Read Paradise Lost (Modern Library Classics) Online
Authors: John Milton,William Kerrigan,John Rumrich,Stephen M. Fallon
Each in their several active spheres assigned,
Till body up to spirit work, in bounds
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Proportioned to each kind. So from the root
Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves
More airy, last the bright consummate flow’r
Spirits odorous breathes: flow’rs and their fruit
Man’s nourishment,
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by gradual scale sublimed
To vital spirits aspire, to animal,
To intellectual, give both life and sense,
Fancy and understanding, whence the soul
Reason receives, and reason is her being,
Discursive, or intuitive; discourse
Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,
Differing but
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in degree, of kind the same.
Wonder not then, what God for you saw good
If I refuse not, but convert, as you,
To proper substance; time may come when men
With angels may participate, and find
No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare:
And from these corporal nutriments perhaps
Your bodies
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may at last turn all to spirit,
Improved by tract
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of time, and winged ascend
Ethereal, as we, or may at choice
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Here or in Heav’nly paradises dwell;
If ye be found obedient, and retain
Unalterably firm his love entire
Whose progeny you are. Meanwhile enjoy
Your fill what happiness this happy state
Can comprehend, incapable
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of more.”
To whom the patriarch of mankind replied.
“O favorable spirit, propitious guest,
Well hast thou taught the way that might direct
Our knowledge, and the scale of nature
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set
From center to circumference, whereon
In contemplation of created things
By steps we may ascend to God. But say,
What meant that caution joined, ‘If ye be found
Obedient’? Can we want obedience then
To him, or possibly his love desert
Who formed us from the dust, and placed us here
Full to the utmost measure of what bliss
Human desires can seek or apprehend?”
To whom the Angel. “Son of Heav’n and Earth,
Attend: that thou are happy, owe to God;
That thou continu’st such, owe to thyself,
That is, to thy obedience; therein stand.
This was that caution giv’n thee; be advised.
God made thee perfect, not immutable;
And good he made thee, but to persevere
He left it in thy power, ordained thy will
By nature free, not overruled by fate
Inextricable, or strict necessity;
Our voluntary service he requires,
Not our necessitated, such with him
Finds no acceptance, nor can find, for how
Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve
Willing or no, who will but what they must
By destiny, and can no other choose?
Myself and all th’ angelic host that stand
In sight of God enthroned, our happy state
Hold, as you yours, while our obedience holds;
On other surety
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none; freely we serve,
Because we freely love, as in our will
To love or not; in this we stand or fall:
And some are fall’n, to disobedience fall’n,
And so from Heav’n to deepest Hell; O fall
From what high state of bliss into what woe!”
To whom our great progenitor. “Thy words
Attentive, and with more delighted ear,
Divine instructor, I have heard, than when
Cherubic songs
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by night from neighboring hills
Aerial music send: nor knew I not
To be both will and deed created free;
Yet that we never shall forget to love
Our Maker, and obey him whose command
Single, is yet
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so just, my constant thoughts
Assured me, and still assure: though what thou tell’st
Hath passed in Heav’n, some doubt within me move,
But more desire to hear, if thou consent,
The full relation, which must needs be strange,
Worthy of sacred silence
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to be heard;
And we have yet large day, for scarce the sun
Hath finished half his journey, and scarce begins
His other half in the great zone of heav’n.”
Thus Adam made request, and Raphael
After short pause assenting, thus began.
“High matter thou enjoin’st me, O prime of men,
Sad task and hard, for how shall I relate
To human sense th’ invisible exploits
Of warring spirits; how without remorse
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The ruin of so many glorious once
And perfect while they stood; how last unfold
The secrets of another world, perhaps
Not lawful to reveal? Yet for thy good
This is dispensed
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, and what surmounts the reach
Of human sense, I shall delineate so,
By lik’ning spiritual to corporal forms
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,
As may express them best, though what if Earth
Be but
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the shadow of Heav’n, and things therein
Each to other like, more than on Earth is thought
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?
“As yet this world was not, and Chaos wild
Reigned where these heav’ns now roll, where Earth now rests
Upon her center poised, when on a day
(For time
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, though in eternity, applied
To motion, measures all things durable
By present, past, and future) on such day
As Heav’n’s great year
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brings forth, th’ empyreal host
Of angels by imperial summons called,
Innumerable before th’ Almighty’s throne
Forthwith from all the ends of Heav’n appeared
Under their hierarchs in orders bright;
Ten thousand thousand ensigns high advanced,
Standards, and gonfalons
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twixt van and rear
Stream in the air, and for distinction serve
Of hierarchies, of orders, and degrees;
Or in their glittering tissues bear emblazed
Holy memorials, acts of zeal and love
Recorded eminent. Thus when in orbs
Of circuit inexpressible they stood,
Orb within orb, the Father infinite,
By whom in bliss embosomed sat the Son,
Amidst as from a flaming mount, whose top
Brightness had made invisible, thus spake.
“ ‘Hear all ye angels, progeny of light,
Thrones, Dominations,
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Princedoms, Virtues, Powers,
Hear my decree, which unrevoked shall stand.
This day I have begot
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whom I declare
My only Son, and on this holy hill
Him have anointed, whom ye now behold
At my right hand; your head I him appoint;
And by myself have sworn
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to him shall bow
All knees in Heav’n, and shall confess him Lord:
Under his great vicegerent
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reign abide
United as one individual
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soul
Forever happy: him who disobeys
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Me disobeys, breaks union, and that day
Cast out from God and blessed vision, falls
Into utter darkness, deep engulfed, his place
Ordained without redemption, without end.’
“So spake th’ Omnipotent, and with his words
All seemed well pleased, all seemed, but were not all.
That day, as other solemn days
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, they spent
In song and dance about the sacred hill,
Mystical dance, which yonder starry sphere
Of planets and of fixed
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in all her wheels
Resembles nearest, mazes intricate,
Eccentric
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, intervolved, yet regular
Then most, when most irregular they seem,
And in their motions harmony divine
So smooths her charming tones, that God’s own ear
Listens delighted. Evening now
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approached
(For we have also our evening and our morn,
We ours for change delectable, not need)
Forthwith from dance to sweet repast they turn
Desirous; all in circles as they stood,
Tables are set, and on a sudden piled
With angel’s food, and rubied nectar flows
In pearl, in diamond, and massy gold
Fruit of delicious vines, the growth of Heav’n.
On flow’rs
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reposed, and with fresh flow’rets crowned,
They eat, they drink, and in communion
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sweet
Quaff immortality and joy, secure
Of surfeit where full measure only bounds
Excess, before th’ all bounteous King, who show’red
With copious hand, rejoicing in their joy.
Now when ambrosial night with clouds exhaled
From that high mount of God, whence light and shade
Spring both, the face of brightest Heav’n had changed
To grateful twilight (for night comes not there
In darker veil) and roseate dews disposed
All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest,
Wide over all the plain, and wider far
Than all this globous earth in plain outspread,
(Such are the courts of God) th’ angelic throng
Dispersed in bands and files their camp extend
By living streams among the trees of life
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,
Pavilions numberless, and sudden reared,
Celestial tabernacles, where they slept
Fanned with cool winds, save those who in their course
Melodious hymns about the sov’reign throne
Alternate all night long: but not so waked
Satan, so call him now, his former name
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Is heard no more in Heav’n; he of the first,
If not the first Archangel, great in power,
In favor and in pre-eminence, yet fraught
With envy against the Son of God, that day
Honored by his great Father, and proclaimed
Messiah
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King anointed, could not bear
Through pride that sight, and thought himself impaired.
Deep malice thence conceiving and disdain,
Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hour
Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolved
With all his legions to dislodge
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, and leave
Unworshipped, unobeyed the throne supreme
Contemptuous, and his next subordinate
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Awak’ning, thus to him in secret spake.
“ ‘Sleep’st thou
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companion dear, what sleep can close
Thy eyelids? And remember’st what decree
Of yesterday, so late hath passed the lips
Of Heav’n’s Almighty? Thou to me thy thoughts
Wast wont, I mine to thee was wont to impart;
Both waking we were one; how then can now
Thy sleep dissent? New laws thou seest imposed;
New laws from him who reigns, new minds
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may raise
In us who serve, new counsels, to debate
What doubtful may ensue, more in this place
To utter is not safe. Assemble thou
Of all those myriads which we lead the chief;
Tell them that by command
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, ere yet dim night
Her shadowy cloud withdraws, I am to haste,
And all who under me their banners wave,
Homeward with flying march where we possess
The quarters of the north
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, there to prepare
Fit entertainment to receive our King
The great Messiah, and his new commands,
Who speedily through all the hierarchies
Intends to pass triumphant, and give laws.’
“So spake the false Archangel, and infused
Bad influence
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into th’ unwary breast
Of his associate; he together calls,
Or several one by one, the regent powers,
Under him regent, tells, as he was taught,
That the most high commanding, now ere night,
Now ere dim night had disencumbered Heav’n,
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The great hierarchal standard was to move;
Tells the suggested cause, and cast between
Ambiguous words and jealousies, to sound
Or taint integrity; but all obeyed
The wonted signal, and superior voice
Of their great potentate; for great indeed
His name, and high was his degree in Heav’n;
His count’nance, as the morning star that guides
The starry flock, allured them, and with lies
Drew after him the third part
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of Heav’n’s host:
Meanwhile th’ eternal eye, whose sight discerns
Abstrusest
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thoughts, from forth his holy mount
And from within the golden lamps that burn
Nightly before him, saw without their light
Rebellion rising, saw in whom, how spread
Among the sons of morn, what multitudes
Were banded to oppose his high decree;
And smiling
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to his only Son thus said.
“ ‘Son, thou in whom my glory I behold
In full resplendence, heir of all my might,
Nearly
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it now concerns us to be sure
Of our omnipotence, and with what arms
We mean to hold what anciently we claim
Of deity or empire, such a foe
Is rising, who intends to erect his throne
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Equal to ours, throughout the spacious north;
Nor so content, hath in his thought to try
In battle, what our power is, or our right.
Let us advise, and to this hazard draw
With speed what force is left, and all employ