PARADISE REGAINED. BOOK I. I, WHO ere-while the happy garden sung, By one man's firm obedience fully try'd 5 11 Thou Spirit, who led'st this glorious Eremite Into the desert, his victorious field, Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute, And bear thro' highth or depth of nature's bounds With prosperous wing full summ'd to tell of deeds Above heroic, though in secret done, And unrecorded left through many an age, Worthy t' have not remain'd so long unsung. Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice 7 waste] Spens. Fairy Queen, i. i. 32. 'Far hence, quoth he, in wasteful wilderness.' Dunster. 14 summ'd] Drayton's Polyolbion. Song xi. 15 'The muse from Cambria comes, with pinions summ'd and sound.' Todd. 25 30 More awful than the sound of trumpet, cry'd 42 consistory] Virg. Æn. iii. 677. .Concilium horrendum.' Thyer. 42 gloomy consistory] See Dante Il Paradiso, xxix. 66. 'Omai dintorno a questo consistoro Puoi contemplare assai.' 33 40 45 50 O ancient Powers of air and this wide world, For much more willingly I mention air, This our old conquest, than remember hell, Our hated habitation; well ye know How many ages, as the years of men, This universe we have possest, and rul'd In manner at our will th' affairs of earth, Since Adam and his facil consort Eve Lost paradise deceiv'd by me, though since With dread attending when that fatal wound Shall be inflicted by the seed of Eve Upon my head; long the decrees of heaven Delay, for longest time to him is short; And now too soon for us the circling hours This dreaded time have compast, wherein we Must bide the stroke of that long threaten'd wound, At least if so we can, and by the head Broken be not intended all our power 55 60 65 To be infring'd, our freedom, and our being, 57 circling] So P. L. vi. 3. vii. 342,Circling years.' Dunster. 67 youth's full flow'r] Hom. Il. iv. 484, ßns uvdos. Lucret. i. 565, ævi contingere florem. iii. 771, ætatis tangere florem. Sil. Ital. xvi. 406, primævæ flore juventæ. |