Book VII

ARE these, the brethren's names, in Mnason's vessel,
Souls foreordained, whom Christ sends unto Britain:
Joseph and faithful Salema, the saint's wife;
And Aristobulus, kinsman to the Christ,
Of Miriam's house: who tarried, slow of heart,
Till from the dead, rose Jesus; to believe.

But standing, daily, then, in Solomon's Porch,
And being an eloquent man, he did confute
The Jews. And when was Stephen stoned, rebuked
Them, boldly. Nor, for that, he ceased to preach;
That Jesus, risen, is the very Christ.

Then some laid, on him, hands, to hale without;
To stoning place. But saved the Roman watch;
Whose captain him, to Pontius Pilate, sent,
In Cæsarea; who finding, in the man,
No cause, him loosed; and dwelled the saint, with Joseph.

And there is Barnaby, singer of sweet lauds,
One numbered, erewhile, with the eremites,
Called the Lord's Poor; which lodge, in hollow rocks,
And booths, in wilderness of the Salt Plain;
As thou, to city of Jericho, goest down:
Where they converse, as angels, on the earth;
And cleanse, by washings, and through daily fast,
Body of this death, which doth our souls molest.

Went Jesus up to Galilee, unto the feast,
Journeying, by Jordan; and great multitudes,
Which heard him, and would see His mighty works,
Followed His footsteps, on both sides the stream:
Came Barnaby's company, heard voice of great press,
Forth, from their caves, to see the Teacher pass.

And stood the multitude, for, lo, in that point,
Some sick ones, certain, unto Jesus brought;
Who, laying on His hands, healed them all.
He opened then the eyes of one born blind,
And all men marvelled. Jesus turned His face,
Looked upon Barnaby! and the eremite's heart
Leapt; and in that was molten in his breast.

Then Barnaby followed, in that cragged path,
Which mounts aye up, to Zion's holy place.
He came to Bethphage; and beheld, far off,
Jesus, Who standing, midst much people's press,
Before a tomb. Then, loud, the Lord called Lazarus!
And he, which had been, three days, dead arose.

But Barnaby entered, in Jerusalem;
He, in the temple, heard the Master preach.
Last, in that dayspring, when the stars did weep;
With Jesus' brethren, and the twelve, and Lazarus;
The Roman band, he followed, trembling, forth.
And come without the bloody city's gate,
He stood; and Jesus saw, ah! nailed on cross:
And twixt two thieves, how lifted-up, alas!
And, from their walls, mocked cruel Jews, aloud.

Then did long sorrow wring their faithful hearts,
Until, like lily, folds the Lord, on rood,
His virgin head, and passed His suffering flesh!
(Ah! ignominy of a malefactor's death.)
But thou, cursed gallow-tree; for died, on thee,
Jesus, art named our Tree-of-Life, henceforth.
They kneeled and wept; and quaked the centred earth,
And fell a dread great darkness, on the ground;
And rent that rocky hill was, from beneath.
He saw, from sepulchres, rise some holy dead;
And lift, towards that bloodstained, life-giving, wood,
Their arms, from shrouds: and Him, which hanged thereon,
Adore! They entered in the city's gate;
And in dim shadow, (when, the sun eclipsed,
Forsaken were her streets,) those walked unmarked.

He saw Christ risen, and he believed; and sith,
Saw Jesus taken up, from Olivet!

Then, with his mother, Barnaby, in Ophel, dwelt,
Nigh to Mount Zion; which is the Levites' ward:
Where also the high-builded house of Joseph;
Whereas, prepared, for Jesus and the twelve,
The Passover was; wherein the Lord did bless,
(Eve of that day, when He was offered up,)
Last dear Remembrance, of the wine and bread.

There dwelling, His disciples did await,
The Promise: and with Miriam, they conversed;
Which virgin-mother was, of the Lord's flesh.
But when was Stephen stoned, fled the eremite saint,
With Sabra, his mother, down to Cæsarea.
And given to brother Barnaby, is a new spirit,
Of song; and voice, to hymn Christ's kingdom sweet.

Then Shalum that, is named, the Gileadite,
Howbeit, of Galilea, his father was:
Who dead; in Ramoth, fostered was his youth,
Amongst his mother's kinsfolk; where being grown,
To comely manhood, Israelite devout;
He journeyed to Jerusalem, to Jews' feast.
But come to Jordan flood, in that he passed,
By the stream's midst, singing, with manly voice,
A song of Israel's sons, ascending up.

Before the Lord; John, which baptized there, poured
Water, that seemed as fire, on Shalum' s head!

Came the young Gileadite unto, Daughter-of-Zion!
Thy strong walls of Salvation, and high towers,
Those tried foundations, pleasant goodly stones,
(The City of Praise;) and he, from brook, upmounted,
Of Kidron; enters in the Holy Place,
By the gate Beautiful. Shalum then, midst press,
Of devout Jews, which there, before the Lord,
Stand, seemeth the stedfast pillar of a palm;
Mongst trees of the wild field. Sith, certain kinsfolk,
He, of Beth-saida, (Philip's city,) found;
Of them which lodged, in villages, olive-yards;
Or even under thick trees, without the walls,
(Having, strangers, none acquaintance, in the town.)

Have those persuaded Shalum, then, go down,
After the feast, unto Gennesareth,
With them, to claim his father's heritage.
Now, when, of Passover, the seven days were ended,
And being, this year, also, his mother dead,
In Ramoth Gilead; what time parted forth,
Those, mongst the great returning companies,
Of Galileans, that hold the upper path;
He follows with them. The eighth day, they pass,
By hills of Nazareth. Shalum thence went forth.
With those his kinsfolk, to Tiberias:
Where, of the Tetrarch, was his father's field
Restored; and who were seized thereof, hath Herod
Antipas, from his judgment-seat, condemned,
To pay, the forepast fruits, out of their goods.

In the next month, among the husband folk,
Young Shalum tilled, nigh to that blissful lake,
His glebe; and as he wrought, still looked towards heaven,
Musing, when should that Promise be revealed.
And, aye, he, in bosom, bears Isaiah's scroll.
And wont is Shalum, in the open field,
Therein, what hour his labourers eat their bread,
To read. But, when now barley-harvest ended,
Was bidden Shalum to a marriage feast,
(Is that in Cana,) to a kinsman's house:
And called thither, the Lord's mother was;
With kinsfolk of the bridegroom's house, from
Nazareth.

And that same day, ascending from the lake,
With few disciples, (Andrew, James and John,
Simon and Philip,) to high wilderness;
Befel, that Jesus fared, by Cana; and taught
The Lord them, in the way, as they paced forth.

And, hearing them, from door of the spouse-house,
Came forth the bridegroom, (young Bar-Talmai,) crowned,
With lilies fair; anointed and parfumed,
With myrrh, and clad in raiment white. And calls
Them in, from Cana street, his joyful voice;
(Is day of his heart's gladness:) calls, by name!
To his espousals. Mongst the marriage guests,
They sit: and sith, with singers and with lights,
The bride brought home; when timely hour, they sit,
To sup, in linen marriage garments white:
And given thanks, stretcht forth right hands, they eat,
With gladness; and sith drink. But when wine lacked,
To chief one of the servants, Jesus spake.
Those draw then, from the water-fats there set,
For the Jews' washing; and bear forth, thereof,
At Jesus' word, to all the bridal guests:
That marvel, tasting of their new-filled cups!
Supposing, this some fetcht-in old wine was.
The morrow after, from high wilderness;
Where He, in prayer, continued had, all night,
Again descending, Jesus, to the lake,
By Shalum's field, lo, cometh, in stony path!
And Shalum, husbandman, scatters his seed corn,
After the plough, and chants prophetic verse;
He shall grow up, before Him, as a root
Out of dry ground. On Shalum, Jesus looked!

As sunny ray glanceth through waterbrooks,
So Christ's gaze pierced his being. The Lord spake,
Shalum!
Who took his cloak and staff, and followed forth.

Nor least is Alexander, Simon's son:
Nor any is least, nor any first, in heaven.
Moreo'er, is Barnaby's mother, Sabra, of them
Which washed the Master's feet: and numbered is
With the holy women, called the Hosts-of-Christ,
Which had both ministered to Him, in the path;
And of their substance also, in the feasts.
Of whom was Salema, Joseph's wife; and niece
To Anna prophetess. In high Mizpeh, dwelt
His mother, Elyma, widow; one whose gates,
Unto all which fared by, to the Holy Place,
Stood alway open: whence might such refresh
Them, in their way, with bread and wine; and rest.

Thus, also, came Salvation, to her house.
Miriam, with child and weary, there did rest:
And sithence Jesus, with His parents, both;
Night of what day they, longtime, had Him sought;
With hearts of sorrow, in their straitened breasts.
Words spake then, of the Kingdom, and the Faith,
That Holy Child, of Israel; insomuch,
Was that day, kindled in the widow's breast,
A lively hope, were this He, which should break
The Yoke from off their necks: and spake thereof,
Elyma, at Lydda, unto rich young Joseph,
Affianced to her daughter. These be, Christ!
Thy little church, that fleet, in Mnason's ship.

Now month is in; when set the Pleiades,
Shipmen forsake sea's boisterous wilderness;
Laid up, in havens, their carracks and long ships.
Only this storm-beat carrack holds the deep.

Though long be, till crude winter season change,
Dear to the saints, are their seafaring days;
Wherein new birth and childhood of their lives.
Fair is that fleeting fulness of the seas,
In whose round molten bosom, their keel rides.
Falls now the storm, and sleep grey dapple waves:
Or these like fallows, and much furrowed field,
Whose springing blade is wallowed of the wind.
And aye sea's infinite bruit is in their ears,
Like to an everlasting voice of God.
Then seem the watery billows clap their hands,
Their keel beneath, that breasts the watery path.
And seem, in still days, these wide-wandering seas,
Neath crystal bent of heaven, like sunlight helm,
And glittering hauberk of the Lord of Hosts!

But when stoops tempest, on the cragged deep,
Lifting up billows, like to blowing woods,
Those seem some barking wolves, that scour to land.

Or hurled together, with high-running crest,
Foaming out rage, they barren rainbow-drops,
Do toss again into the windy loft.
In tumult, then, of storm, waves ride on waves;
Like God's great army of justling chariots,
And squadrons rushing, in long confused ranks;
Or thousand cataracts, on the dry land.

Now in that dark-ribbed chamber of the ship,
Writes Joseph record of the days of Christ,
Paths of His feet, words of His blessed voice,
Which fell, like dew of Hermon, on men's souls:
His wondrous works; Christ's death on gentile cross.
And how being risen Jesus, from the dead,.
Was forty days, of many, seen alive.
This, daily, in those few brethren's ears, he reads;
Whereto they, with one heart, confer what things,
Each one, his eyes, his ears, his happy hands,
Have seen, heard, handled, of the Word of Life.

Moreover them, those few gentile souls, hath given
The Lord, which, mariners, sail in Mnason's vessel;
Save Adherbal, pilot, old in rust of sin;
Which to God's spotless Lamb, might not be won.
Naught profited them hath Baal, in time forepast,
Astarte, Adonai, Melkarth, their false gods,
Nor the Kabirs, those great ones of their ships,
Glad tiding they receive, from Joseph's lips,
Of heavenly love, and soul's-rest after death.

So long, in heaven's darkness and much rain,
They fleet, the saints, well-nigh, forget their count
Of days. Oft reason their sea-faring men,
Whither, in seas, they drive; if nigher were
They Gadera, or jeopardy else of Lybic coast?
Somewhiles, they tell, of many adventures strange,
These seas beyond; where vessels of long voyage,
Sailing, by stars, wont, after moons, arrive;
And Syrtes, (waves commingled with quick-sands;)
And paths of far Phoenician merchandise.

Tells Ithobal, master, of fair Isle, which lies
Long past the gates, of Melkarth-Hercules,
Outward, amidst vast Ocean's running stream;
Whence, in his father's days, storm-driven vessel,
Which loosed from Gadera forth, was returned safe.
Lies, neath wide heaven, men deem, none further coast.
And seems that isle, whose midst a mount, to fleet;
Whereon the firmament, stayed, like a steel glass.
Is that the Island of the Blessed; where souls,
Pure from all stains, and now immortal made,
Dwell in a mountain, which ascends to God.
More fair are those than children of the world,
Nor know they travail, or for meat or cloth;
Nor tempest's wrath, nor snow, nor winter's scathe;
But pluck ambrosial fruits, in holy grove,
Whose leaves, is fame, drop honey; and are, therein,
Twain living wells, which flow forth wine and milk.
And crowned their brows, with never-fading flowers,
All days, in feast, with joyous dance, those pass.

The pilot old, tells, how his ship-feres cast
Away, far in the sides were of the North,
Where hanged the stedfast star, above their mast;
Nor this, that we know, day, nor night, is there,
But each, by long returns of half the year;
Their year one day: men plough, at dawn, and sow,
Harvest at noon; and gather fruits, at eve.
Yet, in their long night, is clear flickering gleam,
Of frosty stars. Cold cliffs, of that sea-deep,
Are blue-ribbed ice; whence oft strange lofty sounds
Are heard, as lute-strings knapped, of the ice-god.

Clothes those dull waves, much fleeting icy dross,
The rotten spume of an eternal frost;
Wherein seen swimming hairy strange sea beasts,
With visages of men, and immane fish;
Whose gape, they say, might swallow a great ship.

Tells Ithobal then of soil, whose stones are tin,
And silver mangers of Hesperian steeds;
And mighty rivers, rolling golden sands.
But in those seas, by night time, kindled flames,
On many a foreland, shine, to misguide ships.
Tells shipman Phelles, how on Zidon's quays,
Sit old worn mariners, that with toothless chaps,
Carp of strange seas, and marvels still report,
Of many far-off lands, which they have seen.

But, all seem shadows, fables of vain things,
As who should hoise a net, on his main-yard,
To sail his ship, or would pursue a bird;
To these now newborn souls, which them submit,
To God, in Christ, great gain of their lost voyage!

The tinny wedges, silver, iron, the brass,
Wherefore, wont Cyprus' ships trade to far coast;
What Araby parfumes, and fine gold, sends forth;
Hind ivory, and doting Mizraim l linen wares.
And Javan bronze; whence, Zidon's merchant folk,
Wont turn enriched, in paragon, seem as dross,
Of those new riches of our souls, in Christ.

Weary begone, all on the winter seas,
They drive, one night-time, sleeping in their carrack,
Under an isle, not far from Tartesse coast:
There sheltered from all winds, the vessel rides.
When morrow breaks, behold, a forest cliff!
Phelles and Malchus swim, on boards, to land.
In little islet, warped the rest their ship,
They now, by stairs, descend on the white sand.

Is comfort, in all hearts, when stand their feet,
Now on fast earth, out of the unstable deep.
Then some, spersed forth, their garments wash, longs shore;
And in the sun display. The holy women,
Bear meal out of their ship: sith kindled hearths,
They bake, neath sandy embers, hasty-bread.

But Malchus ranging, to search out those cliffs,
Hath found, mongst sharp wild crags, some sullen cave,
Shelter for all their souls. They sing an hymn,
And giving thanks to God; on these sea-brinks,
Now sit to dine. O'ershines glad winter's sun,
Them, of an azured heaven, golden fair.

Then, to that hold, they gather leaves and halm,
Some draw in boughs, defence from the night wind:
Other pight pales, hang curtains, and divide
Their bower. This, chamber, for the stuff and women,
That, for the men. They, gently, bear then, in
The pilot; who, sith when Isle Iranim,
They passed, lies bedrid. Speechless, nigh to death,
This dreams and oftwhiles wanders, from his mind.

Here lodged, at eve, they thank God for good house.
Long yet the nights; but they, with great heaped fires,
Do them recomfort, of sweet-smelling pine.

Phelles, who climbed the cliffs, to-day, surviewed
The land; had seen nor house, nor eared field,
Nor path of wight, but all lie salvage wild;
Wherefore, to-night, their carrack, without guard,
They leave: and sithen having supped and prayed,
And them commended to the grace of God,
Their eyes, in peaceful rest, the Angel closed.

They rise, at dawn, up from their leafy beds:
And when they lifted have their hearts and prayed,
Fetched Phelles saws and axes from the ship.
Him follow, and good Ithobal, all, to forest.

Those shipfolk, and the brethren, by them, taught,
Labour together there, refit their carrack:
They hew down pitch-trees; plane new yard and mast;
And boards, whereof to frame another bark.
And sweet that labour was to them which wrought.
Travailling their hands, converse their souls, in earth,
With angels seemed; and, in their midst, is Christ.

Nigh the sick pilot now, to his last end,
They pray and lay, at eve, on him, their hands:
At dawning ray, he passed. Old Adherbal, dead,
They bear, sun-setting, forth, to blue sea-brinks;
Where digged is, (which he, dying, asked,) his grave:
Pight Phelles sith a steer-staff, at his head.

They caulk, with hassog reeds, they pay, with pitch,
That Ithobal stills, to make her staunch, the ship.
The holy women sew their mainsail rent.
They heave her tackling taught then, and redress
Her wicker bulwarks. This dures forth, few weeks.

Were sitting, in a twilight, after meat,
The saints, whom Albion sees now well refreshed;
When bitter choking reek smites on their sense;
And where they, late, charred wood, strange glow is seen:
Fly skritching birds, in current of night wind.

Hark rushing, in nigh thicket, of wood beasts!
Leap up, ah! on hill-brow, wild crackling flames.
The Angel breathed then terror in their breasts!
So that, caught up their bundles, all flee forth;
Nor any turn their face; till, come to ship,
They climb, amazed, aboard, with panting hearts!
So cut her moorlines. Wafts them evening wind,
Then, from that land. Lo, like to brazier, burns
The Isle, behind them, with much falling smoke;
And ruds the waves. They, come out, to the large;
Hoise sail. But Albion guides the carrack's course;
Appeasing their desire of the dry land.

They come then carried, in discourse of days;
Where currents fight together of two seas,
In Tar tesse-straits; l twixt opposed beetling cliffs,
Derne Kalpe and Abyla. (Mongst Zidonians, is
Fabled, that rent them Melkarth-Heracles,
In-sunder; where, erewhiles, was long ridged mount)
They see, where their keel fleets, thick bedded ribs;
(Clothed with long tangle-locks, of wild sea-wrack,
And shells,) of many drowned and broken ships:
And, under rumbling caves, strewed the white sand,
With skulls and dreary bones of mariners;
That, to and fro, washed in cold-sliding billows,
Do make their everlasting moan, to God!

Beyond, illimitable deep, appears!
Rolling to heaven, high watery wilderness;
Whereto their carrack tends, as she did know
Her path. They, from that inner sea, passed forth;
Lo, stoops, now, sun's vast rundle, to her rest.
They, looking back, behold those ends of land,
Ah, token of God's peace, with rainbow, crowned!

Them smites then Lybian wind. Yet other days,
They drive: till, by noon-shadow of his staff,
Night stars, and his ship-card, good Ithobal casts,
Their height were nigh now that of golden Tagus;
Whither trade Zidon's ships, for tin and brass.
They, sith, sailed by two high tempestuous capes;
Which passed, before them, lies vast treacherous gulf,
Where peril is, by keels of cruel pirates;
Whence on sheen circle of the empty deep,
Their sea-wont mariners' eyes, all day, ben fixt!

Last looms great Gaul's hill-coast, before their mast;
By vertue of Julius, late subdued, uneath,
To imperial Rome. Gaze-on, with lifted hearts,
The saints, till skies, in russet hews, ben clad:
And sith, through glooming eve, till the night-murk;
When wafts their ship, from land, new springing breath.

So that, when day now daws, appears Gaul's coast,
Like far-off tents; which, sith, they see no more.
Droops, dies the wind, to calm: twixt the sheen heavens,
And this wide-circling deep, seems hang their ship.
Poises, past noon, to the heaven of heavens, high Albion,
That mighty angel; midst bright Seraphim,
To stand, Yet, in his parting, the bruised carrack,
He sealed with signet, graven with that Name,
Which cannot uttered be of men or angels!

He went, to Godhead up, like sudden gleam,
Which mirror casts, against the sliding sun.
And, in his parting, feel the saints of Christ,
A creeping cold; as one who sits by hearth,
Whose kindly flame, now dying, is nigh spent.
Albion's ascending, have malignant spirits
Beheld, whose habitacles in these coasts.

In upland Gaul, amongst vast pathless brakes,
Dark rock-ribbed gulf, in dim Carnutian wood,
Dread Abermaw, (which sounds the Gate-of-death,)
To hell descends; and baleful is the place.

None herdsman thither leads his wavering flock,
Few only wicked herbs, that mould brings forth.
Who wayfare in the wood, wend far about;
Nor feet of any fugitive durst approach:
Nor, in that soil, is heard man's living voice;
But booms the owl, wolves ghastful yell, by night,
And there, the spotted lynx, her harbour hath;
And o'er the d wale-grown cankered bramble-thicks,
The uncheerful spider, weaves her poisonous gins.
Is fame, huge Yotuns digged, that griesly pit,
Of old, what time made earthborn giants revolt,
Gainst the long-living mightier, sky-born, gods;
Shelter gainst hurled-forth lightnings of heaven's wrath.

And, quoth the Muse, In that dim loathly gulf,
Saw I great twilight train, assembled spirits!
With trump and immane arms and boisterous looks,
Gods Caradoc, Bran and woad-stained Camulus,
Whose iron mails, yet, were black, with battle-blood.
Terror and Murrain came to those war-gods;
Whom followed yellow Pestilence and pale Flight;
And came mad Discord, drunken of the cup,
Of mixture of men's blood and heaven's wrath.

I saw, like Ocean, in vast boughts, uprolled,
Then immane worm, of hellish countenance,
Bit of whose teeth is an aye-rankling sore;
And blasts fair world, so wide, her carrion breath:
Wreak, madness, pangs of hell, are in her voice!
And hiss her tongues, of rancorous fell despite,
From morn till eve, against the very gods.
(Her gods have, whom they shun, named Household
Strife.)

There saw I Faction, full of whispering jaws,
Much strife of words, whence springing enmities:
And warlike Gaul this challenged for his own.
Nigh whom, with impious looks, brain-wasting Wrath:
All-kindled were his eyes, as coals. On jars,
And frantic outrage, set is his delight.
To their decay, men hearken to his voice.

Disdain went by, then, tiptoe stalking demon;
With countenance of high mind, and wondrous worth:
But aye thing, which he yester did affect,
With strouting lips, to-day, contemns this fiend.
Then blasphemous Despair, lean crooked wight;
That stinks of misery and is evil breathed.
Where enters this, like thief, unto an house,
Hope, on the threshold, dieth; and as he goeth,
He murmurs to himself, All life is loss,
And, oft, this slew himself, with burning knife.

Swelling Ambition, busy climbing demon,
Passed by, like he-goat, standing on the nape,
Of silly sheep; whence leapt, anon, he stalks,
O'er heads of men's tumultuous multitude.
This seen his father fallen, would hardly stay
Uplift the old wight; sith only himself he loves.
Yet in his heart, could find, to die, the fiend;
So trumpet fame should blaze his empty praise;
And his name, fable of men's idle hours,
Ride upon tongues, that sound by the rank breaths,
Of taverners, harlots, gulls. And still this looks,
For some exceeding meed of his light parts.

One, masking in a cloud, mongst thronging fiends,
Drew nigh; of kin to those fell Spirits forepast.
Old Riches him, (but some say, Envy, part,
His father was,) on mother base, begot,
Lewd Ease. Brute-Ignorance, sith, the demon nursed,
Wherefore this is, whom gods of darkness named,
Presumption, for all his vain-glorious boast,
Maugre his o'ergrown, sluggard, unknit, joints;
Still found, at proof, to every manly work,
Unapt. He seemeth some lourdain, lither, youth,
Distempered, foul, distract; the milk-beard springeth
Yet hardly on whose peaking, froward, face.

Presumption, wise words of the old, despiseth;
And who, before, expert. What though this demon,
Do, each hour, fall from some dread precipice;
Yet, nor by such, may he, nor other's hap,
Be taught. This deigns, from his cloud-height, uneath;
And that, with lofty blighting eyes, look forth,
On sick world's, burdened, bruised, bound, multitude;
That sore must travail, and wear thrifty cloth.
The fiend takes but small keep of other's merit;
Since only he would, himself, should be set forth,
(Vile counterfeit!) The remnant, he accounts
Dust, base world's dross; even who divinest spirits;
Aye, and every lofty work of theirs bebarks,
Presumption, still, with his hot carrion breath.

Heart-nipping Envy saw I nigh approach.
Is this a meagre, hollow, homicide, fiend,
Whom once high gods bound with a brazen band.
Aye grudging hear of other's happy chance,
And full of teen, this murders his own mind.
His gossip, derne Suspect, with frozen face;
For dread of thing should never come to pass,
Saw I; and of a poison-cup this drinketh,
Who eyes awry, of double-meaning, hath.

Pride stalked by, on long shanks. Is his the vaunt
Of some high lignage. Twin he of Self-love,
And father of Mischance. Is his pretence,
A fond pre-eminence. This demon hath
Two hidden asses' ears, under his hairs!

Came dogfaced in, nefarious, Avarice;
Who wars breathes on the earth. Guile, glozing fiend,
Full of veiled eyes, passed crippling to the ground.
And every eye a glistering adder seemed,
That lieth, in baleful wait, under some bush.

Yet monstrous demon saw I, shake those cliffs,
Strong Spirit of Storm. As stands some drizzling pine,
Sere, without rind, and muted-on of birds,
Mongst lower woods; so this mong demon gods.
Heaven's lightning blinded had his boisterous face.
A whirlwind on him seized, and smote to ground;
Where, flocking, trode on him all other fiends.

I saw hell moved; mongst those infernal spirits,
Stirred tumult rife; and midst much striving, was
One haled, by the hair: and Violence hurled hii forth,
From that assembly; unworthy found, consort
With fiends! For as dread demons the High God,
Above them; they as much, beneath, abhor
Blind blasphemous Despair; whom cannot hell
Contain, nor floods withhold of Tartarus:
Wherefore, alone. Despair no fellow hath;
For unto all he adversary is.

His tongue that barked erst outrage, gainst all powers,
In heaven and hell, and mortal creatures, both,
Hell-hounds, which angry gods against him sent,
With torment, outrent, from his strangling throat;
Where serpent it became, on earth's low ground;
Which sith named Spite, creeps, dropping venimous rheums,
Eachwhere, through the whole world. Long dumb he was:
But, sith, Despair a new tongue gotten hath.

Blind is the fiend, of old time; when he pluckt,
From boiling brain-pan's bloody sockets forth,
His two eyes, with lean, crooked, iron claws.
But the extreme horror of his countenance,
There might no tongue, of earth-born flesh, unfold.
That outcast fiend, a mirror, still upholds;
Wherein, if eye should, even of a god,
Behold; his spirit, though deathless, should taste death!

Dread spirits in darksome gulf, low underground,
None seemed more dire thaji heart-consuming Care;
Whose squalid days, aye cumbered, like a curse,
All, in disease, misspent. And oft beats Care,
With groans, as wretch undone, his blubbered face;
And fares like one that mourneth for the dead.

Yet falls no dread, in Care's breast, of the gods.

From shadow, unto shadow, of each place,
Where might he find some pause, flits the rackt fiend:
A stinging swarm of flies, aye, about his ears.

Blear are his eyes, still dropping acrid rheums:
Eyes, whence the dreadful pains of hell look forth!

Full aye of blains, and lapped in filthy clouts,
Saw I his wearish body nigh consumed,
With sighs, and baleful never-ending smart,
As of forsaken heart, and long night-watch.

Still without sleep this murders his own mind:
And cause that twice die mortals is the fiend.

And where, with straitened brows, comes this, unglad;
All gather blackness, faces of the gods.

In that hell-ground, saw I, descending rife,
House and hearth gods, great unhold rabblement,
In guise of lesser loathly infinite beasts;
Toads, adders, flitter-mice and crested newts.
Came thronging wild gods, of earth's field and wood,
Punks, spectres, bugs; earth, well and mountain sprites,
Skrats, woodwives, goblins, of earth's forlorn night;
In guise of werewolves, fitchews, and strange shapes,
Of chafers, gnats, and gledeworms' garish brood;
And worms from crossway-graves of murderers.

Then saw I mightiest fiends, take aweful state;
Whose lewd dread shapes, there might no tongue unfold.

They sit on ranges, round, of swart-ribbed rocks.
Uprose great Rumour, herald of the gods;
Who husht that fell assembly, with huge voice,
That seemed the hum of nations, and the noise
Of tumbling streams and winter-storm, in forest.
Then seething hideous silence! as in grove,
Whose sere leaves ruffled of chill autumn wind.
Yet casts, like woodwale, oft loud yell! some fiend.
Is Rumour many-headed demon god,
With thousand tongues. Were, like vast burning wheel,
His nether parts, whereon he seemed to move.

Last, husht that great assize, rose sea-god rude,
That boasts him, before all world's gods; because
His streams, as serpent, middle-earth enfold.
Three salvage blasts, blew he, on his wreathed horn!
Run-to brown and black elves, whom Luridan leads,
Ground-demons' king, heard deep earth-bellowing sound;
From seven stages of dark under-world.

Dwarves rise up in the floor, that in fast rocks.
Like maggots, wonne. Come cloudy-reeling train,
Of painted nightmares, dwelling nigh to death;
That, when, gone down on this dull clot of earth,
Sun's rundle, rise, dark mists; and do afflict
Men's weary sense, when they should timely rest.
Yet saw I stand, midst shapes of demon gods,
Of wretched wights, which perish on the ground,
Strong stubborn spirits; that wait on their behests,
With kindling eyes, like eagles and winged beasts.
That sea-god spake, and shook his briny locks;
And sware by Hell, and by his thousand floods,
That certain arduous, high, exalted spirits,
Exiled from heaven, which sith in haughty steeps,
Of ether, have their frosty mansions,
Flying the empyrean starry eaves beneath,
Of the aye-wheeling, glassy, firmament;
In jeopardy of high heaven's bright burning javelins,
As stars, shot forth; heard new song of God's angels;
Saying, Hear O Heavens! And ye, of the low Earth,
Inhabiters; all, give ear unto My voice!
Salvation of our God, and of His Christ,
To the Isles; And God saith, They shall know My Law.

(In that, seemed flame-forth the dull heavens above;
And shoot craig-splitting lightnings, to pit's ground!)

Is this great sea-god, a soothsaying Spirit;
In whom yet shines derne light of heavenly birth:
And girts the god's frounced brows, a guirland swart,
Of salt sea-wrack. He cried among the gods,
And quake deep vaults of all that horrid house,
And on them all long stares. With spumy lips,
At last, he spake; I saw, from painted womb,
Of yond Phoenician hull, born sacred brood,
Shall quench our bloody altars, and deface
Our fanes; and all hew down our hallowed groves.

Consult then gods of Gaul and Island Britain,
In Abermaw, with the blue watery gods,
How, all suddenly, they might destroy that vessel,
Whose angel-ward now mounted from the world.
Ordain those gods send messengers unto Satan;
And chosen three fleetest spirits, they bade them speed.
Those straight, from midst the pit, like arrows, rose!
Then Rumour huge, dissolves this parliament.

Rise all; on seething wings, like locust swarms,
From Abermaw; or like are those damned fiends,
Small mingled fowl, that surge in Autumn fields.
And now the mid of night, to mortals, is.

The sound, in the thin lift, is of their wings,
Neath shining stars, like to that dry East wind,
Which soughs at dawn, and shakes the forest leaves.

And sith they light down, at Armoric shore;
And cast from Venetan dark cragged coast,
Forth hellish cries; and full is all the night,
Of whispered crimes. Those messengers, then, to Satan,
To plain already stoop, beyond the Alps.

Lighted on Alban mount, which surviews Rome,
They plumb, like ospreys, through swart wave; and stood,
In ever-burning belly of that hill,
Beneath; where keeps the god of this low earth,
Presumptuous spirit, great Lucifer, his high court.
Son-of-the- Morning, he, an equal throne,
Would challenge, with Alfather; God, in heaven!
But pierced by lightning-arrows of God's wrath,
He all day, (a thousand years, that day,) to earth,
Fell; and fell league, as stars did rain, of angels,
Damned with him. Satan, great Hell, timbered hath,
For their abode, beneath the centered Earth.

He, heaven-spurned prince of fallen starry host,
Sits buffeted of huge, high, tumultuous thought,
Touching the world, since High God it accursed;
Might not Earth's heritage, now, be wholly his?
Unto him those swift air-running messengers,
Arrive. Them Satan hears, with guileful ears:
Commands Abaddon, strong prevailing demon,
Who sits, with spotted wings, at Hell's right hand,
(In shape, a dragon, is that murder-fiend,)
Then fly, with their returning embassage.

Hell's angels tower, from high hill-seat, nigh Rome,
To the wild winds, bove Earth's green-tawny face.
They compass a man's journey, in a moment:
And soon beneath them, as white mere-stones, set,
Were of a garden, see the vast, towered, Alps.
Abaddon stoops then, with more easy flight;
O'er Gaul's wide plain, that seems a forest field.

In his iron wings, destroying tempest rides,
Uproots the groves, and blasts all tender buds.
The ploughman's hope, he smites, of the green corn,
With rattling hail; and in the field, abroad,
His herds and flocks; he smites the widow's thatch;
To the end, might wretched wights, by nature, blind.
Blaspheme the God of Heaven, and stain their souls.

In hour of lark's uprising; when the sun
Looks from her golden lattice, in the East,
Declines Abaddon, to the shore of Gaul.
A little, then, suspends his haughty flight,
To thwart Gaul's seas. Sith o'er loud waves they pass,
To likeness changed, of rushing cormorants.

All sudden surging, from Armoric shore,
That army of fiends, from pit of Abermaw,
Did hurtle with Abaddon in the air.
Then mongst them known, they join anon their powers.
Sith, in dim morning skies, all sit consult.

Half was that daylight spent, when last they rose.
Those eftsoons stoop, which would smite Mnason's vessel.

How spumes dim sea-flood, under demon's flight!
And troubled, lifts up wreathing waterspouts;
Which, on the deep, march, as it were a wood.
And, lo, where, yonder, Mnason's carrack rides,
Midst circling, sheen, sea-face; a calm divine
Diffused about the ship. Infernal reek
Abaddon spewed then, from his hellish gorge,
To hide his devilish arts; wherein descend,
Like to a drizzling rain, now, the damned fiends,
Upon that shipboard of the men of God.

Were slumbering, after meat, those sea-bruised saints,
For weariness; when them seemed already spent
Day's darkening ray: close creeping, in their joints,
Sour rheums and aches; so crud'ling their dull blood,
Unkindly cold! From the dim wallowing flood,
Sounds hellish hubbub, in their drowsing ears.
They deadly dream, and have forgotten Christ,
As spouse forgetteth the new spouse, in sleep.
The deep about them roars, with dreadful noise.
Abaddon, with his sceptre, lifting up
Stour billows; whelms them, mainly, upon their vessel!

Wherein they drench, and seemeth all a sea-grave.
Howbeit no more may Power prevail of Hell,
O'er those few saints; whose prayers yet offered up,
Before the Throne, as incense; (and was sealed
Of mighty Albion their carrack vessel;)
Than all dead world, gainst one man's living force!

Whilst, on these things, I mused, with fear of heart,
For time now is, and that beyond our deaths;
I looked for some in heaven, which should reveal,
Unto my troubled sense, that cannot rest,
The mystery of Hell, and God's world, seeming waste.

Read Muse, which hearest the Canticles of angels,
Touching great Hell, and the aweful fall of Satan!

Was after this I, poet, leaned and slept:
And stood the Muse before my dreaming sense!

Which, opened brazen coffer; and took forth,
SCROLL, blackened, as it were, for eld and smoke;
Yet which seemed, in mine eyes, as clear as glass.

When that, unsealed, she gave it to mine hand.

Quaint-charactered, I that Muse's roll spelled forth.

Like as a child, I it conned; wherein thus writ:
TREMENDOUS HIS PRESUMPTION; warred the Arch-angel,
Gainst HIM Who highest sits, on throne of heaven.
Lo, in infinite night's abysm, without stars,
Gulf, walled with flaming vault of adamant,
Dead world of endless pain, great HELL doth rise;
Where souls, foredoomed, for their eld-father's guilt,
To fall, have their eternal punishment:
Christ save us, from the torments of that tomb!
There HELL, whose countenance, ere, as morning star,
Was fair; at length, unbends his cheerless brows,
To look on that vast world of men and spirits,
Which he hath framed; and proffers blasphemies,
(More horrid drad, than able mortal breath
Were utter, or man's deathling ear might hear!)
Mongst angel-princes fallen from God's Face.
Through all, Hell's aweful voice resounds; and quake
The flaming pillars of that underworld.

Then Hell, exalted, in dread throne, sate down,
As GOD; and lifting his high murder-hand,
Sware mar, and bring to naught, all HEAVEN'S fair works.

To this end, Hell sends, forth, on the Lord's earth,
CONCUPISCENCE, to breathe in living flesh;
And COVETISE, to bring all souls to loss:
Two his most strong are they and subtlest spirits.

Dark, without stars, in the infinite Universe,
Dismeasured, void, is place, which yet no place,
But furthest from God's eye. There Satan cast,
Of Hell's great frame, the baseless fundaments hath.
He laid the plot, there, greater than the Earth;
And strewed with dust and bones of this world's death;
Wherein who lie, as stumbling-stones and rocks,
Or hang, (as lacking sense,) like drowsy moths,
On walls of burning hell, in a death's dream;
Were brutish souls, unworthy punishment.
Dim land it is, whose eager fiery floods,
That fall to everlasting sink of brimstone,
Were tears, with mingled murder-blood of wars:
Whose tempests rife, were sighs of ages dead.
Children of stature, purblind, without stay,
There wander, lost, unnumbered multitude.
Thick-flying eagles, which in fiery loft,
With cruel claws, and sharp beaks, rend their flesh,
Were their old sins; and serpents, where they pass,
Their pithless limbs enfold. And, in await,
Lie mouthing fiends, in shapes of fearful beasts.
Their bodies scourged are of a fiery rain.
And run they shroud them, under cliffs, a moment.
These threaten, lightning-riven, on them fall.
Who fly, their feet, in scalding ooze, stick fast.

Few there are wells, midst smouldering earth and rocks.

Stoops any soul, to drink, for brenning thirst,
It, in his belly, is as molten glass.
Sit who seduced them, grinning visages,
In caves, their bodies buried to the necks,
Chained, under red-hot cliffs, on that dim shore;
Where daily they are drenched, in fiery tide.

Thence hell's vast frame upriseth, by degrees,
Immane, a world of torment, manifold,
Which hath men's thousand-ages' dead received.
But great hell, with vile earthly thing, compare;
Like hornet's nest, in some dim holt, it were,
Which hangs apart, where, seldwhile, foot doth pass.
So hangs great clustered hell, in the abyss,
Deep under deep; whose infinite circuits full
Of wailful nation, peoples that lament
Their endless pains, in serpentine abodes;
Wherein ten thousand kinds of living deaths.

Are, in each circuit, cities of strong torment,
Where demon-gods bear rule, o'er damned souls.
Who higher heaped hath crimes, in hell, is set,
Pre-eminent, up to Hell's temple wall,
Whose dasdale building is of congealed flame:
Wherein, in aweful state, sits Lucifer,
The Majesty of hell; and him adore,
As God, the nations dead and exiled angels.

When passed a time and times, (each thousand years,)
Since day of God's great doom upon the world,
Satan commanded, and dark Samael,
Demon of death, sounding dread clarions thrice,
Summoned, before him, all Hell's angel host.
Come thousand captains of Hell's horrid house,
With thousand squadrons. They, in Satan's court,
All mustering, sink their statures; like as were
They thousand pestilent swarms of stinging flies.

Unto every Prince, of fallen angel-host,
Satan his ward assigns; high Regiment,
In burning hell's tremendous cloistered womb;
Bound within bound, in wheeling horizons,
Impassable, to more excess of anguish,
With iron aweful noise. Whereto compare,
Base worldly thing, were like those rumbling millstones,
Pale housewives roll; nor rest, for any weariness,
To grind out, till day's end, their children's bread.

Is each hell-city, whence thick reek ascends,
And stench, full of iron bays, of smouldering death;
And whose walls compass in, of burning brass,
Rivers of rushing flames; lest, in their bale,
Souls gather head, to desperate emprise.
None comfortable dew of kindness is,
Soul-steeping slumber, nor, of pain, surcease,
Among the Lost. Who spouses were, in the earth.
Children, familiars, shoot out burning tongues,
In flaming hell, that bitterly upbraid;
And pierce, with sharp reproach, each other's breasts!

Full is that infinite murk, of impotent threats;
Chiding and hate sound in each horrid place;
And this for greater burden of their pain.
Their never-ending sorrow, which aye is
But in beginning, chastens not lost souls;
Nor purify, of hell, the impious flames.

Of every speech are mingled Earth's passed spirits,
Which of like guilt: and as loathe wavering noise,
At border of some fen, where paddocks creak,
Is their much wailing, everywhere, at once.

For swallowed up, in that excess of anguish,
They, on sweet death, each moment, yell and plain,
Which deemed men end, of mortal miseries;
But, for lost spirits, is no more death, alas!

Yet is there one, like HOPE, who, demon, seen;
That sits, in hell, on spikes, in an high place;
But hollow-visaged is, which upward cast,
And his lean hands fold, fearful, on his breast,
His heart to hold, which swells-up, in his throat.
But Very Hope departed from the Earth,
In her last days, spread his wide wings; and sits,
Like fowl on nest, before heaven's gate, and sleeps.

Moreover the Muse's antique scroll rehearsed,
Great Hell's dominion, over trespassed souls.
When great last Dreadful Day was on the earth,
The sun stood still, in heaven; all overwrit,
With iron brows, and spectacles of pain!
At trumpets' sound, on height, down, lightless, rained
Swift stars, to the abyss! and Time did cease.
Children of wrath were pent, with sin-stained face,
In Hinnom's vale, (abominable place,
Defiled and waste,) departed from the blest.
In marriage garments these, in the Lamb's blood,
Made white, were standing in God's Holy Place,
Where they Him wait; and sith ascend with Christ.
Then ceased the Sun, to give her kindly light.
Totters world's frame; ruins! unbound, beneath
Their feet, that rest, in heaps. Who, in that last,
Last, dreadful breach, as the forgotten of God,
Like to untimely leaves, fell, quick and dead,
As out of a vast sieve, to dark mid-space;
Lay, as in endless swoon. Legions of fiends,
Labouring like emmets, gathered down to hell,
And made them, there, by devilish arts, revive;
And quicken to new eagerness of torments.

Though strong the once-outhurled, from heaven, archangel;
Yet dark, deprived of light, is his great being.
He no more knoweth the counsels of the HIGHEST;
What, now in womb of time, should be brought forth.
Shall this great shining admirable hell,
Which he hath founded, without God, stand fast?
Shall God new worlds, shall He new heavens create?
His everlasting ban, shall He release?
Shall Christ, from heaven, descend for all lost flesh?

When Michael felled great Azazel, with his spear,
(For thus was Satan named, erewhile, mongst Angels,)
In plain of heaven: and from celestial court,
Had cast out bound, with his apostate spirits:
Appointed the Thrice-Holy, unto their chains,
Of darkness, certain time and times. Lo, loost
(Their First Doom, thousand-thousand ages, passed;)
The bands of Satan! How his chief estates,
Gathered, to Lucifer, in hell-pit, exult;
In their dread parliament! From his temple, Satan,
Warfare, proclaimed, then; gainst High Throne of HEAVEN!

With truce of hundred years, to souls in pine.
Went up, immane, great shout of Satan's angels.
Armipotent, Lead forth! Straightway, like wasps,
Which creep up from their combs, thick-clustered fiends,
From thousand reeling circuits, dreadful, rise.

Hell lays, on hundred chiefest dukes, command;
To pierce with battery, anon, of devilish engines,
Of burning mighty hell, the adamant cope,
Infrangible. Longwhile, they labour thus:
Till opened were wide breaches. Lo, five wents,
Whence issuing aweful swarms, in fiery tempest,
Like burning motes, that leap from stithy's blast!
Then dimly shine, in vast aetherian loft,
As kindled captive city's misty smoke.

Sith that great host of hell, leads Lucifer,
Where void is most and dark the Universe;
To Tartarus, whose derne high-heaped, poles were wrapped,
With living flame: immane deceitful star;
The former hell! No breath of life, is there,
Of herb nor flesh: In place called Erebus,
They thither now, from their first flight, arrive.

There souls, in prison, fire endured and frost;
And thence was metal delved, of hell's vast mass.
Tremendous strife it covers, aweful noise,
Of fiery elements. Hath, from Tartarus,
Parted, at any time, of creature's lips,
To the Almercies' God, no prayerful breath!

In hell's dim thousand chambered circuits, is
Silence, since Hell passed forth. There long-pent spirits,
Their anguish ceased, in heavy dream of death,
Lie, still. Yet reek all dreadful brazen pits,
With sulphurous fume. Behold, set open wide,
Now, thousand bridged gates of burning brass.

From yet broad smouldering flame, in hell's deep ground,
Chimney of fire, upriseth gusty wind,
And whirling torments of oft fiery breath;
Wherein, (great were their swarms!) like to singed flies,
Are upborne souls: yet other, like scorched worms,
From hellish holds, upcreep. And who first stand.
Now, round hell's rusty jaws, discern far radiance,
Of the lost heavens! Those, eftsoons, breathing, unwont,
Ether, faint: ascended yet, as smoke,
Of hell's immane great burning, hundred years.

Voice then of infinite wailing! gin revive,
And lift up piteous hands, vast sea of souls,
Towards high, bright, isles of yond eternal stars!
Where dwell their brethren, saints, in paradise.

Fathers of peoples, kings in world of old,
Upon whose shoulders, God laid governance,
Stand, mongst their nations' ages, like tall hirds,
Amidst vast flocks. When last those fathers, husht,
Had the infinite sea of hell-pent yammering l spirits:
Like some tall palm, a mighty king stood forth;
Yared, mild-hearted, in old world of violence.
Pastor of nations: ere the sinful flood,
He stretched his sceptre, o'er the Eden of God.
But Yared missed of God's eternal rest,
By an hair's-breadth, in his fleshly lusts, cut off;
And sank, with blackened face, to hell, in death,
Whence full his body is seen of leprous sores!

Kings beckoning, that vast sinworn multitude,
High silence keep. All hearken Yared's voice,
Who prophesies saying. That great Deceiver perished,
Dread Lord of hell; he shall return no more.
Gazed Yared, groaning, on God's stars, and prayed;
O THOU, that pleased somewhile wast to be called
Our Fathers' FATHER, look Alfather, sire,
On this great Death, which we, in hell, endure!
May not, for ever, we behold Thy Face?

And lightened, lo, his visage, whilst he spake;
Is come, again, his flesh, in all men's sight!
Repent we! he cries. Then all those lips impure,
Frame them, unwont, with small and chirking voice,
Each one, as leper's voice, in vast accord,
To sigh forth word of prayer, Thrice-Holy,
Almighty
Alwise Lord, mercy! Hell - pent multitude, heard
MERCY, Chief of the spirits of God's breath,
From utmost hell's confines; and poised to God!
Is this Heaven's messenger, of most mighty wing,
Which far outstretched, as East is from the West,
Flies through the illimitable Universe.

That griesly host of hell, had marshalled Satan,
In Tartarus; to vast shuddering vaporous plain,
And valley of stony horror, Phlegethon.
Whose hollow soil, cliffs hem of reeking brimstone;
Cumbered with ruin of subverted mounts,
Which daily upblown, as bladders, bellowing, rise,
With molten iron spouts, in fiery fen;
To ruin, in the same, with aweful noise.
Midst that dim star-floor, a murk sea-deep lies,
Of fleeting metal, like as burning brass,
Whose billows ride, in storm, on glowing rocks,
And toss out flaming spume, to sunless loft;
Which full of lamps of fire, and thrilling levin.

Behold, like vultures, Satan crouched around,
On craigs, where mingled fire and lofty frost,
Captains and princes, at vast valley mouth.
There lifted up their spotted wings, at once,
Above the immense din, they blaspheme Heaven.
And Satan, thrice, dread Lord of Hosts, acclaim!
Satan sees thence his battles proudly pass.

Impatient, he surviews their quadrate ranks:
Espies some backwardness, then, mongst certain spirits.
Less perverse, they; which read, in their dark breasts,
Scale the steep firmament, were vain emprise,
Should draw, on them, new weight of punishment!

Whilst they, with drooping spears, and trembling crests,
Thus, mongst them question; and those on that wing,
Make cold their fellows' hearts, with fury, Satan,
(Works hidden awe, within him!) he who erst,
Rebelled in heaven; to Chemuel, hath commanded,
(Dread prince, oppressor, this,) yond spirits seditious,
Bring, bounden in, before him. Hell, their plea,
Disdains, that would, frustrate his high designs.
With his spear-heel, that iron ground, Satan strake;
Which yawns, amidst, with cragged chaps, to pit
Of swimming brass; where river, Riggon, runs,
Of flame. Therein those trembling spirits, he cast;
And whelmed, on them, huge hill of iron and brass:
That might hell-without-end, those not scape forth.

Called then his chiefest captains, Macathiel,
Gadrael, dark seraph Samael, (which seduced
First earthling man,) and strong, foul Ruchael,
(Angel of lust and covetise, who taught erst,
To Eve's sons, arms:) he AZAZEL, (the outhurled,
From heaven,) to fleet-winged Hadarniel to guide,
(Is this who governs Hell's lost sphere,) ordains,
By darksome paths of aether's infinite steep.
From isle to isle, which, midst the trembling signs,
As stars, are seen, should be their upward flight.

On stormy wings, Hell uprose, like a whirl-wind,
With railing vaunt! Rise all, then, in a moment,
Leading their dukes, up, from that reeling plain,
Innumerable. They wheel beneath this star;
Where sheltered from the ken of wandering angels,
They, in empty silence, hear Hell's last behests.
Great is their voyage, whose end that supreme strife!

To the first precinct of the court of heaven.
Created thought, which, in an eyeblink, spans
So wide world and sea's face, might hardly pass.

Long space, as hundred winters, now be passed,
Since parted Satan. Falls, in hell's derne gulf;
As sent down from on high, an healing wind,
Restores those sin-worn souls. They taste of rest;
And gin their timeless sorrows to assuage.

As sheaf of sunbeams looks through winter mist,
A living light appeared o'er the abyss.
Voice heard, on height, was, of some blessed ones,
Saying; Holy, Holy, Holy, and keeping mercy,
Lord God Almighty! Angels, lo, of Light,
Descend, on shining wings, in starry ranks.

Hail glorious advent! hail, whom God sends down.

Bright heavenly host. Gaze-on, men's ages lost;
And sinful nations fall upon their faces!
To those strong saving angels, their right hands,
They lift confused; and cover their left hands,
Their sinworn, ah! rebellious visages.

Like silver trumpet's voice, Uriel, archangel,
Which echoes through illimitable hell!
Spake; Unto you, in darkness, souls, outcast,
Lost deathling seed of earthborn Adam's flesh;
Peace, Mercy! And came your crying to Mine ear,
Saith the Thrice-Holy, Almighty, Alfather,
Sire;
And yearned My bowels, like as a mother's womb,
In that she tiding hears of her lost son.
Lo, I, the Lord, which your first-father formed,
Your trespass, which ye trespassed, in tlve earth,
Blot out. Now is Mine anger overpassed.
Then cried the Seraph, Come up from this pit,
Ye that were slain, rise from the second Death!

He spake; and souls receiving heavenly strength,
As cloud of winged ones, all were lifted up;
And hell is no more found beneath their feet!
But even as all things, to their centre, poise;
So angels them sustaining, they towards heaven.

Encompassed of light-bearing angels' host,
Those long, (as they that sleep,) mongst stars, mount forth:
Till they, to plains arrive, of lowest bliss;
Above the spheres, made like the firmament.
At a flood side, which clear, as crystal glass,
Where now they come; the Seraph bids them rest;
Whose angels lead them, mongst celestial flowers;
And pasture, with ambrosial dew, three days:
Yet one day seemeth, for is there no more night.

And lo, in sheep-pool, stands, mongst lilies white,
A mighty HIRD; One like the SON OF GOD:
Who, each one, washeth in that living well;
And gathers each one, on His bosom great,
And on His shoulders lays; on every one,
To set, that are they His, His Shepherd's token;
(Which ruddle seemed: but His own blood it was!)
Nor any there, the least one, shall go lost.

Then bring them angels marriage-garments white;
That flock up, from that blissful watering,
Like new-born babes; and goeth before them Christ.
Hail, Herdsman great! And come forth, with loud hymns,
Bright choir, to meet with them, of holy ones,
Their brethren, which, in all the way, them wait;
With never-fading guirlands, in their hands:
Wherewith they crown that long-lost multitude!

Ah, day of gladness, that exceeds all speech,
Of earthborn souls! wherein decreed high God,
That sin should cease, and should be no more curse:
And taketh now, utterly, away the blot,
The Lord, of death and night, from all His work.

Yet formed God a new heavens and a new earth:
And for those lost, were found, on whom now named
Is name of Christ, a blissful dwelling place;
A little lower than the Paradise.

Touching that perverse host of flying Spirits;
Sore travailling now their wings, (unwearied erst,)
The Power of Darkness mounts, from loft to loft.
And they, like to a burning mist, eclipse,
Each star, whereas they pass. Of Lucifer,
Their flaming tongues chant praises, as they fly.

Now, in that infinite aetherian region,
It pleased Alpower, the Increate God, whose Throne
High heavens, to set a VORTEX terrible;
Wherein that flying host, which follows Satan,
Now fallen, unwares! With gnat-like hideous strife,
Of flickering wings, they beat that divine tempest,
Which carries from each hope, resistless, reaves,
With aye increasing fury. All, long, therein,
They stagger, vainly; and strives great Lucifer,
Mongst his strong captains, (which archangels were,)
In aid of his. He his august wings last folds,
Large as the marches of some earthly nation,
And casts his lot in, with them, desperate!

Tossed then, encompassed of huge fiery whirl-winds,
Tumultuously, they drive, at end, in view
Of citadel celestial; whose clear shore
Shines, like steep heavens' glassy firmament,
With towers and pinnacles and high walls, whereon,
Stand Cherubim, Ophanim, and bright Seraphim;
Next whom, Dominions, Vertues, Thrones, and Powers;
With glorious ranks of infinite heavenly ones,
Clothed in immortal armour of bright light.
With them enranged, and girt with rainbow light,
Are the redeemed great army of the whole earth.
Who, shining ones, stand in vast temple porch,
Are the world's saints, which witnessed unto death.
And therein sit twelve kings, crowned, with the Lamb;
Whom, like the Sun, eye may behold, uneath.

And lo, that once, from heaven, hurled league of Satan!

With their derne wings, would cover, as they drive,
From Heaven's pure eyes, their dusk rebellious faces.
Last comes, clothed with murk cloud, great Lucifer.
And yet a little running moment ere,
Hurl their swart battles, on high heavenly towers!
Whence dasht; they fall, as stubble, all in one.
And their immortal substance lay to-rent.

Mongst all God's creatures, was not any found,
An Intercessor! Silence, then, long space!

Last the Thrice-Holy Godhead, Which restore
Would all His works, commanded; and anew,
There rose, them reaves, immane returning whirl-wind:
Whence, to one place, assembled, Hell's bruised hosts;
Them winnows heavenly flame and purged their being,
Of malice; that they clear are, healed their hurts,
As lamps of light. They bow their knees, great army,
Before the throne. And shall they fall, no more.

And made them God a lower course of angels:
But formed He, of the vast body of Lucifer,
A legion. And the Lord sent, keep, far off,
Inchoate worlds, where yet no vital breath.

Astonished I, from so dread visions, waked:
And murmur of the saints, was in mine ears,
Midst cries of fiends, which in the drowning vessel!
Abaddon calls, gods of Gaul's waterfloods;
And they obedient to his high behest,
From hollows of their hands, poured round the ship,
Their cataracts; that seem drown the very deep.
Surge sea-fiends, at his sign; which wonne beneath
Huge waters' weight. Squalid, with slimy wrack,
And stinking ooze, they rise, towards heaven's light.

When heavenly spirits decayed, from first estate;
In whom yet rests celestial light and breath,
This turned, in them, to rankling impious heat.
And as, in flesh, falls fell concupiscence,
Those powers of darkness, would new world beget;
Which might, in this low earth, frustrate God's work.
Then some with the innocent rocks, with woods, with floods,
Lay; certain companied with the creeky shores:
Insomuch, that eachwhere, of hellish seed,
Sprang demon brood, whose chief ones called men gods,
Gods of this wretched world, forlorn and blind.
Monsters, the seas conceived, in their salt laps.
Gulfs brought them forth, with roarings; and out cast,
On the shole strands. Were even their sires ashamed,
Angels of darkness, so were dread their shapes:
Heaven-fallen gods abhorred their countenance.

Whence, taking counsel, some, in deep sea-ground,
To skerry rocks, they chained: that to the sun,
All-seeing, beneath this bended firmament,
Is their misfeature, as the Night, uncouth.
With these there coupled, sithence, strange sea-beasts,
And other, many, brought forth cruel kinds;
Which stain, with lukewarm blood of scaly flocks,
The silver waves. Of whom some lie, in wait,
For prey of souls of hapless manners;
That cast, as rocks, their shapes in a keel's course;
Or rise, dim mist, or run strong-ebbing currents.
So have they drenched ten thousand gallant ships.

With brunt, some fiends, of huge sea-shouldering whales,
From billows roaring, rush on the bruised vessel!
Totters her hollow bilge of beams and boards.
Some, mast-great serpents, thresh the boiling deep.

Other, with storm of wings, stoop, airborne spirits,
Sea-crows; and with fell shrieks, the board possess,
And all defile, with ordure horrible.
Were these of kind, that wait for souls impure,
Them to depart from grace. And who is there,
Of sinful flesh, those demons, waking, sees,
Farewell his hope, his dread shall come to pass.

Yet, on that board, descend new baneful brood:
Are they night-dreams, vain spirits of illusion.
Like masque, before the slumbering eyes, they pass,
Of those sad passengers. Most, they grieve the sense
Of the Phoenicians, Ithobal and Phelles.
In guise of wailful sea-mews, with men's faces;
They seemed bear in, on bier, their late dead pilot,
Whose buried festered flesh falls from the bones;
Whom, follow on, a sea-drenched fellowship,
Like men their shipferes were; with dropping hairs,
And rotten looks, as risen from a sea-grave.
And gurgling much salt humour, murmurs one,
Foundered their longboat, nigh Isle Iranim:
Few, hardly, saved were grappled to sharp rocks;
But them great poise, of waves, bruised soon to death.

Evil them waits, (they cry out, with one voice,)
In Underworld; which fathers' gods forsake.
Can YAHWAH, battle-sun-god of false Jews,
Deliver them from torments of this Tomb?

The saints now lie twixt deadly wake and dream.
If rockt, on troubled sleep, their sense, a moment,
Then thousand strange misshapes, forms without substance,
Such as man's dry afflicted brain can fashion,
To mock himself withall, with empty pain,
Afflict their being. Thus far Victory hath
Hell, o'er their feeble flesh, which in the ship!

Bethought him then the homicide Abaddon,
(To come to speedy fine of this emprise,)
Of the hydra of the cold Emingian seas,
God of the skin-breeched witches of North parts;
Tremendous monster, like huge serpent, rolled
Her nether parts, about sea-mountain's root.
So lies she, a hidden pitfall, in sea, waves.
Is this great Ran, most horrid offspring dread,
(Corse-greedy Eagor's spouse, Ran also is!)
Of sea-gods' monstrous seed. Are hundred horns,
Mast-great, set round about her hellish face.
But for she grown, in view of other fiends,
So heinous was, they Ran, the whiles she slumbered,
Bound unto mighty millstone's mountain mass,
That Taran, from swart thunder-cloud, outrolled;
And fell in that sea-deep, of rime and frost.
Far from men civil, and the altared world.

Ran daily her hundred snaky arms outlayeth,
Greater than oaks, about her, furlong forth;
In cold salt tide. And all are full of mouths,
Each able suck the blood of a whale-fish;
And though such thresh to dust, the billows wild,
With fearful bellowings, to some remote coast
And sullen shore. Her cast bewray Abaddon,
After the sun; when drowsy, wanting light,
To her devilish cruelty, sinks the hydra fiend.
Might of all fiends, should hale her by the horns;
Or else, they drive, under her baleful hold,
The Tarshish ship. But lo, an holy Angel!
From heaven's steep, descending in the West;
Whose charge is; draw-down dying day to rest.

Under wide-setting rundle of the sun,
Discerned God's Messenger, now o'er Ocean's stream;
Cloud, as some sea-fowl gathered to dead thing.
He saw, in mist of demons' shapes, Abaddon,
Shadowing the main. Then the Lord's angel sounded,
Above the twilight, to the Seven Watchers,
In the empyrium and clear wandering stars.

Stoop, from their see, in heavenly radiance,
Above the blot of night, those blessed ones:
And bearing lamps, as stars, through the dim sphere,
They, swiftly, the dark sea-plain, overfly;
To succour souls. Run-on their winged feet,
O'er waves' unrest, vast watery wilderness.
Their lamps of inextinguishable light,
Pierce the main sea's dull flood, to her deep ground.

Now shine those glorious beams, about the ship,
Quickening the saints, that swoon in dying sleep.
They dream then, deep-sweet blissful things of Christ.

They, in vision, see that Galilean Lake,
Whose pebble-shore, with laurel guirland, crowned.
Again their dear Lord stands, on those clear brinks;
Who teacheth them to pray. They pray in sleep.

Like unto scudding stone, that crops the waves,
Is driven the sore bruised Cyprus ship, of fiends.
Camped gainst that demons' cloud, uphold the carrack,
The heavenly Watchers. Mighty Albion stands,
Where lightning-winged exalted Seraphim,
Before the seven spirits of the Most Highest,
Singing God's praises, answer one another!

The prayer, yet in the hearts of those few saints,
Is heard in heaven. Albion, as sunny ray,
Down-glanceth, sudden, from the glooming skies,
To sea of Earth. That mighty angel strains
Torments and heaven's lightnings, in his hands;
And snares upon those demon-swarms, he rains:
As when he fought, ere worlds, in plains of heaven,
A prince in the Lord's host, gainst Satan's angels!
Wherefore, (whom he then overthrew,) Abaddon,
On whom new-fallen hell-pangs, not more enduring,
To look on Angel- Albion's lightning face,
Flagging cloud-wide, his baleful wings, wherewith
He tempest raised had round the Syrian ship;
Hastes forth, where deepest night, himself to hide.

Who with him demons, then, were scattered, part
As fowl. Is fiery wake seen, in night loft,
Of their dread rushing wings. Part, fishy fiends,
From heavens' lightnings, fighting with sea-billows,
As fry from stone-cast, in some fenny pool,
Flee, through dark watery paths. Nor of these aught;
Remains, save waves subverted, in huge heaps.

Then Albion called a spirit of South wind,
Who gathered thick clouds, poured out rain, all night;
Wherethrough, was purged the vessel's board, and laid
The waves. He called, then, for a clear North wind,
Which the infect timber drieth; sith, on them, brings
He, all day, as a sweet breath of Libanus.
But, on the eyelids of the saints, he laid
Long healing sleep. Forth, on their course, those fleet;
New calm diffused, divine, about the ship.