Paradise Lost by John Milton

No more of talk where God or Angel guest With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd, To sit indulgent, and with him partake Rural repast; permitting him the while Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt, And disobedience: on the part of Heaven Now alienated, distance and distaste, Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given, That brought into this world a world of woe, Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery Death's harbinger: Sad task! yet argument Not less but more heroick than the wrath Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd; Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son: If answerable style I can obtain Of my celestial patroness, who deigns Her nightly visitation unimplor'd, And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires Easy my unpremeditated verse: Since first this subject for heroick song Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late; Not sedulous by nature to indite Wars, hitherto the only argument Heroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect With long and tedious havock fabled knights In battles feign'd; the better fortitude Of patience and heroick martyrdom Unsung; or to describe races and games, Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields, Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds, Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals; The skill of artifice or office mean, Not that which justly gives heroick name To person, or to poem. Me, of these Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument Remains; sufficient of itself to raise That name, unless an age too late, or cold Climate, or years, damp my intended wing Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine, Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear.

The sun was sunk, and after him the star Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter 'Twixt day and night, and now from end to end Night's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round: When satan, who late fled before the threats Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd In meditated fraud and malice, bent On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap Of heavier on himself, fearless returned By night he fled, and at midnight returned From compassing the earth; cautious of day, Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven, The space of seven continued nights he rode With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line He circled; four times crossed the car of night From pole to pole, traversing each colure; On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse From entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth Found unsuspected way. There was a place, Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change, Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise, Into a gulf shot under ground, till part Rose up a fountain by the tree of life: In with the river sunk, and with it rose Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought Where to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land, From Eden over Pontus and the pool Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob; Downward as far antarctick; and in length, West from Orontes to the ocean barred At Darien; thence to the land where flows Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed With narrow search; and with inspection deep Considered every creature, which of all Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field.