The Complete Poetry of John Milton (71 page)
Read The Complete Poetry of John Milton Online
Authors: John Milton
Tags: #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #Poetry, #European
64
the whole universe within the Crystalline Sphere.
THE 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 seduc’t. 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 dye, 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 thir Harps in full Quire, celebrate the Father and the Son. Mean while
Satan
alights upon the bar convex of this Worlds outer-most Orb; where wandring he first finds a place since call’d the Lymbo of Vanity; what persons and things fly up thither; thence comes to the Gate of Heaven, describ’d 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 plac’t here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is directed; alights first on Mount
Niphates.
Hail holy Light, ofspring 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
5
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
1
Or hear’st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,
Before the Heav’ns thou wert, and at the voice
10
Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escap’t the
Stygian
Pool, though long detain’d
15
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne
With other notes then to th’
Orphean
2
Lyre
I sung of
Chaos
and
Eternal Night
,
Taught by the heav’nly Muse to venture down
20
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital Lamp; but thou
Revisit’st not these eyes, that rowl in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
25
So thick a drop serene
3
hath quencht thir Orbs,
Or dim suffusion veild. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt
Cleer Spring, or shadie Grove, or Sunnie Hill,
Smit with the love of sacred Song; but chief
30
Thee Sion and the flowrie Brooks beneath
That wash thy hallowd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor somtimes forget
Those other two equal’d with me in Fate,
So were I equal’d with them in renown,
35
Blind
Thamyris
and blind
Mæonides
,
4
And
Tiresias
and
Phineus
Prophets old.
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntarie move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful Bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest Covert hid
40
Tunes her nocturnal Note. Thus with the Year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of Ev’n or Morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or Summers Rose,
Or flocks, or heards, or human face divine;
45
But cloud in stead, and ever-during
5
dark
Surrounds me, from the chearful wayes of men
Cut off, and for the Book of knowledge fair
Presented with a Universal blanc
Of Natures works to mee expung’d and ras’d,
50
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou Celestial light
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate, there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
55
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
Now had th’ Almighty Father from above,
From the pure Empyrean where he sits
High Thron’d above all highth, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view:
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About him all the Sanctities of Heav’n
Stood thick as Starrs, and from his sight receiv’d
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his Glory sat,
His onely Son; on Earth he first beheld
65
Our two first Parents, yet the onely two
Of mankind, in the happie Garden plac’t,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivald love
In blissful solitude; he then survey’d
70
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
75
Firm land imbosom’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 onely Son foreseeing spake.
80
Onely begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our adversarie, whom no bounds
Prescrib’d, no barrs of Hell, nor all the chains
Heapt on him there, nor yet the main Abyss
Wide interrupt
6
can hold; so bent he seems
85
On desperat revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now
Through all restraint broke loose he wings his way
Not farr off Heav’n, in the Precincts
7
of light,
Directly towards the new created World,
90
And Man there plac’t, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or worse,
By som false guile pervert; and shall pervert;
For man will heark’n to his glozing lyes,
And easily transgress the sole Command,
95
Sole pledge of his obedience: So will fall
Hee and his faithless Progenie: whose fault?
Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
100
Such I created all th’ Ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood and them who faild;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have givn sincere
Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,
105
Where onely what they needs must do, appeard,
Not what they would? what praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoild,
110
Made passive both, had serv’d necessitie,
Not mee. They therefore as to right belong’d,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate;
As if Predestination over-rul’d
115
Thir will, dispos’d by absolute Decree
Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Thir own revolt, not I: if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less prov’d certain unforeknown.
120
So without least impulse or shadow of Fate,
Or aught by me immutablie foreseen,
They trespass, Authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I formd them free, and free they must remain,
125
Till they enthrall themselves: I else must change
Thir nature, and revoke the high Decree
Unchangeable, Eternal, which ordain’d
Thir freedom, they themselves ordain’d thir fall.
The first sort by thir own suggestion fell,
130
Self-tempted, self-deprav’d: Man falls deceiv’d
By the other first: Man therefore shall find grace,
The other none: in Mercy and Justice both,
Through Heav’n and Earth, so shall my glorie excel,
But Mercy first and last shall brightest shine.
8
135
Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill’d
All Heav’n, and in the blessed Spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffus’d:
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious, in him all his Father shon