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Taught by the heavenly muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend, Though hard and rare;—thee I revisit safe, And feel thy sovereign vital lamp; but thou Revisit'st not these eyes, that roll in vain To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn; So thick a drop serene hath quenched their orbs, Or dim suffusion veiled. Yet not the more Cease I to wander where the Muses haunt, Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill. Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath, That wash thy hallowed feet, and warbling flow, Nightly I visit: nor sometimes forget Those other two equalled with me in fate, So were I equalled with them in renown, Blind Thamyris, and blind Mæonides,1 And Tiresias, and Phineus,2 prophets old: Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid, Tunes her nocturnal note.3 Thus with the year Seasons return; but not to me returns Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn, Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer's rose, Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine; But cloud instead, and ever-during dark Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair Presented with a universal blank Of Nature's works, to me expunged and rased, And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.

Thamyris and blind Maonides.—Thamyris was a Thracian poet, mentioned by Homer. Maonides was a name given to Homer himself, from his father, Meon.

So much the rather thou, celestial light, Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell Of things invisible to mortal sight.

PARADISE LOST.

Now had the Almighty Father from above, From the pure Empyrean where he sits High throned above all height, bent down his eye, His own works, and their works at once to view: About him all the sanctities of heaven Stood thick as stars, and from his sight received Beatitude past utterance; on his right The radiant image of his glory sat, His only Son. On earth he first beheld Our two first parents, yet the only two Of mankind, in the happy garden placed, Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love, Uninterrupted joy, unrivalled love, In blissful solitude. He then surveyed Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there Coasting the wall of heaven on this side Night In the dun air sublime, and ready now To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet, On the bare outside of this world, that seemed Firm land imbosomed, without firmament, Uncertain which, in ocean or in air. Him God beholding from his prospect high, Wherein past, present, future, he beholds, Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake:

Only-begotten Son, seest thou what rage Transports our adversary? whom no bounds Prescribed, no bars of Hell, nor all the chains Heaped on him there, nor yet the main abyss Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems On desperate revenge, that shall redound Upon his own rebellious head. And now,

^\* Tiresias and Phincus. - The first a Theban, the second a King of Arcadia, both celebrated in antiquity as men who gave prophesies in verse when blind. Nosturnal note. - The nightingale.