John Milton - Continued

Will envy whom the highest place exposes
Foremost to stand against the Thund'rer's aim
Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
Of endless pain? Where there is then no good
For which to strive, no strife can grow up there
From faction; for none sure will claim in hell
Precedence; none, whose portion is so small
Of present pain, that with ambitious mind
Will covet more. With this advantage, then,
To union, and firm faith, and firm accord,
More than can be in heav'n, we now return
To claim our just inheritance of old,
Surer to prosper than prosperity

Could have assured us; and by what best way,
Whether of open war or covert guile,
We now debate: who can advise, may speak.
-From "Paradise Lost," Book II.

MOLOCH'S SPEECH FOR WAR

MY SENTENCE is for open war; of wiles,
More unexpert, I boast not; them let those
Contrive who need, or when they need; not now,
For, while they sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and, longing, wait
The signal to ascend, sit lingering here
Heaven's fugitives, and for their dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobrious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns

By our delay? No,- let us rather choose,
Armed with hell-flames and fury, all at once
O'er heaven's high towers to force resistless way,
Turning our tortures into horrid arms
Against the Torturer; when to meet the noise
Of his almighty engine he shall hear
Infernal thunder; and, for lightning, see
Black fire and horror shot with equal rage
Among his angels; and his Throne itself
Mixed with Tartarean sulphur and strange fire,
His own invented torments. But, perhaps,
The way seems difficult and steep, to scale
With upright wing against a higher foe;
Let such bethink them, if the sleepy drench
Of that forgetful lake benumb not still,
That in our proper motion we ascend
Up to our native seat; descent and fall
To us is adverse. Who but felt of late,
When the fierce foe hung on our broken rear
Insulting, and pursued us through the deep,
With what compulsion and laborious flight
We sunk thus low? The ascent is easy, then; -
The event is feared: - should we again provoke
Our Stronger, some worse way his wrath may
find

To our destruction, if there be in hell

Fear to be worse destroyed. What can be worse Than to dwell here, driven out from bliss, condemned,

In this abhorrèd deep, to utter woe,
Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end,
The vassals of his anger, when the scourge
Inexorably and the torturing hour

Call us to penance? More destroyed than thus,

We should be quite abolished, and expire.
What fear we, then? What doubt we to incense
His utmost ire? which, to the height enraged,
Will either quite consume us, and reduce
To nothing this essential, happier far
Than miserable to have eternal being;-
Or, if our substance be indeed divine,
And cannot cease to be, we are at worst,
On this side nothing; and by proof we feel
Our power sufficient to disturb his heaven,
And with perpetual inroads to alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal Throne:
Which, if not victory is yet revenge.

I SHOULD be much for open war, O Peers,
As not behind in hate, if what was urged,-
Main reason to persuade immediate war,
Did not dissuade me most, and seem to cast
Ominous conjecture on the whole success :-
When he, who most excels in fact of arms,
In what he counsels, and in what excels,
Mistrustful, grounds his courage on despair
And utter dissolution, as the scope

Of all his aim, after some dire revenge! -
First, what revenge?- The towers of heaven are
filled

With armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable: oft on the bordering deep
Encamp their legions; or, with obscure wing,
Scout far and wide into the realm of night,
Scorning surprise,- Or, could we break our way
By force, and, at our heels, all hell should rise,
With blackest insurrection, to confound
Heaven's purest light; yet our great Enemy,
All incorruptible would on his Throne
Sit unpolluted; and the ethereal mold,
Incapable of stain, would soon expel
Her mischief, and purge off the baser fire,
Victorious. Thus repulsed, our final hope
Is flat despair; we must exasperate
The Almighty Victor to spend all his rage,
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? And who knows,
Let this be good, whether our angry Foe
Can give it, or will ever? How he can,
Is doubtful; that he never will, is sure.
Will he, so wise, let loose at once his ire,
Belike through impotence, or unaware,
To give his enemies their wish, and end
Them in his anger, whom his anger saves
To punish endless?-« Wherefore cease we, then?
Say they, who counsel war; "we are decreed,»
Reserved, and destined to eternal woe;
Whatever doing, what can we suffer more,
What can we suffer worse?" Is this, then, worst,
Thus sitting, thus consulting, thus in arms?
What! when we filed amain, pursued and struck

John Milton - Continued

With Heaven's afflicting thunder, and besought
The deep to shelter us? this hell then seemed
A refuge from those wounds! or when we lay
Chained on the burning lake? that sure was worse.
What if the breath that kindled those grim fires,
Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage,
And plunge us in the flames? or, from above,
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us? what, if all
Her stores were opened, and this firmament
Of hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads? while we, perhaps
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled,
Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey
Of racking whirlwinds; or forever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapped in chains;
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,
Ages of hopeless end?- this would be worse.
War, therefore, open or concealed, alike
My voice dissuades.

-From "Paradise Lost," Book II.

MILTON'S APOSTROPHE TO LIGHT

HAIL holy Light, offspring of heav'n firstborn
Or of th' Eternal co-eternal beam

May I express thee unblamed? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell? before the sun,
Before the heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I revisit now with bolder wing,
Escaped the Stygian pool, though long detain'd
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness
borne,

With other notes, than to th' Orphean lyre,
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night,
Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to reascend,
Though hard and rare: thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sov'reign 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 quench'd their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil'd. 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 hallow'd feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit; nor sometimes forget
Those other two equal'd with me in fate,
So were I equal'd with them in renown,
Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonides,
And Tiresias and Phineus, prophets old.

Then feed on thoughts, that voluniary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note: 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 razed,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
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.

-From "Paradise Lost," Book III.

SATAN'S ADDRESS TO THE SUN

O THOU that, with surpassing glory crown'd
Look'st from thy sole dominion like the God
Of this new world, at whose sight all the stars
Hide their diminish'd heads, to thee I call,
But with no friendly voice, and add thy name
O Sun, to tell thee how I hate thy beams
That bring to my remembrance from what state
I fell, how glorious once above thy sphere;
Till pride and worse ambition threw me down,
Warring in heav'n against heav'n's matchless King.
Ah, wherefore! He deserved no such return
From me, whom he created what I was
In that bright eminence, and with his good
Upbraided none; nor was his service hard.
What could be less than to afford him praise,
The easiest recompense, and pay him thanks.
How due? yet all his good proved ill in me,
And wrought but malice; lifted up so high
I sdein'd subjection, and thought one step higher
Would set me highest, and in a moment quit
The debt immense of endless gratitude,
So burthensome, still paying, still to owe:
Forgetful what from him I still received,
And understood not that a grateful mind
By owing owes not, but still pays, at once
Indebted and discharged; but what burden then
O had his powerful destiny ordain'd
Me some inferior angel, I had stood

Then happy; no unbounded hope had raised
Ambition! Yet why not? some other power
As great might have aspired, and me though mean
Drawn to his part; but other powers as great
Fell not, but stand unshaken, from within
Or from without, to all temptations arm'd.
Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst; whom hast thou then or what to ac-
cuse,

But heav'n's free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed, since love or hate,
To me alike, it deals eternal woe:

Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will

Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
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 heav'n.
O then at last relent: is there no place
Left for repentance, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
Th' Omnipotent. Ay me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain ;
Under what torments inwardly I groan;
While they adore me on the throne of hell,
With diadem and sceptre high advanced
The lower still I fall, only supreme
In misery; such joy ambition finds.
But say I could repent, and could obtain

By act of grace my former state; how soon
Would height recall high thoughts, how soon unsay
What feign'd submission swore: ease would recant
Vows made in pain as violent and void.

For never can true reconcilement grow
Where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so

deep;

Which would but lead me to a worse relapse
And heavier fall: so should I purchase dear
Short intermission bought with double smart.
This knows my Punisher; therefore as far
From granting he, as I from begging, peace.
All hope excluded thus, behold instead
of us outcast, exiled, his new delight,
Mankind, created, and for him this world.
So farewell hope, and, with hope, farewell fear,
Farewell remorse: all good to me is lost;
Evil, be thou my good; by thee at least
Divided empire with heav'n's King I hold.
By thee, and more than half perhaps will reign;
As man ere long and this new world shall know.
- From "Paradise Lost," Book IV.

CATO'S SOLILOQUY ON IMMORTALITY Cato-It must be so.- Plato, thou reasonest well, Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire, This longing after immortality?

Or whence this secret dread, and inward horror, Of falling into naught? Why shrinks the soul Back on herself, and startles at destruction? 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us, 'Tis Heaven itself, that points out an hereafter, And intimates eternity to man.

Eternity!- thou pleasing, dreadful thought!
Through what variety of untried being,
Through what new scenes and changes must we
pass!

The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me;
But shadows, clouds, and darkness, rest upon it.
Here will I hold. If there's a Power above us,—
And that there is, all Nature cries aloud

Through all her works, he must delight in virtue

And that which He delights in must be happy.
But when? or where? This world was made for

Cæsar.

I'm weary of conjectures,-this must end 'em.

Thus am I doubly armed. My death and life,
My bane and antidote, are both before me.
This in a moment brings me to my end;
But this informs me I shall never die.
The soul, secure in her existence, smiles
At the drawn dagger, and defies its point.
The stars shall fade away, the sun himself
Grow dim with age, and Nature sink in years,
But thou shalt flourish in immortal youth,
Unhurt amid the war of elements,

The wreck of matter, and the crush of worlds.
-From the Tragedy of Cato,” Act V.

ROLLA'S ADDRESS TO THE PERUVIANS

MY BRAVE associates, partners of my toils, my feelings, and my fame, can Rolla's words add vigor to the virtuous energies which inspire your

hearts? No; you have judged as I have, the foulness of the crafty plea by which these bold invaders would delude ye. Your generous spirit has compared as mine has, the motives which in a war like this can animate their minds and ours.

They, by a strange frenzy driven, fight for power, for plunder, and extended rule; we- for our country, our altars, and our homes! They follow an adventurer whom they fear, and obey a power which they hate; we serve a country which we love -a God whom we adore. Where'er they move in anger, desolation tracks their progress; where'er they pause in amity, affliction mourns their friendship.

They boast they come but to improve our state, enlarge our thoughts, and free us from the yoke of error. Yes, they will give enlightened freedom to our minds, who are themselves the slaves of passion, avarice, and pride.

They offer us their protection; yes, such protection as vultures give to lambs, covering and devouring them. They call on us to barter all of good we have inherited and proved, for the desperate chance of something better which they promise. Be our plain answer this: The throne we honor is the people's choice; the laws we reverence are our brave fathers' legacy; the faith we follow, teaches us to live in bonds of charity with all mankind and die- with hope of bliss beyond the grave. Tell your invaders this, and tell them, too, we seek no change, and least of all, such change as they would bring us. - From Pizarro." 1799.

CATILINE DEFIES THE SENATE

Catiline-Conscript Fathers!

I do not rise to waste the night in words;
Let that Plebeian talk; 'tis not my trade;

But here I stand for right,- let him show proofs,For Roman right; though none, it seems, dare stand

To take their share with me. Ay, cluster there! Cling to your master, judges, Romans, slaves! His charge is false; -- I dare him to his proofs. You have my answer. Let my actions speak!

But this I will avow, that I have scorned,
And still do scorn, to hide my sense of wrong!
Who brands me on the forehead, breaks my sword,
Or lays the bloody scourge upon my back,
Wrongs me not half so much as he who shuts
The gates of honor on me,- turning out
The Roman from his birthright; and, for what?
[Looking round him.
To fling your offices to every slave!
Vipers, that creep where man disdains to climb,
And, having wound their loathsome track to the
top,

Of this huge, moldering monument of Rome,
Hang hissing at the nobler man below!

Come, consecrated Lictors, from your thrones;

[To the Senate. Fling down your sceptres; take the rod and ax, And make the murder as you make the law!

Banished from Rome! What's banished but set free

From daily contact of the things I loathe?

Tried and convicted traitor!" Who says this? Who'll prove it, at his peril, on my head? Banished! I thank you for't. It breaks my chain !

RIENZI TO THE ROMANS

Rienzi- Friends!

I come not here to talk. Ye know too well
The story of our thraldom. We are slaves!
The bright sun rises to his course, and lights
A race of slaves! He sets, and his last beam
Falls on a slave: not such as, swept along
By the full tide of power, the conqueror leads
To crimson glory and undying fame,-
But base, ignoble slaves!-slaves to a horde
Of petty tyrants, feudal despots; lords,
Rich in some dozen paltry villages;

Strong in some hundred spearmen; only great
In that strange spell, a name! Each hour, dark
fraud,

Or open rapine, or protected murder,

Cry out against them. But this very day,

I had a brother once, a gracious boy,
Full of all gentleness, of calmest hope,
Of sweet and quiet joy; there was the look
Of Heaven upon his face, which limners give
To the beloved disciple. How I loved
That gracious boy! Younger by fifteen years,
Brother at once and son! He left my side,
A summer bloom upon his fair cheeks, - a smile
Parting his innocent lips. In one short hour,
The pretty, harmless boy was slain! I saw
The corse, the mangled corse, and then I cried
For vengeance! Rouse, ye Romans! Rouse, ye

slaves!

Have ye brave sons?-Look in the next fierce brawl

To see them die! Have ye fair daughters? — Look
To see them live, torn from your arms, distained,
Dishonored; and, if ye dare call for justice,

Be answered by the lash! Yet this is Rome,
That sate on her seven hills, and from her throne
Of beauty ruled the world! Yet we are Romans.
Why, in that elder day, to be a Roman
Was greater than a king! And once again, —
Hear me, ye walls, that echoed to the tread
Of either Brutus! - once again I swear
The Eternal City shall be free!

- From " Rienzi, A Tragedy." 1828.

MANFRED'S SOLILOQUY

Manfred-The spirits I have raised abandon meThe spells which I have studied baffle me— The remedy I recked of tortured me:

I lean no more on superhuman aid;

It hath no power upon the past, and for

The future, till the past be gulfed in darkness,

It is not of my search. My mother earth!

And thou, fresh-breaking day; and you, ye mountains,

Why are ye beautiful? I cannot love ye.
And thou, the bright eye of the universe,
That open'st over all, and unto all

Art a delight-thou shin'st not on my heart.
And you, ye crags, upon whose extreme edge
I stand, and on the torrent's brink beneath
Behold the tall pines dwindle as to shrubs
In dizziness of distance; when a leap,
A stir, a motion, even a breath, would bring

My breast upon its rocky bosom's bed
To rest forever-wherefore do I pause?
I feel the impulse,-yet I do not plunge;
I see the peril — yet do not recede;

And my brain reels-and yet my foot is firm;
There is a power upon me which withholds,
And makes it my fatality to live,-
If it be life to wear within myself
This barrenness of spirit, and to be
My own soul's sepulcher; for I have ceased
To justify my deeds unto myself -
The last infirmity of evil.-Ay,
Thou winged and cloud-cleaving minister,
[An eagle passes.

Whose happy flight is highest into heaven,
Well may'st thou swoop so near me, I should be
Thy prey, and gorge thine eaglets; thou art gone
Where the eye cannot follow thee; but thine
Yet pierces downward, onward, or above,
With a pervading vision.- Beautiful!