Paradise Lost - John Milton (classic reads .txt) 📗

Father, thy word is past, Man shall find grace; And shall grace not find means, that finds her way, The speediest of thy winged messengers, To visit all thy creatures, and to all Comes unprevented, unimplor’d, unsought?

Happy for Man, so coming; he her aid Can never seek, once dead in sins, and lost; Atonement for himself, or offering meet, Indebted and undone, hath none to bring; Behold me then: me for him, life for life I offer: on me let thine anger fall; Account me Man; I for his sake will leave Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee Freely put off, and for him lastly die Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage.

Under his gloomy power I shall not long Lie vanquished. Thou hast given me to possess Life in myself for ever; by thee I live; Though now to Death I yield, and am his due, All that of me can die, yet, that debt paid, $ thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul For ever with corruption there to dwell; But I shall rise victorious, and subdue My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.

Death his death’s wound shall then receive, and stoop Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed; I through the ample air in triumph high Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell, and show The powers of darkness bound. Thou, at the sight Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile, While, by thee raised, I ruin all my foes; Death last, and with his carcase glut the grave; Then, with the multitude of my redeemed, Shall enter Heaven, long absent, and return, Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud Of anger shall remain, but peace assured And reconcilement: wrath shall be no more Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire.

His words here ended; but his meek aspect Silent yet spake, and breathed immortal love To mortal men, above which only shone Filial obedience: as a sacrifice

Glad to be offered, he attends the will Of his great Father. Admiration seized All Heaven, what this might mean, and whither tend, Wondering; but soon th’ Almighty thus replied.

O thou in Heaven and Earth the only peace Found out for mankind under wrath, O thou My sole complacence! Well thou know’st how dear To me are all my works; nor Man the least, Though last created, that for him I spare Thee from my bosom and right hand, to save, By losing thee a while, the whole race lost.

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Thou, therefore, whom thou only canst redeem, Their nature also to thy nature join; And be thyself Man among men on Earth, Made flesh, when time shall be, of virgin seed, By wondrous birth; be thou in Adam’s room The head of all mankind, though Adam’s son.

As in him perish all men, so in thee, As from a second root, shall be restored As many as are restored, without thee none.

His crime makes guilty all his sons; thy merit, Imputed, shall absolve them who renounce Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds, And live in thee transplanted, and from thee Receive new life. So Man, as is most just, Shall satisfy for Man, be judged and die, And dying rise, and rising with him raise His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life.

So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate, Giving to death, and dying to redeem, So dearly to redeem what hellish hate So easily destroyed, and still destroys In those who, when they may, accept not grace.

Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume Man’s nature, lessen or degrade thine own.

Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss Equal to God, and equally enjoying

Godlike fruition, quitted all, to save A world from utter loss, and hast been found By merit more than birthright Son of God, Found worthiest to be so by being good, Far more than great or high; because in thee Love hath abounded more than glory abounds; Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt With thee thy manhood also to this throne: Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man, Anointed universal King; all power

I give thee; reign for ever, and assume Thy merits; under thee, as head supreme, Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions, I reduce: All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide In Heaven, or Earth, or under Earth in Hell.

When thou, attended gloriously from Heaven, Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send The summoning Arch-Angels to proclaim Thy dread tribunal; forthwith from all winds, The living, and forthwith the cited dead Of all past ages, to the general doom Shall hasten; such a peal shall rouse their sleep.

Then, all thy saints assembled, thou shalt judge Bad Men and Angels; they, arraigned, shall sink Beneath thy sentence; Hell, her numbers full, Thenceforth shall be for ever shut. Mean while The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell, And, after all their tribulations long, See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds, With joy and peace triumphing, and fair truth.

Then thou thy regal scepter shalt lay by, For regal scepter then no more shall need, God shall be all in all. But, all ye Gods, Adore him, who to compass all this dies; Adore the Son, and honour him as me.

No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all The multitude of Angels, with a shout Loud as from numbers without number, sweet As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung With jubilee, and loud Hosannas filled The eternal regions: Lowly reverent Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground With solemn adoration down they cast Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold; Immortal amarant, a flower which once In Paradise, fast by the tree of life, Began to bloom; but soon for man’s offence To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows, And flowers aloft shading the fount of life, And where the river of bliss through midst of Heaven Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream; With these that never fade the Spirits elect Bind their resplendent locks inwreathed with beams; Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone, Impurpled with celestial roses smiled.

Then, crowned again, their golden harps they took, Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet Of charming symphony they introduce

Their sacred song, and waken raptures high; No voice exempt, no voice but well could join Melodious part, such concord is in Heaven.

Thee, Father, first they sung Omnipotent, Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,

Eternal King; the Author of all being, Fonntain of light, thyself invisible Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sit’st Throned inaccessible, but when thou shadest The full blaze of thy beams, and, through a cloud Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine, Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear, Yet dazzle Heaven, that brightest Seraphim Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.

Thee next they sang of all creation first, Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,

In whose conspicuous countenance, without cloud Made visible, the Almighty Father shines, Whom else no creature can behold; on thee Impressed the effulgence of his glory abides, Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests.

He Heaven of Heavens and all the Powers therein By thee created; and by thee threw down The aspiring Dominations: Thou that day Thy Father’s dreadful thunder didst not spare, Nor stop thy flaming chariot-wheels, that shook Heaven’s everlasting frame, while o’er the necks Thou drovest of warring Angels disarrayed.

Back from pursuit thy Powers with loud acclaim Thee only extolled, Son of thy Father’s might, To execute fierce vengeance on his foes, Not so on Man: Him through their malice fallen, Father of mercy and grace, thou didst not doom So strictly, but much more to pity incline: No sooner did thy dear and only Son

Perceive thee purposed not to doom frail Man So strictly, but much more to pity inclined, He to appease thy wrath, and end the strife Of mercy and justice in thy face discerned, Regardless of the bliss wherein he sat Second to thee, offered himself to die For Man’s offence. O unexampled love, Love no where to be found less than Divine!

Hail, Son of God, Saviour of Men! Thy name Shall be the copious matter of my song Henceforth, and never shall my heart thy praise Forget, nor from thy Father’s praise disjoin.

Thus they in Heaven, above the starry sphere, Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent.

Mean while upon the firm opacous globe Of this round world, whose first convex divides The luminous inferiour orbs, enclosed From Chaos, and the inroad of Darkness old, Satan alighted walks: A globe far off It seemed, now seems a boundless continent Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of Night Starless exposed, and ever-threatening storms Of Chaos blustering round, inclement sky; Save on that side which from the wall of Heaven, Though distant far, some small reflection gains Of glimmering air less vexed with tempest loud: Here walked the Fiend at large in spacious field.

As when a vultur on Imaus bred,

Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds, Dislodging from a region scarce of prey To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids, On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams; But in his way lights on the barren plains Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With sails and wind their cany waggons light: So, on this windy sea of land, the Fiend Walked up and down alone, bent on his prey; Alone, for other creature in this place, Living or lifeless, to be found was none; None yet, but store hereafter from the earth Up hither like aereal vapours flew

Of all things transitory and vain, when sin With vanity had filled the works of men: Both all things vain, and all who in vain things Built their fond hopes of glory or lasting fame, Or happiness in this or the other life; All who have their reward on earth, the fruits Of painful superstition and blind zeal, Nought seeking but the praise of men, here find Fit retribution, empty as their deeds; All the unaccomplished works of Nature’s hand, Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mixed, Dissolved on earth, fleet hither, and in vain, Till final dissolution, wander here; Not in the neighbouring moon as some have dreamed; Those argent fields more likely habitants, Translated Saints, or middle Spirits hold Betwixt the angelical and human kind.

Hither of ill-joined sons and daughters born First from the ancient world those giants came With many a vain exploit, though then renowned: The builders next of Babel on the plain Of Sennaar, and still with vain design, New Babels, had they wherewithal, would build: Others came single; he, who, to be deemed A God, leaped fondly into Aetna flames, Empedocles; and he, who, to enjoy

Plato’s Elysium, leaped into the sea, Cleombrotus; and many more too long, Embryos, and idiots, eremites, and friars White, black, and gray, with all their trumpery.

Here pilgrims roam, that strayed so far to seek In Golgotha him dead, who lives in Heaven; And they, who to be sure of Paradise, Dying, put on the weeds of Dominick, Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised; They pass the planets seven, and pass the fixed, And that crystalling sphere whose balance weighs The trepidation talked, and that first moved; And now Saint Peter at Heaven’s wicket seems To wait them with his keys, and now at foot Of Heaven’s ascent they lift their feet, when lo A violent cross wind from either coast Blows them transverse, ten thousand leagues awry Into the devious air: Then might ye