Reason receives, and reason is her being,
Discursive, or intuitive; discourse

Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,
Differing but in degree, of kind the same.
Wonder not then, what God for you saw good

If I refuse not, but convert, as you

To proper substance. Time may come, when Men With Angels may participate, and find

;

No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare
And from these corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,
Improved by tract of time, and, wing'd, ascend
Etherial, as we; or may, at choice,

Here or in heavenly Paradises dwell;
If ye be found obedient, and retain
Unalterably firm his love entire,

Whose progeny you are. Meanwhile enjoy
Your fill what happiness this happy state
Can comprehend, incapable of more.

To whom the patriarch of mankind replied.
O favourable. Spirit, propitious guest,

Well hast thou taught the way that might direct
Our knowledge, and the scale of nature set
From centre to circumference; whereon,
In contemplation of created things,

By steps we may ascend to God. But say,
What meant that caution join'd, If ye be found
Obedient? Can we want obedience then

To him, or possibly his love desert,

Who form'd us from the dust and placed us here, Full to the utmost measure of what bliss

Human desires can seek or apprehend?

To whom the Angel. Son of Heaven and Earth, Attend! That thou art happy, owe to God; That thou continuest such, owe to thyself, That is, to thy obedience; therein stand. This was that caution given thee; be advised. God made thee perfect, not immutable; And good he made thee, but to persevere He left it in thy power; ordain'd thy will By nature free, not overruled by fate Inextricable, or strict necessity: Our voluntary service he requires, Not our necessitated; such with him Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve Willing or no, who will but what they must By destiny, and can no other choose? Myself, and all the angelic host, that stand In sight of God, enthroned, our happy state Hold, as you yours, while our obedience holds; On other surety none: Freely we serve, Because we freely love, as in our will To love or not; in this we stand or fall: And some are fallen, to disobedience fallen, And so from Heaven to deepest Hell; O fall, From what high state of bliss, into what woe! To whom our great progenitor. Thy words

H

Attentive, and with more delighted ear,

Divine instructor, I have heard, than when
Cherubic songs by night from neighbouring hills
Aereal music send: Nor knew I not

To be both will and deed created free;
Yet that we never shall forget to love
Our Maker, and obey him whose command
Single is yet so just, my constant thoughts

Assured me, and still assure: Though what thou tell'st
Hath pass'd in Heaven, some doubt within me move,
But more desire to hear, if thou consent,

The full relation, which must needs be strange,
Worthy of sacred silence to be heard;

And we have yet large day, for scarce the sun
Hath finish'd half his journey, and scarce begins
His other half in the great zone of Heaven.
Thus Adam made request; and Raphaël,
After short pause assenting, thus began.

High matter thou enjoin'st me, O prime of men,
Sad task and hard: For how shall I relate
To human sense the invisible exploits
Of warring Spirits? how, without remorse,
The ruin of so many glorious once

And perfect while they stood? how last unfold
The secrets of another world, perhaps

Not lawful to reveal? yet for thy good

This is dispensed; and what surmounts the reach Of human sense, I shall delineate so,

By likening spiritual to corporeal forms,