Least Heav’n surcharg’d with potent multitude

      Might hap to move new broiles: Be this or aught

      Then this more secret now design’d, I haste

      To know, and this once known, shall soon return,

      And bring ye to the place where Thou and Death

      Shall dwell at ease, and up and down unseen

      Wing silently the buxom Air, imbalm’d

      With odours; there ye shall be fed and fill’d

      Immeasurably, all things shall be your prey.

      He ceas’d, for both seemd highly pleasd, and Death

      Grinnd horrible a gastly smile, to hear

      His famine should be fill’d, and blest his mawe

      Destin’d to that good hour: no less rejoyc’d

      His mother bad, and thus bespake her Sire.

      The key of this infernal Pit by due,

      And by command of Heav’ns all-powerful King

      I keep, by him forbidden to unlock

      These Adamantine Gates; against all force

      Death ready stands to interpose his dart,

      Fearless to be o’rematcht by living might.

      But what ow I to his commands above

      Who hates me, and hath hither thrust me down

      Into this gloom of TARTARUS profound,

      To sit in hateful Office here confin’d,

      Inhabitant of Heav’n, and heav’nlie-born,

      Here in perpetual agonie and pain,

      With terrors and with clamors compasst round

      Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed:

      Thou art my Father, thou my Author, thou

      My being gav’st me; whom should I obey

      But thee, whom follow? thou wilt bring me soon

      To that new world of light and bliss, among

      The Gods who live at ease, where I shall Reign

      At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems

      Thy daughter and thy darling, without end.

      Thus saying, from her side the fatal Key,

      Sad instrument of all our woe, she took;

      And towards the Gate rouling her bestial train,

      Forthwith the huge Porcullis high up drew,

      Which but her self not all the STYGIAN powers

      Could once have mov’d; then in the key-hole turns

      Th’ intricate wards, and every Bolt and Bar

      Of massie Iron or sollid Rock with ease

      Unfast’ns: on a sudden op’n flie

      With impetuous recoile and jarring sound

      Th’ infernal dores, and on thir hinges great

      Harsh Thunder, that the lowest bottom shook

      Of EREBUS. She op’nd, but to shut

      Excel’d her power; the Gates wide op’n stood,

      That with extended wings a Bannerd Host

      Under spread Ensigns marching might pass through

      With Horse and Chariots rankt in loose array;

      So wide they stood, and like a Furnace mouth

      Cast forth redounding smoak and ruddy flame.

      Before thir eyes in sudden view appear

      The secrets of the hoarie deep, a dark

      Illimitable Ocean without bound,

      Without dimension, where length, breadth, and highth,

      And time and place are lost; where eldest Night

      And CHAOS, Ancestors of Nature, hold

      Eternal ANARCHIE, amidst the noise

      Of endless warrs and by confusion stand.

      For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce

      Strive here for Maistrie, and to Battel bring

      Thir embryon Atoms; they around the flag

      Of each his faction, in thir several Clanns,

      Light-arm’d or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow,

      Swarm populous, unnumber’d as the Sands

      Of BARCA or CYRENE’S torrid soil,

      Levied to side with warring Winds, and poise

      Thir lighter wings. To whom these most adhere,

      Hee rules a moment; CHAOS Umpire sits,

      And by decision more imbroiles the fray

      By which he Reigns: next him high Arbiter

      CHANCE governs all. Into this wilde Abyss,

      The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,

      Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,

      But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt

      Confus’dly, and which thus must ever fight,

      Unless th’ Almighty Maker them ordain

      His dark materials to create more Worlds,

      Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend

      Stood on the brink of Hell and look’d a while,

      Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith

      He had to cross. Nor was his eare less peal’d

      With noises loud and ruinous (to compare

      Great things with small) then when BELLONA storms,

      With all her battering Engines bent to rase

      Som Capital City, or less then if this frame

      Of Heav’n were falling, and these Elements

      In mutinie had from her Axle torn

      The stedfast Earth. At last his Sail-broad Vannes

      He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoak

      Uplifted spurns the ground, thence many a League

      As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides

      Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets

      A vast vacuitie: all unawares

      Fluttring his pennons vain plumb down he drops

      Ten thousand fadom deep, and to this hour

      Down had been falling, had not by ill chance

      The strong rebuff of som tumultuous cloud

      Instinct with Fire and Nitre hurried him

      As many miles aloft: that furie stay’d,

      Quencht in a Boggie SYRTIS, neither Sea,

      Nor good dry Land: nigh founderd on he fares,

      Treading the crude consistence, half on foot,

      Half flying; behoves him now both Oare and Saile.

      As when a Gryfon through the Wilderness

      With