Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Джон Мильтон

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СКАЧАТЬ with gay enamelled colours mixed:

      On which the sun more glad impressed his beams

      Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

      When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed

      That landskip: And of pure now purer air

      Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires

      Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

      All sadness but despair: Now gentle gales,

      Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

      Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole

      Those balmy spoils. As when to them who fail

      Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past

      Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow

      Sabean odours from the spicy shore

      Of Araby the blest; with such delay

      Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league

      Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:

      So entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend,

      Who came their bane; though with them better pleased

      Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume

      That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse

      Of Tobit’s son, and with a vengeance sent

      From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.

      Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill

      Satan had journeyed on, pensive and slow;

      But further way found none, so thick entwined,

      As one continued brake, the undergrowth

      Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed

      All path of man or beast that passed that way.

      One gate there only was, and that looked east

      On the other side: which when the arch-felon saw,

      Due entrance he disdained; and, in contempt,

      At one flight bound high over-leaped all bound

      Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within

      Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf,

      Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey,

      Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve

      In hurdled cotes amid the field secure,

      Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold:

      Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash

      Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors,

      Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault,

      In at the window climbs, or o’er the tiles:

      So clomb this first grand thief into God’s fold;

      So since into his church lewd hirelings climb.

      Thence up he flew, and on the tree of life,

      The middle tree and highest there that grew,

      Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life

      Thereby regained, but sat devising death

      To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought

      Of that life-giving plant, but only used

      For prospect, what well used had been the pledge

      Of immortality. So little knows

      Any, but God alone, to value right

      The good before him, but perverts best things

      To worst abuse, or to their meanest use.

      Beneath him with new wonder now he views,

      To all delight of human sense exposed,

      In narrow room, Nature’s whole wealth, yea more,

      A Heaven on Earth: For blissful Paradise

      Of God the garden was, by him in the east

      Of Eden planted; Eden stretched her line

      From Auran eastward to the royal towers

      Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings,

      Or where the sons of Eden long before

      Dwelt in Telassar: In this pleasant soil

      His far more pleasant garden God ordained;

      Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow

      All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste;

      And all amid them stood the tree of life,

      High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit

      Of vegetable gold; and next to life,

      Our death, the tree of knowledge, grew fast by,

      Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill.

      Southward through Eden went a river large,

      Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill

      Passed underneath engulfed; for God had thrown

      That mountain as his garden-mould high raised

      Upon the rapid current, which, through veins

      Of porous earth with kindly thirst up-drawn,

      Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill

      Watered the garden; thence united fell

      Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood,

      Which from his darksome passage now appears,

      And now, divided into four main streams,

      Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm

      And country, whereof here needs no account;

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