Milton: Paradise Regained

I, who erewhile the happy Garden sung / By one man’s disobedience lost, now sing / Recovered Paradise to all mankind, / By one man’s firm obedience fully tried / Through all temptation, and the Tempter foiled / In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed, / And Eden raised in the waste Wilderness. / Thou Spirit, who led’st this glorious Eremite / Into the desert, his victorious field / Against the spiritual foe, and brought’st him thence 10 / By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire, / As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute, / And bear through highth or depth of Nature’s bounds, / With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds / Above heroic, though in secret done, / And unrecorded left through many an age: / Worthy to have not remained so long unsung. / Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice / More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried / Repentance, and Heaven’s kingdom nigh at hand 20 / To all baptized. To his great baptism flocked / With awe the regions round, and with them came / From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed / To the flood Jordan—came as then obscure, / Unmarked, unknown. But him the Baptist soon / Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore / As to his worthier, and would have resigned / To him his heavenly office. Nor was long / His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized / Heaven opened, and in likeness of a Dove 30 / The Spirit descended, while the Father’s voice / From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son. / That heard the Adversary, who, roving still / About the world, at that assembly famed / Would not be last, and, with the voice divine / Nigh thunder-struck, the exalted man to whom / Such high attest was given a while surveyed / With wonder; then, with envy fraught and rage, / Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air / To council summons all his mighty Peers, 40 / Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved, / A gloomy consistory; and them amidst, / With looks aghast and sad, he thus bespake:— / “O ancient Powers of Air and this wide World / (For much more willingly I mention Air, / This our old conquest, than remember Hell, / Our hated habitation), well ye know / How many ages, as the years of men, / This Universe we have possessed, and ruled / In manner at our will the affairs of Earth, 50 / Since Adam and his facile consort Eve / Lost Paradise, deceived by me, though since / With dread attending when that fatal wound / Shall be inflicted by the seed of Eve / Upon my head. Long the decrees of Heaven / Delay, for longest time to Him is short; / And now, too soon for us, the circling hours / This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we / Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound / (At least, if so we can, and by the head 60 / Broken be not intended all our power / To be infringed, our freedom and our being / In this fair empire won of Earth and Air)— / For this ill news I bring: The Woman’s Seed, / Destined to this, is late of woman born. / His birth to our just fear gave no small cause; / But his growth now to youth’s full flower, displaying / All virtue, grace and wisdom to achieve / Things highest, greatest, multiplies my fear. / Before him a great Prophet, to proclaim 70 / His coming, is sent harbinger, who all / Invites, and in the consecrated stream / Pretends to wash off sin, and fit them so / Purified to receive him pure, or rather / To do him honour as their King. All come, / And he himself among them was baptized— / Not thence to be more pure, but to receive / The testimony of Heaven, that who he is / Thenceforth the nations may not doubt. I saw / The Prophet do him reverence; on him, rising 80 / Out of the water, Heaven above the clouds / Unfold her crystal doors; thence on his head / A perfet Dove descend (whate’er it meant); / And out of Heaven the sovraign voice I heard, / ‘This is my Son beloved,—in him am pleased.’ / His mother, than, is mortal, but his Sire / He who obtains the monarchy of Heaven; / And what will He not do to advance his Son? / His first-begot we know, and sore have felt, / When his fierce thunder drove us to the Deep; 90 / Who this is we must learn, for Man he seems / In all his lineaments, though in his face / The glimpses of his Father’s glory shine. / Ye see our danger on the utmost edge / Of hazard, which admits no long debate, / But must with something sudden be opposed / (Not force, but well-couched fraud, well-woven snares), / Ere in the head of nations he appear, / Their king, their leader, and supreme on Earth. / I, when no other durst, sole undertook 100 / The dismal expedition to find out / And ruin Adam, and the exploit performed / Successfully: a calmer voyage now / Will waft me; and the way found prosperous once / Induces best to hope of like success.” / He ended, and his words impression left / Of much amazement to the infernal crew, / Distracted and surprised with deep dismay / At these sad tidings. But no time was then / For long indulgence to their fears or grief: 110 / Unanimous they all commit the care / And management of this man enterprise / To him, their great Dictator, whose attempt / At first against mankind so well had thrived / In Adam’s overthrow, and led their march / From Hell’s deep-vaulted den to dwell in light, / Regents, and potentates, and kings, yea gods, / Of many a pleasant realm and province wide. / So to the coast of Jordan he directs / His easy steps, girded with snaky wiles, 120 / Where he might likeliest find this new-declared, / This man of men, attested Son of God, / Temptation and all guile on him to try— / So to subvert whom he suspected raised / To end his reign on Earth so long enjoyed: / But, contrary, unweeting he fulfilled / The purposed counsel, pre-ordained and fixed, / Of the Most High, who, in full frequence bright / Of Angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake:— / “Gabriel, this day, by proof, thou shalt behold, 130 / Thou and all Angels conversant on Earth / With Man or men’s affairs, how I begin / To verify that solemn message late, / On which I sent thee to the Virgin pure / In Galilee, that she should bear a son, / Great in renown, and called the Son of God. / Then told’st her, doubting how these things could be / To her a virgin, that on her should come / The Holy Ghost, and the power of the Highest / O’ershadow her. This Man, born and now upgrown, 140 / To shew him worthy of his birth divine / And high prediction, henceforth I expose / To Satan; let him tempt, and now assay / His utmost subtlety, because he boasts / And vaunts of his great cunning to the throng / Of his Apostasy. He might have learnt / Less overweening, since he failed in Job, / Whose constant perseverance overcame / Whate’er his cruel malice could invent. / He now shall know I can produce a man, 150 / Of female seed, far abler to resist / All his solicitations, and at length / All his vast force, and drive him back to Hell— / Winning by conquest what the first man lost / By fallacy surprised. But first I mean / To exercise him in the Wilderness; / There he shall first lay down the rudiments / Of his great warfare, ere I send him forth / To conquer Sin and Death, the two grand foes. / By humiliation and strong sufferance 160 / His weakness shall o’ercome Satanic strength, / And all the world, and mass of sinful flesh; / That all the Angels and æthereal Powers— / They now, and men hereafter—may discern / From what consummate virtue I have chose / This perfet man, by merit called my Son, / To earn salvation for the sons of men.” / So spake the Eternal Father, and all Heaven / Admiring stood a space; then into hymns / Burst forth, and in celestial measures moved, 170 / Circling the throne and singing, while the hand / Sung with the voice, and this the argument:— / “Victory and triumph to the Son of God, / Now entering his great duel, not of arms, / But to vanquish by wisdom hellish wiles! / The Father knows the Son; therefore secure / Ventures his filial virtue, though untried, / Against whate’er may tempt, whate’er seduce, / Allure, or terrify, or undermine. / Be frustrate, all ye stratagems of Hell, 180 / And, devilish machinations, come to nought!” / So they in Heaven their odes and vigils tuned. / Meanwhile the Son of God, who yet some days / Lodged in Bethabara, where John baptized, / Musing and much revolving in his breast / How best the mighty work he might begin / Of Saviour to mankind, and which way first / Publish his godlike office now mature, / One day forth walked alone, the Spirit leading / And his deep thoughts, the better to converse 190 / With solitude, till, far from track of men, / Thought following thought, and step by step led on, / He entered now the bordering Desert wild, / And, with dark shades and rocks environed round, / His holy meditations thus pursued:— / “O what a multitude of thoughts at once / Awakened in me swarm, while I consider / What from within I feel myself, and hear / What from without comes often to my ears, / Ill sorting with my present state compared! 200 / When I was yet a child, no childish play / To me was pleasing; all my mind was set / Serious to learn and know, and thence to do, / What might be public good; myself I thought / Born to that end, born to promote all truth, / All righteous things. Therefore, above my years, / The Law of God I read, and found it sweet; / Made it my whole delight, and in it grew / To such perfection that, ere yet my age / Had measured twice six years, at our great Feast 210 / I went into the Temple, there to hear / The teachers of our Law, and to propose / What might improve my knowledge or their own, / And was admired by all. Yet this not all / To which my spirit aspired. Victorious deeds / Flamed in my heart, heroic acts—one while / To rescue Israel from the Roman yoke; / Then to subdue and quell, o’er all the earth, / Brute violence and proud tyrannic power, / Till truth were freed, and equity restored: 220 / Yet held it more humane, more heavenly, first / By winning words to conquer willing hearts, / And make persuasion do the work of fear; / At least to try, and teach the erring soul, / Not wilfully misdoing, but unware / Misled; the stubborn only to subdue. / These growing thoughts my mother soon perceiving, / By words at times cast forth, inly rejoiced, / And said to me apart, ‘High are thy thoughts, / O Son! but nourish them, and let them soar 230 / To what highth sacred virtue and true worth / Can raise them, though above example high; / By matchless deeds express thy matchless Sire. / For know, thou art no son of mortal man; / Though men esteem thee low of parentage, / Thy Father is the Eternal King who rules / All Heaven and Earth, Angels and sons of men. / A messenger from God foretold thy birth / Conceived in me a virgin; he foretold / Thou shouldst be great, and sit on David’s throne, 240 / And of thy kingdom there should be no end. / At thy nativity a glorious quire / Of Angels, in the fields of Bethlehem, sung / To shepherds, watching at their folds by night, / And told them the Messiah now was born, / Where they might see him; and to thee they came, / Directed to the manger where thou lay’st; / For in the inn was left no better room. / A Star, not seen before, in heaven appearing, / Guided the Wise Men thither from the East, 250 / To honour thee with incense, myrrh, and gold; / By whose bright course led on they found the place, / Affirming it thy star, new-graven in heaven, / By which they knew thee King of Israel born. / Just Simeon and prophetic Anna, warned / By vision, found thee in the Temple, and spake, / Before the altar and the vested priest, / Like things of thee to all that present stood.’ / This having heart, straight I again revolved / The Law and Prophets, searching what was writ 260 / Concerning the Messiah, to our scribes / Known partly, and soon found of whom they spake / I am—this chiefly, that my way must lie / Through many a hard assay, even to the death, / Ere I the promised kingdom can attain, / Or work redemption for mankind, whose sins’ / Full weight must be transferred upon my head. / Yet, neither thus disheartened or dismayed, / The time prefixed I waited; when behold / The Baptist (of whose birth I oft had heard, 270 / Not knew by sight) now come, who was to come / Before Messiah, and his way prepare! / I, as all others, to his baptism came, / Which I believed was from above; but he / Straight knew me, and with loudest voice proclaimed / Me him (for it was shewn him so from Heaven)— / Me him whose harbinger he was; and first / Refused on me his baptism to confer, / As much his greater, and was hardly won. / But, as I rose out of the laving stream, 280 / Heaven opened her eternal doors, from whence / The Spirit descended on me like a Dove; / And last, the sum of all, my Father’s voice, / Audibly heard from Heaven, pronounced me his, / Me his beloved Son, in whom alone / He was well pleased: by which I knew the time / Now full, that I no more should live obscure, / But openly begin, as best becomes / The authority which I derived from Heaven. / And now by some strong motion I am led 290 / Into this wilderness; to what intent / I learn not yet. Perhaps I need not know; / For what concerns my knowledge God reveals.” / So spake our Morning Star, then in his rise, / And, looking round, on every side beheld / A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades. / The way he came, not having marked return, / Was difficult, by human steps untrod; / And he still on was led, but with such thoughts / Accompanied of things past and to come 300 / Lodged in his breast as well might recommend / Such solitude before choicest society. / Full forty days he passed—whether on hill / Sometimes, anon in shady vale, each night / Under the covert of some ancient oak / Or cedar to defend him from the dew, / Or harboured in one cave, is not revealed; / Nor tasted human food, nor hunger felt, / Till those days ended; hungered then at last / Among wild beasts. They at his sight grew mild, 310 / Nor sleeping him nor waking harmed; his walk / The fiery serpent fled and noxious worm; / The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof. / But now an aged man in rural weeds, / Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray eye, / Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve / Against a winter’s day, when winds blow keen, / To warm him wet returned from field at eve, / He saw approach; who first with curious eye / Perused him, then with words thus uttered spake:— 320 / “Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place, / So far from path or road of men, who pass / In troop or caravan? for single none / Durst ever, who returned, and dropt not here / His carcass, pined with hunger and with droughth. / I ask the rather, and the more admire, / For that to me thou seem’st the man whom late / Our new baptizing Prophet at the ford / Of Jordan honoured so, and called thee Son / Of God. I saw and heard, for we sometimes 330 / Who dwell this wild, constrained by want, come forth / To town or village nigh (nighest is far), / Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear, / What happens new; fame also finds us out.” / To whom the Son of God:—“Who brought me hither / Will bring me hence; no other guide I seek.” / “By miracle he may,” replied the swain; / “What other way I see not; for we here / Live on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inured / More than the camel, and to drink go far— 340 / Men to much misery and hardship born. / But, if thou be the Son of God, command / That out of these hard stones be made thee bread; / So shalt thou save thyself, and us relieve / With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste.” / He ended, and the Son of God replied:— / “Think’st thou such force in bread? Is it not written / (For I discern thee other than thou seem’st), / Man lives not by bread only, but each word / Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed 350 / Our fathers here with manna? In the Mount / Moses was forty days, nor eat nor drank; / And forty days Eliah without food / Wandered this barren waste; the same I now. / Why dost thou, then, suggest to me distrust / Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art?” / Whom thus answered the Arch-Fiend, now undisguised:— / “’Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate / Who, leagued with millions more in rash revolt, / Kept not my happy station, but was driven 360 / With them from bliss to the bottomless Deep— / Yet to that hideous place not so confined / By rigour unconniving but that oft, / Leaving my dolorous prison, I enjoy / Large liberty to round this globe of Earth, / Or range in the Air; nor from the Heaven of Heavens / Hath he excluded my resort sometimes. / I came, among the Sons of God, when he / Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job, / To prove him, and illustrate his high worth; 370 / And, when to all his Angels he proposed / To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud, / That he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring, / I undertook that office, and the tongues / Of all his flattering prophets glibbed with lies / To his destruction, as I had in charge: / For what he bids I do. Though I have lost / Much lustre of my native brightness, lost / To be beloved of God, I have not lost / To love, at least contemplate and admire, 380 / What I see excellent in good, or fair, / Or virtuous; I should so have lost all sense. / What can be then less in me than desire / To see thee and approach thee, whom I know / Declared the Son of God, to hear attent / Thy wisdom, and behold thy godlike deeds? / Men generally think me much a foe / To all mankind. Why should I? they to me / Never did wrong or violence. By them / I lost not what I lost; rather by them 390 / I gained what I have gained, and with them dwell / Copartner in these regions of the World, / If not disposer—lend them oft my aid, / Oft my advice by presages and signs, / And answers, oracles, portents, and dreams, / Whereby they may direct their future life. / Envy, they say, excites me, thus to gain / Companions of my misery and woe! / At first it may be; but, long since with woe / Nearer acquainted, now I feel by proof 400 / That fellowship in pain divides not smart, / Nor lightens aught each man’s peculiar load; / Small consolation, then, were Man adjoined. / This wounds me most (what can it less?) that Man, / Man fallen, shall be restored, I never more.” / To whom our Saviour sternly thus replied:— / “Deservedly thou griev’st, composed of lies / From the beginning, and in lies wilt end, / Who boast’st release from Hell, and leave to come / Into the Heaven of Heavens. Thou com’st, indeed, 410 / As a poor miserable captive thrall / Comes to the place where he before had sat / Among the prime in splendour, now deposed, / Ejected, emptied, gazed, unpitied, shunned, / A spectacle of ruin, or of scorn, / To all the host of Heaven. The happy place / Imparts to thee no happiness, no joy— / Rather inflames thy torment, representing / Lost bliss, to thee no more communicable; / So never more in Hell than when in Heaven. 420 / But thou art serviceable to Heaven’s King! / Wilt thou impute to obedience what thy fear / Extorts, or pleasure to do ill excites? / What but thy malice moved thee to misdeem / Of righteous Job, then cruelly to afflict him / With all inflictions? but his patience won. / The other service was thy chosen task, / To be a liar in four hundred mouths; / For lying is thy sustenance, thy food. / Yet thou pretend’st to truth! all oracles 430 / By thee are given, and what confessed more true / Among the nations? That hath been thy craft, / By mixing somewhat true to vent more lies. / But what have been thy answers? what but dark, / Ambiguous, and with double sense deluding, / Which they who asked have seldom understood, / And, not well understood, as good not known? / Who ever, by consulting at thy shrine, / Returned the wiser, or the more instruct / To fly or follow what concerned him most, 440 / And run not sooner to his fatal snare? / For God hath justly given the nations up / To thy delusions; justly, since they fell / Idolatrous. But, when his purpose is / Among them to declare his providence, / To thee not known, whence hast thou then thy truth, / But from him, or his Angels president / In every province, who, themselves disdaining / To approach thy temples, give thee in command / What, to the smallest tittle, thou shalt say 450 / To thy adorers? Thou, with trembling fear, / Or like a fawning parasite, obey’st; / Then to thyself ascrib’st the truth foretold. / But this thy glory shall be soon retrenched; / No more shalt thou by oracling abuse / The Gentiles; henceforth oracles are ceased, / And thou no more with pomp and sacrifice / Shalt be enquired at Delphos or elsewhere— / At least in vain, for they shall find thee mute. / God hath now sent his living Oracle 460 / Into the world to teach his final will, / And sends his Spirit of Truth henceforth to dwell / In pious hearts, an inward oracle / To all truth requisite for men to know.” / So spake our Saviour; but the subtle Fiend, / Though inly stung with anger and disdain, / Dissembled, and this answer smooth returned:— / “Sharply thou hast insisted on rebuke, / And urged me hard with doings which not will, / But misery, hath wrested from me. Where 470 / Easily canst thou find one miserable, / And not inforced oft-times to part from truth, / If it may stand him more in stead to lie, / Say and unsay, feign, flatter, or abjure? / But thou art placed above me; thou art Lord; / From thee I can, and must, submiss, endure / Cheek or reproof, and glad to scape so quit. / Hard are the ways of truth, and rough to walk, / Smooth on the tongue discoursed, pleasing to the ear, / And tunable as sylvan pipe or song; 480 / What wonder, then, if I delight to hear / Her dictates from thy mouth? most men admire / Virtue who follow not her lore. Permit me / To hear thee when I come (since no man comes), / And talk at least, though I despair to attain. / Thy Father, who is holy, wise, and pure, / Suffers the hypocrite or atheous priest / To tread his sacred courts, and minister / About his altar, handling holy things, / Praying or vowing, and voutsafed his voice 490 / To Balaam reprobate, a prophet yet / Inspired: disdain not such access to me.” / To whom our Saviour, with unaltered brow:— / “Thy coming hither, though I know thy scope, / I bid not, or forbid. Do as thou find’st / Permission from above; thou canst not more.” / He added not; and Satan, bowling low / His gray dissimulation, disappeared, / Into thin air diffused: for now began / Night with her sullen wing to double-shade 500 / The desert; fowls in their clay nests were couched; / And now wild beasts came forth the woods to roam.