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Of Man's First Disobedience, And The Fruit/of That Forbidden Tree, Whose Mortal Taste/brought Death Into The World, And All Our Woe,/with Loss Of Eden, Till One Greater Man/restore Us, And Regain The Blissful Seat,/sing Heavenly Muse

-John Milton

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Of Man's First Disobedience,

John Milton

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Of Man's First Disobedience, And The Fruit/of That Forbidden Tree, Whose Mortal Taste/brought Death Into The World, And All Our Woe,/with Loss Of Eden, Till One Greater Man/restore Us, And Regain The Blissful Seat,/sing Heavenly Muse

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And, Re-assembling Our Afflicted Powers, Consult How We May Henceforth Most Offend.

Farewell Happy Fields, Where Joy Forever Dwells: Hail, Horrors, Hail.

Arms On Armour Clashing Bray'd Horrible Discord, And The Madding Wheels Of Brazen Chariots Rag'd: Dire Was The Noise Of Conflict.

Consider First, That Great Or Bright Infers Not Excellence.

Did I Request Thee, Maker, From My Clay To Mould Me Man? Did I Solicit Thee From Darkness To Promote Me?

Solitude Is Sometimes The Best Society.

Freely They Stood Who Stood, And Fell Who Fell.

These Two Imparadised In One Another's Arms, The Happier Eden, Shall Enjoy Their Fill Of Bliss On Bliss.

When We Speak Of Knowing God, It Must Be Understood With Reference To Man's Limited Powers Of Comprehension. God, As He Really Is, Is Far Beyond Man's Imagination, Let Alone Understanding. God Has Revealed Only So Much Of Himself As Our Minds Can Conceive And The Weakness Of Our Nature Can Bear.

Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise. That Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind. To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days.

They Are The Troublers, They Are The Dividers Of Unity, Who Neglect And Don't Permit Others To Unite Those Dissevered Pieces Which Are Yet Wanting To The Body Of Truth.

[rhyme Is] But The Invention Of A Barbarous Age, To Set Off Wretched Matter And Lame Meter; ... Not Without Cause Therefore Some Both Italian And Spanish Poets Of Prime Note Have Rejected Rhyme, ... As Have Also Long Since Our Best English Tragedies, As... Trivial And Of No True Musical Delight; Which [truly] Consists Only In Apt Numbers, Fit Quantity Of Syllables, And The Sense Variously Drawn Out From One Verse Into Another, Not In The Jingling Sound Of Like Endings, A Fault Avoided By The Learned Ancients Both In Poetry And All Good Oratory.

I Must Not Quarrel With The Will Of Highest Dispensation, Which Herein, Haply Had Ends Above My Reach To Know.

Fairy Elves, Whose Midnight Revels By A Forest Side Or Fountain Some Belated Peasant Sees, Or Dreams He Sees, While Overhead The Moon Sits Arbitress.

Love Virtue, She Alone Is Free, She Can Teach Ye How To Climb Higher Than The Sphery Chime; Or, If Virtue Feeble Were, Heav'n Itself Would Stoop To Her.

Arm The Obdured Breast With Stubborn Patience As With Triple Steel.

The Hungry Sheep Look Up, And Are Not Fed.

Behold Now This Vast City [london]; A City Of Refuge, The Mansion-house Of Liberty, Encompassed And Surrounded With His Protection.

Anger And Just Rebuke, And Judgment Given, That Brought Into This World A World Of Woe, Sin And Her Shadow Death, And Misery, Death's Harbinger.

God Has Set Labor And Rest, As Day And Night To Men Successive.

Let Her (truth) And Falsehood Grapple; Who Ever Knew Truth Put To The Worse In A Free And Open Encounter?

Truth And Falsehood

But Who Is This, What Thing Of Sea Or Land,- Female Of Sex It Seems,- That So Bedeck'd, Ornate, And Gay, Comes This Way Sailing Like A Stately Ship Of Tarsus, Bound For Th' Isles Of Javan Or Gadire, With All Her Bravery On, And Tackle Trim, Sails Fill'd, And Streamers Waving, Courted By All The Winds That Hold Them Play, An Amber Scent Of Odorous Perfume Her Harbinger?

If By Prayer Incessant I Could Hope To Change The Will Of Him Who All Things Can, I Would Not Cease To Weary Him With My Assiduous Cries; But Prayer Against His Absolute Decree No More Avails Than Breath Against The Wind Blown Stifling Back On Him That Breathes It Forth: Therefore To His Great Bidding I Submit.

If Weakness May Excuse, What Murderer, What Traitor, Parricide, Incestuous, Sacrilegious, But May Plead It? All Wickedness Is Weakness; That Plea, Therefore, With God Or Man Will Gain Thee No Remission.

With Thee Goes Thy Husband, Him To Follow Thou Art Bound; Where He Abides, Think There Thy Native Soil.

Boast Not Of What Thou Would'st Have Done, But Do.

For So I Created Them Free And Free They Must Remain.

... Then There Was War In Heaven. But It Was Not Angels. It Was That Small Golden Zeppelin, Like A Long Oval World, High Up. It Seemed As If The Cosmic Order Were Gone, As If There Had Come A New Order, A New Heavens Above Us: And As If The World In Anger Were Trying To Revoke It.

The Pilot Of The Galilean Lake; Two Massy Keys He Bore, Of Metals Twain (the Golden Opes, The Iron Shuts Amain).

That Practis'd Falsehood Under Saintly Shew, Deep Malice To Conceal, Couch'd With Revenge.

Ease Would Recant Vows Made In Pain, As Violent And Void.

The Low'ring Element Scowls O'er The Darken'd Landscape.

Temper Justice With Mercy.

His Words, Like So Many Nimble And Airy Servitors, Trip About Him At Command. Ibid.

He That Hath Light Within Their Own Breast, May Sit In The Centre And Enjoy Bright Day.

When The New Light Which We Beg For Shines In Upon Us, There Be [those] Who Envy And Oppose, If It Come Not First In At Their Casements.

How Often From The Steep Of Echoing Hill Or Thicket Have We Heard Celestial Voices To The Midnight Air, Sole, Or Responsive Each To Other's Note, Singing Their Great Creator?

And The More I See Pleasures About Me, So Much More I Feel Torment Within Me.

Paradise Lost Book 9

A Man May Be Ungrateful, But The Human Race Is Not So.

What Can 'scape The Eye Of God, All-seeing, Or Deceive His Heart. Omniscient!

Say, Heavenly Pow'rs, Where Shall We Find Such Love? Which Of Ye Will Be Mortal To Redeem Man's Mortal Crime, And Just Th' Unjust To Save.

It Is Lawful And Hath Been Held So Through All Ages For Any One Who Have The Power To Call To Account A Tyrant Or Wicked King, And After Due Conviction To Depose And Put Him To Death.

All Hope Is Lost Of My Reception Into Grace; What Worse? For Where No Hope Is Left, Is Left No Fear.

Where Shame Is, There Is Also Fear.

The Never-ending Flight Of Future Days.

The Spirits Perverse With Easy Intercourse Pass To And Fro, To Tempt Or Punish Mortals.

So Many Laws Argues So Many Sins.

Who Would Not, Finding Way, Break Loose From Hell, . . . . And Boldly Venture To Whatever Place Farthest From Pain?

Where Peace And Rest Can Never Dwell, Hope Never Comes, That Comes To All.

All Is Not Lost, The Unconquerable Will, And Study Of Revenge, Immortal Hate, And The Courage Never To Submit Or Yield.

He Scarce 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 Fésolè, Or In Valdarno, To Descry New Lands, Rivers Or Mountains In Her Spotty Globe.

Nor Aught Availed Him Now To Have Built In Heaven High Towers; Nor Did He Scrape By All His Engines, But Was Headlong Sent With His Industrious Crew To Build In Hell.

They, Looking Back, All The Eastern Side Beheld Of Paradise, So Late Their Happy Seat, Waved Over By That Flaming Brand, The Gate With Dreadful Faces Thronged And Fiery Arms: Some Natural Tears They Dropped, But Wiped Them Soon; The World Was All Before Them, Where To Choose Their Place Of Rest, And Providence Their Guide; They, Hand In Hand, With Wandering Steps And Slow, Through Eden Took Their Solitary Way.

It Were A Journey Like The Path To Heaven, To Help You Find Them.

To Adore The Conqueror, Who Now Beholds Cherub And Seraph Rolling In The Flood.

Indu'd With Sanctity Of Reason.

Yet Once More, O Ye Laurels, And Once More Ye Myrtles Brown, With Ivy Never Sere, I Come To Pluck Your Berries Harsh And Crude, And With Forced Fingers Rude Shatter Your Leaves Before The Mellowing Year.

Hide Me From Day's Garish Eye, While The Bee With Honied Thigh, That At Her Flowery Work Doth Sing, And The Waters Murmuring With Such Consort As They Keep, Entice The Dewy-feathered Sleep.

God Sure Esteems The Growth And Completing Of One Virtuous Person, More That The Restraint Of Ten Vicious.

If It Come To Prohibiting, There Is Aught More Likely To Be Prohibited Than Truth Itself.

Him That Yon Soars On Golden Wing, Guiding The Fiery-wheelèd Throne, The Cherub Contemplation.

We Shall Sooner Have The Fowl By Hatching The Egg Than By Smashing It. Abraham Lincoln, White House Speech 11 April 1865. Or Arm Th' Obdured Breast With Stubborn Patience As With Triple Steel.

But Oh The Heavy Change, Now Thou Art Gone, Now Thou Art Gone And Never Must Return!

Heaven Is For Thee Too High To Know What Passes There; Be Lowly Wise. Think Only What Concerns Thee And Thy Being; Dream Not Of Other Worlds, What Creatures There Live, In What State, Condition, Or Degree, Contented That Thus Far Hath Been Revealed.

God Is Thy Law, Thou Mine: To Know No More Is Woman's Happiest Knowledge And Her Praise. With Thee Conversing I Forget All Time.

Death Ready Stands To Interpose His Dart.

He That Can Apprehend And Consider Vice With All Her Baits And Seeming Pleasures, And Yet Abstain, And Yet Distinguish, And Yet Prefer That Which Is Truly Better, He Is The True Wayfaring Christian. I Cannot Praise A Fugitive And Cloistered Virtue, Unexercised And Unbreathed, That Never Sallies Out And Sees Her Adversary, But Slinks Out Of The Race, Where That Immortal Garland Is To Be Run For, Not Without Dust And Heat. Assuredly We Bring Not Innocence Into The World, We Bring Impurity Much Rather: That Which Purifies Us Is Trial, And Trial Is By What Is Contrary.

Virtue Could See To Do What Virtue Would By Her Own Radiant Light, Though Sun And Moon Were In The Flat Sea Sunk. And Wisdom's Self Oft Seeks To Sweet Retired Solitude, Where With Her Best Nurse Contemplation She Plumes Her Feathers And Lets Grow Her Wings, That In The Various Bustle Of Resort Were All-to Ruffled, And Sometimes Impair'd. He That Has Light Within His Own Clear Breast May Sit I' Th' Centre And Enjoy Bright Day; But He That Hides A Dark Soul And Foul Thoughts Benighted Walks Under The Midday Sun.

Knowledge Forbidden? Suspicious, Reasonless. Why Should Their Lord Envy Them That? Can It Be Sin To Know, Can It Be Death? And Do They Only Stand By Ignorance? Is That Their Happy State, The Proof Of Their Obedience And Their Faith? O Fair Foundation Laid Whereon To Build Their Ruin!

The Spirit Of Man, Which God Inspired, Cannot Together Perish With This Corporeal Clod.

Methought I Saw My Late Espoused Saint.

To Overcome In Battle, And Subdue Nations, And Bring Home Spoils With Infinite Man-slaughter, Shall Be Held The Highest Pitch Of Human Glory.

You Can Make Hell Out Of Heaven And Heaven Out Of Hell. It's All In The Mind.

What Is Strength Without A Double Share Of Wisdom?

Bid Amaranthus All His Beauty Shed, And Daffodillies Fill Their Cups With Tears, To Strew The Laureate To Hearse When Lycid Lies.

Courage Never To Submit Of Yield.

O Fleeting Joys Of Paradise, Dear Bought With Lasting Woes!

Beholding The Bright Countenance Of Truth In The Quiet And Still Air Of Delightful Studies.

Thou Art My Father, Thou My Author, Thou My Being Gav'st Me; Whom Should I Obey But Thee, Whom Follow?

O Fairest Flower! No Sooner Blown But Blasted, Soft Silken Primrose Fading Timelessly.

Straight Mine Eye Hath Caught New Pleasures Whilst The Landscape Round It Measures, Russet Lawns And Fallows Grey, Where The Nibbling Flocks Do Stray, Mountains On Whose Barren Breast The Labouring Clouds Do Often Rest; Meadows Trim With Daisies Pied, Shallow Brooks, And Rivers Wide.

Of Calling Shapes, And Beck'ning Shadows Dire, And Airy Tongues That Syllable Men's Names.

O Conscience, Into What Abyss Of Fears And Horrors Hast Thou Driven Me, Out Of Which I Find No Way, From Deep To Deeper Plunged.

For Stories Teach Us, That Liberty Sought Out Of Season, In A Corrupt And Degenerate Age, Brought Rome Itself To A Farther Slavery: For Liberty Hath A Sharp And Double Edge, Fit Only To Be Handled By Just And Virtuous Men; To Bad And Dissolute, It Becomes A Mischief Unwieldy In Their Own Hands: Neither Is It Completely Given, But By Them Who Have The Happy Skill To Know What Is Grievance And Unjust To A People, And How To Remove It Wisely; What Good Laws Are Wanting, And How To Frame Them Substantially, That Good Men May Enjoy The Freedom Which They Merit, And The Bad The Curb Which They Need.

United Thoughts And Counsels, Equal Hope And Hazard In The Glorious Enterprise.

Or If Virtue Feeble Were, Heav'n Itself Would Stoop To Her.

Just Deeds Are The Best Answer To Injurious Words.

Hell Has No Benefits, Only Torture.

Time, Though In Eternity, Applied To Motion, Measures All Things Durable By Present, Past, And Future.

Sabrina Fair, Listen Where Thou Art Sitting Under The Glassy, Cool, Translucent Wave, In Twisted Braids Of Lilies Knitting The Loose Train Of Thy Amber-dropping Hair.

And Live Like Nature's Bastards, Not Her Sons.

I Will Not Allow My Daughters To Learn Foreign Languages Because One Tongue Is Sufficient For A Woman.

For Solomon, He Lived At Ease, And Full Of Honour, Wealth, High Fare, Aimed Not Beyond Higher Design Than To Enjoy His State.

Virtue That Wavers Is Not Virtue, But Vice Revolted From Itself, And After A While Returning. The Actions Of Just And Pious Men Do Not Darken In Their Middle Course.

To Be Blind Is Not Miserable; Not To Be Able To Bear Blindness, That Is Miserable.

The Sacred Influence Of Light Appears.

Good, The More Communicated, More Abundant Grows.

Fame, If Not Double Fac'd, Is Double Mouth'd, And With Contrary Blast Proclaims Most Deeds; On Both His Wings, One Black, The Other White, Bears Greatest Names In His Wild Aery Flight.

Death From Sin No Power Can Separate.

The Oracles Are Dumb, No Voice Or Hideous Hum Runs Thro' The Arched Roof In Words Deceiving.

Then Might Ye See Cowls, Hoods, And Habits With Their Wearers Tost And Flutter'd Into Rags; Then Reliques, Beads, Indulgences, Dispenses, Pardons, Bulls, The Sport Of Winds; All These Upwhirl'd Aloft Fly To The Rearward Of The World Far Off Into A Limbo Large And Broad, Since Called The Paradise Of Fools.

So Hand In Hand They Passed, The Loveliest Pair That Ever Since In Love's Embraces Met -- Adam, The Goodliest Man Of Men Since Born His Sons; The Fairest Of Her Daughters Eve.

Let No Man Seek Henceforth To Be Foretold That Shall Befall Him Or His Children.

Beauty Is Nature's Coin, Must Not Be Hoarded, But Must Be Current, And The Good Thereof Consists In Mutual And Partaken Bliss.

The Starry Cope Of Heaven.

Come Knit Hands, And Beat The Ground In A Light Fantastic Round

The Mind Is Its Own Place, And In Itself, Can Make Heaven Of Hell, And A Hell Of Heaven.

What Need A Man Forestall His Date Of Grief, And Run To Meet What He Would Most Avoid?.

A Thousand Fantasies Begin To Throng Into My Memory, Of Calling Shapes, And Beckoning Shadows Dire, And Airy Tongues That Syllable Men's Names On Sands And Shores And Desert Wildernesses

Death Is The Golden Key That Opens The Palace Of Eternity.

Eternity Of Life

Hard Are The Ways Of Truth, And Rough To Walk.

The Redundant Locks, Robustious To No Purpose, Clustering Down--vast Monument Of Strength.

What Boots It At One Gate To Make Defence, And At Another To Let In The Foe?

A Boundless Continent, Dark, Waste, And Wild, Under The Frown Of Night Starless Expos'd.

Nor Think Thou With Wind Of æry Threats To Awe Whom Yet With Deeds Thou Canst Not.

What Neat Repast Shall Feast Us, Light And Choice, Of Attic Taste?

The Virtuous Mind That Ever Walks Attended By A Strong Siding Champion, Conscience.

A Limbo Large And Broad, Since Call'd The Paradise Of Fools To Few Unknown.

Was I Deceiv'd, Or Did A Sable Cloud Turn Forth Her Silver Lining On The Night?

Thy Liquid Notes That Close The Eye Of Day.

This Horror Will Grow Mild, This Darkness Light; Besides What Hope The Never-ending Flight Of Future Days May Bring, What Chance, What Change Worth Waiting--since Our Present Lot Appears For Happy Though But Ill, For Ill Not Worst, If We Procure Not To Ourselves More Woe.

The Earth, Though In Comparison Of Heaven So Small, Nor Glistering, May Of Solid Good Contain More Plenty Than The Sun, That Barren Shines.

But Infinite In Pardon Is My Judge.

All Seemed Well Pleased, All Seemed, But Were Not All.

Truth And Understanding Are Not Such Wares As To Be Monopolized And Traded In By Tickets And Statutes And Standards. We Must Not Think To Make A Staple Commodity Of All The Knowledge In The Land, To Mark And License It Like Our Broadcloth And Our Woolpacks.

A Grateful Mind/ By Owing Owes Not, But Still Pays, At Once/ Indebted And Discharg'd.

Praise From An Enemy Smells Of Craft.

Witness This New-made World, Another Heav'n From Heaven Gate Not Farr, Founded In View On The Clear Hyaline, The Glassie Sea; Of Amplitude Almost Immense, With Starr's Numerous, And Every Starr Perhaps A World Of Destined Habitation.

Deep Vers'd In Books, And Shallow In Himself.

Quips And Cranks And Wanton Wiles, Nods And Becks And Wreathèd Smiles.

God Shall Be All In All.

When Language In Common Use In Any Country Becomes Irregular And Depraved, It Is Followed By Their Ruin And Degradation. For What Do Terms Used Without Skill Or Meaning, Which Are At Once Corrupt And Misapplied, Denote But A People Listless, Supine, And Ripe For Servitude?

God, Who Oft Descends To Visit Men Unseen, And Through Their Habitations Walks To Mark Their Doings.

The Hungry Sheep Look Up, And Are Not Fed, But, Swoln With Wind, And The Rank Mist They Draw, Rot Inwardly, And Foul Contagion Spread: Besides What The Grim Wolf With Privy Paw Daily Devours Apace, And Nothing Said; But That Two-handed Engine At The Door Stands Ready To Smite Once, And Smite No More.

The Timely Dew Of Sleep Now Falling With Soft Slumb'rous Weight Inclines Our Eyelids.

These Evils I Deserve, And More . . . . Justly, Yet Despair Not Of His Final Pardon, Whose Ear Is Ever Open, And His Eye Gracious To Re-admit The Suppliant.

Sweet Intercourse Of Looks And Smiles; For Smiles From Reason Flow.

If There Be Any Difference Among Professed Believers As To The Sense Of Scripture, It Is Their Duty To Tolerate Such Difference In Each Other, Until God Shall Have Revealed The Truth To All.

Yet Much Remains To Conquer Still; Peace Hath Her Victories No Less Renowned Then War, New Foes Arise Threatening To Bind Our Souls With Secular Chains: Help Us To Save Free Conscience From The Paw Of Hireling Wolves Whose Gospel Is Their Maw.

Zeal And Duty Are Not Slow But On Occasion's Forelock Watchful Wait.

Rich And Various Gems Inlay The Unadorned Bosom Of The Deep.

Who Shall Silence All The Airs And Madrigals That Whisper Softness In Chambers?

Innocence, Once Lost, Can Never Be Regained. Darkness, Once Gazed Upon, Can Never Be Lost.

Athens, The Eye Of Greece, Mother Of Arts And Eloquence.

Money Brings Honor, Friends, Conquest, And Realms.

For What Is Glory But The Blaze Of Fame?

No Mighty Trance, Or Breathed Spell Inspires The Pale-eyed Priest From The Prophetic Cell.

For Other Things Mild Heav'n A Time Ordains, And Disapproves That Care, Though Wise In Show, That With Superfluous Burden Loads The Day, And When God Sends A Cheerful Hour, Refrains.

Midnight Shout And Revelry, Tipsy Dance And Jollity.

Be Lowly Wise: Think Only What Concerns Thee And Thy Being.

Now Morn, Her Rosy Steps In Th' Eastern Clime Advancing, Sow'd The Earth With Orient Pearl, When Adam Wak'd, So Custom'd; For His Sleep Was Aery Light, From Pure Digestion Bred.

How Charming Is Divine Philosophy! Not Harsh And Crabb

The Sun To Me Is Dark And Silent As The Moon, When She Deserts The Night Hid In Her Vacant Interlunar Cave.

What Needs My Shakespeare For His Honour'd Bones,- The Labour Of An Age In Piled Stones? Or That His Hallow'd Relics Should Be Hid Under A Star-y-pointing Pyramid? Dear Son Of Memory, Great Heir Of Fame, What Need'st Thou Such Weak Witness Of Thy Name?

His Sleep Was Aery Light, From Pure Digestion Bred.

For Books Are Not Absolutely Dead Things, But Do Contain A Potency Of Life In Them To Be As Active As That Soul Was Whose Progeny They Are; Nay, They Do Preserve As In A Vial The Purest Efficacy And Extraction Of That Living Intellect That Bred Them.

On The Morning Of Christ's Nativity Perhaps Their Loves, Or Else Their Sheep, Was All That Did Their Silly Thoughts So Busy Keep.

Heaven, The Seat Of Bliss, Brooks Not The Works Of Violence And War.

The Wife, Where Danger Or Dishonour Lurks, Safest And Seemliest By Her Husband Stays, Who Guards Her, Or With Her The Worst Endures.

And Now The Herald Lark Left His Ground-nest, High Tow'ring To Descry The Morn's Approach, And Greet Her With His Song.

Infinity Is A Dark Illimitable Ocean, Without Bound.

Is It Just Or Reasonable, That Most Voices Against The Main End Of Government Should Enslave The Less Number That Would Be Free? More Just It Is, Doubtless, If It Come To Force, That A Less Number Compel A Greater To Retain, Which Can Be No Wrong To Them, Their Liberty, Than That A Greater Number, For The Pleasure Of Their Baseness, Compel A Less Most Injuriously To Be Their Fellow-slaves. They Who Seek Nothing But Their Own Just Liberty, Have Always Right To Win It And To Keep It, Whenever They Have Power, Be The Voices Never So Numerous That Oppose It.

Implied Subjection, But Requir'd With Gentle Sway, And By Her Yielded, By Him Best Receiv'd,- Yielded With Coy Submission, Modest Pride, And Sweet, Reluctant, Amorous Delay.

When Thou Attended Gloriously From Heaven , Shalt In The Sky Appear, And From Thee Send Thy Summoning Archangels To Proclaim Thy Dread Tribunal.

So Much I Feel My Genial Spirits Droop, My Hopes All Flat, Nature Within Me Seems In Her Functions Weary Of Herself.

Extol Not Riches Then, The Toil Of Fools, The Wise Man's Cumbrance, If Not Snare, More Apt To Slacken Virtue, And Abate Her Edge, Than Prompt Her To Do Aught May Merit Praise.

Into This Wild Abyss/ The Womb Of Nature, And Perhaps Her Grave--/ Of Neither Sea, Nor Shore, Nor Air, Nor Fire,/ But All These In Their Pregnant Causes Mixed/ Confusedly, And Which Thus Must Ever Fight,/ Unless The Almighty Maker Them Ordain/ His Dark Materials To Create More Worlds,--/ Into This Wild Abyss The Wary Fiend/ Stood On The Brink Of Hell And Looked A While,/ Pondering His Voyage; For No Narrow Frith/ He Had To Cross.

Ladies, Whose Bright Eyes Rain Influence, And Judge The Prize.

Her Silent Course Advance With Inoffensive Pace, That Spinning Sleeps On Her Soft Axle.

The First And Wisest Of Them All Professed To Know This Only, That He Nothing Knew.

A Poet Soaring In The High Reason Of His Fancies, With His Garland And Singing Robes About Him.

And Now Without Redemption All Mankind Must Have Been Lost, Adjudged To Death And Hell By Doom Severe.

Who Kills A Man Kills A Reasonable Creature, God's Image; But He Who Destroys A Good Book, Kills Reason Itself, Kills The Image Of God, As It Were, In The Eye.

Let Us No More Contend, Nor Blame Each Other, Blamed Enough Elsewhere, But Strive, In Offices Of Love, How We May Lighten Each Other's Burden.

What Better Can We Do Than Prostrate Fall Before Him Reverent, And There Confess Humbly Our Faults, And Pardon Beg With Tears Watering The Ground?

Which Way I Fly Is Hell; Myself Am Hell.

Yet Some There Be That By Due Steps Aspire To Lay Their Just Hands On That Golden Key That Opes The Palace Of Eternity.

And The Jocund Rebecks Sound To Many A Youth, And Many A Maid, Dancing In The Checkered Shade. And Young And Old Come Forth To Play On A Sunshine Holiday.

Who Overcomes By Force, Hath Overcome But Half His Foe.

But Oh! As To Embrace Me She Inclin'd, I Wak'd, She Fled, And Day Brought Back My Night.

O Loss Of Sight, Of Thee I Most Complain! Blind Among Enemies, O Worse Than Chains, Dungeon Or Beggary, Or Decrepit Age! Light, The Prime Work Of God, To Me Is Extinct, And All Her Various Objects Of Delight Annulled, Which Might In Part My Grief Have Eased. Inferior To The Vilest Now Become Of Man Or Worm; The Vilest Here Excel Me, They Creep, Yet See; I, Dark In Light, Exposed To Daily Fraud, Contempt, Abuse And Wrong, Within Doors, Or Without, Still As A Fool, In Power Of Others, Never In My Own; Scarce Half I Seem To Live, Dead More Than Half.

Pleas'd Me, Long Choosing And Beginning Late.

Paradise Lost Book 9

What If Earth Be But The Shadow Of Heaven And Things Therein - Each Other Like, More Than On Earth Is Thought?

It Was That Fatal And Perfidious Bark, Built In Th' Eclipse, And Rigg'd With Curses Dark.

Come To The Sunset Tree! The Day Is Past And Gone; The Woodman's Axe Lies Free, And The Reaper's Work Is Done.

What Hath Night To Do With Sleep?

Where No Hope Is Left, Is Left No Fear.

And Pomp, And Feast, And Revelry, With Mask, And Antique Pageantry, Such Sights As Youthful Poets Dream On Summer Eves By Haunted Stream. Then To The Well-trod Stage Anon, If Jonson's Learned Sock Be On, Or Sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's Child, Warble His Native Wood-notes Wild, And Ever, Against Eating Cares, Lap Me In Soft Lydian Airs, Married To Immortal Verse Such As The Meeting Soul May Pierce, In Notes With Many A Winding Bout Of Linked Sweetness Long Drawn Out.

Now The Bright Morning-star, Day's Harbinger, Comes Dancing From The East.

Truth Is Compared In Scripture To A Streaming Fountain; If Her Waters Flow Not In Perpetual Progression, They Sicken Into A Muddy Pool Of Conformity And Tradition.

How Sweetly Did They Float Upon The Wings Of Silence Through The Empty-vaulted Night, At Every Fall Smoothing The Raven Down Of Darkness Till It Smiled!

And Yet On The Other Hand Unless Warinesse Be Us'd, As Good Almost Kill A Man As Kill A Good Book; Who Kills A Man Kills A Reasonable Creature, Gods Image, But Hee Who Destroyes A Good Booke, Kills Reason It Selfe, Kills The Image Of God, As It Were In The Eye.

Our Torments Also May In Length Of Time Become Our Elements.

Knowledge Forbidden? Suspicious, Reasonless. Why Should Their Lord Envy Them That? Can It Be A Sin To Know? Can It Be Death?

Immediate Are The Acts Of God, More Swift Than Time Or Motion.

I Fled, And Cry'd Out, Death; Hell Trembled At The Hideous Name, And Sigh'd From All Her Caves, And Back Resounded, Death.

O When Meet Now Such Pairs, In Love And Mutual Honour Joined?

Wild Above Rule Or Art, Enormous Bliss.

Above The Smoke And Stir Of This Dim Spot Which Men Call Earth.

From Morn To Noon He Fell, From Noon To Dewy Eve,- A Summer's Day; And With The Setting Sun Dropp'd From The Zenith Like A Falling Star.

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