I never feared they could, though noising loud

And threatening nigh: what they can do as signs

Betokening or ill-boding I contemn

As false portents, not sent from God, but thee;

Who, knowing I shall reign past thy preventing,

Obtrud’st thy offered aid, that I, accepting,

At least might seem to hold all power of thee,

Ambitious Spirit! and would’st be thought my God;

And storm’st, refused, thinking to terrify

Me to thy will! Desist (thou art discerned,

And toil’st in vain), nor me in vain molest.”

To whom the Fiend, now swoln with rage, replied:—

“Then hear, O Son of David, virgin-born!

For Son of God to me is yet in doubt.

Of the Messiah I have heard foretold

By all the Prophets; of thy birth, at length

Announced by Gabriel, with the first I knew,

And of the angelic song in Bethlehem field,

On thy birth-night, that sung thee Saviour born.

From that time seldom have I ceased to eye

Thy infancy, thy childhood, and thy youth,

Thy manhood last, though yet in private bred;

Till, at the ford of Jordan, whither all

Flocked to the Baptist, I among the rest

(Though not to be baptized), by voice from Heaven

Heard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved.

Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view

And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn

In what degree or meaning thou art called

The Son of God, which bears no single sense.

The Son of God I also am, or was;

And, if I was, I am; relation stands:

All men are Sons of God; yet thee I thought

In some respect far higher so declared.

Therefore I watched thy footsteps from that hour,

And followed thee still on to this waste wild,

Where, by all best conjectures, I collect

Thou art to be my fatal enemy.

Good reason, then, if I beforehand seek

To understand my adversary, who

And what he is; his wisdom, power, intent;

By parle or composition, truce or league,

To win him, or win from him what I can.

And opportunity I here have had

To try thee, sift thee, and confess have found thee

Proof against all temptation, as a rock

Of adamant and as a centre, firm

To the utmost of mere man both wise and good,

Not more; for honours, riches, kingdoms, glory,

Have been before contemned, and may again.

Therefore, to know what more thou art than man,

Worth naming the Son of God by voice from Heaven,

Another method I must now begin.”

So saying, he caught him up, and, without wing

Of hippogrif, bore through the air sublime,

Over the wilderness and o’er the plain,

Till underneath them fair Jerusalem,

The Holy City, lifted high her towers,

And higher yet the glorious Temple reared

Her pile, far off appearing like a mount

Of alablaster, topt with golden spires:

There, on the highest pinnacle, he set

The Son of God, and added thus in scorn:—