John Milton - Paradise Lost and Its Sequel, Paradise Regained (Illustrated Edition)

Light-arm’d or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow,

Swarm populous, unnumber’d as the Sands

Of Barca or Cyrene’s torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring Winds, and poise

Thir lighter wings. To whom these most adhere,

Hee rules a moment; Chaos Umpire sits,

And by decision more imbroiles the fray

By which he Reigns: next him high Arbiter

Chance governs all. Into this wilde Abyss,

The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,

Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,

But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt

Confus’dly, and which thus must ever fight,

Unless th’ Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more Worlds,

Into this wild Abyss the warie fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell and look’d a while,

Pondering his Voyage: for no narrow frith

He had to cross. Nor was his eare less peal’d

With noises loud and ruinous (to compare

Great things with small) then when Bellona storms,

With all her battering Engines bent to rase

Som Capital City, or less then if this frame

Of Heav’n were falling, and these Elements

In mutinie had from her Axle torn

The stedfast Earth. At last his Sail-broad Vannes

He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoak

Uplifted spurns the ground, thence many a League

As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides

Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets

A vast vacuitie: all unawares

Fluttring his pennons vain plumb down he drops

Ten thousand fadom deep, and to this hour

Down had been falling, had not by ill chance

The strong rebuff of som tumultuous cloud

Instinct with Fire and Nitre hurried him

As many miles aloft: that furie stay’d,

Quencht in a Boggie Syrtis, neither Sea,

Nor good dry Land: nigh founderd on he fares,

Treading the on consistence, half on foot,

Half both behoves him now both Oare and Saile.

As when a Gryfon through the Wilderness

With winged course ore Hill or moarie Dale,

Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stelth

Had from his wakeful custody purloind

The guarded Gold: So eagerly the fiend

Ore bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,

And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flyes:

At length a universal hubbub wilde

Of stunning sounds and voices all confus’d

Born through the hollow dark assaults his eare

With loudest vehemence: thither he plyes,

Undaunted to meet there what ever power

Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss

Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the neerest coast of darkness lyes

Bordering on light; when strait behold the Throne

Of Chaos, and his dark Pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful Deep; with him Enthron’d

Sat Sable-vested Night, eldest of things,

The Consort of his Reign; and by them stood

Orcus and Ades, and the dreaded name

Of Demogorgon; Rumor next and Chance,

And Tumult and Confusion all imbroild,

And Discord with a thousand various mouths.

With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way, And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flyes

T’ whom Satan turning boldly, thus. Ye Powers

And Spirits of this nethermost Abyss,

Chaos and ancient Night, I come no Spie,

With purpose to explore or to disturb

The secrets of Realm, but by constraint

Wandring this darksome desart, as my way

Lies through your spacious Empire up to light,

Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek

What readiest path leads where your gloomie bounds

Confine with Heav’n; or if som other place

From your Dominion won, th’ Ethereal King

Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound, direct my course;

Directed, no mean recompence it brings

To your behoof, if I that Region lost,

All usurpation thence expell’d, reduce

To her original darkness and your sway

(Which is my present journey) and once more

Erect the Standerd there of ancient Night;

Yours be th’ advantage all, mine the revenge.

Thus Satan; and him thus the Anarch old

With faultring speech and visage incompos’d

Answer’d. I know thee, stranger, who thou art,

That mighty leading Angel, who of late

Made head against Heav’ns King, though overthrown.

I saw and heard, for such a numerous host

Fled not in silence through the frighted deep

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

Confusion worse confounded; and Heav’n Gates

Pourd out by millions her victorious Bands

Pursuing. I upon my Frontieres here

Keep residence; if all I can will serve,

That little which is left so to defend

Encroacht on still through our intestine broiles

Weakning the Scepter of old Night: first Hell

Your wide stretching far and wide beneath;

Now another World and Earth, another World

Hung ore my Realm, link’d in a golden Chain

To that side Heav’n from whence your Legions fell:

If that way be your walk, you have not farr;

So much the neerer danger; goe and speed;

Havock and spoil and ruin are my gain.

He ceas’d; and Satan staid not to reply,

But glad that now his Sea should find a shore,

With fresh alacritie and force renew’d

Springs upward like a Pyramid of fire

Into the wilde Expanse, and through the shock

Of fighting Elements, on all sides round

Environ’d wins his way; harder beset

And more endanger’d, then when Argo pass’d

Through Bosporus betwixt the justling Rocks: