Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou
Revisitest 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
Those other two equalled with me in fate,
So were I equalled with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; 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 razed,
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.

Now had the almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he sits

High throned above all height, bent down his eye,
His own works and their works at once to view :
About him all the sanctities of Heaven

Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only Son; on earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind, in the happy garden placed,
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivalled love,

In blissful solitude; he then surveyed
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of Heaven on this side Night
In the dun air sublime, and ready now

To stoop, with wearied wings, and willing feet,
On the bare outside of this world, that seemed
Firm land embosomed, without firmament,
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.

Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.

"Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage Transports our adversary? whom no bounds Prescribed, no bars of hell, nor all the chains

Heaped on him there, nor yet the main abyss
Wide interrupt can hold ; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head. And now,
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
Not far off Heaven, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new created world,
And man there placed, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert :
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience: so will fall
He and his faithless progeny whose fault?
Whose but his own? Ingrate, he had of me
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal powers

And spirits, both them who stood and them who failed;

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not ree, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do appeared,
Not what they would? what praise could they re-
What pleasure I from such obedience paid, [ceive?
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoiled,
Made passive both had served necessity,
Not me? They, therefore, as to right belonged
So were created, nor can justly accuse

Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination overruled

Their will, disposed by absolute decree

Or high foreknowledge; they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I; if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge and what they choose; for so
I formed them free, and free they must remain,
Till they inthral themselves; I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordained

Their freedom; they themselves ordained their fall.
The first sort by their own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-depraved: man falls, deceived
By the other first: man therefore shall find grace,
The other none in mercy and justice both,
Thro' Heaven and earth, so shall my glory excel:
But mercy first and last shall brightest shine."
Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance filled
All Heaven, and in the blessed spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffused:
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious; in him all his Father shone
Substantially expressed; and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appeared,

Love without end, and without measure grace,
Which uttering, thus he to his Father spake,

"O Father, gracious was that word which closed Thy sovereign sentence, that man should find grace For which both Heaven and earth shall high extol Thy praises, with th' innumerable sound

Of hymns and sacred songs, wherewith thy throne
Incompassed shall resound thee ever blest.
For should man finally be lost, should man,
Thy creature late so loved, thy youngest son,
Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though joined
With his own folly? that be from thee far,
That far be from thee, Father, who art judge
Of all things made, and judgest only right.
Or shall the adversary thus obtain
His end, and frustrate thine? shall he fulfil
His malice, and thy goodness bring to naught,
Or proud return, though to his heavier doom,
Yet with revenge accomplished, and to hell
Draw after him the whole race of mankind,
By him corrupted? or wilt thou thyself
Abolish thy creation, and unmake,

For him, what for thy glory thou hast made ?
So should thy goodness and thy greatness both
Be questioned and blasphemed without defence.'
To whom the great Creator thus replied,
"O Son, in whom my soul hath chief delight,
Son of my bosom, Son who art alone

My word, my wisdom, and effectual might,
All hast thou spoken as my thoughts are, all
As my eternal purpose hath decreed :
Man shall not quite be lost, but saved who will;
Yet not of will in him, but grace in me