Round he surveys (and well might, where he stood

So high above the circling canopy

Of night’s extended shade,) from eastern point

Of Libra to the fleecy star that bears

Andromeda far off Atlantic seas

Beyond the horizon; then from pole to pole

He views in breadth, and without longer pause

Down right into the world’s first region throws

His flight precipitant, and winds with ease

Through the pure marble air his oblique way

Amongst innumerable stars, that shone

Stars distant, but nigh hand seemed other worlds;

Or other worlds they seemed, or happy isles,

Like those Hesperian gardens famed of old,

Fortunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales,

Thrice happy isles; but who dwelt happy there

He staid not to inquire: Above them all

The golden sun, in splendour likest Heaven,

Allured his eye; thither his course he bends

Through the calm firmament, (but up or down,

By center, or eccentric, hard to tell,

Or longitude,) where the great luminary

Aloof the vulgar constellations thick,

That from his lordly eye keep distance due,

Dispenses light from far; they, as they move

Their starry dance in numbers that compute

Days, months, and years, towards his all-cheering lamp

Turn swift their various motions, or are turned

By his magnetic beam, that gently warms

The universe, and to each inward part

With gentle penetration, though unseen,

Shoots invisible virtue even to the deep;

So wonderously was set his station bright.

There lands the Fiend, a spot like which perhaps

Astronomer in the sun’s lucent orb

Through his glazed optic tube yet never saw.

The place he found beyond expression bright,

Compared with aught on earth, metal or stone;

Not all parts like, but all alike informed

With radiant light, as glowing iron with fire;

If metal, part seemed gold, part silver clear;

If stone, carbuncle most or chrysolite,

Ruby or topaz, to the twelve that shone

In Aaron’s breast-plate, and a stone besides

Imagined rather oft than elsewhere seen,

That stone, or like to that which here below

Philosophers in vain so long have sought,

In vain, though by their powerful art they bind

Volatile Hermes, and call up unbound

In various shapes old Proteus from the sea,

Drained through a limbeck to his native form.

What wonder then if fields and regions here

Breathe forth Elixir pure, and rivers run

Potable gold, when with one virtuous touch

The arch-chemic sun, so far from us remote,

Produces, with terrestrial humour mixed,

Here in the dark so many precious things

Of colour glorious, and effect so rare?

Here matter new to gaze the Devil met

Undazzled; far and wide his eye commands;

For sight no obstacle found here, nor shade,

But all sun-shine, as when his beams at noon

Culminate from the equator, as they now

Shot upward still direct, whence no way round

Shadow from body opaque can fall; and the air,

Nowhere so clear, sharpened his visual ray

To objects distant far, whereby he soon

Saw within ken a glorious Angel stand,