Paradise Regained | Page 5

promised kingdom can attain,?Or work redemption for mankind, whose sins'?Full weight must be transferred upon my head.?Yet, neither thus disheartened or dismayed,?The time prefixed I waited; when behold?The Baptist (of whose birth I oft had heard, 270 Not knew by sight) now come, who was to come?Before Messiah, and his way prepare!?I, as all others, to his baptism came,?Which I believed was from above; but he?Straight knew me, and with loudest voice proclaimed?Me him (for it was shewn him so from Heaven)--?Me him whose harbinger he was; and first?Refused on me his baptism to confer,?As much his greater, and was hardly won.?But, as I rose out of the laving stream, 280 Heaven opened her eternal doors, from whence?The Spirit descended on me like a Dove;?And last, the sum of all, my Father's voice,?Audibly heard from Heaven, pronounced me his,?Me his beloved Son, in whom alone?He was well pleased: by which I knew the time?Now full, that I no more should live obscure,?But openly begin, as best becomes?The authority which I derived from Heaven.?And now by some strong motion I am led 290 Into this wilderness; to what intent?I learn not yet. Perhaps I need not know;?For what concerns my knowledge God reveals."?So spake our Morning Star, then in his rise,?And, looking round, on every side beheld?A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades.?The way he came, not having marked return,?Was difficult, by human steps untrod;?And he still on was led, but with such thoughts?Accompanied of things past and to come 300 Lodged in his breast as well might recommend?Such solitude before choicest society.?Full forty days he passed--whether on hill?Sometimes, anon in shady vale, each night?Under the covert of some ancient oak?Or cedar to defend him from the dew,?Or harboured in one cave, is not revealed;?Nor tasted human food, nor hunger felt,?Till those days ended; hungered then at last?Among wild beasts. They at his sight grew mild, 310 Nor sleeping him nor waking harmed; his walk?The fiery serpent fled and noxious worm;?The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof.?But now an aged man in rural weeds,?Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray eye,?Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve?Against a winter's day, when winds blow keen,?To warm him wet returned from field at eve,?He saw approach; who first with curious eye?Perused him, then with words thus uttered spake:-- 320 "Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place,?So far from path or road of men, who pass?In troop or caravan? for single none?Durst ever, who returned, and dropt not here?His carcass, pined with hunger and with droughth.?I ask the rather, and the more admire,?For that to me thou seem'st the man whom late?Our new baptizing Prophet at the ford?Of Jordan honoured so, and called thee Son?Of God. I saw and heard, for we sometimes 330 Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth?To town or village nigh (nighest is far),?Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear,?What happens new; fame also finds us out."?To whom the Son of God:--"Who brought me hither?Will bring me hence; no other guide I seek."?"By miracle he may," replied the swain;?"What other way I see not; for we here?Live on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inured?More than the camel, and to drink go far-- 340 Men to much misery and hardship born.?But, if thou be the Son of God, command?That out of these hard stones be made thee bread;?So shalt thou save thyself, and us relieve?With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste."?He ended, and the Son of God replied:--?"Think'st thou such force in bread? Is it not written?(For I discern thee other than thou seem'st),?Man lives not by bread only, but each word?Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed 350 Our fathers here with manna? In the Mount?Moses was forty days, nor eat nor drank;?And forty days Eliah without food?Wandered this barren waste; the same I now.?Why dost thou, then, suggest to me distrust?Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?"?Whom thus answered the Arch-Fiend, now undisguised:--?"'Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate?Who, leagued with millions more in rash revolt,?Kept not my happy station, but was driven 360 With them from bliss to the bottomless Deep--?Yet to that hideous place not so confined?By rigour unconniving but that oft,?Leaving my dolorous prison, I enjoy?Large liberty to round this globe of Earth,?Or range in the Air; nor from the Heaven of Heavens?Hath he excluded my resort sometimes.?I came, among the Sons of God, when he?Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job,?To prove him, and illustrate his high worth; 370 And, when to all his Angels he proposed?To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud,?That he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring,?I undertook that office, and the tongues?Of all his flattering prophets glibbed with lies?To his destruction, as I had in charge:?For