Innocence Once Lost - Religious Classics Collection. Джон Мильтон

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СКАЧАТЬ disdainful and ferocious

       In countenance, and even thus was dying.

      Around him were the great Ahasuerus,

       Esther his wife, and the just Mordecai,

       Who was in word and action so entire.

      And even as this image burst asunder

       Of its own self, in fashion of a bubble

       In which the water it was made of fails,

      There rose up in my vision a young maiden

       Bitterly weeping, and she said: "O queen,

       Why hast thou wished in anger to be naught?

      Thou'st slain thyself, Lavinia not to lose;

       Now hast thou lost me; I am she who mourns,

       Mother, at thine ere at another's ruin."

      As sleep is broken, when upon a sudden

       New light strikes in upon the eyelids closed,

       And broken quivers ere it dieth wholly,

      So this imagining of mine fell down

       As soon as the effulgence smote my face,

       Greater by far than what is in our wont.

      I turned me round to see where I might be,

       When said a voice, "Here is the passage up;"

       Which from all other purposes removed me,

      And made my wish so full of eagerness

       To look and see who was it that was speaking,

       It never rests till meeting face to face;

      But as before the sun, which quells the sight,

       And in its own excess its figure veils,

       Even so my power was insufficient here.

      "This is a spirit divine, who in the way

       Of going up directs us without asking,

       And who with his own light himself conceals.

      He does with us as man doth with himself;

       For he who sees the need, and waits the asking,

       Malignly leans already tow'rds denial.

      Accord we now our feet to such inviting,

       Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark;

       For then we could not till the day return."

      Thus my Conductor said; and I and he

       Together turned our footsteps to a stairway;

       And I, as soon as the first step I reached,

      Near me perceived a motion as of wings,

       And fanning in the face, and saying, "'Beati

       Pacifici,' who are without ill anger."

      Already over us were so uplifted

       The latest sunbeams, which the night pursues,

       That upon many sides the stars appeared.

      "O manhood mine, why dost thou vanish so?"

       I said within myself; for I perceived

       The vigour of my legs was put in truce.

      We at the point were where no more ascends

       The stairway upward, and were motionless,

       Even as a ship, which at the shore arrives;

      And I gave heed a little, if I might hear

       Aught whatsoever in the circle new;

       Then to my Master turned me round and said:

      "Say, my sweet Father, what delinquency

       Is purged here in the circle where we are?

       Although our feet may pause, pause not thy speech."

      And he to me: "The love of good, remiss

       In what it should have done, is here restored;

       Here plied again the ill-belated oar;

      But still more openly to understand,

       Turn unto me thy mind, and thou shalt gather

       Some profitable fruit from our delay.

      Neither Creator nor a creature ever,

       Son," he began, "was destitute of love

       Natural or spiritual; and thou knowest it.

      The natural was ever without error;

       But err the other may by evil object,

       Or by too much, or by too little vigour.

      While in the first it well directed is,

       And in the second moderates itself,

       It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure;

      But when to ill it turns, and, with more care

       Or lesser than it ought, runs after good,

       'Gainst the Creator works his own creation.

      Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be

       The seed within yourselves of every virtue,

       And every act that merits punishment.

      Now inasmuch as never from the welfare

       Of its own subject can love turn its sight,

       From their own hatred all things are secure;

      And since we cannot think of any being

       Standing alone, nor from the First divided,

       Of hating Him is all desire cut off.

      Hence if, discriminating, I judge well,

       The evil that one loves is of one's neighbour,

       And this is born in three modes in your clay.

      There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour,

       Hope to excel, and therefore only long

       That СКАЧАТЬ