Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained. Джон Мильтон

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ to bring forth

      Infinite goodness, grace, and mercy, shewn

      On Man by him seduced, but on himself

      Treble confusion, wrath, and vengeance poured.

      Forthwith upright he rears from off the pool

      His mighty stature; on each hand the flames

      Driven backward slope their pointing spires, and rolled

      In billows, leave i’ th’ midst a horrid vale.

      Then with expanded wings he steers his flight

      Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air,

      That felt unusual weight; till on dry land

      He lights—if it were land that ever burned

      With solid, as the lake with liquid fire,

      And such appeared in hue as when the force

      Of subterranean wind transports a hill

      Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side

      Of thundering Etna, whose combustible

      And fuelled entrails, thence conceiving fire,

      Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,

      And leave a singed bottom all involved

      With stench and smoke. Such resting found the sole

      Of unblest feet. Him followed his next mate;

      Both glorying to have scaped the Stygian flood

      As gods, and by their own recovered strength,

      Not by the sufferance of supernal Power.

      “Is this the region, this the soil, the clime,”

      Said then the lost Archangel, “this the seat

      That we must change for Heaven?—this mournful gloom

      For that celestial light? Be it so, since he

      Who now is sovereign can dispose and bid

      What shall be right: farthest from him is best

      Whom reason hath equalled, force hath made supreme

      Above his equals. Farewell, happy fields,

      Where joy for ever dwells! Hail, horrors! hail,

      Infernal world! and thou, profoundest Hell,

      Receive thy new possessor—one who brings

      A mind not to be changed by place or time.

      The mind is its own place, and in itself

      Can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.

      What matter where, if I be still the same,

      And what I should be, all but less than he

      Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least

      We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built

      Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

      Here we may reign secure; and, in my choice,

      To reign is worth ambition, though in Hell:

      Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven.

      But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,

      Th’ associates and co-partners of our loss,

      Lie thus astonished on th’ oblivious pool,

      And call them not to share with us their part

      In this unhappy mansion, or once more

      With rallied arms to try what may be yet

      Regained in Heaven, or what more lost in Hell?”

      So Satan spake; and him Beelzebub

      Thus answered:—“Leader of those armies bright

      Which, but th’ Omnipotent, none could have foiled!

      If once they hear that voice, their liveliest pledge

      Of hope in fears and dangers—heard so oft

      In worst extremes, and on the perilous edge

      Of battle, when it raged, in all assaults

      Their surest signal—they will soon resume

      New courage and revive, though now they lie

      Grovelling and prostrate on yon lake of fire,

      As we erewhile, astounded and amazed;

      No wonder, fallen such a pernicious height!”

      He scare had ceased when the superior Fiend

      Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield,

      Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round,

      Behind him cast. The broad circumference

      Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

      Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views

      At evening, from the top of Fesole,

      Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,

      Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe.

      His spear—to equal which the tallest pine

      Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast

      Of some great ammiral, were but a wand—

      He walked with, to support uneasy steps

      Over the burning marl, not like those steps

      On Heaven’s azure; and the torrid clime

      Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire.

      Nathless he so endured, till on the beach

      Of that inflamed sea he stood, and called

      His legions—Angel Forms, who lay entranced

      Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

      In Vallombrosa, where th’ Etrurian shades

      High СКАЧАТЬ