Read Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) Online
Authors: John Milton,William Kerrigan,John Rumrich,Stephen M. Fallon
Part of my soul I seek thee, and thee claim
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My other half
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.’ With that thy gentle hand
Seized mine, I yielded, and from that time see
How beauty is excelled by manly grace
And wisdom, which alone is truly fair.”
So spake our general mother, and with eyes
Of conjugal attraction unreproved
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,
And meek surrender, half embracing leaned
On our first father, half her swelling breast
Naked met his under the flowing gold
Of her loose tresses hid: he in delight
Both of her beauty and submissive charms
Smiled
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with superior love, as Jupiter
On Juno smiles, when he impregns
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the clouds
That shed May flowers; and pressed her matron lip
With kisses pure: aside the Devil turned
For envy, yet with jealous leer malign
Eyed them askance, and to himself thus plained.
“Sight hateful, sight tormenting! Thus these two
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Imparadised in one another’s arms
The happier Eden, shall enjoy their fill
Of bliss on bliss, while I to Hell am thrust
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,
Where neither joy nor love, but fierce desire,
Among our other torments not the least,
Still
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unfulfilled with pain of longing pines;
Yet let me not forget what I have gained
From their own mouths; all is not theirs it seems:
One fatal Tree there stands of Knowledge called,
Forbidden them to taste: knowledge
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forbidden?
Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord
Envy them that? Can it be sin to know,
Can it be death? And do they only stand
By ignorance, is that their happy state,
The proof of their obedience and their faith?
O fair foundation laid whereon to build
Their ruin! Hence I will excite their minds
With more desire to know, and to reject
Envious commands, invented with design
To keep them low whom knowledge might exalt
Equal with gods; aspiring to be such,
They taste and die: what likelier can ensue?
But first with narrow search I must walk round
This garden, and no corner leave unspied;
A chance but chance
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may lead where I may meet
Some wand’ring spirit of Heav’n, by fountain side,
Or in thick shade retired, from him to draw
What further would be learned. Live while ye may,
Yet happy pair; enjoy, till I return,
Short pleasures, for long woes are to succeed.”
So saying, his proud step he scornful turned,
But with sly circumspection, and began
Through wood, through waste, o’er hill, o’er dale his roam.
Meanwhile in utmost longitude
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, where heav’n
With earth and ocean meets, the setting sun
Slowly descended, and with right aspect
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Against the eastern gate of Paradise
Leveled his evening rays: it was a rock
Of alabaster, piled up to the clouds,
Conspicuous far, winding with one ascent
Accessible from earth, one entrance high;
The rest was craggy cliff, that overhung
Still
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as it rose, impossible to climb.
Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel
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sat
Chief of th’ angelic guards, awaiting night;
About him exercised heroic games
Th’ unarmèd youth of Heav’n, but nigh at hand
Celestial armory, shields, helms, and spears,
Hung high with diamond flaming, and with gold.
Thither came Uriel, gliding through the even
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On a sunbeam, swift as a shooting star
In autumn thwarts
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the night, when vapors fired
Impress
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the air, and shows the mariner
From what point of his compass to beware
Impetuous winds: he thus began in haste.
“Gabriel, to thee
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thy course by lot hath giv’n
Charge and strict watch that to this happy place
No evil thing approach or enter in;
This day at highth of noon came to my sphere
A Spirit, zealous, as he seemed, to know
More of th’ Almighty’s works, and chiefly man
God’s latest Image: I described
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his way
Bent all on speed, and marked his airy gait
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;
But in the mount that lies from Eden north,
Where he first lighted, soon discerned his looks
Alien from Heav’n, with passions foul obscured:
Mine eye pursued him still, but under shade
Lost sight of him; one of the banished crew
I fear, hath ventured from the deep, to raise
New troubles; him thy care must be to find.”
To whom the wingèd warrior thus returned:
“Uriel, no wonder if thy perfect sight,
Amid the sun’s bright circle where thou sitst,
See far and wide: in at this gate none pass
The vigilance
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here placed, but such as come
Well known from Heav’n; and since meridian hour
No creature thence: if spirit of other sort,
So minded, have o’erleaped these earthy bounds
On purpose, hard thou knowst it to exclude
Spiritual substance with corporeal bar.
But if within the circuit of these walks,
In whatsoever shape he lurk, of whom
Thou tell’st, by morrow dawning I shall know.”
So promised he, and Uriel to his charge
Returned on that bright beam, whose point now raised
Bore him slope downward
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to the sun now fall’n
Beneath th’ Azores; whether
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the prime orb,
Incredible how swift, had thither rolled
Diurnal
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, or this less voluble Earth
By shorter flight to th’ east, had left him there
Arraying with reflected purple and gold
The clouds that on his western throne attend:
Now came still evening on, and twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied, for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant
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sung;
Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus
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that led
The starry
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host, rode brightest, till the moon
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent
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Queen unveiled her peerless light,
And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.
When Adam thus to Eve: “Fair consort, th’ hour
Of night, and all things now retired to rest
Mind us of like repose, since God hath set
Labor and rest, as day and night to men
Successive, and the timely dew of sleep
Now falling with soft slumbrous weight inclines
Our eyelids; other creatures all day long
Rove idle unemployed, and less need rest;
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of Heav’n on all his ways;
While other animals unactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.
To morrow ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be ris’n,
And at our pleasant labor, to reform
Yon flow’ry arbors, yonder allies green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring
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, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth:
Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums,
That lie bestrown unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;
Meanwhile, as nature wills, night bids us rest.”
To whom thus Eve with perfect beauty adorned.
“My author and disposer
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, what thou bidd’st
Unargued I obey; so God ordains,
God is thy Law, thou mine: to know no more
Is woman’s happiest knowledge and her praise.
With thee conversing I forget all time,
All seasons
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and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm
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of earliest birds; pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flow’r,
Glist’ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful evening mild, then silent night
With this her solemn bird
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and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heav’n, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flow’r,
Glist’ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful evening mild, nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon,
Or glittering starlight without thee is sweet.
But wherefore all night long shine these, for whom
This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?”
To whom our general ancestor replied.
“Daughter of God and man, accomplished Eve,
These
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have their course to finish, round the Earth,
By morrow evening, and from land to land
In order, though to nations yet unborn,
Minist’ring light prepared, they set and rise;
Lest
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total darkness should by night regain
Her old possession, and extinguish life
In nature
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and all things, which these soft fires
Not only enlighten, but with kindly heat
Of various influence foment and warm,
Temper or nourish, or in part shed down
Their stellar virtue on all kinds that grow
On earth, made hereby apter to receive
Perfection from the sun’s more potent ray.
These then, though unbeheld in deep of night,
Shine not in vain, nor think, though men were none,
That heav’n would want spectators, God want praise;
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake, and when we sleep:
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night: how often from the steep
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to other’s note
Singing their great Creator: oft in bands
While they keep watch, or nightly rounding
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walk
With Heav’nly touch of instrumental sounds
In full harmonic number joined, their songs
Divide the night
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, and lift our thoughts to Heaven.”
Thus talking hand in hand alone they passed
On to their blissful bower
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; it was a place
Chos’n by the sov’reign planter, when he framed
All things to man’s delightful use; the roof
Of thickest covert was inwoven shade
Laurel and myrtle
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, and what higher grew
Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side
Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub
Fenced up the verdant wall; each beauteous flow’r,
Iris all hues, roses, and jessamine
Reared high their flourished heads between, and wrought
Mosaic; underfoot the violet,
Crocus, and hyacinth
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with rich inlay
Broidered the ground, more colored than with stone
Of costliest emblem
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: other creature here
Beast, bird, insect, or worm durst enter none;
Such was their awe of man. In shady
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bower
More sacred and sequestered, though but feigned,
Pan or Silvanus never slept, nor nymph,
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Nor Faunus
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haunted. Here in close
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recess
With flowers
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, garlands, and sweet-smelling herbs
Espousèd Eve decked first her nuptial bed,
And Heav’nly choirs the hymenaean
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sung,
What day the genial
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angel to our sire
Brought her in naked beauty more adorned,
More lovely than Pandora
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, whom the Gods
Endowed with all their gifts, and O too like
In sad event, when to the unwiser son
Of Japhet
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brought by Hermes, she ensnared
Mankind with her fair looks, to be avenged
On him who had stole Jove’s authentic
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fire.
Thus at their shady lodge arrived, both stood
Both turned, and under open sky adored
The God that made both sky, air, Earth and heav’n
Which they beheld, the moon’s resplendent globe
And starry pole
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: “Thou also mad’st the night,
Maker omnipotent, and thou the day,
Which we in our appointed work employed
Have finished happy in our mutual help
And mutual love, the crown of all our bliss
Ordained by thee, and this delicious place
For us too large, where thy abundance wants
Partakers, and uncropped falls to the ground.
But thou hast promised from us two a race