Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by John Milton, first published in 1667. The poem tells the story of Satan's attempted rebellion and the story of the Fall of Adam and Eve. After Satan falls from heaven, he amasses an army that comes up to earth to do battle with God's angels. They are defeated and so Satan appears as a serpent before God's newly created beings, humans. He convinces Eve and Adam to eat the forbidden fruit, which they do, and are cast out of Eden.
Paradise Lost (1667, 1674) is an epic poem by the 17th century English poet John Milton. The poem concerns the Christian story of the fall of Satan and his brethren and the rise of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat,
That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed,
In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth
Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill
Delight thee more, and Siloa's Brook that flow'd
Fast by the Oracle of God; I thence
Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song,
That with no middle flight intends to soar
Above th' Aonian Mount, while it pursues
Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime.
That to the height of this great argument
I may assert eternal Providence,
And justify the ways of God to men.
The mother of mankind.
With hideous ruin and combustion down
To bottomless perdition, there to dwell
In adamantine chains and penal fire,
Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms.
That comes at all.
And study of revenge, immortal hate,
And courage never to submit or yield.
That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides
Prone on the flood, extended long and large
Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge As whom the fables name of monstrous size, Titanian, or Earth-born, that warred on Jove, Briareos or Typhon, whom the den By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast Leviathan, which God created of all his works Created hugest that swim th' Ocean stream.
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
to reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven.
Of battle.
Of some great ammiral were but a wand,
He walk'd with to support uneasy steps
Over the burning marle.
High over-arch'd imbower.
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
A shout that tore hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night.
Of flutes and soft recorders.
Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess
Of glory obscur'd.
Perplexes monarchs.
Hath emptied Heaven, shall fail to re-ascend,
Self-raised, and repossess their native seat?
Were always downward bent, admiring more
The riches of heaven’s pavement, trodden gold,
Than aught divine or holy else enjoy’d
In vision beatific.
Deserve the precious bane.
A summer's day; and with the setting sun
Dropped from the zenith like a falling star.
Or fountain some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams he sees, while overhead the moon
Sits arbitress.
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence; and from despair
Thus high uplifted beyond hope, aspires
Beyond thus high, insatiate to pursue
Vain war with heav'n.
Contrive who need, or when they need, not now.
For while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in Arms, and longing wait
The Signal to ascend, sit ling'ring here,
Heav'n's fugitives, and for their dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobrious Den of shame,
The Prison of his Tyranny who Reigns
By our delay? no, let us rather choose,
Arm'd with Hell flames and fury all at once
O'er Heaven's high Tow'rs to force resistless way,
Turning our Tortures into horrid Arms
Against the Torturer.
To us is adverse.
Call us to penance.
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest counsels.
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair: we must exasperate
Th' Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;
And that must end us; that must be our cure--
To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
Those thoughts that wander through eternity,
To perish rather, swallowed up and lost
In the wide womb of uncreated Night,
Devoid of sense and motion?
Not peace.
A pillar of state; deep on his front engraven
Deliberation sat and public care;
And princely counsel in his face yet shone,
Majestic though in ruin: sage he stood,
With Atlantean shoulders, fit to bear
The weight of mightiest monarchies; his look
Drew audience and attention still as night
Or summer's noontide air.
Of creatures rational.
Others apart sat on a hill retired,
In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute,
And found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air
Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire.
Thither by harpy-footed Furies hal'd,
At certain revolutions all the damn'd
Are brought, and feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes,—extremes by change more fierce;
From beds of raging fire to starve in ice
Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine
Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round,
Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.
Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb;
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either,—black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand.
That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge
In th' arctic sky, and from his horrid hair
Shakes pestilence and war.
From all her caves, and back resounded, DEATH!
His famine should be fill'd.
Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate
Harsh thunder.
Eternal anarchy amidst the noise
Of endless wars, and by confusion stand;
For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four champions fierce,
Strive here for mast'ry.
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,
But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,
Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain
His dark materials to create more Worlds,
Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend
Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,
Pondering his Voyage.
And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.
Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.
Day, or the sweet approach of ev'n or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of Nature's works to me expunged and razed,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
Invisible
Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill
Where no ill seems.
Of what he was, what is, and what must be
Worse.
Indebted and discharg'd.
Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell;
And in the lowest deep a lower deep,
Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide,
To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
For never can true reconcilement grow,
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.
Evil, be thou my good.
Sat like a cormorant.
In naked majesty seemed lords of all.
He for God only, she for God in him.
His fair large front and eye sublime declar'd
Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks
Round from his parted forelock manly hung
Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad.
And by her yielded, by him best received,
Yielded with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet reluctant amorous delay.
That shed May flowers.
Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
Silence was pleased: now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful ev'ning mild; then silent night
With this her solemn bird and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train:
But neither breath of morn when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful ev'ning mild, nor silent night
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon
Or glittering starlight, without thee is sweet.
Touch of celestial temper.
Virtue in her shape how lovely.
—saw, and pined his loss.
When Adam wak'd, so custom'd; for his sleep
Was aery light, from pure digestion bred.
Shot forth peculiar graces.
To love or not; in this we stand or fall.
Each to other like, more than on earth is thought?
Impearls on every leaf and every flower.
Unbarred the gates of light.
Against revolted multitudes the cause
Of truth, in word mightier than they in arms.
Of brazen chariots rag'd: dire was the noise
Of conflict.
In entrails, heart or head, liver or reins,
Cannot but by annihilating die.
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude.
On golden hinges moving.
Outrageous as a Sea, dark, wasteful, wilde,
Up from the bottom turn'd by furious windes
And surging waves, as Mountains to assault
Heav'ns highth, and with the Center mix the Pole.
"Silence, ye troubl'd waves, and thou Deep, peace!"
Said then th' Omnific Word, "Your discord end!"
Nor staid, but on the Wings of Cherubim
Uplifted, in Paternal Glorie rode
Farr into Chaos, and the World unborn;
For Chaos heard his voice: him all his Traine
Follow'd in bright procession to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then staid the fervid Wheeles, and in his hand
He took the golden Compasses, prepar'd
In Gods Eternal store, to circumscribe
This Universe, and all created things:
One foot he center'd, and the other turn'd
Round through the vast profunditie obscure,
And said, "Thus farr extend, thus farr thy bounds,
This be thy just Circumference, O World!"
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.
His hinder parts.
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.
Seen in the galaxy, that milky way
Which nightly as a circling zone thou seest
Powder'd with stars.
Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear.
Round this opacous earth, this punctual spot.
On her soft axle.
Is the prime wisdom.
My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower
I led her blushing like the morn; all heaven
And happy constellations on that hour
Shed their selectest influence; the earth
Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill;
Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs
Whisper'd it to the woods, and from their wings
Flung rose, flung odours from the spicy shrub.
Her own, that what she wills to do or say,
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best.
Well managed.
From all her words and actions.
Heroic deem'd, chief maistrie to dissect
With long and tedious havoc fabl'd Knights
In Battels feign'd; the better fortitude
Of Patience and Heroic Martyrdom
Unsung
For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine.
Law to ourselves, our reason is our law.
Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat,
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost.
Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,
Defaced, deflowered, and now to Death devote?
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.
Sagacious of his quarry from so far.
From darkness to promote me?
Insensible! how glad would lay me down
As in my mother's lap!
Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me
Art all things under heaven, all places thou,
Who for my willful crime art banished hence.
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wand'ring steps and slow
Through Eden took their solitary way.
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