Paradise Lost | Page 6

they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge?Of hope in fears and dangers--heard so oft?In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge?Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults?Their surest signal--they will soon resume?New courage and revive, though now they lie?Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,?As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;?No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height!"?He scare had ceased when the superior Fiend?Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,?Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,?Behind him cast. The broad circumference?Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb?Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views?At evening, from the top of Fesole,?Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,?Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.?His spear--to equal which the tallest pine?Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast?Of some great ammiral, were but a wand--?He walked with, to support uneasy steps?Over the burning marl, not like those steps?On Heaven's azure; and the torrid clime?Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.?Nathless he so endured, till on the beach?Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called?His legions--Angel Forms, who lay entranced?Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks?In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades?High over-arched embower; or scattered sedge?Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed?Hath vexed the Red-Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew?Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,?While with perfidious hatred they pursued?The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld?From the safe shore their floating carcases?And broken chariot-wheels. So thick bestrown,?Abject and lost, lay these, covering the flood,?Under amazement of their hideous change.?He called so loud that all the hollow deep?Of Hell resounded:--"Princes, Potentates,?Warriors, the Flower of Heaven--once yours; now lost,?If such astonishment as this can seize?Eternal Spirits! Or have ye chosen this place?After the toil of battle to repose?Your wearied virtue, for the ease you find?To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven??Or in this abject posture have ye sworn?To adore the Conqueror, who now beholds?Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood?With scattered arms and ensigns, till anon?His swift pursuers from Heaven-gates discern?Th' advantage, and, descending, tread us down?Thus drooping, or with linked thunderbolts?Transfix us to the bottom of this gulf??Awake, arise, or be for ever fallen!"?They heard, and were abashed, and up they sprung?Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch?On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,?Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.?Nor did they not perceive the evil plight?In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;?Yet to their General's voice they soon obeyed?Innumerable. As when the potent rod?Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,?Waved round the coast, up-called a pitchy cloud?Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,?That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung?Like Night, and darkened all the land of Nile;?So numberless were those bad Angels seen?Hovering on wing under the cope of Hell,?'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;?Till, as a signal given, th' uplifted spear?Of their great Sultan waving to direct?Their course, in even balance down they light?On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain:?A multitude like which the populous North?Poured never from her frozen loins to pass?Rhene or the Danaw, when her barbarous sons?Came like a deluge on the South, and spread?Beneath Gibraltar to the Libyan sands.?Forthwith, form every squadron and each band,?The heads and leaders thither haste where stood?Their great Commander--godlike Shapes, and Forms?Excelling human; princely Dignities;?And Powers that erst in Heaven sat on thrones,?Though on their names in Heavenly records now?Be no memorial, blotted out and rased?By their rebellion from the Books of Life.?Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve?Got them new names, till, wandering o'er the earth,?Through God's high sufferance for the trial of man,?By falsities and lies the greatest part?Of mankind they corrupted to forsake?God their Creator, and th' invisible?Glory of him that made them to transform?Oft to the image of a brute, adorned?With gay religions full of pomp and gold,?And devils to adore for deities:?Then were they known to men by various names,?And various idols through the heathen world.?Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last,?Roused from the slumber on that fiery couch,?At their great Emperor's call, as next in worth?Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,?While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof??The chief were those who, from the pit of Hell?Roaming to seek their prey on Earth, durst fix?Their seats, long after, next the seat of God,?Their altars by his altar, gods adored?Among the nations round, and durst abide?Jehovah thundering out of Sion, throned?Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed?Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,?Abominations; and with cursed things?His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,?And with their darkness durst affront his light.?First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood?Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;?Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,?Their children's cries unheard that passed through fire?To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite?Worshiped in Rabba and her watery plain,?In Argob and in Basan,