And with rebounding surge the bars assailed,

That scorned his indignation: Through the gate,

Wide open and unguarded, Satan passed,

And all about found desolate; for those,

Appointed to sit there, had left their charge,

Flown to the upper world; the rest were all

Far to the inland retired, about the walls

Of Pandemonium; city and proud seat

Of Lucifer, so by allusion called

Of that bright star to Satan paragoned;

There kept their watch the legions, while the Grand

In council sat, solicitous what chance

Might intercept their emperor sent; so he

Departing gave command, and they observed.

As when the Tartar from his Russian foe,

By Astracan, over the snowy plains,

Retires; or Bactrin Sophi, from the horns

Of Turkish crescent, leaves all waste beyond

The realm of Aladule, in his retreat

To Tauris or Casbeen: So these, the late

Heaven-banished host, left desart utmost Hell

Many a dark league, reduced in careful watch

Round their metropolis; and now expecting

Each hour their great adventurer, from the search

Of foreign worlds: He through the midst unmarked,

In show plebeian Angel militant

Of lowest order, passed; and from the door

Of that Plutonian hall, invisible

Ascended his high throne; which, under state

Of richest texture spread, at the upper end

Was placed in regal lustre. Down a while

He sat, and round about him saw unseen:

At last, as from a cloud, his fulgent head

And shape star-bright appeared, or brighter; clad

With what permissive glory since his fall

Was left him, or false glitter: All amazed

At that so sudden blaze the Stygian throng

Bent their aspect, and whom they wished beheld,

Their mighty Chief returned: loud was the acclaim:

Forth rushed in haste the great consulting peers,

Raised from their dark Divan, and with like joy

Congratulant approached him; who with hand

Silence, and with these words attention, won.

“Thrones, Dominations, Princedoms, Virtues, Powers;

For in possession such, not only of right,

I call ye, and declare ye now; returned

Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth

Triumphant out of this infernal pit

Abominable, accursed, the house of woe,

And dungeon of our tyrant: Now possess,

As Lords, a spacious world, to our native Heaven

Little inferior, by my adventure hard

With peril great achieved. Long were to tell

What I have done; what suffered; with what pain

Voyaged th’ unreal, vast, unbounded deep

Of horrible confusion; over which

By Sin and Death a broad way now is paved,

To expedite your glorious march; but I

Toiled out my uncouth passage, forced to ride

The untractable abyss, plunged in the womb

Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild;

That, jealous of their secrets, fiercely opposed

My journey strange, with clamorous uproar

Protesting Fate supreme; thence how I found

The new created world, which fame in Heaven

Long had foretold, a fabric wonderful

Of absolute perfection! therein Man

Placed in a Paradise, by our exile

Made happy: Him by fraud I have seduced