The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (24 page)

Or done this, if wickedness

Be in my hands, if I have wrought
¹³⁴¹

Ill to him that meant me peace,

Or to him have rendered
¹³⁴²
less

And not freed my foe for naught,
¹³⁴³

Let th’ enemy pursue my soul

And overtake it, let me tread
¹³⁴⁴

My life down to the earth and roll

In the dust my glory dead—

In the dust, and there outspread

Lodge
¹³⁴⁵
it with dishonor foul.

Rise, Jehovah, in Thine ire,
¹³⁴⁶

Rouse Thyself amidst the rage

Of my foes, that urge
¹³⁴⁷
like fire,

And wake
¹³⁴⁸
for me, their furi’
¹³⁴⁹
assuage.
¹³⁵⁰

Judgment here
¹³⁵¹
thou didst engage
¹³⁵²

And command, which I desire.

So th’ assemblies of each nation

Will surround Thee, seeking right.

Thence to Thy glorious habitation

Return on high, and in their sight.

Jehovah judgeth most upright

All people, from this world’s foundation.
¹³⁵³

Judge me, Lord, be judge in this

According to my righteousness

And the innocence which is

Upon me. Cause at length to cease

Of evil men the wickedness,

And their power, that do amiss.
¹³⁵⁴

But the just establish
¹³⁵⁵
fast,
¹³⁵⁶

Since Thou art the just God that tries
¹³⁵⁷

Hearts and reins.
¹³⁵⁸
On God is cast

My defence, and in Him lies,

In Him who both just and wise

Saves th’ upright of heart at last.
¹³⁵⁹

God is a just judge, and severe,
¹³⁶⁰

And God is every day offended.

If th’ unjust will not forbear
¹³⁶¹

His sword He whets,
¹³⁶²
His bow hath bended

Already, and for him intended

The tools of death, that waits
¹³⁶³
Him near.

(His arrows purposely made He

For them that persecute.)
¹³⁶⁴
Behold,

He
¹³⁶⁵
travels big
¹³⁶⁶
with vanity,

Trouble he hath conceived of old

As in a womb, and from that mould

Hath at length brought forth a lie.

He digged a pit, and delved
¹³⁶⁷
it deep,

And fell into the pit he made.

His mischief that due
¹³⁶⁸
course
¹³⁶⁹
doth keep,

Turns on his head, and his ill trade
¹³⁷⁰

Of violence will undelayed

Fall on his crown
¹³⁷¹
with ruin steep.
¹³⁷²

Then will I Jehovah’s praise

According to His justice raise,
¹³⁷³

And sing the name and deity

Of Jehovah, the most high.

8

O Jehovah, our Lord, how wondrous great

And glorious is Thy name through all the earth!

So as above the Heav’ns Thy praise to set

Out of the tender mouths of latest birth.

Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings Thou

Hast founded
¹³⁷⁴
strength, because of all Thy foes,

To stint
¹³⁷⁵
th’ enemy and slack
¹³⁷⁶
th’ avenger’s brow

That bends his rage Thy providence t’ oppose.

When I behold Thy Heav’ns, Thy fingers’ art,

The moon and stars which Thou so bright hast set

In the pure firmament, then saith my heart:

O what is man, that Thou remembrest yet

And think’st upon him, or of man begot
¹³⁷⁷

That him Thou visit’st and of
¹³⁷⁸
him art found.

Scarce to be less than gods Thou mad’st his lot,

With honor and with state
¹³⁷⁹
Thou hast him crowned.

O’er the works of Thy hand Thou mad’st him lord.

Thou hast put all under his lordly feet

All flocks, and herds, by Thy commanding word,

All beasts that in the field or forest meet,
¹³⁸⁰

Fowl of the Heav’ns, and fish that through the wet

Sea-paths in shoals do slide. And know no dearth.
¹³⁸¹

O Jehovah, our Lord, how wondrous great

And glorious is Thy name through all the earth.

PARADISE LOST

1642?–1655?

THE VERSE

The measure
¹³⁸²
is English heroic verse
¹³⁸³
without rhyme, as that of Homer in Greek and of Virgil in Latin, rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of poem or good verse (in longer works especially) but the invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter
¹³⁸⁴
and lame meter—graced indeed, since, by the use of some famous modern poets, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise
¹³⁸⁵
and for the most part worse than they would have expressed them. Not without cause, therefore, some both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rhyme both in longer and shorter works, as have also long since our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself to all judicious ears trivial and of no musical delight, which [delight] consists only in apt numbers,
¹³⁸⁶
fit
¹³⁸⁷
quantity of syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one verse into another, not in the jingling sound of like endings, a fault avoided by the ancients both in poetry and all good oratory. This neglect, then, of rhyme so little is to be taken for a defect—though it may seem so, perhaps, to vulgar
¹³⁸⁸
readers—that it rather is to be esteemed
¹³⁸⁹
an example set, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem from the troublesome and modern bondage of rhyming.

BOOK I

THE ARGUMENT

This first Book proposes first in brief the whole subject, man’s disobedience, and the loss thereupon of Paradise wherein he was placed; then touches the prime cause of his fall, the Serpent, or rather Satan in the Serpent, who, revolting from God, and drawing to his side many legions of Angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his crew into the great deep. Which action past over, the poem hastes into the midst of things, presenting Satan with his Angels now fallen into Hell, described here not in the center (for Heaven and Earth may be supposed as yet not made, certainly not yet accursed) but in a place of utter darkness, fitliest
¹³⁹⁰
called Chaos. Here Satan with his Angels lying on the burning lake, thunder-struck and astonished, after a certain space
¹³⁹¹
recovers, as from confusion, calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him.

They confer of
¹³⁹²
their miserable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the same manner confounded. They rise, their numbers, array of battle, their chief leaders named, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan
¹³⁹³
and the countries adjoining. To these Satan directs his speech, comforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them lastly of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in Heaven—for that Angels
were,
long before this visible Creation, was the opinion of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council.

What his associates thence attempt. Pandemonium, the palace of Satan, rises, suddenly built out of the deep. The infernal peers there sit in council.