Nor want we skill or art from whence to raise Magnificence; and what can Heaven shew more? Our torments also may, in length of time, Become our elements, these piercing fires As soft as now severe, our temper changed Into their temper; which must needs re move 280 The sensible of pain. All things invite He scarce had finished, when such murmur filled The assembly as when hollow rocks retain The sound of blustering winds, which all night long Had roused the sea, now with hoarse cadence lull Seafaring men o'erwatched, whose bark by chance, Or pinnace, anchors in a craggy bay heard 290 Irreparable; terms of peace yet none Voutsafed or sought; for what peace will be given To us enslaved, but custody severe, Yet ever plotting how the Conqueror least May reap his conquest, and may least rejoice In doing what we most in suffering feel? 340 Nor will occasion want, nor shall we need With dangerous expedition to invade Heaven, whose high walls fear no assault or siege, Or ambush from the Deep. What if we find Some easier enterprise? There is a place (If ancient and prophetic fame in Heaven best, By force or subtlety. Though Heaven be shut, And Heaven's high Arbitrator sit secure In his own strength, this place may lie exposed, 360 The utmost border of his kingdom, left To their defence who hold it: here, perhaps, Some advantageous act may be achieved By sudden onset either with Hell-fire To waste his whole creation, or possess All as our own, and drive, as we are driven, The puny habitants; or, if not drive, Seduce them to our party, that their God May prove their foe, and with repenting hand Abolish his own works. This would surpass 370 Common revenge, and interrupt His joy Of Angels watching round? Here he had need All circumspection: and we now no less Choice in our suffrage; for on whom we send The weight of all, and our last hope, relies." In other's countenance read his own dismay, Astonished. None among the choice and prime 440 Of unessential Night receives him next, If thence he scape, into whatever world, But I should ill become this throne, O Peers, And judged of public moment in the shape In whirlwind; Hell scarce holds the wild uproar: As when Alcides, from Echalia crowned With conquest, felt the envenomed robe, and tore Through pain up by the roots Thessalian pines, And Lichas from the top of ta threw Their song was partial; but the harmony Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment The thronging audience. In discourse more All taste of living wight, as once it fled With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast, Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale They passed, and many a region dolorous, O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp, 620 Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death A universe of death, which God by curse Created evil, for evil only good; Where all life dies, death lives, and Nature breeds, Perverse, all monstrous, all prodigious things, Abominable, inutterable, and worse Than fables yet have feigned or fear conceived, Gorgons, and Hydras, and Chimæras dire. Meanwhile the Adversary of God and Man, |