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With frontispiece of diamond and gold Embellished; thick with sparkling orient gems The portal shone, inimitable on earth By model, or by shading pencil drawn. The stairs were such as whereon Jacob saw Angels ascending and descending, bands Of guardians bright, when he from Esau fled To Padan-Aram, in the field of Luz, Dreaming by night under the open sky, And waking cried, "This is the gate of Heaven." Each stair mysteriously was meant, nor stood There always, but drawn up to Heaven sometimes Viewless; and underneath a bright sea flowed Of jasper, or of liquid pearl, whereon Who after came from earth, sailing arrived, Wafted by Angels, or flew o'er the lake Wrapped in a chariot drawn by fiery steeds. The stairs were then let down, whether to dare The Fiend by easy ascent, or aggravate His sad exclusion from the doors of bliss: Direct against which opened from beneath, Just o'er the blissful seat of Paradise, A passage down to the earth, a passage wide, Wider by far than that of after-times Over Mount Sion, and, though that were large, Over the Promised Land, to God so dear; By which, to visit oft those happy tribes, On high behests his angels to and fro Pass frequent, and his eye with choice regard From Paneas, the fount of Jordan's flood, To Beersaba, where the Holy Land Borders on Egypt and the Arabian shore; So wide the opening seemed, where bounds were set To darkness, such as bound the ocean wave. Satan from hence, now on the lower stair, That scaled by steps of gold to Heaven-gate,

Looks down with wonder at the sudden view Of all this world at once. As when a scout, Through dark and desert ways with peril gone All night, at last by break of cheerful dawn Obtains the brow of some high-climbing hill, Which to his eye discovers unaware The goodly prospect of some foreign land First seen, or some renowned metropolis, With glistering spires and pinnacles adorned, Which now the rising sun gilds with his beams; Such wonder seized, though after heaven seen, The spirit malign, but much more envy seized, At sight of all this world beheld so fair. Round he surveys-and well might, where he stood So high above the circling canopy Of night's extended shade-from eastern point Of Libra to the fleecy star that bears Andromeda far off Atlantic seas, Beyond the horizon; then from pole to pole He views in breadth, and without longer pause Down right into the world's first region throws His flight precipitant, and winds with ease Through the pure marble air his oblique way Amongst innumerable stars, that shone Stars distant, but nigh hand seemed other worlds; Or other worlds they seemed, or happy isles, Like those Hesperian gardens famed of old, Forunate fields, and groves, and flowery vales, Thrice-happy isles; but who dwelt happy there He stayed not to inquire. Above them all The golden sun, in splendour likest heaven, Allured his eye; thither his course he bends Through the calm firmament,—but up or down,

PARADISE LOST.

'Andromeda.—One of the six signs of the zodiac, which are supposed for the first time to hold out their lamp celestial to the gaze of the fiend.

The pure marble air.—Marble is a word from the Greek μαρμαίρω, and signifies to shine or glisten. The word is used by Milton, not as denoting hardness, but brightness and clearness.