Sheer o'er the crystal battlements: from morn
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star,
On Lemnos, the Egean isle: thus they relate,
Erring; for he with this rebellious rout
Fell long before; nor aught availed him now
To have built in heaven high towers; nor did he 'scape
By all his engines, but was headlong sent
With his industrious crew to build in hell.

Meanwhile, the winged heralds, by command

Of sovereign power, with awful ceremony

And trumpet's sound, throughout the host proclaim
A solemn council, forthwith to be held

At Pandemonium,1 the high capital

Of Satan and his peers; their summons called
From every band and squared regiment,

By place or choice the worthiest; they anon
With hundreds and with thousands, trooping came,
Attended all access was thronged; the gates
And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall
(Though like a covered field, where champions bold
Wont ride in armed, and at the soldan's chair
Defied the best of Panim3 chivalry

To mortal combat, or career with lance),
Thick swarmed, both on the ground and in the air,
Brushed with the hiss of rustling wings. As bees
In spring-time, when the sun with Taurus rides,
Pour forth their populous youth about the hive
In clusters; they among fresh dews and flowers
Fly to and fro, or on the smoothed plank,
The suburb of their straw-built citadel,
New rubbed with balm, expatiate, and confer
Their state affairs: so thick the aëry crowd

Swarmed, and were straitened; till, the signal given,

Behold a wonder! They but now who seemed

(1) Pandemonium—from the Greek πãv, every, and daiμóviov, a demon-the

rendezvous of all the demons.

(2) Covered field-i. e. enclosed or listed field-the lists.

(3) Panim-Pagan. (See p. 74, note 3.)

(4) Brushed-This line, by the abundance of sibilants, aptly illustrates the subject.

(5) Expatiate-range at large, traverse to and fro.

In bigness to surpass earth's giant sons,
Now less than smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless, like that pygmëan race
Beyond the Indian mount; or fairy elves,
Whose midnight revels by a forest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress, and nearer to the earth2

Wheels her pale course; they, on their mirth and dance
Intent, with jocund musick charm his ear;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.
Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms
Reduced their shapes immense, and were at large,3
Though without number still, amidst the hall
Of that infernal court. But far within,
And in their own dimensions like themselves,
The great seraphic lords and cherubim
In close recess and secret conclave sat ;
A thousand demi-gods on golden seats,
Frequent and full. After short silence then,
And summons read, the great consult began.

ADDRESS TO LIGHT.6

HAIL, holy Light! offspring of heaven's first-born,
Or of the Eternal' co-eternal beam

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light

(1) Arbitress-witness, spectatress.

(2) Nearer to the earth-in allusion to the superstitious notion of witches and fairies having the power of drawing down the moon towards the earth.

(3) At large-at liberty, without restraint.

(4) In their own dimensions, &c.—Addison particularly admires the ingenuity of the poet in preserving the natural dimensions of the chiefs, while those of the common crowd are contracted.

(5) Frequent-in the Latin sense-crowded.

(6) "Paradise Lost," book iii. "Our author's address to Light, and lamentation of his own blindness, may perhaps be censured as an excrescence or digression not agreeable to the rules of epic poetry; but yet this is so charming a part of the poem that the most critical reader, I imagine, cannot wish it were omitted. One is even pleased with a fault, if it be a fault, that is the occasion of so many beauties, and acquaints us so much with the circumstances and character of the author."-Newton.

(7) Or of the eternal, &c.—i. e. “ or may I without blame call ("express") thee the co-eternal beam of the eternal God?"-Newton.

Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence' af bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather2 pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? Before the sun,
Before the heavens, thou wert; and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,

Escaped the Stygian pool;3 though long detained
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphéan lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;

Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more
Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt

Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks' beneath,
That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget

8

Those other two equalled with me in fate,

(1) Bright effluence, &c.-" Thou bright overflowing of that bright, uncreated, self-existent being."-Richardson.

(2) Or hear'st thou rather-a pure Latinism-dost thou delight rather to be called?

(3) Escaped the Stygian pool, &c.-i. e. having escaped from describing the burning lake in the first book, and Chaos and Night in the second book.

(4) Through utter, &c.-i. e. through hell, and the great gulf between heaven and hell.

(5) Hard and rare-difficult and seldom achieved.

(6) Drop serene, &c.-In reference to the gutta serena," drop serene," or amaurosis, as it is now called, with which he was afflicted.

(7) Brooks-Kedron and Siloam.

(8) Nor sometimes forget-i.e. sometimes remember; nor being here, in imitation of the Latin idiom, equivalent to, and not.

(9) Those other two-Milton speaks of two, and then names four.-Newton's explanation is," Though he mentions four, yet there are two whom he particularly

So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,1
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; 3 as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note. Thus, with the year
Seasons return, but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank

Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.

SATAN'S MEETING WITH URIEL IN THE SUN.5

HE SOON

Saw within ken a glorious angel stand,

6

The same whom John saw also in the sun:

His back was turned, but not his brightness hid:

desires to resemble; and those he distinguishes both with the epithet 'blind' to make the likeness more striking." He adds, "It seems therefore as if Milton had intended at first to mention only these two, and then currente calamo had added the two others."

(1) Mæonides-Homer, so called from Mæonia, the supposed place of his birth, (2) And Tiresias, &c.-Dr. Pearce proposes to correct the false accent in this line, by making "Tiresias" and "Phineus" change places.

(3) Thoughts that voluntary, &c.-This, it has been well observed, is perhaps one of the best definitions of poetry that could be framed.

(4) And wisdom, &c.—i. e. and presented with wisdom, enfeebled and disparaged; or rather, perhaps, this is an instance of the nominative absolute, wisdom being, &c. (5) "Paradise Lost," book iii. "The figures introduced here," remarks Hazlitt, "have all the elegance and precision of a Greek statue; glossy and impurpled, tinged with golden light."

(6) John saw-" And I saw an angel standing in the sun." Rev. xix. 17.

Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar1
Circled his head; nor less his locks behind
Illustrious on his shoulders, fledge with wings,
Lay waving round; on some great charge employed
He seemed, or fixed in cogitation deep.

Glad was the Spirit impure, as now in hope
To find who might direct his wandering flight
To Paradise, the happy seat of man,

His journey's end, and our beginning woe.3
But first he casts to change his proper shape,
Which else might work him danger or delay:
And now a stripling cherub he appears,
Not of the prime, yet such as in his face
Youth smiled celestial, and to every limb
Suitable grace diffused, so well he feigned:
Under a coronet his flowing hair

In curls on either cheek played; wings he wore
Of many a coloured plume, sprinkled with gold;
His habit fit for speed succinct, and held
Before his decent steps a silver wand.

He drew not nigh unheard; the angel bright,
Ere he drew nigh his radiant visage turned,
Admonished by his ear, and straight was known
The archangel Uriel, one of the seven

Who in God's presence, nearest to his throne,
Stand ready at command, and are his eyes

That run through all the heavens, or down to th' earth
Bear his swift errands over moist and dry,

O'er sea and land.

(1) Tiar-tiara, or diadem-the ornamental headdress of Eastern princes. (2) Illustrious-bright, glossy.

(3) Our beginning woe-the first cause of woe to us-a Latinism.

(4) Casts-casts in his mind, contrives a plan.

(5) Stripling cherub, &c.-"A finer picture of a young angel," says Newton, "could not be drawn by the pencil of Raphael than is here by the pen of Milton." (6) Prime-first or highest dignity.

(7) His habit succinct-i. e. his robe was tucked or looped up for freedom of action; he was prepared for motion.

(8) Decent-as the Latin decens, graceful, comely.

(9) His eyes, &c.-" Those seven, they are the eyes of the Lord, which run to and fro through the whole earth." Zech. iv. 10.