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BOOK THE NINTH.

THE ARGUMENT.

Satan having compassed the Earth, with meditated guile returns as a mist by night into Paradise, enters into the serpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the morning go forth to their labours, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each labouring apart: Adam consents not, alledging the danger, lest that enemy, of whom they are forewarned, should attempt her found alone: Eve, loath to be thought not circumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather desirous to make trial of her strength; Adam at last yields: The Serpent finds her alone; his subtle approach, first gazing, then speaking, with much flattery extolling Eve above all other creatures. Eve, wondering to hear the Serpent speak, asks how he attained to human speech and such understanding not till now; the Serpent answers, that by tasting of a certain tree in the garden he attained both to speech and reason, till then void of both : Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and finds it to be the tree of knowledge forbidden: The Serpent now grown bolder, with many wiles and arguments induces her at length to eat; she, pleased with the taste, deliberates a while whether to impart thereof to Adam or not, at last brings him of the fruit, relates what persuaded her to eat thereof: Adam at first amazed, but perceiving her lost, resolves through vehemence of love to perish with her; and extenuating the trespass eats also of the fruit: The effects thereof in them both; they seek to cover their nakedness; then fall to variance and accusation of one another.

No

more of talk where God or Angel guest With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd

To sit indulgent, and with him partake

Rural repast, permitting him the while

Venial discourse unblam'd: I now must change
Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and breach

Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt,

And disobedience; on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste,

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Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given,
That brought into this world a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death's harbinger: Sad task, yet argument
Not less but more heroic than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursu'd
Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd,

Or Neptune's ire or Juno's, that so long
Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's Son;
If answerable style I can obtain

Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,

And dictates to me slumb'ring, or inspires

Easy my unpremeditated verse:

Since first this subject for heroic song

Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;

Not sedulous by nature to indite

Wars, hitherto the only argument

Heroic deem'd, chief mast'ry to dissect

With long and tedious havoc fabled knights
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroic martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,
Or tilting furniture, emblazon'd shields,
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds;
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights
At joust and tournament; then marshal'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers, and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,

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Not that which justly gives heroic name
To person or to poem. Me of these
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument
Remains, sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years damp my intended wing
Depress'd, and much they may, if all be mine,
Not her's who brings it nightly to my ear.
THE sun was sunk, and after him the star

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Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring

Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter

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*Twixt day and night, and now from end to end

Night's hemisphere had veil'd th' horizon round:
When Satan who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd

In meditated fraud and malice, bent

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On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd.
By night he fled, and at midnight return'd

From compassing the earth, cautious of day,
Since Uriel regent of the sun descry'd

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His entrance, and forewarn'd the Cherubim
That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven,
The space of sev'n continued nights he rode
With darkness, thrice the equinoctial line

He circled, four times cross'd the car of night
From pole to pole, travérsing each colure;
On th' eighth return'd, and on the coast averse
From entrance or Cherubic watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way. There was a place,

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Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the

change,

Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise

Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life;

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In with the river sunk, and with it rose

Satan involv'd in rising mist, then sought

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Where to lie hid; sea he had search'd and land
From Eden over Pontus, and the pool
Mæotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctic; and in length
West from Orontes to the ocean barr'd
At Darien, thence to the land where flows
Ganges and Indus: thus the orb he roam'd
With narrow search, and with inspection deep
Consider'd every creature, which of all

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Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found 85 The serpent subtlest beast of all the field.

Him after long debate, irresolute

Of thoughts revolv'd, his final sentence chose

Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom

To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest sight: for in the wily snake,

Whatever sleights none would suspicious mark,
As from his wit and native subtlety
Proceeding, which in other beasts observ'd
Doubt might beget of diabolic power

Active within beyond the sense of brute.
Thus he resolv'd, but first from inward grief

His bursting passion into plaints thus pour❜d

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O EARTH, how like to Heav'n, if not preferr'd
More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
For what God after better worse would build?
Terrestrial Heav'n, danc'd round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence! As God in Heaven
Is centre, yet extends to all, so thou

Centring receiv'st from all those orbs; in thee,
Not in themselves, all their known virtue' appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life

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Of growth, sense, reason, all summ'd up in Man.
With what delight could I have walk'd thee round,
If I could joy in ought, sweet interchange

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III

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Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,
Now land, now sca, and shores with forests crown'd,
Rocks, dens, and caves! but I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I see

Pleasures about me, so much more I feel

Torment within me', as from the hateful siege

Of contraries; all good to me becomes

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Bane, and in Heav'n much worse would be my state. But neither here seek I, no nor in Heav'n

To dwell, unless by mast'ring Heav'n's supreme; 125 Nor hope to be myself less miserable

By what I seek, but others to make such

As I, though thereby worse to me redound:

Y

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