Receive, with solemn purpose to observe

Immutably his sovran will, the end

Of what we are. But since thou hast vouchsafed

Gently, for our instruction, to impart

Things above earthly thought, which yet concerned

Our knowing, as to highest wisdom seemed,

Deign to descend now lower, and relate

What may no less perhaps avail us known,

How first began this Heaven which we behold

Distant so high, with moving fires adorned

Innumerable; and this which yields or fills

All space, the ambient air wide interfused

Embracing round this floried Earth; what cause

Moved the Creator, in his holy rest

Through all eternity, so late to build

In Chaos; and the work begun, how soon

Absolved; if unforbid thou mayest unfold

What we, not to explore the secrets ask

Of his eternal empire, but the more

To magnify his works, the more we know.

And the great light of day yet wants to run

Much of his race though steep; suspense in Heaven,

Held by thy voice, thy potent voice, he hears,

And longer will delay to hear thee tell

His generation, and the rising birth

Of Nature from the unapparent Deep:

Or if the star of evening and the moon

Haste to thy audience, Night with her will bring,

Silence; and Sleep, listening to thee, will watch;

Or we can bid his absence, till thy song

End, and dismiss thee ere the morning shine.”

Thus Adam his illustrious guest besought:

And thus the Godlike Angel answered mild.

“This also thy request, with caution asked,

Obtain; though to recount almighty works

What words or tongue of Seraph can suffice,

Or heart of man suffice to comprehend?

Yet what thou canst attain, which best may serve

To glorify the Maker, and infer

Thee also happier, shall not be withheld

Thy hearing; such commission from above

I have received, to answer thy desire

Of knowledge within bounds; beyond, abstain

To ask; nor let thine own inventions hope

Things not revealed, which the invisible King,

Only Omniscient, hath suppressed in night;

To none communicable in Earth or Heaven:

Enough is left besides to search and know.

But knowledge is as food, and needs no less

Her temperance over appetite, to know

In measure what the mind may well contain;

Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns

Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.

Know then, that, after Lucifer from Heaven

(So call him, brighter once amidst the host

Of Angels, than that star the stars among,)

Fell with his flaming legions through the deep

Into his place, and the great Son returned

Victorious with his Saints, the Omnipotent

Eternal Father from his throne beheld

Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake.

‘At least our envious Foe hath failed, who thought

All like himself rebellious, by whose aid

This inaccessible high strength, the seat

Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed,

He trusted to have seized, and into fraud

Drew many, whom their place knows here no more: