Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Автор

Джон Мильтон

Год написания книги

2019

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To that new world of light and bliss, among

The gods who live at ease, where I shall reign

At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems

Thy daughter and thy darling, without end.”

Thus saying, from her side the fatal key,

Sad instrument of all our woe, she took;

And, towards the gate rolling her bestial train,

Forthwith the huge portcullis high up-drew,

Which, but herself, not all the Stygian Powers

Could once have moved; then in the key-hole turns

Th’ intricate wards, and every bolt and bar

Of massy iron or solid rock with ease

Unfastens. On a sudden open fly,

With impetuous recoil and jarring sound,

Th’ infernal doors, and on their hinges grate

Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook

Of Erebus. She opened; but to shut

Excelled her power: the gates wide open stood,

That with extended wings a bannered host,

Under spread ensigns marching, might pass through

With horse and chariots ranked in loose array;

So wide they stood, and like a furnace-mouth

Cast forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame.

Before their eyes in sudden view appear

The secrets of the hoary Deep—a dark

Illimitable ocean, without bound,

Without dimension; where length, breadth, and height,

And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night

And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.

For Hot, Cold, Moist, and Dry, four champions fierce,

Strive here for mastery, and to battle bring

Their embryon atoms: they around the flag

Of each his faction, in their several clans,

Light-armed or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift, or slow,

Swarm populous, unnumbered as the sands

Of Barca or Cyrene’s torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring winds, and poise

Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere

He rules a moment: Chaos umpire sits,

And by decision more embroils the fray

By which he reigns: next him, high arbiter,

Chance governs all. Into this wild Abyss,

The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,

Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,

But all these in their pregnant causes mixed

Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,

Unless th’ Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more worlds—