His lithe proboscis; close the serpent sly,

Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine

His braided train, and of his fatal guile

Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass

Couched, and now filled with pasture gazing sat,

Or bedward ruminating; for the sun,

Declined, was hasting now with prone career

To the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale

Of Heaven the stars that usher evening rose:

When Satan still in gaze, as first he stood,

Scarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad.

“O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!

Into our room of bliss thus high advanced

Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps,

Not Spirits, yet to heavenly Spirits bright

Little inferior; whom my thoughts pursue

With wonder, and could love, so lively shines

In them divine resemblance, and such grace

The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.

Ah! gentle pair, ye little think how nigh

Your change approaches, when all these delights

Will vanish, and deliver ye to woe;

More woe, the more your taste is now of joy;

Happy, but for so happy ill secured

Long to continue, and this high seat your Heaven

Ill fenced for Heaven to keep out such a foe

As now is entered; yet no purposed foe

To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,

Though I unpitied: League with you I seek,

And mutual amity, so strait, so close,

That I with you must dwell, or you with me

Henceforth; my dwelling haply may not please,

Like this fair Paradise, your sense; yet such

Accept your Maker’s work; he gave it me,

Which I as freely give: Hell shall unfold,

To entertain you two, her widest gates,

And send forth all her kings; there will be room,

Not like these narrow limits, to receive

Your numerous offspring; if no better place,

Thank him who puts me loth to this revenge

On you who wrong me not for him who wronged.

And should I at your harmless innocence

Melt, as I do, yet public reason just,

Honour and empire with revenge enlarged,

By conquering this new world, compels me now

To do what else, though damned, I should abhor.”

So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,

The tyrant’s plea, excused his devilish deeds.

Then from his lofty stand on that high tree

Down he alights among the sportful herd

Of those four-footed kinds, himself now one,

Now other, as their shape served best his end

Nearer to view his prey, and, unespied,

To mark what of their state he more might learn,

By word or action marked. About them round

A lion now he stalks with fiery glare;

Then as a tiger, who by chance hath spied

In some purlieu two gentle fawns at play,

Straight couches close, then, rising, changes oft

His couchant watch, as one who chose his ground,

Whence rushing, he might surest seize them both,

Gripped in each paw: when, Adam first of men

To first of women Eve thus moving speech,

Turned him, all ear to hear new utterance flow.