

Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight

15

Through utter and through middle darkness borne,

With other notes than to th' Orphéan lyre,

I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,

Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sov'reign vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt
Clear spring, or shądy grove, or sunny hill,

20

25

Smit with the love of sacred song! but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flow'ry brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow'd feet and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget
Those other two equall'd with me in fate,
So were I equall'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old;
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid

30

35

Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns

40

Day or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with an universal blank
Of nature's works, to me expung'd and ras'd,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind thro' all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

Now had th' almighty Father from above,

High thron'd above all height, bent down his eye,

From the pure empyréan where he sits

His own works and their works at once to view.
About him all the Sanctities of Heav'n

[blocks in formation]

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv'd
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 plac'd,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,

65

Uniterrupted joy, unrivall'd love,

In blissful solitude; he then survey'd
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there,
Coasting the wall of Heav'n 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 seem'd
Firm land embosom'd, without firmament
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.

"Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our Adversary, whom no bounds
Prescrib'd, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heap'd on him there, nor yet the main abyss,
Wide interrupt, can hold? so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now,
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
Not far off Heav'n, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new created world,
And Man there plac'd, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert,
For Man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall
He and his faithless progeny. Whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate he had of me
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all th' etherial Powers

70

75

80

85

90

95

100

And Spirits, both them who stood and them who fail'd;

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have giv'n sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,

Where only what they needs must do appear'd,

Not what they would? what praise could they receive?

105

« AnteriorContinuar »