| |
| I, WHO erewhile the happy Garden sung | |
| By one man’s disobedience lost, now sing | |
| Recovered Paradise to all mankind, | |
| By one man’s firm obedience fully tried | |
| Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled | 5 |
| In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed, | |
| And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness. | |
| Thou Spirit, who led’st this glorious Eremite | |
| Into the desert, his victorious field | |
| Against the spiritual foe, and brought’st him thence | 10 |
| By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, | |
| As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute, | |
| And bear through highth or depth of Nature’s bounds, | |
| With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds | |
| Above heroic, though in secret done, | 15 |
| And unrecorded left through many an age: | |
| Worthy to have not remained so long unsung. | |
| Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice | |
| More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried | |
| Repentance, and Heaven’s kingdom night at hand | 20 |
| To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked | |
| With awe the regions round, and with them came | |
| From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed | |
| To the flood Jordan—came as then obscure, | |
| Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon | 25 |
| Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore | |
| As to his worthier, and would have resigned | |
| To him his heavenly office. Nor was long | |
| His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized | |
| Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove | 30 |
| The Spirit descended, while the Father’s voice | |
| From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son. | |
| That heard the Adversary, who, roving still | |
| About the world, at that assembly famed | |
| Would not be last, and, with the voice divine | 35 |
| Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom | |
| Such high attest was given a while surveyed | |
| With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage, | |
| Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air | |
| To council summons all his mighty Peers, | 40 |
| Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved, | |
| A gloomy consistory; and them amidst, | |
| With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:— | |
| “O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World | |
| (For much more willingly I mention Air, | 45 |
| 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 possessed, and ruled | |
| In manner at our will the affairs of Earth, | 50 |
| Since Adam and his facile consort Eve | |
| Lost Paradise, deceived 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 | 55 |
| Delay, for longest time to Him is short; | |
| And now, too soon for us, the circling hours | |
| This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we | |
| Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound | |
| (At least, if so we can, and by the head | 60 |
| Broken be not intended all our power | |
| To be infringed, our freedom and our being | |
| In this fair empire won of Earth and Air)— | |
| For this ill news I bring: The Woman’s Seed, | |
| Destined to this, is late of woman born. | 65 |
| His birth to our just fear gave no small cause; | |
| But his growth now to youth’s full power, displaying | |
| All virtue, grace and wisdom to achieve | |
| Things highest, greatest, multiplies my fear. | |
| Before him a great Prophet, to proclaim | 70 |
| His coming, is sent harbinger, who all | |
| Invites, and in the consecrated stream | |
| Pretends to wash off sin, and fit them so | |
| Purified to receive him pure, or rather | |
| To do him honour as their King. All come, | 75 |
| And he himself among them was baptized— | |
| Not thence to be more pure, but to receive | |
| The testimony of Heaven, that who he is | |
| Thenceforth the nations may not doubt. I saw | |
| The Prophet do him reverence; on him, rising | 80 |
| Out of the water, Heaven above the clouds | |
| Unfold her crystal doors; thence on his head | |
| A perfect Dove descend (whate’er it meant); | |
| And out of Heaven the sovraign voice I heard, | |
| “This is my Son beloved,—in him am pleased.’ | 85 |
| His mother, then, is mortal, but his Sire | |
| He who obtains the monarchy of Heaven; | |
| And what will He not do to advance his Son? | |
| His first-begot we know, and sore have felt, | |
| When his fierce thunder drove us to the Deep; | 90 |
| Who this is we must learn, for Man he seems | |
| In all his lineaments, though in his face | |
| The glimpses of his Father’s glory shine. | |
| Ye see our danger on the utmost edge | |
| Of hazard, which admits no long debate, | 95 |
| But must with something sudden be opposed | |
| (Not force, but well-couched fraud, well-woven snares), | |
| Ere in the head of nations he appear, | |
| Their king, their leader, and supreme on Earth. | |
| I, when no other durst, sole undertook | 100 |
| The dismal expedition to find out | |
| And ruin Adam, and the exploit performed | |
| Successfully: a calmer voyage now | |
| Will waft me; and the way found prosperous once | |
| Induces best to hope of like success.” | 105 |
| He ended, and his words impression left | |
| Of much amazement to the infernal crew, | |
| Distracted and surprised with deep dismay | |
| At these sad tidings. But no time was then | |
| For long indulgence to their fears or grief: | 110 |
| Unanimous they all commit the care | |
| And management of this main enterprise | |
| To him, their great Dictator, whose attempt | |
| At first against mankind so well had thrived | |
| In Adam’s overthrow, and led their march | 115 |
| From Hell’s deep-vaulted den to dwell in light, | |
| Regents, and potentates, and kings, yea gods, | |
| Of many a pleasant realm and province wide. | |
| So to the coast of Jordan he directs | |
| His easy steps, girded with snaky wiles, | 120 |
| Where he might likeliest find this new-declared, | |
| This man of men, attested Son of God, | |
| Temptation and all guile on him to try— | |
| So to subvert whom he suspected raised | |
| To end his reign on Earth so long enjoyed: | 125 |
| But, contrary, unweeting he fulfilled | |
| The purposed counsel, pre-ordained and fixed, | |
| Of the Most High, who, in full frequence bright | |
| Of Angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake:— | |
| “Gabriel, this day, by proof, thou shalt behold, | 130 |
| Thou and all Angels conversant on Earth | |
| With Man or men’s affairs, how I begin | |
| To verify that solemn message late, | |
| On which I sent thee to the Virgin pure | |
| In Galilee, that she should bear a son, | 135 |
| Great in renown, and called the Son of God. | |
| Then told’st her, doubting how these things could be | |
| To her a virgin, that on her should come | |
| The Holy Ghosts, and the power of the Highest | |
| O’ershadow her. This Man, born and now upgrown, | 140 |
| To shew him worthy of his birth divine | |
| And high prediction, henceforth I expose | |
| To Satan; let him tempt, and now assay | |
| His utmost subtlety, because he boasts | |
| And vaunts of his great cunning to the throng | 145 |
| Of his Apostasy. He might have learnt | |
| Less overweening, since he failed in Job, | |
| Whose constant perseverance overcame | |
| Whate’er his cruel malice could invent. | |
| He now shall know I can produce a man, | 150 |
| Of female seed, far abler to resist | |
| All his solicitations, and at length | |
| All his vast force, and drive him back to Hell— | |
| Winning by conquest what the first man lost | |
| By fallacy surprised. But first I mean | 155 |
| To exercise him in the Wilderness; | |
| There he shall first lay down the rudiments | |
| Of his great warfare, ere I send him forth | |
| To conquer Sin and Death, the two grand foes. | |
| By humiliation and strong sufferance | 160 |
| His weakness shall o’ercome Satanic strength, | |
| And all the world, and mass of sinful flesh; | |
| That all the Angels and æthereal Powers— | |
| They now, and men hereafter—may discern | |
| From what consummate virtue I have chose | 165 |
| This perfet man, by merit called my Son, | |
| To earn salvation for the sons of men.” | |
| So spake the Eternal Father, and all Heaven | |
| Admiring stood a space; then into hymns | |
| Burst forth, and in celestial measures moved, | 170 |
| Circling the throne and singing, while the hand | |
| Sung with the voice, and this the argument:— | |
| “Victory and triumph to the Son of God, | |
| Now entering his great duel, not of arms | |
| But to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles! | 175 |
| The Father knows the Son; therefore secure | |
| Ventures his filial virtue, though untried, | |
| Against whate’er may tempt, whate’er seduce, | |
| Allure, or terrify, or undermine. | |
| Be frustrate, all ye stratagems of Hell, | 180 |
| And, devilish machinations, come to nought!” | |
| So they in Heaven their odes and vigils tuned. | |
| Meanwhile the Son of God, who yet some days | |
| Lodged in Bethabara, where John baptized, | |
| Musing and much revolving in his breast | 185 |
| How best the mighty work he might begin | |
| Of Saviour to mankind, and which way first | |
| Publish his godlike office now mature, | |
| One day forth walked alone, the Spirit leading | |
| And his deep thoughts, the better to converse | 190 |
| With solitude, till, far from track of men, | |
| Thought following thought, and step by step led on, | |
| He entered now the bordering Desert wild, | |
| And, with dark shades and rocks environed round, | |
| His holy meditations thus pursued:— | 195 |
| “O what a multitude of thoughts at once | |
| Awakened in me swarm, while I consider | |
| What from within I feel myself, and hear | |
| What from without comes often to my ears, | |
| Ill sorting with my present state compared! | 200 |
| When I was yet a child, no childish play | |
| To me was pleasing; all my mind was set | |
| Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, | |
| What might be public good; myself I thought | |
| Born to that end, born to promote all truth, | 205 |
| All righteous things. Therefore, above my years, | |
| The Law of God I read, and found it sweet; | |
| Made it my whole delight, and in it grew | |
| To such perfection that, ere yet my age | |
| Had measured twice six years, at our great Feast | 210 |
| I went into the Temple, there to hear | |
| The teachers of our Law, and to propose | |
| What might improve my knowledge or their own, | |
| And was admired by all. Yet this not all | |
| To which my spirit aspired. Victorious deeds | 215 |
| Flamed in my heart, heroic acts—one while | |
| To rescue Israel from the Roman yoke; | |
| Then to subdue and quell, o’er all the earth, | |
| Brute violence and proud tyrannic power, | |
| Till truth were freed, and equity restored: | 220 |
| Yet held it more humane, more heavenly, first | |
| By winning words to conquer willing hearts, | |
| And make persuasion do the work of fear; | |
| At least to try, and teach the erring soul, | |
| Not wilfully misdoing, but unware | 225 |
| Misled; the stubborn only to subdue. | |
| These growing thoughts my mother soon perceiving, | |
| By words at times cast forth, inly rejoiced, | |
| And said to me apart, ‘High are thy thoughts, | |
| O Son! but nourish them, and let them soar | 230 |
| To what highth sacred virtue and true worth | |
| Can raise them, though above example high; | |
| By matchless deeds express thy matchless Sire. | |
| For know, thou art no son of mortal man; | |
| Though men esteem thee low of parentage, | 235 |
| Thy Father is the Eternal King who rules | |
| All Heaven and Earth, Angels and sons of men | |
| A messenger from God foretold thy birth | |
| Conceived in me a virgin; he foretold | |
| Thou shouldst be great, and sit on David’s throne, | 240 |
| And of thy kingdom there should be no end. | |
| At thy Nativity a glorious quire | |
| Of Angels, in the fields of Bethlehem, sung | |
| To shepherds, watching at their folds by night, | |
| And told them the Messiah now was born, | 245 |
| Where they might see him; and to thee they came, | |
| Directed to the manger where thou lay’st; | |
| For in the inn was left no better room. | |
| A Star, not seen before, in heaven appearing, | |
| Guided the Wise Men thither from the East, | 250 |
| To honour thee with incense, myrrh, and gold; | |
| By whose bright course led on they found the place, | |
| Affirming it thy star, new-graven in heaven, | |
| By which they knew thee King of Israel born. | |
| Just Simeon and prophetic Anna, warned | 255 |
| By vision, found thee in the Temple, and spake, | |
| Before the altar and the vested priest. | |
| Like things of thee to all that present stood.’ | |
| This having heard, straight I again revolved | |
| The Law and Prophets, searching what was writ | 260 |
| Concerning the Messiah, to our scribes | |
| Known partly, and soon found of whom they spake | |
| I am—this chiefly, that my way must lie | |
| Through many a hard assay, even to the death, | |
| Ere I the promised kingdom can attain, | 265 |
| Or work redemption for mankind, whose sins’ | |
| Full weight must be transferred upon my head. | |
| Yet, neither thus disheartened or dismayed, | |
| The time prefixed I waited; when behold | |
| The Baptist (of whose birth I oft had heard, | 270 |
| Not knew by sight) now come, who was to come | |
| Before Messiah, and his way prepare! | |
| I, as all others, to his baptism came, | |
| Which I believed was from above; but he | |
| Straight knew me, and with loudest voice proclaimed | 275 |
| Me him (for it was shewn him so from Heaven)— | |
| Me him whose harbinger he was; and first | |
| Refused on me baptism to confer, | |
| As much his greater, and was hardly won. | |
| But, as I rose out of the laving stream, | 280 |
| Heaven opened her eternal doors, from whence | |
| The Spirit descended on me like a Dove; | |
| And last, the sum of all, my Father’s voice, | |
| Audibly heard from Heaven, pronounced me his, | |
| Me his belovèd Son, in whom alone | 285 |
| He was well pleased: by which I knew the time | |
| Now full, that I no more should live obscure, | |
| But openly begin, as best becomes | |
| The authority which I derived from Heaven. | |
| And now by some strong motion I am led | 290 |
| Into this wilderness; to what intent | |
| I learn not yet. Perhaps I need not know; | |
| For what concerns my knowledge God reveals.” | |
| So spake our Morning Star, then in his rise, | |
| And, looking round, on every side beheld | 295 |
| A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades. | |
| The way he came, not having marked return, | |
| Was difficult, by human steps untrod; | |
| And he still on was led, but with such thoughts | |
| Accompanied of things past and to come | 300 |
| Lodged in his breast as well might recommend | |
| Such solitude before choicest society. | |
| Full forty days he passed—whether on hill | |
| Sometimes, anon in shady vale, each night | |
| Under the covert of some ancient oak | 305 |
| Or ceder to defend him from the dew, | |
| Or harboured in one cave, is not revealed; | |
| Nor tasted human food, nor hunger felt, | |
| Till those days ended; hungered then at last | |
| Among wild beasts. They at his sight grew mild, | 310 |
| Nor sleeping him nor waking harmed; his walk | |
| The fiery serpent fled and noxious worm; | |
| The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof. | |
| But now an aged man in rural weeds, | |
| Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray ewe, | 315 |
| Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve | |
| Against a winter’s day, when winds blow keen, | |
| To warm him wet returned from field at eve, | |
| He saw approach; who first with curious eye | |
| Perused him, then with words thus uttered spake:— | 320 |
| “Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place, | |
| So far from path or road of men, who pass | |
| In troop or caravan, for single none | |
| Durst ever, who returned, and dropt not here | |
| His carcass, pined with hunger and with drought. | 325 |
| I ask the rather, and the more admire, | |
| For that to me thou seem’st the man whom late | |
| Our new baptizing Prophet at the ford | |
| Of Jordan honoured so, and called thee Son | |
| Of God. I saw and heard, for we sometimes | 330 |
| Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth | |
| To town or village nigh (nighest is far), | |
| Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear, | |
| What happens new; fame also finds us out.” | |
| To whom the Son of God:—“Who brought me hither | 335 |
| Will bring me hence; no other guide I seek.” | |
| “By miracle he may,” replied the swain; | |
| ‘What other way I see not; for we here | |
| Live on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inured | |
| More than the camel, and to drink go far— | 340 |
| Men to much misery and hardship born. | |
| But, if thou be the Son of God, command | |
| That out of these hard stones be made thee bread; | |
| So shalt thou save thyself, and us relieve | |
| With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste.” | 345 |
| He ended, and the Son of God replied:— | |
| “Think’st thou such force in bread? Is it not written | |
| (For I discern thee other than thou seem’st), | |
| Man lives not by bread only, but each word | |
| Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed | 350 |
| Our fathers here with manna? In the Mount | |
| Moses was forty days, nor eat nor drank; | |
| And forty days Eliah without food | |
| Wandered this barren waste; the same I now. | |
| Why dost thou, then, suggest to me distrust, | 355 |
| Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?” | |
| Whom thus answered the Arch-Fiend, now undisguised:— | |
| “’Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate | |
| Who, leagued with millions more in rash revolt, | |
| Kept not my happy station, but was driven | 360 |
| With them from bliss to the bottomless Deep— | |
| Yet to that hideous place not so confined | |
| By rigour unconniving but that oft, | |
| Leaving my dolorous prison, I enjoy | |
| Large liberty to round this globe of Earth, | 365 |
| Or range in the Air; nor from the Heaven of Heavens | |
| Hath he excluded my resort sometimes. | |
| I came, among the Sons of God, when he | |
| Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job, | |
| To prove him, and illustrate his high worth; | 370 |
| And, when to all his Angels he proposed | |
| To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud, | |
| That he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring, | |
| I undertook that office, and the tongues | |
| Of all his flattering prophets glibbed with lies | 375 |
| To his destruction, as I had in charge: | |
| For what he bids I do. Though I have lost | |
| Much lustre of my native brightness, lost | |
| To be beloved of God, I have not lost | |
| To love, at least contemplate and admire, | 380 |
| What I see excellent in good, or fair, | |
| Or virtuous; I should so have lost all sense. | |
| What can be then less in me than desire | |
| To see thee and approach thee, whom I know | |
| Declared the Son of God, to hear attent | 385 |
| Thy wisdom, and behold thy godlike deeds? | |
| Men generally think me much a foe | |
| To all mankind. Why should I? they to me | |
| Never did wrong or violence. By them | |
| I lost not what I lost; rather by them | 390 |
| I gained what I have gained, and with them dwell | |
| Copartner in these regions of the World, | |
| If not disposer—lend them oft my aid, | |
| Oft my advice by presages and signs, | |
| And answers, oracles, portents, and dreams, | 395 |
| Whereby they may direct their future life. | |
| Envy, they say, excites me, thus to gain | |
| Companions of my misery and woe! | |
| At first it may be; but, long since with woe | |
| Nearer acquainted, now I feel by proof | 400 |
| That fellowship in pain divides not smart, | |
| Nor lightens aught each man’s peculiar load; | |
| Small consolation, then, were Man adjoined. | |
| This wounds me most (what can it less?) that Man, | |
| Man fallen, shall be restored, I never more.” | 405 |
| To whom our Saviour sternly thus replied:— | |
| “Deservedly thou griev’st, composed of lies | |
| From the beginning, and in lies wilt end, | |
| Who boast’st release from Hell, and leave to come | |
| Into the Heaven of Heavens. Thou com’st indeed, | 410 |
| As a poor miserable captive thrall | |
| Comes to the place where he before had sat | |
| Among the prime in splendour, now deposed, | |
| Ejected, emptied, gazed, unpitied, shunned, | |
| A spectacle of ruin, or of scorn, | 415 |
| To all the host of Heaven. The happy place | |
| Imparts to thee no happiness, no joy— | |
| Rather inflames thy torment, representing | |
| Lost bliss, to thee no more communicable; | |
| So never more in Hell than when in Heaven. | 420 |
| But thou art serviceable to Heaven’s King! | |
| Wilt thou impute to obedience what thy fear | |
| Extorts, or pleasure to do ill excites? | |
| What but thy malice moved thee to misdeem | |
| Of righteous Job, then cruelly to afflict him | 425 |
| With all inflictions? but his patience won. | |
| The other service was thy chosen task, | |
| To be a liar in four hundred mouths; | |
| For lying is thy sustenance, thy food. | |
| Yet thou pretend’st to truth! all oracles | 430 |
| By thee are given, and what confessed more true | |
| Among the nations? That hath been thy craft, | |
| By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies. | |
| But what have been thy answers? what but dark, | |
| Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding, | 435 |
| Which they who asked have seldom understood, | |
| And, not well understood, as good not known? | |
| Who ever, by consulting at thy shrine, | |
| Returned the wiser, or the more instruct | |
| To fly or follow what concerned him most, | 440 |
| And run not sooner to his fatal snare? | |
| For God hath justly given the nations up | |
| To thy delusions; justly, since they fell | |
| Idolatrous. But, when his purpose is | |
| Among them to declare his providence, | 445 |
| To thee not known, whence hast thou then thy truth, | |
| But from him, or his Angels president | |
| In every province, who, themselves disdaining | |
| To approach thy temples, give thee in command | |
| What, to the smallest tittle, thou shalt say | 450 |
| To thy adorers? Thou, with trembling fear, | |
| Or like a fawning parasite, obey’st; | |
| Then to thyself ascrib’st the truth foretold. | |
| But this thy glory shall be soon retrenched; | |
| No more shalt thou by oracling abuse | 455 |
| The Gentiles; henceforth oracles are ceased, | |
| And thou no more with pomp and sacrifice | |
| Shalt be enquired at Delphos or elsewhere— | |
| At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute. | |
| God hath now sent his living Oracle | 460 |
| Into the world to teach his final will, | |
| And sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell | |
| In pious hearts, an inward oracle | |
| To all truth requisite for men to know.” | |
| So spake our Saviour; but the subtle Fiend, | 465 |
| Though inly stung with anger and disdain, | |
| Dissembled, and this answer smooth returned:— | |
| “Sharply thou hast insisted on rebuke, | |
| And urged me hard with doings which not will, | |
| But misery, hath wrested from me. Where | 470 |
| Easily canst thou find one miserable, | |
| And not inforced oft-times to part from truth, | |
| If it may stand him more in stead to lie, | |
| Say and unsay, feign, flatter, or abjure? | |
| But thou art placed above me; thou art Lord; | 475 |
| From thee I can, and must, submiss, endure | |
| Check or reproof, and glad to scape so quit. | |
| Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk, | |
| Smooth on the tongue discoursed, pleasing to the ear, | |
| And tunable as sylvan pipe or song; | 480 |
| What wonder, then, if I delight to hear | |
| Her dictates from thy mouth? most men admire | |
| Virtue who follow not her lore. Permit me | |
| To hear thee when I come (since no man comes), | |
| And talk at least, though I despair to attain. | 485 |
| Thy Father, who is holy, wise, and pure, | |
| Suffers the hypocrite or atheous priest | |
| To tread his sacred courts, and minister | |
| About his altar, handling holy things, | |
| Praying or vowing, and voutsafed his voice | 490 |
| To Balaam reprobate, a prophet yet | |
| Inspired: disdain not such access to me.” | |
| To whom our Saviour, with unaltered brow:— | |
| “Thy coming hither, though I know thy scope, | |
| I bid not, or forbid. Do as thou find’st | 495 |
| Permission from above; thou canst not more.” | |
| He added not; and Satan, bowing low | |
| His gray dissimulation, disappeared, | |
| Into thin air diffused: for now began | |
| Night with her sullen wing to double-shade | 500 |
| The desert; fowls in their clay nests were couched; | |
| And now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam. | |
| |
