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Be lowly wise: Think only what concerns thee and thy being.
Sep 10, 2025
Ease would recant Vows made in pain, as violent and void.
God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise. With thee conversing I forget all time.
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell.
Live while ye may, Yet happy pair.
God is thy law, thou mine.
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.
Our torments also may in length of time Become our Elements.
Our torments also may in length of time Become our elements, these piercing fires As soft as now severe, our temper changed Into their temper.
So he with difficulty and labour hard Mov'd on, with difficulty and labour he.
The spirits perverse with easy intercourse pass to and fro, to tempt or punish mortals.
And that must end us, that must be our cure: To be no more. Sad cure! For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish, rather, swallowed up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night Devoid of sense and motion?
For neither man nor angel can discern hypocrisy, the only evil that walks invisible, except to God alone.
Me miserable! Which way shall I fly Infinite wrath and infinite despair? Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell; And in the lowest deep a lower deep, Still threat'ning to devour me, opens wide, To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.
Long is the way and hard, that out of hell leads up to light.
Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep.
Among unequals what society Can sort, what harmony, or true delight?
A grateful mind/ By owing owes not, but still pays, at once/ Indebted and discharg'd.
On a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring sound Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder.
Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss
The never-ending flight Of future days.
Back to thy punishment, False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings.
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose.
Death Grinn'd horrible a ghastly smile, to hear His famine should be fill'd.
Th' ethereal mould Incapable of stain would soon expel Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire, Victorious. Thus repuls'd, our final hope Is flat despair.
Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? Can it be sin to know, 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!
What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support, That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 1 Paradise Lost. Book i. Line 22.
Oh, shame to men! devil with devil damn'd Firm concord holds, men only disagree Of creatures rational.
Abash'd the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is.
For contemplation he and valour formed; / For softness she and sweet attractive grace, / He for God only, she for God in him: / His fair large front and eye sublime declared / Absolute rule.
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded.
Fate shall yield To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.
For no falsehood can endure Touch of celestial temper.
Arm the obdured breast with stubborn patience as with triple steel.
The other shape, If shape it might be call'd that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb; Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd, For each seem'd either,--black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as hell, And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on. Satan was now at hand.
Now conscience wakes despair That slumber'd,-wakes the bitter memory Of what he was, what is, and what must be Worse.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet, With charm of earliest birds.
Better to reign in hell than serve in heav'n.
A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog Betwixt Damiata and Mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk: the parching air Burns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire. Thither by harpy-footed Furies hal'd, At certain revolutions all the damn'd Are brought, and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes,-extremes by change more fierce; From beds of raging fire to starve in ice Their soft ethereal warmth, and there to pine Immovable, infix'd, and frozen round, Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire.
Now came still evening on; and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad: Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to they grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale.
Not to know me argues yourselves unknown.
O'er many a frozen, many a fiery Alp, Rocks, caves, lakes, fens, bogs, dens, and shades of death.
With thee conversing I forget all time.
Meanwhile the Adversary of God and man, Satan with thoughts inflamed of highest design, Puts on swift wings, and towards the gates of hell Explores his solitary flight.
'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
O shame to men! Devil with devil damned Firm concord holds, men only disagree Of creatures rational, though under hope Of heavenly grace: and God proclaiming peace, Yet live in hatred, enmity, and strife Among themselves, and levy cruel wars, Wasting the earth, each other to destroy: As if (which might induce us to accord) Man had not hellish foes enough besides, That day and night for his destruction wait.
Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
Into this wild abyss, The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave.