Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Джон Мильтон

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СКАЧАТЬ led th’ embattled Seraphim to war

      Under thy conduct, and, in dreadful deeds

      Fearless, endangered Heaven’s perpetual King,

      And put to proof his high supremacy,

      Whether upheld by strength, or chance, or fate,

      Too well I see and rue the dire event

      That, with sad overthrow and foul defeat,

      Hath lost us Heaven, and all this mighty host

      In horrible destruction laid thus low,

      As far as Gods and heavenly Essences

      Can perish: for the mind and spirit remains

      Invincible, and vigour soon returns,

      Though all our glory extinct, and happy state

      Here swallowed up in endless misery.

      But what if he our Conqueror (whom I now

      Of force believe almighty, since no less

      Than such could have o’erpowered such force as ours)

      Have left us this our spirit and strength entire,

      Strongly to suffer and support our pains,

      That we may so suffice his vengeful ire,

      Or do him mightier service as his thralls

      By right of war, whate’er his business be,

      Here in the heart of Hell to work in fire,

      Or do his errands in the gloomy Deep?

      What can it the avail though yet we feel

      Strength undiminished, or eternal being

      To undergo eternal punishment?”

      Whereto with speedy words th’ Arch-Fiend replied:—

      “Fallen Cherub, to be weak is miserable,

      Doing or suffering: but of this be sure—

      To do aught good never will be our task,

      But ever to do ill our sole delight,

      As being the contrary to his high will

      Whom we resist. If then his providence

      Out of our evil seek to bring forth good,

      Our labour must be to pervert that end,

      And out of good still to find means of evil;

      Which ofttimes may succeed so as perhaps

      Shall grieve him, if I fail not, and disturb

      His inmost counsels from their destined aim.

      But see! the angry Victor hath recalled

      His ministers of vengeance and pursuit

      Back to the gates of Heaven: the sulphurous hail,

      Shot after us in storm, o’erblown hath laid

      The fiery surge that from the precipice

      Of Heaven received us falling; and the thunder,

      Winged with red lightning and impetuous rage,

      Perhaps hath spent his shafts, and ceases now

      To bellow through the vast and boundless Deep.

      Let us not slip th’ occasion, whether scorn

      Or satiate fury yield it from our Foe.

      Seest thou yon dreary plain, forlorn and wild,

      The seat of desolation, void of light,

      Save what the glimmering of these livid flames

      Casts pale and dreadful? Thither let us tend

      From off the tossing of these fiery waves;

      There rest, if any rest can harbour there;

      And, re-assembling our afflicted powers,

      Consult how we may henceforth most offend

      Our enemy, our own loss how repair,

      How overcome this dire calamity,

      What reinforcement we may gain from hope,

      If not, what resolution from despair.”

      Thus Satan, talking to his nearest mate,

      With head uplift above the wave, and eyes

      That sparkling blazed; his other parts besides

      Prone on the flood, extended long and large,

      Lay floating many a rood, in bulk as huge

      As whom the fables name of monstrous size,

      Titanian or Earth-born, that warred on Jove,

      Briareos or Typhon, whom the den

      By ancient Tarsus held, or that sea-beast

      Leviathan, which God of all his works

      Created hugest that swim th’ ocean-stream.

      Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,

      The pilot of some small night-foundered skiff,

      Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,

      With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,

      Moors by his side under the lee, while night

      Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.

      So stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay,

      Chained on the burning lake; nor ever thence

      Had risen, or heaved his head, but that the will

      And high permission of all-ruling Heaven

      Left him at large to his own dark designs,

      That with reiterated crimes he might

      Heap on himself damnation, while he sought

      Evil to others, and enraged might see

      How СКАЧАТЬ