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20 - Paradise Lost - John Milton · Sacred Texts Archive

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Book two, Part two. The Stygian Council thus dissolved, and forth in
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order came the grand infernal peers. Midst came their mighty paramount, and seemed
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alone the antagonist of Heaven, nor less than Hell's red Emperor, with pomp,
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supreme and godlike imitated state him round a globe of fiery seraphim, enclosed
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with bright emblazonry and horrent arms. Then of their session ended, they bid
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cry with trumpets regal sound the great result toward the four winds, for speedy
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cherubim put to their mouths. The sounding alchemy by Harold's voice, explained the
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hollow abyss heard far and wide, and all the host of Hell, with
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deafening shout, returned them loud acclaim. Thence more at ease their minds,
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and somewhat raised by false presumptuous hope, the ranged powers disband and wandering,
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each his several way pursues as inclination or sad choice leads him perplexed where he
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may likeliest find truce to his restless thoughts, and entertain the irksome hours till
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his great chief return, part upon the plain or in the air, sublime
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upon the wing, or in swift race contend as at the Olympian Games or
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Pythian Fields, part curb their fiery steeds or shun the goal with rapid wheels,
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or fronted brigades form as when to worn proud cities. War appears waged
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in the troubled sky, and armies rush to battle in the clouds before each
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van prick forth the airy nights and couch their spears till thickest legions close with
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feats of arms. From either end of heaven. The welkin burns others with
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vast typhean rage. More fell rend up both rocks and hills and ride the
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air in whirlwind hell Scarce holds the wild uproar, as when Alcides from Ohalia
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crowned with conquest, felt the venomed robe and tore through pane up by the
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rooms Thlascian pines, and Lichus from the top of ore Eta threw into the
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Euboic sea. Others more mild retreated in a silent valley, sing with notes
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angelical to many a harp their own heroic deeds and hapless fall by doom of
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battle, and complain that fate free virtue should enthrall to force or chance.
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Their song was partial, but the harmony what could it less? When spirits
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immortal sing suspended hell and took with ravishment the thronging audience in discourse more sweet
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for eloquence, the soul song charms the sense others apart, sat on a
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hill, retired in thoughts, more elevate and reasoned, high of providence,
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foreknowledge, will and fate fixed, fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
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and found no end in wandering mazes, lost of good and evil. Much
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they argued then, of happiness and final misas, passion and apathy, and
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glory and shame, vain wisdom, awe and false philosophy. Yet with a
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pleasing sorcery could champagne for a while, or anguish and excite fallacious hope,
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or arm the dured breast with stubborn patience, as with triple steel. Another
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part in squadrons and gross bands on bold adventure to discover wide that dismal world,
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if any climb perhaps might yield them easier habitation. Bend foe ways,
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their flying march along the banks four infernal rivers that disgorge into the burning lake.
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Their baleful streams are broad styx. The flood of deadly hate, sad
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acheron of sorrow, black and deep coccitis, named of lamentation, loud heard
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on a rueful stream, fierce Fledgerton, whose waves of torrent fire inflame with
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rage. Far off from these, a slow and sight silent stream Leith,
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the river of oblivion, rules her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks forthwith his
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former state and being forgets, forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.
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Beyond this flood, a frozen continent lies, dark and wild, beat
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with perpetual storms of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land thaws not
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but gathers heap and ruin seams of ancient pile. All else deep snow and
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ice, a gulf profound as that Sabonian bog betwixt Damiata and Mount Cassius Old,
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where armies whole have sunk. The parching air burns fraw, and cold
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performs the effect of fire thither by harpy footed furies hailed at certain revolutions,
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all the damned abroad, and feel by turns the bitter change of fierce extremes,
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extremes by change more fierce from beds of raging fire, to starve in
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ice, their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine, immovable, infixed
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and frozen round periods of time. Thence hurried back to fire, they ferry
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over Thiselethian sound, both to and fro their sorrow, to augment and wish,
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and struggle as they pass, to reach the tempting stream with one small
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drop to loose in sweet forgetfulness, all pain and woe, all in one
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moment, and so near the brink. But fate withstands and to oppose the
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tempt Medusa, with Gorgonian terror, guards the ford and of itself. The
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water flies all taste of living white, as once it fled the lip of
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Tantalus. Thus roving on in confused march. Forlorn, the dventurous bands,
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with shuddering horror, pale and eyes aghast, viewed first their lamentable lot and
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found no rest. Through many a dark and dreary veil they passed, and
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many a region dolorus, oh many a frozen many, a fiery alp,
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rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of
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death, a universe of death which God by curse created evil for evil only
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good, where all life dies, death lives, and nature breeds. Perverse,
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all monstrous, all prodigious things, abominable, unutterable, and worse than
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fables yet have feigned or fear conceived Gorgons and hydras and Shimera's dire. Meanwhile,
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the adversary of God and Man, Satan, with thoughts inflamed of highest
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design, puts on swift wings, and toward the gates of Hell, explores
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his solitary flight. Sometimes he scours the right hand coast, sometimes the left
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now shaves with a level wing the deep then saws up to the fiery concave,
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touring high, as when far off at sea, a fleet descried hangs
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in a clown by equinoctial winds, close sailing from Bengola, or the aisles
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of Ternate and Tidor whence merchants bring their spicy drugs. They on the trading
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flood through the wide Ethiopian to the cape, ply stemming nightly toward the pole.
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So seamed far off, the flying fiend at last appear Hell bounds high,
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reaching to the horrid roof, and thrice threefold the gates. Three folds
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were brass, three iron, three of adamantine rock, impenetrable, impaled with
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circling fire, yet unconsumed. Before the gates, there sat on either side
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a formidable shape, the one seemed woman to the waist and fair, but
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ended foul in many a scaly fold, voluminous and vast, a serpent armed
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with mortal sting about her middle round a cry of hell hounds never ceased,
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barking with wide serber and mouths full loud, and wrung a hideous peal.
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Yet when they list would creep if out disturbed their noise into her womb and
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kennel. There yet there still barked and howled within, unseen, Far less
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abhorred than these vexed skyla bathing in the sea that parts Calabria from the horse
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Trinacrian shore, nor uglier follow the night Hag when called in secret. Riding
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through the air, she comes, lured with the smell of infant blood,
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to dance with lapland witches, while the laboring moon eclipses at their charms.
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The other shape, if shape, it might be called, that shape,
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had none distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, or substance, might
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be called that shadow seemed, for each seemed either blacket stood as night,
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fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, and shook a dreadful dart.
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What seemed on his head the likeness of a kingly crown had on Satan was
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now at hand, and from his seat the monster, moving onward, came
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as fast, with horrid strides, held trembled as he strode th undaunted fiend,
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what this might be? Admired? Admired, not feared? God and
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his son accept created thing, nought valued, he nor shunned, And with
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disdainful look thus first began. Whence and what art thou excorrable shape that dareest
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through grim and terrible advance thy miscreated front hathwart my way to yonder gates?
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Through them, I mean to pass, that be assured without leave, asked
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of thee, retire, or taste thy folly, and learn by proof hell
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born not to contend with spirits of Heaven, to whom the goblin full of
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wrath replied, Art thou, that traitor angel, Art thou, he who
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first broke peace in Heaven and faith till then, unbroken and in proud rebellious
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arms drew after him. The third part of Heaven's Sons conjured against the Highest,
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for which both thou and they outcast from God are here condemned to waste
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eternal days in woe and pain and reckon'st Thou thyself, with spirits of Heaven
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hell, doomed and breathest defiance here and scorn, where I reign King,
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and to enrage thee more thy king and Lord. Back to thy punishment,
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false fugitive, and to thy speed ad wings lest with a whip of scorpions,
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I pursue thy lingering, or with one stroke of this dart strange horror
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sees thee and pangs unfelt before so spake the grisly terror, and in shape,
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so speaking and so threatening, grew tenfold more dreadful and deform. On
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the other side, incensed with indignation, Satan stood unterrified, and like a
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comet burned that fires the length of Efucus huge in arctic sky, and from
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his horrid hair shakes pestilence and war, each at the head, leveled his
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deadly aim their fatal hands. No second stroke intend, and such a each
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cast at the other, as when two black clouds with Heaven's artillery fraught come
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rattling on over the Caspian then stand front to front, hovering a space till
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winds the signal blow to join their dark encounter in mid air. So frowned
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the mighty combatants that Hell grew darker at their frown. So matched they stood
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for never, but once more was either like to meet so great a foe.
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And now great deeds had been achieved, whereof all Hell had rung,
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had not the snaky sorceress that sat fast by hell gate and kept the fatal
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key risen, and with hideous outcry, rushed between O father, What intends
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thy hand? She cried, against thy only son, what furio son possesses
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thee to bend that mortal dart against thy father's head, and knowst for whom,
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for him who sits above and laughs the while at thee ordains his drudge
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to execute whate'er his wrath, which he calls just bids, his wrath,
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which one day will destroy ye. Both she spake, and at her words
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the hellish pest forebore. Then these to her Satan returned so strange thy outcry
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and thy words, so strange thou interposest, that by my sudden hand prevented
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spares to tell THEE, yet by deeds what it intends? Till first I
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know of THEE? What thing thou art thus double formed? And why in
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this internal veil first met thou callest me father, and that phantasm call'st my
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son. I know THEE, not nor ever saw till now sight more detestable
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than him and THEE to whom thus the portress of Helgate replied, hast thou
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forgot me then? And do I seem now in thine eye so foul once
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deemed so fair in heaven? When at the assembly and in sight of all
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the seraphim with THEE, combined in bold conspiracy against Heaven's king, all on
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a sudden miserable pain surprised THEE. Dim thine eyes and dizzy swum in darkness,
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while thy head flames thick and fast, drew forth till on the left
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side, opening wide, likest THEE in shape and countenance bright, then shining
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heavenly fair. A goddess armed out of thy head. I sprung amazement,
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seized all the host of Heaven back. They recoiled, afraid at first,
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and called me sin, and for a sign portentous held me but familiar groan
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I pleased and with attractive graces one the most diverse, THEE chiefly who full
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aft thyself in me thy perfect image viewing became st enamored, and such joy
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thou tooxt with me in secret, that my womb conceived a growing burden.
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Meanwhile, war arose, and fields were fought in heaven wherein remained for what
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could else to our almighty foe, clear victory to our part loss and rout
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through all the Empyrean Down they fell, driven headlong from the pitch of heaven
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down into this deep and in the general fall. I also, at which
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time this powerful key into my hand was given, with charge to keep these
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gaits for ever shut, which none can pass without my opening. Pensive here
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I sat alone, but long I sat, not till my womb pregnant by
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THEE, and now excessive groan, prodigious motion, felt and rueful throes.
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At last, this odious offspring, whom thou seest thine own begotten, breaking
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violent way, tore through my entrails, that, with fear and pain,
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distorted all my nether shape thus grew transformed. But he, my inbred enemy,
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forth issued brandishing his fatal dart made to destroy I fled and cried out
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death. Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed from all her caves,
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and back resounded death. I fled, but he pursued, though more
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it seems inflamed with lust than rage, and swift far me overtook his mother,
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all dismayed and in embraces forcible and foul, engendering with me of that
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rape begot these yelling monsters that, with ceaseless cry, surround me as thou
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sawest, hourly conceived and hourly born, with sorrow infinite to me. For
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when they list into the womb that bred them, they return and howl,
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and nor my bowels there are past, then bursting forth afresh with conscious terrors,
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vex me round that rest or intermission. None I find before mine eyes
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in opposition sits grim death, my son and foe who sets them on and
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me his parent would full soon devour for want of other prey. But that
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he knows his end with mine involved, and knows that I should prove a
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bitter morsel and his bane whenever that shall be so fate pronounced. But thou,
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o father, I forewarn thee shun his deadly arrow, neither vainly hope
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to be invulnerable in those bright arms, though tempered heavy, for that mortal
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dint. Save he who reigns above, none can resist, she finished,
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and the subtle fiend his law soon learned now milder, and thus answered,
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smooth, dear daughter, since thou claim'st me for thy sire and my fair
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son, here showst me the dear pledge of deliance had with THEE in heaven
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and joys then sweet now sad to mention through dire change befallen us unforeseen unthought
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of know I come no enemy, but to set free from out this dark
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and dismal house of pain, both him and THEE, and all the heavenly
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host of spirits that, in our just pretenses armed fell with us from one
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high from them, I go, this uncouth errand soul, and one for
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all myself expose with lonely steps to tread the unfounded deep, and through the
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void immense, to search with wandering quest a place foretold should be, and
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by concurring signs ere now created of our dust and round a place of bliss
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in Appolus of heaven, and therein placed a race of upstart creatures to supply
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perhaps our vacant room, though more removed least heavens surcharged with potent multitude might
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hap to move new broils, be this or out than this, more secret
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now designed I haste to know, And this, once known, shall soon
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return and bring ye to the place where thou and Death shalt dwell at ease,
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and up and down unseen, wing silently the buxom air embalmed with odors.
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There ye shall be fed and filled immeasurably. All things shall be your
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prey. He ceased, for both seemed highly pleased, and Death grinned horrible,
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a ghastly smile to hear his famine should be filled and blessed is more
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destined that good hour no less rejoiced his mother bad, and thus bespake her
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sire the key of this infernal pit by dew and by command of Heaven's all
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powerful kreing, I keep by him forbidden to unlock these adamantine gates against all
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force. Death ready stands to interpose his dart, fearless to be o'ermatched by
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living might. But what o I to his commands above? Who hates me
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and hath hither thrust me down into this gloom of Tartarus, profound to sit
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in hateful office here, confined, inhabitant of heaven and heavenly born, here
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in perpetual agony and pain, with terrors and with clamours compassed round of mine
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own brood, that on my bowels feed Thou art, my father, thou
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my author, Thou my being gafst me whom should I obey, but thee
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whom follow Thou wilt bring me soon to that new world of light and bliss
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among the gods who live at ease, where I shall reign at thy right
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hand, voluptuous as beseems thy daughter and thy darling without end. Thus saying
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from her side the fatal key, sad, insane trum, and of all
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our woe, she took, and towards the gate, ruling her bestial train
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forthwith the huge poor cullis high updrew, which but herself, not all Astygian
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powers, could once have moved. Then in the keyhole turns lyintricate wards,
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and every bolt and bar of massy iron or solid rock, with ease unfastens
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on a sudden open fly, with impetuous recoil and jarring sound, with infernal
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doors, and on their hinges great harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook
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of erebus. She opened, but to shut excelled her power. The gates
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wide open, stood that with extended wings, a bannered host under spread ensign's
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marching might pass through, with horse and chariots ranked in loose ray, so
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wide they stood, and like a furnace mouth cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy
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flame before their eyes. In sudden view appear the secrets of the hoary Deep,
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a dark, illimitable ocean without bound, without dimension, where length,
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breadth and height, and time and place are lost, Where eldest knight and
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chaos, ancestors of nature hold eternal anarchy amidst the noise of endless wars,
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and by confusion stand for hot, cold, moist and dry. Four champions
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fierce strive here for mastery and to battle, bring their embryon atoms. They
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around the flag of each his faction. In their several clans, light armed
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or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow swarm populace unnumbered as the
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sands of Barker or Syrenees, torrid soil, leavid to side with warring winds,
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and poise their lighter wings to whom these most adhere he rules a moment
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chaos umpire sits, and by decision more embroils the fray by which he reigns.
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Next him, high arbiter Chance governs all into this wild abyss, the
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womb of nature and perhaps her grave of Neither sea nor shore, nor air
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nor fire, but all these, in their pregnant causes, mixed confusedly,
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and which thus must ever fight, unless the Almighty make of them, ordain
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his dark materials to create more worlds into this wild abyss. The wary fiend
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stood on the brink of hell and looked awhile pondering his voyage, for no
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narrow frith he had to cross, Nor was his ear less peeled with noises
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loud and ruinous. To compare great things with small than when Bellona storms with
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all her battering engines, bent to raise some capital city, or less than
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if this frame of heaven were falling, and these elements in mutiny had from
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her axle torn the steadfast earth. At last his sail board veins he spreads
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for flight, and in the surging smoke uplifted spurns the ground. Thence many
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a league as in a cloudy chair ascending rides audacious, but that seat soon
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failing, meets a vast vacuity, all unawares, fluttering his pennons vain plum
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down, he drops ten thousand fadden deep, and to this hour down had
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been falling, had not, by ill chance, the strong rebuff of some
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tumultuous cloud instinct with fire and nitra, hurried him as many miles aloft,
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that fury stayed quenched in a boggy surface, neither sea nor good dry land,
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nigh foundered on. He fares treading the crude consistence, half on foot,
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half flying. Behooves him now both awe and sail. As when a
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griffin through the wilderness with winged course o'er hill or maury Dale pursues the Arimaspian,
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who by stealth had from his wakeful custody purloined the guarded gold. So
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eagerly the fiend o'er bog or steep through straight, rough, dense or rare,
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with head, hands, wings or feet, pursues his way and swims
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or sinks, or wades, or creeps or flies at length. A universal
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hubbub wild of stunning sounds and voices, all confused borne through the hollow dark
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assaults his ear with loudest vehemence. Thither he plies, undaunted, to meet
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there whatever power or spirit of the nethermost abyss might in that noise reside of
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whom to ask which way the nearest coast of darkness lies bordering on light?
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When straight behold the throne of Chaos and his dark pavilions spread wide on a
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wasteful deep, with him enthroned sat sable, vested Night, eldest of things,
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the consort of his reign, And by them stood Orcus and Ades and
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the dreaded name of Demagorgon, Rumor Next, and chance and tumult, confusion,
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all embroiled and discord with a thousand various mouths, to whom Satan turning
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boldly. Thus, ye powers and spirits of this nethermost Abyss, Chaos and
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Ancient Knight. I come no spy with purpose to explore or to disturb the
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secrets of your realm, but by constraint, wondering this darksome desert, as
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my way lies through your spacious empire, up to light, Alone and without
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guide, half lost, I seek what readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds
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confine with Heaven, or if some other place from your dominion ie the ethereal
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king possesses lately thither to arrive. I travel this profound direct, my course
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directed, no mean recompense. It brings to your behoof if I that region
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lost, or the usurpation thus expelled, reduce to her original darkness and your
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sway, which is my present journey, and once more erect the standard there
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of ancient night. Yours be the advantage all mine, the revenge thus Satan
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and him. Thus the annok Old, with faltering speech and visage incomposed,
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answered, I know thee stranger who thou art, that mighty leading angel,
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who of late made head against Heaven's king. Though overthrown, I saw and
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heard for such a numerous host fled not in silence through the frighted deep,
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with ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, confusion worse confounded, and heaven
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gates poured out by millions her victorious bands pursuing I upon my frontiers. Here,
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keep residence, if all I can will serve that little which is left
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so to defend. Encroached on still to our intestine broils weakening the scepter of
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old knight. First Hell, your dungeon, stretching far and wide beneath now
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lately Heaven and earth, another wild hung o'er my realm linked in a golden
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chain to that side Heaven, from whence your legions fell. If that way
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be your walk, you have not far so much the nearer danger go and
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speed, havoc and spoil and ruin a my gain. He ceased, and
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Satan stayed not to reply, but glad now that his sea should find ashore
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with fresh alacrity and force. Renewed springs upward like a pyramid of fire,
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into the wild expanse, and through the shock of fighting elements on all sides
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round environed wins his way, harder, beset, and more endangered than when
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Argo passed through Bosphorus betwixt the justling rocks, or when Ulysses on the larboard
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shunned Charybdis and by the other whirlpool steered. So he, with difficulty and
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labor hard, moved on with difficulty, labor he but he once passed soon
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after when man fell strange, alteration, sin and death, a man following
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his track. Such was the will of Heaven paved after him, a broad
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and beaten way over the dark abyss, whose boiling gulf tamely endured. A
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bridge of wondrous length from Hell continued, reaching the utmost orb of this frail
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world, by which the spirits perverse with easy intercourse, passed to and fro
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to tempt or punish mortals, except whom God and good angels guard by special
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grace. But now at last the sacred influence of light appears, and from
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the walls of Heaven shoots far into the bosom of dim night, a glimmering
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dawn. Here Nature first begins her farthest verge, and chaos to retire,
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as from her utmost works. A broken foe with tumult less and with less
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hostile din that Satan, with less toil and now with ease, wafts on
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the calmer wave by dubious light, and like a weather beaten vessel, holds
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gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn or in the emptier waist resembling
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air, weighs his spread wings at leisure to behold far off the imperial heaven,
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extended wide in circuit undetermined square or round, with opal towers and battlements,
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adorned of living sapphire, once his native seat, and fast by hanging
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in a golden chain, this pendent world in bigness, as a star of
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smallest magnitude close by the moon, thither full, fraught with mischievous revenge.
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Accursed, and in a cursed hour he hies the end of the second part
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of the second book