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Suspended Hell, and took with ravishment The thronging audience. In discourse more sweet-For eloquence the soul, song charms the sense-Others apart sat on a hill retired, In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high Of providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate; Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wandering mazes lost. Of good and evil much they argued then, Of happiness and final misery, Passion and apathy, and glory and shame, Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy. Yet, with a pleasing sorcery, could charm Pain for a while, or anguish, and excite Fallacious hope, or arm the obdured breast With stubborn patience, as with triple steel. Another part, in squadrons and gross bands, On bold adventure to discover wide That dismal world, if any clime perhaps Might yield them easier habitation, bend Four ways their flying march, along the banks Of four infernal rivers, that disgorge Into the burning lake their baleful streams: Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate; Sad Acheron,2 of sorrow, black and deep; Cocytus, named of lamentation loud Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon, Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. Far off from these, a slow and silent stream, Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls Her watery labyrinth, whereof who drinks, Forthwith his former state and being forgets, Forgets both joy and grief, pleasure and pain.

Beyond this flood a frozen continent Lies dark and wild, beat with perpetual storms Of whirlwind and dire hail, which on firm land Thaws not, but gathers heap, and ruin seems Of ancient pile; or else deep snow and ice, A gulf profound as that Serbonian bog1 Betwixt Damiata and mount Casius old, Where armies whole have sunk. The parching air Burns frore,2 and cold performs the effect of fire. Thither, by harpy-footed furies haled, At certain revolutions, all the damned 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, infixed, and frozen round, Periods of time; thence hurried back to fire. They ferry over this Lethean sound Both to and fro, their sorrow to augment, And wish and struggle, as they pass, to reach The tempting stream, with one small drop to lose In sweet forgetfulness all pain and woe, All in one moment, and so near the brink: But fate withstands, and to oppose the attempt Medusa³ with Gorgonian terror guards The ford, and of itself the water flies All taste of living wight, as once it fled The lip of Tantalus. Thus roving on In confused march forlorn, the adventurous bands, With shuddering horror pale, and eyes aghast, Viewed first their lamentable lot, and found No rest. Through many a dark and dreary vale

PARADISE LOST.

¹ Suspended Hell.—Helped them to forget it. \ Sad Acheron.—A river in the region of the lost, also called Cocytus, and said to utter a wail of sorrow as it flows.

\ Fierce Phlegethon.—Another of the informal. \* Fierce Phlegethon.—Another of the infernal rivers, sometimes described as the fierce and bloody.

¹ Serbonian bog .- A lake, with its adjacent marsh, near one of the mouths of the Nile.

Burns from.—Burns frosty. Intense cold becomes heat. "When the cold northwind bloweth, it devoureth the mountains, and burneth the wildernes, and consumeth the grass as fire. (Ecclus. xlii. 20, 21.) Medusa.—One of the three fearful sisters known by the name of Gorgons. Their heads are said to have been covered with hissing serpents in place of hair, and they had brazen claws, enormous teeth, and wings.