Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Автор

Джон Мильтон

Год написания книги

2019

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Can it be death? And do they only stand

By ignorance? Is that their happy state,

The proof of their obedience and their faith?

O fair foundation laid whereon to build

Their ruin! hence I will excite their minds

With more desire to know, and to reject

Envious commands, invented with design

To keep them low, whom knowledge might exalt

Equal with Gods: aspiring to be such,

They taste and die: What likelier can ensue

But first with narrow search I must walk round

This garden, and no corner leave unspied;

A chance but chance may lead where I may meet

Some wandering Spirit of Heaven by fountain side,

Or in thick shade retired, from him to draw

What further would be learned. Live while ye may,

Yet happy pair; enjoy, till I return,

Short pleasures, for long woes are to succeed!”

So saying, his proud step he scornful turned,

But with sly circumspection, and began

Through wood, through waste, o’er hill, o’er dale, his roam

Meanwhile in utmost longitude, where Heaven

With earth and ocean meets, the setting sun

Slowly descended, and with right aspect

Against the eastern gate of Paradise

Levelled his evening rays: It was a rock

Of alabaster, piled up to the clouds,

Conspicuous far, winding with one ascent

Accessible from earth, one entrance high;

The rest was craggy cliff, that overhung

Still as it rose, impossible to climb.

Betwixt these rocky pillars Gabriel sat,

Chief of the angelic guards, awaiting night;

About him exercised heroic games

The unarmed youth of Heaven, but nigh at hand

Celestial armoury, shields, helms, and spears,

Hung high with diamond flaming, and with gold.

Thither came Uriel, gliding through the even

On a sun-beam, swift as a shooting star

In autumn thwarts the night, when vapours fired

Impress the air, and shows the mariner

From what point of his compass to beware

Impetuous winds: He thus began in haste.

“Gabriel, to thee thy course by lot hath given

Charge and strict watch, that to this happy place

No evil thing approach or enter in.

This day at hight of noon came to my sphere

A Spirit, zealous, as he seemed, to know

More of the Almighty’s works, and chiefly Man,

God’s latest image: I described his way