The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (26 page)

180

   
“Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild

181

The seat of desolation, void of light

182

Save what the glimmering of these livid
¹⁴⁸¹
flames

183

Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend
¹⁴⁸²

184

From off the tossing of these fiery waves

185

There rest, if any rest can harbor
¹⁴⁸³
there

186

And, re-assembling our afflicted
¹⁴⁸⁴
Powers

187

Consult how we may henceforth most offend
¹⁴⁸⁵

188

Our enemy, our own loss how repair

189

How overcome this dire calamity

190

What reinforcement we may gain from hope

191

If not, what resolution from despair

192

   
Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,
¹⁴⁸⁶

193

With head uplift above the wave, and eyes

194

That sparkling blazed, his other parts besides

195

Prone on the flood,
¹⁴⁸⁷
extended long and large

196

Lay floating many a rood,
¹⁴⁸⁸
in bulk as huge

197

As whom the fables name of monstrous size

198

Titanian
¹⁴⁸⁹
or earth-born,
¹⁴⁹⁰
that warred on Jove

199

Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

200

By ancient Tarsus
¹⁴⁹¹
held,
¹⁴⁹²
or that sea-beast

201

Leviathan,
¹⁴⁹³
which God of all His works

202

Created hugest that swim th’ ocean-stream

203

Him, haply
¹⁴⁹⁴
slumbering on the Norway foam,
¹⁴⁹⁵

204

The pilot of some small night-foundered
¹⁴⁹⁶
skiff

205

Deeming
¹⁴⁹⁷
some island, oft, as seamen tell

206

With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
¹⁴⁹⁸

207

Moors by his side under the lee,
¹⁴⁹⁹
while night

208

Invests
¹⁵⁰⁰
the sea, and wishèd morn delays

209

So stretched out huge in length the arch-fiend lay

210

Chained on the burning lake, nor ever thence

211

Had risen or heaved
¹⁵⁰¹
his head, but that the will

212

And high permission of all-ruling Heav’n

213

Left him at large to his own dark designs

214

That with reiterated crimes he might

215

Heap on himself damnation, while he sought

216

Evil to others, and enraged might see

217

How all his malice served but to bring forth

218

Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shown

219

On man by him seduced, but on himself

220

Treble confusion,
¹⁵⁰²
wrath, and vengeance poured

221

   
Forthwith
¹⁵⁰³
upright he rears from off the pool

222

His mighty stature. On each hand the flames

223

Driv’n backward slope their pointing spires and, rolled

224

In billows, leave in th’ midst a horrid vale

225

Then with expanded
¹⁵⁰⁴
wings he steers his flight

226

Aloft, incumbent
¹⁵⁰⁵
on the dusky air

227

That felt unusual weight, till on dry land

228

He lights
¹⁵⁰⁶
—if it were land that ever burned

229

With solid, as the lake with liquid fire

230

And such
¹⁵⁰⁷
appeared in hue
¹⁵⁰⁸
as when the force

231

Of subterranean wind transports a hill

232

Torn from Pelorus,
¹⁵⁰⁹
or the shattered side

233

Of thundering Etna, whose combustible

234

And fuellèd entrails thence conceiving fire

235

Sublimed
¹⁵¹⁰
with mineral fury, aid the winds

236

And leave a singèd bottom
¹⁵¹¹
all involved
¹⁵¹²

237

With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole

238

Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate

239

Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian
¹⁵¹³
flood
¹⁵¹⁴

240

As
¹⁵¹⁵
gods, and by their own recovered strength

241

Not by the sufferance
¹⁵¹⁶
of supernal
¹⁵¹⁷
power

242

   
“Is this the region, this the soil, the clime

243

Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat
¹⁵¹⁸

244

That we must change for Heav’n?—this mournful gloom

245

For that celestial light? Be it so, since He

246

Who now is sov’reign can dispose
¹⁵¹⁹
and bid
¹⁵²⁰

247

What shall be right. Farthest from Him is best

248

Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme

249

Above His equals. Farewell, happy fields

250

Where joy forever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail

251

Infernal world! and thou, profoundest
¹⁵²¹
Hell

252

Receive thy new possessor—one who brings

253

A mind not to be changed by place or time

254

The mind is its own place, and in itself

255

Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.

256

What matter where, if I be still the same

257

And what I should be, all but
¹⁵²²
less than He

258

Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

259

We shall be free. Th’Almighty hath not built

260

Here for His envy, will not drive us hence

261

Here we may reign secure and, in my choice

262

To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell

263

Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heav’n!

264

   
“But wherefore let we then our faithful friends

265

Th’ associates and co-partners of our loss

266

Lie thus astonished
¹⁵²³
on th’ oblivious
¹⁵²⁴
pool

267

And call them not to share with us their part