Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Автор

Джон Мильтон

Год написания книги

2019

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Cornice or frieze, with bossy sculptures graven;

The roof was fretted gold. Not Babylon

Nor great Alcairo such magnificence

Equalled in all their glories, to enshrine

Belus or Serapis their gods, or seat

Their kings, when Egypt with Assyria strove

In wealth and luxury. Th’ ascending pile

Stood fixed her stately height, and straight the doors,

Opening their brazen folds, discover, wide

Within, her ample spaces o’er the smooth

And level pavement: from the arched roof,

Pendent by subtle magic, many a row

Of starry lamps and blazing cressets, fed

With naptha and asphaltus, yielded light

As from a sky. The hasty multitude

Admiring entered; and the work some praise,

And some the architect. His hand was known

In Heaven by many a towered structure high,

Where sceptred Angels held their residence,

And sat as Princes, whom the supreme King

Exalted to such power, and gave to rule,

Each in his Hierarchy, the Orders bright.

Nor was his name unheard or unadored

In ancient Greece; and in Ausonian land

Men called him Mulciber; and how he fell

From Heaven they fabled, thrown by angry Jove

Sheer o’er the crystal battlements: from morn

To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve,

A summer’s day, and with the setting sun

Dropt from the zenith, like a falling star,

On Lemnos, th’ Aegaean isle. Thus they relate,

Erring; for he with this rebellious rout

Fell long before; nor aught availed him now

To have built in Heaven high towers; nor did he scape

By all his engines, but was headlong sent,

With his industrious crew, to build in Hell.

Meanwhile the winged Heralds, by command

Of sovereign power, with awful ceremony

And trumpet’s sound, throughout the host proclaim

A solemn council forthwith to be held

At Pandemonium, the high capital

Of Satan and his peers. Their summons called

From every band and squared regiment

By place or choice the worthiest: they anon

With hundreds and with thousands trooping came

Attended. All access was thronged; the gates

And porches wide, but chief the spacious hall

(Though like a covered field, where champions bold

Wont ride in armed, and at the Soldan’s chair

Defied the best of Paynim chivalry