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
544
Through dark and desert ways with peril gone
545
All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn
546
Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill,
547
Which to his eye discovers
2641
unaware
548
549
First seen, or some renowned metropolis
550
With glistering spires and pinnacles adorned,
551
Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams,
552
Such wonder seized, though after Heaven seen,
553
The Spirit malign, but much more envy seized,
554
At sight of all this world beheld so fair.
555
Round he surveys (and well might, where he stood
556
So high above the circling canopy
557
Of Night’s extended shade), from eastern point
558
559
Andromeda
2646
far off Atlantic seas
560
Beyond th’ horizon. Then from pole to pole
561
He views in breadth, and without longer pause
562
Down right into the world’s first region throws
563
564
Through the pure marble
2649
air his oblique way
565
Amongst innumerable stars, that shone
566
Stars distant, but nigh hand seemed other worlds—
567
Or
2650
other worlds they seemed, or happy isles,
568
Like those Hesperian gardens
2651
famed of old,
569
Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales,
570
Thrice happy isles. But who dwelt happy there
571
He stayed
2652
not to inquire. Above them all
572
The golden sun, in splendor likest Heav’n,
573
Allured his eye. Thither his course he bends
574
Through the calm firmament, but up or down,
575
576
Or longitude, where the great luminary
2655
577
578
579
Dispenses light from far. They as they move
580
Their starry dance in numbers that compute
581
Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp
582
Turn swift their various
2661
motions, or are turned
583
By his magnetic beam, that gently warms
584
The universe, and to each inward part
585
With gentle penetration, though unseen,
586
Shoots invisible virtue
2662
ev’n to the deep,
587
So wondrously was set his station bright.
588
There lands the fiend, a spot like which perhaps
589
Astronomer in the sun’s lucent
2663
orb
590
591
The place he found beyond expression
2666
bright,
592
Compared with aught on earth, metal or stone,
593
Not all parts like, but all alike informed
2667
594
With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire.
595
If metal, part seemed gold, part silver clear;
596
If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite,
597
Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone
598
In Aaron’s breast-plate,
2668
and a stone besides
599
Imagined rather oft than elsewhere seen,
2669
600
That stone, or like to that which here below
601
Philosophers in vain so long have sought—
602
In vain, though by their powerful art they bind
603
Volatile Hermes,
2670
and call up unbound
604
In various shapes old Proteus
2671
from the sea,
605
Drained through a limbic
2672
to his native form.
606
What wonder then if fields and regions here
607
Breathe forth elixir
2673
pure, and rivers run
608
609
610
Produces, with terrestrial humor
2678
mixed,
611
Here in the dark so many precious things
612
Of color glorious, and effect so rare?
613
Here matter new to gaze the Devil met,
614
Undazzled. Far and wide his eye commands,
615
For sight no obstacle found here, nor shade,
616
But all sun-shine, as when his beams at noon
617
Culminate
2679
from th’equator, as they now
618
Shot upward still direct, whence no way round
619
Shadow from body opaque can fall, and the air,
620
621
To objects distant far, whereby he soon
622
Saw within ken
2682
a glorious Angel stand,
623
The same whom John saw also in the sun.
2683
624
His back was turned, but not his brightness hid.
625
Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar
2684
626
Circled his head, nor less his locks behind
627
628
Lay waving round. On some great charge
2687
employed
629
He seemed, or fixed in cogitation
2688
deep.
630
Glad was the Spirit impure, as now in hope
631
To find who might direct his wandering flight