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Book VII
Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly
thou art called, whose voice divine
Following, above
the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of
Pegasean wing!
The meaning, not the name, I call:
for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwellest; but, heavenly-born,
Before
the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,
Thou with
eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister,
and with her didst play
In presence of the Almighty
Father, pleased
With thy celestial song. Up led by
thee
Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy
tempering: with like safety guided down
Return me to
my native element:
Lest from this flying steed
unreined, (as once
Bellerophon, though from a lower
clime,)
Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.
Half yet
remains unsung, but narrower bound
Within the
visible diurnal sphere;
Standing on earth, not rapt
above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice,
unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil
days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visitest my
slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east:
still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience
find, though few.
But drive far off the barbarous
dissonance
Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In
Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture,
till the savage clamour drowned
Both harp and voice;
nor could the Muse defend
Her son. So fail not thou,
who thee implores:
For thou art heavenly, she an
empty dream.
Say, Goddess, what ensued when Raphael,
The affable Arch-Angel, had forewarned
Adam, by
dire example, to beware
Apostasy, by what befel in
Heaven
To those apostates; lest the like befall
In Paradise to Adam or his race,
Charged not to
touch the interdicted tree,
If they transgress, and
slight that sole command,
So easily obeyed amid the
choice
Of all tastes else to please their appetite,
Though wandering. He, with his consorted Eve,
The story heard attentive, and was filled
With
admiration and deep muse, to hear
Of things so high
and strange; things, to their thought
So
unimaginable, as hate in Heaven,
And war so near the
peace of God in bliss,
With such confusion: but the
evil, soon
Driven back, redounded as a flood on
those
From whom it sprung; impossible to mix
With blessedness. Whence Adam soon repealed
The
doubts that in his heart arose: and now
Led on, yet
sinless, with desire to know
What nearer might
concern him, how this world
Of Heaven and Earth
conspicuous first began;
When, and whereof created;
for what cause;
What within Eden, or without, was
done
Before his memory; as one whose drouth
Yet
scarce allayed still eyes the current stream,
Whose
liquid murmur heard new thirst excites,
Proceeded
thus to ask his heavenly guest.
Great things, and
full of wonder in our ears,
Far differing from this
world, thou hast revealed,
Divine interpreter! by
favour sent
Down from the empyrean, to forewarn
Us timely of what might else have been our loss,
Unknown, which human knowledge could not reach;
For
which to the infinitely Good we owe
Immortal thanks,
and his admonishment
Receive, with solemn purpose to
observe
Immutably his sovran will, the end
Of
what we are. But since thou hast vouchsafed
Gently,
for our instruction, to impart
Things above earthly
thought, which yet concerned
Our knowing, as to
highest wisdom seemed,
Deign to descend now lower,
and relate
What may no less perhaps avail us known,
How first began this Heaven which we behold
Distant so high, with moving fires adorned
Innumerable; and this which yields or fills
All
space, the ambient air wide interfused
Embracing
round this floried Earth; what cause
Moved the
Creator, in his holy rest
Through all eternity, so
late to build
In Chaos; and the work begun, how soon
Absolved; if unforbid thou mayest unfold
What
we, not to explore the secrets ask
Of his eternal
empire, but the more
To magnify his works, the more
we know.
And the great light of day yet wants to run
Much of his race though steep; suspense in Heaven,
Held by thy voice, thy potent voice, he hears,
And longer will delay to hear thee tell
His
generation, and the rising birth
Of Nature from the
unapparent Deep:
Or if the star of evening and the
moon
Haste to thy audience, Night with her will
bring,
Silence; and Sleep, listening to thee, will
watch;
Or we can bid his absence, till thy song
End, and dismiss thee ere the morning shine.
Thus
Adam his illustrious guest besought:
And thus the
Godlike Angel answered mild.
This also thy request,
with caution asked,
Obtain; though to recount
almighty works
What words or tongue of Seraph can
suffice,
Or heart of man suffice to comprehend?
Yet what thou canst attain, which best may serve
To
glorify the Maker, and infer
Thee also happier,
shall not be withheld
Thy hearing; such commission
from above
I have received, to answer thy desire
Of knowledge within bounds; beyond, abstain
To ask;
nor let thine own inventions hope
Things not
revealed, which the invisible King,
Only Omniscient,
hath suppressed in night;
To none communicable in
Earth or Heaven:
Enough is left besides to search
and know.
But knowledge is as food, and needs no
less
Her temperance over appetite, to know
In
measure what the mind may well contain;
Oppresses
else with surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to folly,
as nourishment to wind.
Know then, that, after
Lucifer from Heaven
(So call him, brighter once
amidst the host
Of Angels, than that star the stars
among,)
Fell with his flaming legions through the
deep
Into his place, and the great Son returned
Victorious with his Saints, the Omnipotent
Eternal
Father from his throne beheld
Their multitude, and
to his Son thus spake.
At least our envious Foe hath
failed, who thought
All like himself rebellious, by
whose aid
This inaccessible high strength, the seat
Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed,
He trusted to
have seised, and into fraud
Drew many, whom their
place knows here no more:
Yet far the greater part
have kept, I see,
Their station; Heaven, yet
populous, retains
Number sufficient to possess her
realms
Though wide, and this high temple to frequent
With ministeries due, and solemn rites:
But,
lest his heart exalt him in the harm
Already done,
to have dispeopled Heaven,
My damage fondly deemed,
I can repair
That detriment, if such it be to lose
Self-lost; and in a moment will create
Another
world, out of one man a race
Of men innumerable,
there to dwell,
Not here; till, by degrees of merit
raised,
They open to themselves at length the way
Up hither, under long obedience tried;
And Earth
be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth,
One
kingdom, joy and union without end.
Mean while
inhabit lax, ye Powers of Heaven;
And thou my Word,
begotten Son, by thee
This I perform; speak thou,
and be it done!
My overshadowing Spirit and Might
with thee
I send along; ride forth, and bid the Deep
Within appointed bounds be Heaven and Earth;
Boundless the Deep, because I Am who fill
Infinitude, nor vacuous the space.
Though I,
uncircumscribed myself, retire,
And put not forth my
goodness, which is free
To act or not, Necessity and
Chance
Approach not me, and what I will is Fate.
So spake the Almighty, and to what he spake
His
Word, the Filial Godhead, gave effect.
Immediate are
the acts of God, more swift
Than time or motion, but
to human ears
Cannot without process of speech be
told,
So told as earthly notion can receive.
Great triumph and rejoicing was in Heaven,
When such
was heard declared the Almighty's will;
Glory they
sung to the Most High, good will
To future men, and
in their dwellings peace;
Glory to Him, whose just
avenging ire
Had driven out the ungodly from his
sight
And the habitations of the just; to Him
Glory and praise, whose wisdom had ordained
Good out
of evil to create; instead
Of Spirits malign, a
better race to bring
Into their vacant room, and
thence diffuse
His good to worlds and ages infinite.
So sang the Hierarchies: Mean while the Son
On
his great expedition now appeared,
Girt with
Omnipotence, with radiance crowned
Of Majesty
Divine; sapience and love
Immense, and all his
Father in him shone.
About his chariot numberless
were poured
Cherub, and Seraph, Potentates, and
Thrones,
And Virtues, winged Spirits, and chariots
winged
From the armoury of God; where stand of old
Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged
Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand,
Celestial
equipage; and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within
them Spirit lived,
Attendant on their Lord: Heaven
opened wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound
On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King
of Glory, in his powerful Word
And Spirit, coming to
create new worlds.
On heavenly ground they stood;
and from the shore
They viewed the vast immeasurable
abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds
And
surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven's
highth, and with the center mix the pole.
Silence,
ye troubled Waves, and thou Deep, peace,
Said then
the Omnifick Word; your discord end!
Nor staid; but,
on the wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory
rode
Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;
For
Chaos heard his voice: Him all his train
Followed in
bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the
wonders of his might.
Then staid the fervid wheels,
and in his hand
He took the golden compasses,
prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe, and all created things:
One foot he
centered, and the other turned
Round through the
vast profundity obscure;
And said, Thus far extend,
thus far thy bounds,
This be thy just circumference,
O World!
Thus God the Heaven created, thus the
Earth,
Matter unformed and void: Darkness profound
Covered the abyss: but on the watery calm
His
brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And
vital virtue infused, and vital warmth
Throughout
the fluid mass; but downward purged
The black
tartareous cold infernal dregs,
Adverse to life:
then founded, then conglobed
Like things to like;
the rest to several place
Disparted, and between
spun out the air;
And Earth self-balanced on her
center hung.
Let there be light, said God; and
forthwith Light
Ethereal, first of things,
quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from
her native east
To journey through the aery gloom
began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle
Sojourned
the while. God saw the light was good;
And light
from darkness by the hemisphere
Divided: light the
Day, and darkness Night,
He named. Thus was the
first day even and morn:
Nor past uncelebrated, nor
unsung
By the celestial quires, when orient light
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld;
Birth-day of Heaven and Earth; with joy and shout
The hollow universal orb they filled,
And touched
their golden harps, and hymning praised
God and his
works; Creator him they sung,
Both when first
evening was, and when first morn.
Again, God said,
Let there be firmament
Amid the waters, and let it
divide
The waters from the waters; and God made
The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure,
Transparent,
elemental air, diffused
In circuit to the uttermost
convex
Of this great round; partition firm and sure,
The waters underneath from those above
Dividing:
for as earth, so he the world
Built on circumfluous
waters calm, in wide
Crystalline ocean, and the loud
misrule
Of Chaos far removed; lest fierce extremes
Contiguous might distemper the whole frame:
And
Heaven he named the Firmament: So even
And morning
chorus sung the second day.
The Earth was formed,
but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature
involved,
Appeared not: over all the face of Earth
Main ocean flowed, not idle; but, with warm
Prolifick humour softening all her globe,
Fermented
the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial
moisture; when God said,
Be gathered now ye waters
under Heaven
Into one place, and let dry land
appear.
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into
the clouds; their tops ascend the sky:
So high as
heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow
bottom broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters:
Thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, uprolled,
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry:
Part
rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste;
such flight the great command impressed
On the swift
floods: As armies at the call
Of trumpet (for of
armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard; so
the watery throng,
Wave rolling after wave, where
way they found,
If steep, with torrent rapture, if
through plain,
Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock
or hill;
But they, or under ground, or circuit wide
With serpent errour wandering, found their way,
And on the washy oose deep channels wore;
Easy, ere
God had bid the ground be dry,
All but within those
banks, where rivers now
Stream, and perpetual draw
their humid train.
The dry land, Earth; and the
great receptacle
Of congregated waters, he called
Seas:
And saw that it was good; and said, Let the
Earth
Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding
seed,
And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind,
Whose seed is in herself upon the Earth.
He
scarce had said, when the bare Earth, till then
Desart and bare, unsightly, unadorned,
Brought forth
the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal
face with pleasant green;
Then herbs of every leaf,
that sudden flowered
Opening their various colours,
and made gay
Her bosom, smelling sweet: and, these
scarce blown,
Forth flourished thick the clustering
vine, forth crept
The swelling gourd, up stood the
corny reed
Embattled in her field, and the humble
shrub,
And bush with frizzled hair implicit: Last
Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemmed
Their blossoms: With high woods the hills were crowned;
With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side;
With borders long the rivers: that Earth now
Seemed
like to Heaven, a seat where Gods might dwell,
Or
wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred
shades: though God had yet not rained
Upon the
Earth, and man to till the ground
None was; but from
the Earth a dewy mist
Went up, and watered all the
ground, and each
Plant of the field; which, ere it
was in the Earth,
God made, and every herb, before
it grew
On the green stem: God saw that it was good:
So even and morn recorded the third day.
Again
the Almighty spake, Let there be lights
High in the
expanse of Heaven, to divide
The day from night; and
let them be for signs,
For seasons, and for days,
and circling years;
And let them be for lights, as I
ordain
Their office in the firmament of Heaven,
To give light on the Earth; and it was so.
And God
made two great lights, great for their use
To Man,
the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night,
altern; and made the stars,
And set them in the
firmament of Heaven
To illuminate the Earth, and
rule the day
In their vicissitude, and rule the
night,
And light from darkness to divide. God saw,
Surveying his great work, that it was good:
For
of celestial bodies first the sun
A mighty sphere he
framed, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mould:
then formed the moon
Globose, and every magnitude of
stars,
And sowed with stars the Heaven, thick as a
field:
Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed
In
the sun's orb, made porous to receive
And drink the
liquid light; firm to retain
Her gathered beams,
great palace now of light.
Hither, as to their
fountain, other stars
Repairing, in their golden
urns draw light,
And hence the morning-planet gilds
her horns;
By tincture or reflection they augment
Their small peculiar, though from human sight
So
far remote, with diminution seen,
First in his east
the glorious lamp was seen,
Regent of day, and all
the horizon round
Invested with bright rays, jocund
to run
His longitude through Heaven's high road; the
gray
Dawn, and the Pleiades, before him danced,
Shedding sweet influence: Less bright the moon,
But
opposite in levelled west was set,
His mirrour, with
full face borrowing her light
From him; for other
light she needed none
In that aspect, and still that
distance keeps
Till night; then in the east her turn
she shines,
Revolved on Heaven's great axle, and her
reign
With thousand lesser lights dividual holds,
With thousand thousand stars, that then appeared
Spangling the hemisphere: Then first adorned
With
their bright luminaries that set and rose,
Glad
evening and glad morn crowned the fourth day.
And
God said, Let the waters generate
Reptile with spawn
abundant, living soul:
And let fowl fly above the
Earth, with wings
Displayed on the open firmament of
Heaven.
And God created the great whales, and each
Soul living, each that crept, which plenteously
The waters generated by their kinds;
And every bird
of wing after his kind;
And saw that it was good,
and blessed them, saying.
Be fruitful, multiply, and
in the seas,
And lakes, and running streams, the
waters fill;
And let the fowl be multiplied, on the
Earth.
Forthwith the sounds and seas, each creek and
bay,
With fry innumerable swarm, and shoals
Of
fish that with their fins, and shining scales,
Glide
under the green wave, in sculls that oft
Bank the
mid sea: part single, or with mate,
Graze the
sea-weed their pasture, and through groves
Of coral
stray; or, sporting with quick glance,
Show to the
sun their waved coats dropt with gold;
Or, in their
pearly shells at ease, attend
Moist nutriment; or
under rocks their food
In jointed armour watch: on
smooth the seal
And bended dolphins play: part huge
of bulk
Wallowing unwieldy, enormous in their gait,
Tempest the ocean: there leviathan,
Hugest of
living creatures, on the deep
Stretched like a
promontory sleeps or swims,
And seems a moving land;
and at his gills
Draws in, and at his trunk spouts
out, a sea.
Mean while the tepid caves, and fens,
and shores,
Their brood as numerous hatch, from the
egg that soon
Bursting with kindly rupture forth
disclosed
Their callow young; but feathered soon and
fledge
They summed their pens; and, soaring the air
sublime,
With clang despised the ground, under a
cloud
In prospect; there the eagle and the stork
On cliffs and cedar tops their eyries build:
Part
loosely wing the region, part more wise
In common,
ranged in figure, wedge their way,
Intelligent of
seasons, and set forth
Their aery caravan, high over
seas
Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing
Easing their flight; so steers the prudent crane
Her
annual voyage, borne on winds; the air
Floats as
they pass, fanned with unnumbered plumes:
From
branch to branch the smaller birds with song
Solaced
the woods, and spread their painted wings
Till even;
nor then the solemn nightingale
Ceased warbling, but
all night tun'd her soft lays:
Others, on silver
lakes and rivers, bathed
Their downy breast; the
swan with arched neck,
Between her white wings
mantling proudly, rows
Her state with oary feet; yet
oft they quit
The dank, and, rising on stiff
pennons, tower
The mid aereal sky: Others on ground
Walked firm; the crested cock whose clarion sounds
The silent hours, and the other whose gay train
Adorns him, coloured with the florid hue
Of rainbows
and starry eyes. The waters thus
With fish
replenished, and the air with fowl,
Evening and morn
solemnized the fifth day.
The sixth, and of creation
last, arose
With evening harps and matin; when God
said,
Let the Earth bring forth soul living in her
kind,
Cattle, and creeping things, and beast of the
Earth,
Each in their kind. The Earth obeyed, and
straight
Opening her fertile womb teemed at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limbed and full grown: Out of the ground up rose,
As
from his lair, the wild beast where he wons
In
forest wild, in thicket, brake, or den;
Among the
trees in pairs they rose, they walked:
The cattle in
the fields and meadows green:
Those rare and
solitary, these in flocks
Pasturing at once, and in
broad herds upsprung.
The grassy clods now calved;
now half appeared
The tawny lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce,
The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole
Rising, the
crumbled earth above them threw
In hillocks: The
swift stag from under ground
Bore up his branching
head: Scarce from his mould
Behemoth biggest born of
earth upheaved
His vastness: Fleeced the flocks and
bleating rose,
As plants: Ambiguous between sea and
land
The river-horse, and scaly crocodile.
At
once came forth whatever creeps the ground,
Insect
or worm: those waved their limber fans
For wings,
and smallest lineaments exact
In all the liveries
decked of summer's pride
With spots of gold and
purple, azure and green:
These, as a line, their
long dimension drew,
Streaking the ground with
sinuous trace; not all
Minims of nature; some of
serpent-kind,
Wonderous in length and corpulence,
involved
Their snaky folds, and added wings. First
crept
The parsimonious emmet, provident
Of
future; in small room large heart enclosed;
Pattern
of just equality perhaps
Hereafter, joined in her
popular tribes
Of commonalty: Swarming next appeared
The female bee, that feeds her husband drone
Deliciously, and builds her waxen cells
With honey
stored: The rest are numberless,
And thou their
natures knowest, and gavest them names,
Needless to
thee repeated; nor unknown
The serpent, subtlest
beast of all the field,
Of huge extent sometimes,
with brazen eyes
And hairy mane terrifick, though to
thee
Not noxious, but obedient at thy call.
Now
Heaven in all her glory shone, and rolled
Her
motions, as the great first Mover's hand
First
wheeled their course: Earth in her rich attire
Consummate lovely smiled; air, water, earth,
By
fowl, fish, beast, was flown, was swum, was walked,
Frequent; and of the sixth day yet remained:
There
wanted yet the master-work, the end
Of all yet done;
a creature, who, not prone
And brute as other
creatures, but endued
With sanctity of reason, might
erect
His stature, and upright with front serene
Govern the rest, self-knowing; and from thence
Magnanimous to correspond with Heaven,
But grateful
to acknowledge whence his good
Descends, thither
with heart, and voice, and eyes
Directed in
devotion, to adore
And worship God Supreme, who made
him chief
Of all his works: therefore the Omnipotent
Eternal Father (for where is not he
Present?)
thus to his Son audibly spake.
Let us make now Man
in our image, Man
In our similitude, and let them
rule
Over the fish and fowl of sea and air,
Beast of the field, and over all the Earth,
And
every creeping thing that creeps the ground.
This
said, he formed thee, Adam, thee, O Man,
Dust of the
ground, and in thy nostrils breathed
The breath of
life; in his own image he
Created thee, in the image
of God
Express; and thou becamest a living soul.
Male he created thee; but thy consort
Female, for
race; then blessed mankind, and said,
Be fruitful,
multiply, and fill the Earth;
Subdue it, and
throughout dominion hold
Over fish of the sea, and
fowl of the air,
And every living thing that moves
on the Earth.
Wherever thus created, for no place
Is yet distinct by name, thence, as thou knowest,
He brought thee into this delicious grove,
This
garden, planted with the trees of God,
Delectable
both to behold and taste;
And freely all their
pleasant fruit for food
Gave thee; all sorts are
here that all the Earth yields,
Variety without end;
but of the tree,
Which, tasted, works knowledge of
good and evil,
Thou mayest not; in the day thou
eatest, thou diest;
Death is the penalty imposed;
beware,
And govern well thy appetite; lest Sin
Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death.
Here
finished he, and all that he had made
Viewed, and
behold all was entirely good;
So even and morn
accomplished the sixth day:
Yet not till the Creator
from his work
Desisting, though unwearied, up
returned,
Up to the Heaven of Heavens, his high
abode;
Thence to behold this new created world,
The addition of his empire, how it showed
In
prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,
Answering his great idea. Up he rode
Followed with
acclamation, and the sound
Symphonious of ten
thousand harps, that tuned
Angelick harmonies: The
earth, the air
Resounded, (thou rememberest, for
thou heardst,)
The heavens and all the
constellations rung,
The planets in their station
listening stood,
While the bright pomp ascended
jubilant.
Open, ye everlasting gates! they sung,
Open, ye Heavens! your living doors;let in
The great
Creator from his work returned
Magnificent, his six
days work, a World;
Open, and henceforth oft; for
God will deign
To visit oft the dwellings of just
men,
Delighted; and with frequent intercourse
Thither will send his winged messengers
On errands
of supernal grace. So sung
The glorious train
ascending: He through Heaven,
That opened wide her
blazing portals, led
To God's eternal house direct
the way;
A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold
And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear,
Seen in the galaxy, that milky way,
Which nightly,
as a circling zone, thou seest
Powdered with stars.
And now on Earth the seventh
Evening arose in Eden,
for the sun
Was set, and twilight from the east came
on,
Forerunning night; when at the holy mount
Of
Heaven's high-seated top, the imperial throne
Of
Godhead, fixed for ever firm and sure,
The Filial
Power arrived, and sat him down
With his great
Father; for he also went
Invisible, yet staid, (such
privilege
Hath Omnipresence) and the work ordained,
Author and End of all things; and, from work
Now
resting, blessed and hallowed the seventh day,
As
resting on that day from all his work,
But not in
silence holy kept: the harp
Had work and rested not;
the solemn pipe,
And dulcimer, all organs of sweet
stop,
All sounds on fret by string or golden wire,
Tempered soft tunings, intermixed with voice
Choral or unison: of incense clouds,
Fuming from
golden censers, hid the mount.
Creation and the six
days acts they sung:
Great are thy works, Jehovah!
infinite
Thy power! what thought can measure thee,
or tongue
Relate thee! Greater now in thy return
Than from the giant Angels: Thee that day
Thy
thunders magnified; but to create
Is greater than
created to destroy.
Who can impair thee, Mighty
King, or bound
Thy empire! Easily the proud attempt
Of Spirits apostate, and their counsels vain,
Thou hast repelled; while impiously they thought
Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw
The number
of thy worshippers. Who seeks
To lessen thee,
against his purpose serves
To manifest the more thy
might: his evil
Thou usest, and from thence createst
more good.
Witness this new-made world, another
Heaven
From Heaven-gate not far, founded in view
On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea;
Of amplitude
almost immense, with stars
Numerous, and every star
perhaps a world
Of destined habitation; but thou
knowest
Their seasons: among these the seat of Men,
Earth, with her nether ocean circumfused,
Their
pleasant dwelling-place. Thrice happy Men,
And sons
of Men, whom God hath thus advanced!
Created in his
image, there to dwell
And worship him; and in reward
to rule
Over his works, on earth, in sea, or air,
And multiply a race of worshippers
Holy and
just: Thrice happy, if they know
Their happiness,
and persevere upright!
So sung they, and the
empyrean rung
With halleluiahs: Thus was sabbath
kept.
And thy request think now fulfilled, that
asked
How first this world and face of things began,
And what before thy memory was done
From the
beginning; that posterity,
Informed by thee, might
know: If else thou seekest
Aught, not surpassing
human measure, say.
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