The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems (26 page)

Read The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Online

Authors: John Milton,Burton Raffel

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Literary Collections, #Poetry, #Classics, #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #English poetry

BOOK: The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems
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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

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