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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 Impaired.

-John Milton

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Wisdom's Self Oft Seeks

John Milton

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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 Impaired.

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The Tree Of Knowledge Grew Fast By, Knowledge Of Good Bought Dear By Knowing Ill.

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

Some Say No Evil Thing That Walks By Night, In Fog Or Fire, By Lake Or Moorish Fen, Blue Meagre Hag, Or Stubborn Unlaid Ghost That Breaks His Magic Chains At Curfew Time, No Goblin, Or Swart Fairy Of The Mine, Hath Hurtful Power O'er True Virginity.

Believe And Be Confirmed.

Leaves Have Their Time To Fall, And Flowers To Wither At The North - Wind's Breath, And Stars To Set; But All, Thou Hast All Seasons For Thine Own, O Death!

The Planets In Their Station List'ning Stood.

Pandemonium, The High Capital Of Satan And His Peers.

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

Sweet Bird, That Shun The Noise Of Folly, Most Musical, Most Melancholy!

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

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

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

This Is Servitude, To Serve The Unwise.

The Great Creator From His Work Returned Magnificent, His Six Days' Work, A World.

For No Falsehood Can Endure Touch Of Celestial Temper.

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.

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

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

Assuredly We Bring Not Innocence Not The World, We Bring Impurity Much Rather: That Which Purifies Us Is Trial, And Trial Is By What Is Contrary.

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

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

Fate Shall Yield To Fickle Chance, And Chaos Judge The Strife.

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.

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

There Is No Christian Duty That Is Not To Be Seasoned And Set Off With Cheerishness, Which In A Thousand Outward And Intermitting Crosses May Yet Be Done Well, As In This Vale Of Tears.

Wherefore Did He [god] Create Passions Within Us, Pleasures Round About Us, But That These Rightly Tempered Are The Very Ingredients Of Virtue?

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

Such Bickerings To Recount, Met Often In These Our Writers, What More Worth Is It Than To Chronicle The Wars Of Kites Or Crows Flocking And Fighting In The Air?

Such Sober Certainty Of Waking Bliss.

Time Is The Subtle Thief Of Youth.

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

For The Air Of Youth, Hopeful And Cheerful, In Thy Blood Will Reign A Melancholy Damp Of Cold And Dry To Weigh Thy Spirits Down, And Last Consume The Balm Of Life.

And Feel That I Am Happier Than I Know.

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

His Sleep Was Aery Light, From Pure Digestion Bred.

In God's Intention, A Meet And Happy Conversation Is The Chiefest And Noblest End Of Marriage.

Beyond Is All Abyss, Eternity, Whose End No Eye Can Reach.

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

No Institution Which Does Not Continually Test Its Ideals, Techniques And Measure Of Accomplishment Can Claim Real Vitality.

Tis Chastity, My Brother, Chastity; She That Has That Is Clad In Complete Steel, And, Like A Quiver'd Nymph With Arrows Keen, May Trace Huge Forests, And Unharbour'd Heaths, Infamous Hills, And Sandy Perilous Wilds; Where, Through The Sacred Rays Of Chastity, No Savage Fierce, Bandite, Or Mountaineer, Will Dare To Soil Her Virgin Purity.

Solitude Is Sometimes The Best Society.

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

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

Paradise Lost Book 9

Virtue Could See To Do What Virtue Would By Her Own Radiant Light, Though Sun And Moon Where In The Flat Sea Sunk.

The Power Of Kings And Magistrates Is Nothing Else, But What Is Only Derivative, Transferrd And Committed To Them In Trust From The People, To The Common Good Of Them All, In Whom The Power Yet Remaines Fundamentally, And Cannot Be Takn From Them, Without A Violation Of Thir Natural Birthright.

Impostor; Do Not Charge Most Innocent Nature, As If She Would Her Children Should Be Riotous With Her Abundance; She, Good Cateress, Means Her Provision Only To The Good, That Live According To Her Sober Laws, And Holy Dictate Of Spare Temperance.

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.

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

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.

Hail Universal Lord, Be Bounteous Still To Give Us Only Good; And If The Night Have Gathered Aught Of Evil Or Concealed, Disperse It, As Now Light Dispels The Dark.

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.

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

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

And That Must End Us, That Must Be Our Cure: To Be No More. Sad Cure! For Who Would Lose, Though Full Of Pain, This Intellectual Being, Those Thoughts That Wander Through Eternity, To Perish, Rather, Swallowed Up And Lost In The Wide Womb Of Uncreated Night Devoid Of Sense And Motion?

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

See Golden Days, Fruitful Of Golden Deeds, With Joy And Love Triumphing.

Enjoy Your Dear Wit And Gay Rhetoric, That Hath So Well Been Taught Her Dazzling Fence.

Spirits When They Please Can Either Sex Assume, Or Both.

This Having Learnt, Thou Hast Attained The Sum Of Wisdom; Hope No Higher, Though All The Stars Thou Knew'st By Name, And All Th'ethereal Powers, All Secrets Of The Deep, All Nature's Works, Or Works Of God In Heav'n, Air, Earth, Or Sea, And All The Riches Of This World Enjoy'dst, And All The Rule, One Empire; Onlyadd Deeds To Thy Knowledge Answerable, Add Faith, Add Virtue, Patience, Temperance, Add Love, By Name To Come Called Charity, The Soul Of All The Rest: Then Wilt Thou Not Be Loath To Leave This Paradise, But Shalt Possess A Paradise Within Thee, Happier Far.

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

I Sat Me Down To Watch Upon A Bank With Ivy Canopied And Interwove With Flaunting Honeysuckle.

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

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

But Say That Death Be Not One Stroke, As I Supposed, Bereaving Sense, But Endless Misery From This Day Onward, Which I Feel Begun Both In Me, And Without Me, And So Last To Perpetuity; Ay Me, That Fear Comes Thund'ring Back With Dreadful Revolution On My Defenceless Head; Both Death And I Am Found Eternal, And Incorporate Both, Nor I On My Part Single, In Me All Paradise Lost Posterity Stands Cursed: Fair Patrimony That I Must Leave Ye, Sons; O Were I Able To Waste It All Myself, And Leave Ye None!

To-morrow To Fresh Woods, And Pastures New.

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

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.

Our Torments Also May In Length Of Time Become Our Elements, These Piercing Fires As Soft As Now Severe, Our Temper Changed Into Their Temper.

Who Reads Incessantly, And To His Reading Brings Not A Spirit And Judgment Equal Or Superior, (and What He Brings What Need He Elsewhere Seek?) Uncertain And Unsettled Still Remains, Deep Versed In Books And Shallow In Himself, Crude Or Intoxicate, Collecting Toys And Trifles For Choice Matters, Worth A Sponge, As Children Gathering Pebbles On The Shore.

Servant Of God, Well Done! Well Hast Thou Fought The Better Fight, Who Single Hast Maintain'd Against Revolted Multitudes The Cause Of Truth.

Just Are The Ways Of God, And Justifiable To Men; Unless There Be Who Think Not God At All.

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

How Soon Hath Time, The Subtle Thief Of Youth, Stolen On His Wing My Three-and-twentieth Year!

Virtue That Wavers Is Not Virtue.

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

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

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?

Fairest Of Stars, Last In The Train Of Night, If Better Thou Belong Not To The Dawn.

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.

Yet Beauty, Though Injurious, Hath Strange Power, After Offence Returning, To Regain Love Once Possess'd.

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

And May At Last My Weary Age Find Out The Peaceful Hermitage, The Hairy Gown And Mossy Cell, Where I May Sit And Rightly Spell Of Every Star That Heaven Doth Shew, And Every Herb That Sips The Dew, Till Old Experience To Attain To Something Like Prophetic Strain.

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

In Argument With Men A Woman Ever Goes By The Worse, Whatever Be Her Cause.

Apt Words Have Power To Suage The Tumors Of A Troubled Mind.

Blind Mouths! That Scarce Themselves Know How To Hold A Sheep-hook.

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 Whole Freedom Of Man Consists Either In Spiritual Or Civil Liberty.

Gratitude Bestows Reverence.....changing Forever How We Experience Life And The World.

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.

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.

And The Earth Self-balanced On Her Centre Hung.

Swinish Gluttony Never Looks To Heaven Amidst Its Gorgeous Feast; But With Besotted, Base Ingratitude, Cravens And Blasphemes His Feeder.

Solitude Sometimes Is Best Society.

Live While Ye May, Yet Happy Pair.

So Dear To Heav'n Is Saintly Chastity, That When A Soul Is Found Sincerely So, A Thousand Liveried Angels Lackey Her, Driving Far Off Each Thing Of Sin And Guilt, And In Clear Dream And Solemn Vision Tell Her Of Things That No Gross Ear Can Hear, Till Oft Converse With Heav'nly Habitants Begin To Cast A Beam On Th' Outward Shape.

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.

Revenge, At First Though Sweet, Bitter Ere Long Back On Itself Recoils.

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

Avenge, O Lord, Thy Slaughtered Saints, Whose Bones Lie Scattered On The Alpine Mountains Cold; Ev'n Them Who Kept Thy Truth So Pure Of Old When All Our Fathers Worshipped Stocks And Stones Forget Not.

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.

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.

Justice Divine Mends Not Her Slowest Pace For Prayers Or Cries.

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.

Therefore God's Universal Law Gave To The Man Despotic Power Over His Female In Due Awe, Not From That Right To Part An Hour, Smile She Or Lour.

Apostate, Still Thou Err'st, Nor End Wilt Find Offering, From The Paths Of Truth Remote.

Meadows Trim With Daisies Pied, Shallow Brooks And Rivers Wide Towers And Battlements It Sees Bosom'd High In Tufted Trees, Where Perhaps Some Beauty Lies, The Cynosure Of Neighboring Eyes.

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

That Virtue Therefore Which Is But A Youngling In The Contemplation Of Evil, And Knows Not The Utmost That Vice Promises To Her Followers, And Rejects It, Is But A Blank Virtue, Not A Pure; Her Whiteness Is But An Excremental Whiteness.

And To The Faithful: Death, The Gate Of Life.

The Hungry Sheep Look Up, And Are Not Fed.

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

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

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.

Fairy Damsels Met In Forest Wide / By Knights Of Logres, Or Of Lyones, / Lancelot Or Pelleas, Or Pellenore.

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.

Sometime Let Gorgeous Tragedy In Sceptred Pall Come Sweeping By, Presenting Thebes, Or Pelops' Line, Or The Tale Of Troy Divine.

And Grace That Won Who Saw To Wish Her Stay.

What Call Thou Solitude? Is Not The Earth With Various Living Creatures, And The Air Replenished, And All These At Thy Command To Come And Play Before Thee?

Danger Will Wink On Opportunity.

None But Such As Are Good Men Can Give Good Things, And That Which Is Not Good, Is Not Delicious To A Well-govern'd And Wise Appetite.

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

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.

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

The Stars, That Nature Hung In Heaven, And Filled Their Lamps With Everlasting Oil, Give Due Light To The Misled And Lonely Traveller.

And These Gems Of Heav'n, Her Starry Train.

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.

He Who Reigns Within Himself And Rules Passions, Desires, And Fears Is More Than A King.

Where Shame Is, There Is Also Fear.

Death From Sin No Power Can Separate.

Where Glowing Embers Through The Room Teach Light To Counterfeit A Gloom.

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

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

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.

Freely They Stood Who Stood, And Fell Who Fell.

What In Me Is Dark Illumine, What Is Low Raise And Support, That To The Height Of This Great Argument I May Assert Eternal Providence, And Justify The Ways Of God To Men. 1 Paradise Lost. Book I. Line 22.

Of Four Infernal Rivers That Disgorge/ Into The Burning Lake Their Baleful Streams;/abhorred Styx The Flood Of Deadly Hate,/sad Acheron Of Sorrow, Black And Deep;/cocytus, Nam'd Of Lamentation Loud/ Heard On The Rueful Stream; Fierce Phlegethon/ Whose Waves Of Torrent Fire Inflame With Rage./ Far Off From These A Slow And Silent Stream,/ Lethe The River Of Oblivion Rolls/ Her Wat'ry Labyrinth Whereof Who Drinks,/ Forthwith His Former State And Being Forgets,/ Forgets Both Joy And Grief, Pleasure And Pain.

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

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

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

A Death-like Sleep, A Gentle Wafting To Immortal Life.

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?

The Teachers Of Our Law, And To Propose What Might Improve My Knowledge Or Their Own.

Now Conscience Wakes Despair That Slumber'd,-wakes The Bitter Memory Of What He Was, What Is, And What Must Be Worse.

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.

Reason Also Is Choice.

Where Eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors Of Nature, Hold Eternal Anarchy Amidst The Noise Of Endless Wars, And By Confusion Stand; For Hot, Cold, Moist, And Dry, Four Champions Fierce, Strive Here For Mast'ry.

Can Any Mortal Mixture Of Earth's Mould Breathe Such Divine Enchanting Ravishment?

For God Will Deign To Visit Oft The Dwellings Of Just Men -- Delighted, And With Frequent Intercourse -- Thither Will Send His Winged Messengers On Errants Of Supernal Grace.

Sufficient To Have Stood, Though Free To Fall.

Here The Great Art Lies, To Discern In What The Law Is To Be To Restraint And Punishment, And In What Things Persuasion Only Is To Work.

All Hell Broke Loose.

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.

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

Hear All Ye Angels, Progeny Of Light, Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers.

[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.

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

Thence To The Famous Orators Repair, Those Ancient, Whose Resistless Eloquence Wielded At Will That Fierce Democratie, Shook The Arsenal, And Fulmin'd Over Greece, To Macedon, And Artaxerxes' Throne.

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.

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.

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.

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

For To Interpose A Little Ease, Let Our Frail Thoughts Dally With False Surmise.

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!

'paradise Lost' Is One Of The Books Which The Reader Admires And Lays Down, And Forgets To Take Up Again. None Ever Wished It Longer Than It Is.

Imparadis'd In One Another's Arms.

Ride The Air In Whirlwind.

For What Can War, But Endless War, Still Breed?

Indu'd With Sanctity Of Reason.

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.

Freely We Serve, Because Freely We Love.

Where More Is Meant Than Meets The Ear.

... 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.

Moping Melancholy And Moon-struck Madness.

Which, If Not Victory, Is Yet Revenge.

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.

Thy Liquid Notes That Close The Eye Of Day.

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

Though We Take From A Covetous Man All His Treasure, He Has Yet One Jewel Left; You Cannot Bereave Him Of His Covetousness.

Demoniac Frenzy, Moping Melancholy.

The Winds With Wonder Whist, Smoothly The Waters Kisst.

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

Fame Is The Last Infirmity Of The Human Mind.

How Wearisom Eternity So Spent In Worship Paid To Whom We Hate. Let Us Not Then Pursue By Force Impossible, By Leave Obtain'd Unacceptable, Though In Heav'n, Our State Of Splendid Vassalage, But Rather Seek Our Own Good From Our Selves, And From Our Own Live To Our Selves, Though In This Vast Recess, Free, And To None Accountable, Preferring Hard Liberty Before The Easie Yoke Of Servile Pomp

O Welcome Pure-eyed Faith, White Handed Hope, Thou Hovering Angel Girt With Golden Wings.

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.

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

Day And Night, Seed-time And Harvest, Heat And Hoary Frost Shall Hold Their Course, Till Fire Purge All Things New.

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

Then Wilt Thou Not Be Loath To Leave This Paradise, But Shalt Possess A Paradise Within Thee, Happier Far.

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

Evil, Be Thou My Good.

I Sung Of Chaos And Eternal Night, Taught By The Heav'nly Muse To Venture Down The Dark Descent, And Up To Reascend.

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

A Bevy Of Fair Women.

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

They Eat, They Drink, And In Communion Sweet Quaff Immortality And Joy.

They Also Serve Who Only Stand And Wait.

Patience And Waiting

Chaos Umpire Sits And By Decision More Embroils The Fray By Which He Reigns: Next Him High Arbiter Chance Governs All.

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.

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