Paradise Lost. Джон Мильтон

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       To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,

       When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear

       Insulting, and pursued us through the Deep,

       With what compulsion and laborious flight

       We sunk thus low? Th' ascent is easy, then;

       Th' event is feared! Should we again provoke

       Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find

       To our destruction, if there be in Hell

       Fear to be worse destroyed! What can be worse

       Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned

       In this abhorred deep to utter woe!

       Where pain of unextinguishable fire

       Must exercise us without hope of end

       The vassals of his anger, when the scourge

       Inexorably, and the torturing hour,

       Calls us to penance? More destroyed than thus,

       We should be quite abolished, and expire.

       What fear we then? what doubt we to incense

       His utmost ire? which, to the height enraged,

       Will either quite consume us, and reduce

       To nothing this essential—happier far

       Than miserable to have eternal being!—

       Or, if our substance be indeed divine,

       And cannot cease to be, we are at worst

       On this side nothing; and by proof we feel

       Our power sufficient to disturb his Heaven,

       And with perpetual inroads to alarm,

       Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:

       Which, if not victory, is yet revenge."

       He ended frowning, and his look denounced

       Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous

       To less than gods. On th' other side up rose

       Belial, in act more graceful and humane.

       A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed

       For dignity composed, and high exploit.

       But all was false and hollow; though his tongue

       Dropped manna, and could make the worse appear

       The better reason, to perplex and dash

       Maturest counsels: for his thoughts were low—

       To vice industrious, but to nobler deeds

       Timorous and slothful. Yet he pleased the ear,

       And with persuasive accent thus began:—

       "I should be much for open war, O Peers,

       As not behind in hate, if what was urged

       Main reason to persuade immediate war

       Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast

       Ominous conjecture on the whole success;

       When he who most excels in fact of arms,

       In what he counsels and in what excels

       Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair

       And utter dissolution, as the scope

       Of all his aim, after some dire revenge.

       First, what revenge? The towers of Heaven are filled

       With armed watch, that render all access

       Impregnable: oft on the bordering Deep

       Encamp their legions, or with obscure wing

       Scout far and wide into the realm of Night,

       Scorning surprise. Or, could we break our way

       By force, and at our heels all Hell should rise

       With blackest insurrection to confound

       Heaven's purest light, yet our great Enemy,

       All incorruptible, would on his throne

       Sit unpolluted, and th' ethereal mould,

       Incapable of stain, would soon expel

       Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,

       Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope

       Is flat despair: we must exasperate

       Th' Almighty Victor to spend all his rage;

       And that must end us; that must be our cure—

       To be no more. Sad cure! for who would lose,

       Though full of pain, this intellectual being,

       Those thoughts that wander through eternity,

       To perish rather, swallowed up and lost

       In the wide womb of uncreated Night,

       Devoid of sense and motion? And who knows,

       Let this be good, whether our angry Foe

       Can give it, or will ever? How he can

       Is doubtful; that he never will is sure.

       Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,

       Belike through impotence or unaware,

       To give his enemies their wish, and end

       Them in his anger whom his anger saves

       To punish endless? "Wherefore cease we, then?"

       Say they who counsel war; "we are decreed,

       Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;

       Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,

       What can we suffer worse?" Is this, then, worst—

       Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?

       What when we fled amain, pursued and struck

       With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought

       The Deep to shelter us? This Hell then seemed

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