To wing the desolate abyss, and spy

This new created world, whereof in Hell

Fame is not silent, here in hope to find

Better abode, and my afflicted Powers

To settle here on earth, or in mid air;

Though for possession put to try once more

What thou and thy gay legions dare against;

Whose easier business were to serve their Lord

High up in Heaven, with songs to hymn his throne,

And practised distances to cringe, not fight,”

To whom the warrior Angel soon replied.

“To say and straight unsay, pretending first

Wise to fly pain, professing next the spy,

Argues no leader but a liar traced,

Satan, and couldst thou faithful add? O name,

O sacred name of faithfulness profaned!

Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew?

Army of Fiends, fit body to fit head.

Was this your discipline and faith engaged,

Your military obedience, to dissolve

Allegiance to the acknowledged Power supreme?

And thou, sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem

Patron of liberty, who more than thou

Once fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored

Heaven’s awful Monarch? wherefore, but in hope

To dispossess him, and thyself to reign?

But mark what I arreed thee now, Avant;

Fly neither whence thou fledst! If from this hour

Within these hallowed limits thou appear,

Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained,

And seal thee so, as henceforth not to scorn

The facile gates of Hell too slightly barred.”

So threatened he; but Satan to no threats

Gave heed, but waxing more in rage replied.

“Then when I am thy captive talk of chains,

Proud limitary Cherub! but ere then

Far heavier load thyself expect to feel

From my prevailing arm, though Heaven’s King

Ride on thy wings, and thou with thy compeers,

Us’d to the yoke, drawest his triumphant wheels

In progress through the road of Heaven star-paved.”

While thus he spake, the angelic squadron bright

Turned fiery red, sharpening in mooned horns

Their phalanx, and began to hem him round

With ported spears, as thick as when a field

Of Ceres ripe for harvest waving bends

Her bearded grove of ears, which way the wind

Sways them; the careful plowman doubting stands,

Left on the threshing floor his hopeless sheaves

Prove chaff. On the other side, Satan, alarmed,

Collecting all his might, dilated stood,

Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved:

His stature reached the sky, and on his crest

Sat Horror plumed; nor wanted in his grasp

What seemed both spear and shield: Now dreadful deeds

Might have ensued, nor only Paradise

In this commotion, but the starry cope

Of Heaven perhaps, or all the elements

At least had gone to wrack, disturbed and torn

With violence of this conflict, had not soon

The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray,

Hung forth in Heaven his golden scales, yet seen

Betwixt Astrea and the Scorpion sign,

Wherein all things created first he weighed,

The pendulous round earth with balanced air

In counterpoise, now ponders all events,

Battles and realms: In these he put two weights,