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Spring both, the face of brightest heaven had changed To grateful twilight,—for night comes not there In darker veil,—and roseate dews disposed All but the unsleeping eyes of God to rest; Wide over all the plain, and wider far Than all this globous earth in plain outspread,— Such are the courts of God,—the angelic throng, Dispersed in bands and files, their camp extend By living streams among the trees of life, Pavilions numberless, and sudden reared, Celestial tabernacles, where they slept Fanned with cool winds—save those, who, in their course, Melodious hymns about the sovereign throne Alternate all night long. But not so waked Satan—so call him now, his former name Is heard no more in heaven. He of the first, If not the first Archangel, great in power, In favour and pre-eminence, yet fraught With envy against the Son of God, that day Honoured by his great Father, and proclaimed Messiah, king anointed, could not bear Through pride that sight, and thought himself impaired. Deep malice thence conceiving and disdain, Soon as midnight brought on the dusky hour Friendliest to sleep and silence, he resolved With all his legions to dislodge, and leave Unworshipped, unobeyed, the throne supreme, Contemptuous: and his next subordinate Awakening, thus to him in secret spake:

Sleepest thou, companion dear? What sleep can close

Thy eye-lids? and rememberest what decree

Of yesterday, so late hath passed the lips

Of heaven's Almighty? Thou to me thy thoughts

Was wont, I mine to thee was wont to impart;

Both waking we were one; how then can now

Thy sleep dissent? New laws thou seest imposed;

Book V., lines 309, 310.