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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.

-John Milton

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They, Looking Back, All

John Milton

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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.

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

The Nodding Horror Of Whose Shady Brows Threats The Forlorn And Wandering Passenger.

Freely We Serve, Because We Freely Love, As In Our Will To Love Or Not; In This We Stand Or Fall.

Only This I Know, That One Celestial Father Gives To All.

They Who Have Put Out The People's Eyes Reproach Them Of Their Blindness.

Opinion In Good Men Is But Knowledge In The Making.

Confusion Heard His Voice, And Wild Uproar Stood Ruled, Stood Vast Infinitude Confined; Till At His Second Bidding Darkness Fled, Light Shone, And Order From Disorder Sprung.

First Moloch, Horrid King, Besmirched In Blood, Of Human Sacrifice, And Parent's Tears, Though, For The Noise Of Drums And Timbrels Loud, Their Childrens' Cries Unheard, That Passed Through Fire, To His Grim Idol.

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.

Flowers Of All Hue, And Without Thorn The Rose.

Paradise On Earth

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.

Biochemically, Love Is Just Like Eating Large Amounts Of Chocolate.

So Farewell Hope, And With Hope Farewell Fear,farewell Remorse: All Good To Me Is Lost;evil,be Thou My Good.

Have Hung My Dank And Dropping Weeds To The Stern God Of Sea.

Our Two First Parents, Yet The Only Two Of Mankind, In The Happy Garden Placed, Reaping Immortal Fruits Of Joy And Love, Uninterrupted Joy, Unrivalled Love In Blissful Solitude.

On The Tawny Sands And Shelves Trip The Pert Fairies And The Dapper Elves.

The Pious And Just Honoring Of Ourselves May Be Thought The Fountainhead From Whence Every Laudable And Worthy Enterprise Issues Forth.

Books Are Not Absolutely Dead Things, But Do Contain A Potency Of Life In Them....i Know They Are As Lively And As Vigorously Productive As Those Fabulous Dragon's Teeth And Being Sown Up And Down, May Chance To Spring Up Armed Men.

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

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

A Bevy Of Fair Women.

Thoughts That Voluntary Move Harmonious Numbers.

The Gay Motes That People The Sunbeams.

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.

As Children Gath'ring Pebbles On The Shore. Or If I Would Delight My Private Hours With Music Or With Poem, Where So Soon As In Our Native Language Can I Find That Solace?

Native Language

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

Midnight Shout And Revelry, Tipsy Dance And Jollity.

For Books Are As Meats And Viands Are; Some Of Good, Some Of Evil Sub-stance.

And Oft, Though Wisdom Wake, Suspicion Sleeps At Wisdom's Gate, And To Simplicity Resigns Her Charge, While Goodness Thinks No Ill Where No Ill Seems.

Or Sweetest Shakespeare, Fancy's Child!

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

By Labor And Intent Study (which I Take To Be My Portion In This Life), Joined With The Strong Propensity Of Nature, I Might Perhaps Leave Something So Written To After-times, As They Should Not Willingly Let It Die.

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 Is Thy Law, Thou Mine.

Paradise Lost Book 9

Th' Ethereal Mould Incapable Of Stain Would Soon Expel Her Mischief, And Purge Off The Baser Fire, Victorious. Thus Repuls'd, Our Final Hope Is Flat Despair.

Nor Love Thy Life, Nor Hate; But What Thou Livest, Live Well; How Long, Or Short, Permit To Heaven.

Hung Over Her Enamour'd, And Beheld Beauty, Which, Whether Waking Or Asleep, Shot Forth Peculiar Graces.

And To Thy Husband's Will Thine Shall Submit; He Over Thee Shall Rule.

Good Luck Befriend Thee, Son; For At Thy Birth The Fairy Ladies Danced Upon The Hearth.

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

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

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.

How Charming Is Divine Philosophy! Not Harsh And Crabb

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.

O Fairest Of Creation, Last And Best Of All God's Works, Creature In Whom Excelled Whatever Can To Sight Or Thought Be Formed, Holy, Divine, Good, Amiable, Or Sweet! How Art Thou Lost, How On A Sudden Lost, Defaced, Deflow'red, And Now To Death Devote? Paradise Lost

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.

He Who Freely Magnifies What Hath Been Nobly Done, And Fears Not To Declares As Freely What Might Be Done Better, Gives Ye The Best Covenant Of His Fidelity.

And What Is Faith, Love, Virtue Unassayed Alone, Without Exterior Help Sustained?

With Ruin Upon Ruin, Rout On Rout, Confusion Worse Confounded.

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

Fear Of Change Perplexes Monarchs.

Demoniac Frenzy, Moping Melancholy.

Gratitude Bestows Reverence, Allowing Us To Encounter Everyday Epiphanies, Those Transcendent Moments Of Awe That Change Forever How We Experience Life And The World.

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.

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

Ride The Air In Whirlwind.

Well Observe The Rule Of Not Too Much, By Temperance Taught In What Thou Eat'st And Drink'st.

Gratitude Bestows Reverence, Allowing Us To Encounter Everyday Epiphanies.

Sweet Bird That Shunn'st The Nose Of Folly, Most Musical, Most Melancholy! Thee, Chauntress, Oft, The Woods Among, I Woo, To Hear Thy Even-song.

The Angel Ended, And In Adam's Ear So Charming Left His Voice, That He Awhile Thought Him Still Speaking, Still Stood Fix'd To Hear.

O Dark, Dark, Dark, Amid The Blaze Of Noon, Irrecoverably Dark, Total Eclipse Without All Hope Of Day!

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?

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.

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.

God Is Decreeing To Begin Some Newand Great Period In His Church, Even To The Reforming Of Reformation Itself. What Does He Then But Reveal Himself To His Servants, And As His Manner Is, First To His Englishmen?

Sole Reigning Holds The Tyranny Of Heav'n.

Paradise Lost Book 1

No Worthy Enterprise Can Be Done By Us Without Continual Plodding And Wearisomeness To Our Faint And Sensitive Abilities.

With Diadem And Sceptre High Advanced, The Lower Still I Fall; Only Supreme In Misery; Such Joy Ambition Finds.

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

If We Think We Regulate Printing, Thereby To Rectify Manners, We Must Regulate All Regulations And Pastimes, All That Is Delightful To Man.

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

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

Though All The Winds Of Doctrine Were Let Loose To Play Upon The Earth, So Truth Be In The Field, We Do Injuriously By Licensing And Prohibiting To Misdoubt Her Strength. Let Her And Falsehood Grapple; Who Ever Knew Truth Put To The Worse, In A Free And Open Encounter.

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

And Some Are Fall'n, To Disobedience Fall'n, And So From Heav'n To Deepest Hell; O Fall From What High State Of Bliss Into What Woe!

License They Mean When They Cry Liberty; For Who Loves That, Must First Be Wise And Good.

For Such Kind Of Borrowing As This, If It Be Not Bettered By The Borrowers, Among Good Authors Is Accounted Plagiarè.

We Read Not That Christ Ever Exercised Force But Once; And That Was To Drive Profane Ones Out Of His Temple, Not To Force Them In.

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

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.

So He With Difficulty And Labour Hard Mov'd On, With Difficulty And Labour He.

Grace Was In All Her Steps, Heaven In Her Eye, In Every Gesture Dignity And Love.

Hail, Wedded Love, Mysterious Law; True Source Of Human Happiness.

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 Walk'd With To Support Uneasy Steps Over The Burning Marle.

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.

Thy Actions To Thy Words Accord; Thy Words To Thy Large Heart Give Utterance Due; Thy Heart; Contains Of Good, Wise, Just, The Perfect Shape.

Who Knows Not Circe, The Daughter Of The Sun , Whose Charmed Cup Whoever Tasted, Lost His Upright Shape, And Downward Fell Into A Groveling Swine?

He Left It In Thy Power, Ordaind Thy Will By Nature Free, Not Over-rul'd By Fate Inextricable, Or Strict Necessity.

The Very Essence Of Truth Is Plainness And Brightness; The Darkness And Crookedness Is Our Own. The Wisdom Of God Created Understanding, Fit And Proportionable To Truth, The Object And End Of It, As The Eye To The Thing Visible. If Our Understanding Have A Film Of Ignorance Over It, Or Be Blear With Gazing On Other False Glitterings, What Is That To Truth?

And Feel By Turns The Bitter Change Of Fierce Extremes, Extremes By Change More Fierce.

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.

Sense Of Pleasure We May Well Spare Out Of Life Perhaps, And Not Repine, But Live Content, Which Is The Calmest Life; But Pain Is Perfect Misery, The Worst Of Evils, And Excessive, Overturns All Patience.

So May'st Thou Live, Till Like Ripe Fruit Thou Drop Into Thy Mother's Lap, Or Be With Ease Gathered, Not Harshly Plucked, For Death Mature: This Is Old Age; But Then Thou Must Outlive Thy Youth, Thy Strength, Thy Beauty, Which Will Change To Withered Weak And Grey.

This Is Servitude, To Serve The Unwise.

Promiscuous Reading Is Necessary To The Constituting Of Human Nature. The Attempt To Keep Out Evil Doctrine By Licensing Is Like The Exploit Of That Gallant Man Who Thought To Keep Out The Crows By Shutting The Park Gate.

Let None Admire That Riches Grow In Hell; That Soil May Best Deserve The Precious Bane.

Here We May Reign Secure; And In My Choice To Reign Is Worth Ambition, Though In Hell: Better To Reign In Hell Than Serve In Heaven.

So Dear I Love Him, That With Him, All Deaths I Could Endure, Without Him, Live No Life.

Heaven Is As The Book Of God Before Thee Set, Wherein To Read His Wondrous Works.

The Timely Dew Of Sleep.

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.

Most Men Admire Virtue Who Follow Not Her Lore.

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.

Virtue, Which Breaks Through Opposition And All Temptation Can Remove, Most Shines, And Most Is Acceptable Above.

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

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

Be Strong, Live Happy And Love, But First Of All Him Whom To Love Is To Obey, And Keep His Great Command!

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

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

There Are No Songs Comparable To The Songs Of Zion, No Orations Equal To Those Of The Prophets, And No Politics Like Those Which The Scriptures Teach.

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.

Where There Is Much Desire To Learn, There Of Necessity Will Be Much Arguing, Much Writing, For Opinion In Good Men Is But Knowledge In The Making.

Sufficient To Have Stood, Though Free To Fall.

Man Hath His Daily Work Of Body Or Mind Appointed, Which Declares His Dignity, And The Regard Of Heav'n On All His Ways.

Praise From An Enemy Smells Of Craft.

So On This Windy Sea Of Land, The Fiend Walked Up And Down Alone Bent On His Prey.

Into This Wild Abyss, The Womb Of Nature And Perhaps Her Grave.

Seasoned Life Of Man Preserved And Stored Up In Books.

The Love-lorn Nightingale Nightly To Thee Her Sad Song Mourneth Well.

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

And Out Of Good Still To Find Means Of Evil.

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.

But What More Oft In Nations Grown Corrupt, And By Their Vices Brought To Servitude, Than To Love Bondage More Than Liberty, Bondage With Ease Than Strenuous Liberty.

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.

Ornate Rhetorick Taught Out Of The Rule Of Plato.... To Which Poetry Would Be Made Subsequent, Or Indeed Rather Precedent, As Being Less Suttle And Fine, But More Simple, Sensuous, And Passionate.

Awake, Arise Or Be For Ever Fall’n.

And What The People But A Herd Confus'd, A Miscellaneous Rabble, Who Extol Things Vulgar, And, Well Weigh'd, Scarce Worth The Praise? They Praise, And They Admire, They Know Not What; And Know Not Whom, But As One Leads The Other; And What Delight To Be By Such Extoll'd, To Live Upon Their Tongues, And Be Their Talk, Of Whom To Be Disprais'd Were No Small Praise?

To Know That Which Lies Before Us In Daily Life Is The Prime Wisdom.

The Olive Grove Of Academe, Plato's Retirement, Where The Attic Bird Trills Her Thick-warbled Notes The Summer Long.

She What Was Honour Knew, And With Obsequious Majesty Approv'd My Pleaded Reason. To The Nuptial Bower I Led Her Blushing Like The Morn; All Heaven And Happy Constellations On That Hour Shed Their Selectest Influence; The Earth Gave Sign Of Gratulation, And Each Hill; Joyous The Birds; Fresh Gales And Gentle Airs Whisper'd It To The Woods, And From Their Wings Flung Rose, Flung Odours From The Spicy Shrub.

Who Aspires Must Down As Low As High He Soar'd.

Paradise Lost Book 9

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

On A Sudden Open Fly With Impetuous Recoil And Jarring Sound Th' Infernal Doors, And On Their Hinges Grate Harsh Thunder.

It Was The Winter Wild, While The Heaven-born Child, All Meanly Wrapt In The Rude Manger Lies.

A Good Principle Not Rightly Understood May Prove As Hurtful As A Bad.

A Good Book Is The Precious Lifeblood Of A Master Spirit.

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.

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

But O Yet More Miserable! Myself My Sepulchre, A Moving Grave.

Part Of My Soul I Seek Thee, And Claim Thee My Other Half

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

Never Can True Reconcilement Grow Where Wounds Of Deadly Hate Have Pierced So Deep.

By Night The Glass Of Galileo ... Observes Imagin'd Land And Regions In The Moon.

The Childhood Shows The Man, As Morning Shows The Day.

God Doth Not Need Either Man's Work Or His Own Gifts. Who Best Bear His Mild Yoke, They Serve Him Best. His State Is Kingly: Thousands At His Bidding Speed, And Post O'er Land And Ocean Without Rest; They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait.

The Planets In Their Station List'ning Stood.

And Add To These Retired Leisure, That In Trim Gardens Take His Pleasure.

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

Money Brings Honor, Friends, Conquest, And Realms.

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

Come, Pensive Nun, Devout And Pure, Sober Steadfast, And Demure, All In A Robe Of Darkest Grain, Flowing With Majestic Train.

Smiles From Reason Flow, To Brute Deny'd, And Are Of Love The Food.

Which, If Not Victory, Is Yet Revenge.

Cyriack, Whose Grandsire On The Royal Bench Of British Themis, With No Mean Applause Pronounced And In His Volumes Taught Our Laws, Which Others At Their Bar So Often Wrench

Now I See Peace To Corrupt No Less Than War To Waste.

Good, The More Communicated, More Abundant Grows.

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.

The Greatest Burden In The World Is Superstition, Not Only Of Ceremonies In The Church, But Of Imaginary And Scarecrow Sins At Home.

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

To Hear The Lark Begin His Flight, And Singing Startle The Dull Night, From His Watch-tower In The Skies, Till The Dappled Dawn Doth Rise.

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

Enflamed With The Study Of Learning And The Admiration Of Virtue; Stirred Up With High Hopes Of Living To Be Brave Men And Worthy Patriots, Dear To God, And Famous To All Ages.

What Honour That, But Tedious Waste Of Time, To Sit And Hear So Many Hollow Compliments And Lies.

I Will Point Ye Out The Right Path Of A Virtuous And Noble Education; Laborious Indeed At First Ascent, But Else So Smooth, So Green, So Full Of Goodly Prospect, And Melodious Sounds On Every Side, That The Harp Of Orpheus Was Not More Charming.

Th'invention All Admir'd, And Each, How He To Be Th'inventor Miss'd; So Easy It Seem'd Once Found, Which Yet Unfound Most Would Have Thought Impossible.

Wherefore Did Nature Pour Her Bounties Forth With Such A Full And Unwithdrawing Hand, Covering The Earth With Odours, Fruits, Flocks, Thronging The Seas With Spawn Innumerable, But All To Please And Sate The Curious Taste?

All Hell Broke Loose.

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!

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

And Sing To Those That Hold The Vital Shears; And Turn The Adamantine Spindle Round, On Which The Fate Of Gods And Men Is Wound.

What Reinforcement We May Gain From Hope; If Not, What Resolution From Despair.

Infinity Is A Dark Illimitable Ocean, Without Bound.

The Never-ending Flight Of Future Days.

Indu'd With Sanctity Of Reason.

Knowledge Cannot Defile, Nor Consequently The Books, If The Will And Conscience Be Not Defiled.

Spirits That Live Throughout, Vital In Every Part, Not As Frail Man, In Entrails, Heart Or Head, Liver Or Reins, Cannot But By Annihilating Die.

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.

There Swift Return Diurnal, Merely To Officiate Light Round This Opacous Earth, This Punctual Spot.

Hence, Loathèd Melancholy, Of Cerberus And Blackest Midnight Born, In Stygian Cave Forlorn, 'mongst Horrid Shapes, And Shrieks, And Sights Unholy.

Till Old Experience Do Attain To Something Like Prophetic Strain.

And Feel That I Am Happier Than I Know.

Satan; So Call Him Now, His Former Name Is Heard No More In Heaven.

Nothing Is Here For Tears, Nothing To Wail Or Knock The Breast, No Weakness, No Contempt, Dispraise, Or Blame,-nothing But Well And Fair, And What May Quiet Us In A Death So Noble.

In Dim Eclipse, Disastrous Twilight Sheds On Half The Nations, And With Fear Of Change Perplexes Monarchs.

Hail, Holy Light! Offspring Of Heaven Firstborn! Or Of Th' Eternal Co-eternal Beam, May I Express Thee Unblam'd? Since God Is Light And Never But In Unapproached Light Dwelt From Eternity, Dwelt Then In Thee, Bright Effluence Of Bright Essence Increate!

...it Ought Not To Appear Wonderful If Many, Both Jews And Others, Who Lived Before Christ, And Many Also Who Have Lived Since His Time, But To Whom He Has Never Been Revealed, Should Be Saved By Faith In God Alone: Still However, Through The Sole Merits Of Christ, Inasmuch As He Was Given And Slain From The Beginning Of The World, Even For Those To Whom He Was Not Known, Provided They Believed In God The Father.

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.

And 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.

So Little Knows Any, But God Alone, But Perverts Best Things To Worst Abuse, Or To Their Meanest Use.

Neither Prosperity Nor Empire Nor Heaven Can Be Worth Winning At The Price Of A Virulent Temper, Bloody Hands, An Anguished Spirit, And A Vain Hatred Of The Rest Of The World.

How Charming Is Divine Philosophy! Not Harsh And Crabbed, As Dull Fools Suppose, But Musical As Is Apollo's Lute, And A Perpetual Feast Of Nectar'd Sweets Where No Crude Surfeit Reigns

Such As The Meeting Soul May Pierce, In Notes With Many A Winding Bout Of Linked Sweetness Long Drawn Out.

Anon Out Of The Earth A Fabric Huge Rose, Like An Exhalation.

The Liberty Of Conscience, Which Above All Other Things Ought To Be To All Men Dearest And Most Precious.

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

So Dear To Heaven Is Saintly Chastity, That, When A Soul Is Found Sincerely So, A Thousand Liveried Angels Lacky Her, Driving Far Off Each Thing Of Sin And Guilt.

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

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

No War Or Battle Sound Was Heard The World Around.

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