THE

THIRD BOOK

OF

PARADISE LOST.

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; foretels the success

Satan in perverting mankind; clears his own justice and wisdom from all imputation, having created Man free and able enough to have withstood bis 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 manifesttion of his gracious purpose towards Man; but God again declares, that grace cannot be extended towards Man without the satisfaction of divine justice: Man bath 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 bim, 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. Mean while 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 THE THIRD.

AIL holy Light, offspring of Heav'n first

HAIL

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 eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
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
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest

ΙΟ

The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escap'd the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight 15
Thro' utter and through middle darkness borne
With other notes than to th' Orphean 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,

20

26

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 shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flow'ry brooks beneath, 30
That wash thy hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget

35

Those other two equal'd with me in fate,
So were I equal'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
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus with the year 40
Seasons return, but not to me returns
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

45

Presented with an universal blank

Of Nature's works to me expung'd and ras'd,
And Wisdom at one entrance quite shut out. 50
So much the rather thou celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her pow'rs
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,
From the pure empyrean where he sits

55

eye,

бо

High thron'd above all height, bent down his
His own works and their works at once to view:
About him all the Sanctities of Heav'n
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,
Uninterrupted joy, unrival'd love

In blissful solitude. He then survey'd

65

Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there 70
Coasting the wall of Heav'n on this side Night
In the dun air sublime, and ready now

To stoop with weary'd 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,

75