Of ugly serpents; horrour on them fell,

And horrid sympathy; for, what they saw,

They felt themselves, now changing; down their arms,
Down fell both spear and shield; down they as fast;
And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form
Catch'd, by contagion; like in punishment,
As in their crime. Thus was the applause they
meant,

Turn'd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame

Cast on themselves from their own mouths. There

stood

A grove hard by, sprung up with this their change,
His will who reigns above, to aggravate

Their penance, laden with fair fruit, like that
Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve
Us'd by the Tempter: on that prospect strange
Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining
For one forbidden tree a multitude

Now risen, to work them further woe or shame;
Yet, parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce,
Though to delude them sent, could not abstain;
But on they roll'd in heaps, and, up the trees
Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks
That curl'd Megara: greedily they pluck'd
The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew
Near that bituminous lake where Sodom flam'd;
This more delusive, not the touch, but taste
Deceiv'd; they, fondly thinking to allay

Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit
Chew'd bitter ashes, which the offended taste
With spattering noise rejected: oft they assay'd,
Hunger and thirst constraining; drugg'd as oft,
With hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws,
With soot and cinders fill'd; so oft they fell
Into the same illusion, not as Man

Whom they triumph'd once laps'd. Thus were they plagu'd

And worn with famine, long and ceaseless hiss,
Till their lost shape, permitted, they resum'd;
Yearly enjoin'd, some say, to undergo,

This annual humbling certain number'd days,
To dash their pride, and joy, for Man seduc❜d.
However, some tradition they dispers❜d
Among the Heathen, of their purchase got,
And fabled how the Serpent, whom they call'd
Ophion, with Eurynome, the wide
Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule
Of high Olympus; thence by Saturn driven
And Ops, ere yet Dictæan Jove was born.

Mean while in Paradise the hellish pair
Too soon arriv'd; Sin, there in power before,
Once actual; now in body, and to dwell
Habitual habitant; behind her Death!
Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet
On his pale horse: to whom Sin thus began.

Second of Satan sprung, all-conquering Death!

What think'st thou of our empire now, though earn'd With travel difficult, not better far

Than still at Hell's dark threshold to have sat watch, Unnam'd, undreaded, and thyself half starv'd?

Whom thus the Sin-born monster answer'd soon, To me, who with eternal famine pine,

Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven;
There best, where most with ravine I may meet;
Which here, though plenteous, all too little seems
To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corps.

To whom the incestuous mother thus replied.
Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits and flowers,
Feed first; on each beast next, and fish, and fowl;
No homely morsels! and, whatever thing
The sithe of Time mows down, devour unspar'd;
Till I, in Man residing, through the race,
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect;
And season him thy last and sweetest prey

This said, they both betook them several ways, Both to destroy, or unimmortal make

All kinds, and for destruction to mature
Sooner or later; which the Almighty seeing,
From his transcendent seat the Saints
among,
To those bright Orders utter'd thus his voice.
See, with what heat these dogs of Hell advance
To waste and havock yonder world, which I
So fair and good created; and had still
Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man

Let in these wasteful furies, who impute
Folly to me; so doth the Prince of Hell
And his adherents, that with so much ease.
I suffer them to enter and
possess

A place so heavenly; and, conniving, seem
To gratify my scornful enemies,

That laugh, as if, transported with some fit
Of passion, I to them had quitted all,

At random yielded up to their misrule;

And know not that I call'd, and drew them thither,
My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth
Which Man's polluting sin with taint hath shed
On what was pure; till, cramm'd and gorg'd, nigh
burst

With suck'd and glutted offal, at one sling

Of thy victorious arm, well pleasing Son,

Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave, at last, Through Chaos hurl'd, obstruct the mouth of Hell For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.

Then Heaven and Earth renew'd shall be made pure
To sanctity, that shall receive no stain :

Till then, the curse pronounc'd on both precedes.
He ended, and the heavenly audience loud
Sung Halleluiah, as the sound of seas,
Through multitude that sung: Just are thy ways,
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works;
Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son,
Destin'd Restorer of mankind, by whom

New Heaven and Earth shall to the ages rise,

Or down from Heaven descend,-Such was their

song;

While the Creator, calling forth by name
His mighty Angels, gave them several charge,
As sorted best with present things. The sun
Had first his precept so to move, so shine,

As might affect the earth with cold and heat
Scarce tolerable; and from the north to call
Decrepit winter; from the south to bring
Solstitial summer's heat. To the blanc moon
Her office they prescribed; to the other five
Their planetary motions, and aspécts,

In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite,
Of noxious efficacy, and when to join
In synod unbenign; and taught the fix'd
Their influence malignant when to shower,
Which of them rising with the sun, or falling,
Should prove tempestuous: To the winds they set
Their corners, when with bluster to confound
Sea, air, and shore; the thunder when to roll
With terrour through the dark aëreal hall.
Some say, he bid his Angels turn ascanse
The poles of earth, twice ten degrees and more,
From the sun's axle; they with labour push'd
Oblique the centrick globe: Some say, the sun
Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road
Like distant breadth to Taurus with the seven