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860

Into this gloom of TARTARUS profound,
To fit in hateful office here confin'd,
Inhabitant of Heav'n, and heav'nly-born,
Here in perpetual agony and pain,
With terrors and with clamors compass'd round,
Of mine own brood, that on my bowels feed?
Thou art my father, thou my author, thou
My being gav'ist me; whom should I obey
But thee? whom follow? thou wilt bring me foon
To that new world of light and bliss, among
The Gods who live at ease, where I shall reign
At thy right hand voluptuous, as beseems
Thy daughter and thy darling, without end.

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Thus saying, from her fide the fatal key, Sad instrument of all our woe! she took; And tow'rds the gate rolling her bestial train, Forthwith the huge Portcullis high up-drew; Which but her felf, not all the STYGIAN Pow'rs 875 Could once have mov'd: then in the key-hole turns Th' intricate wards, and every bolt and bar Of maffie iron, or folid rock, with ease Unfastens: on a sudden open fly With impetuous recoil and jarring found Th' infernal doors, and on their hinges grate Harsh thunder, that the lowest bottom shook OF ERERUS. She open'd, but to shar Excell'd her pow'r; the gates wide open stood, That with extended wings a banner'd hoft, Under fpread ensigns marching, might pass through With horfe and chariots rank'd in loose array, So wide they stood; and like a furnace mouth Caft forth redounding smoke and ruddy flame: Before their eyes in fudden view appear The fecrets of the hoary deep, a dark

Illimitable ocean without bound,

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Without dimenfion, where length, breadth, and height And time and place are loft; where eldest NIGHT

And

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And CHAOS, ancestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy, amidst the noise Of endless wars, and by confusion stand: For hot, cold, moift, and dry, four champions fierce, Strive here for mast'ry, and to battel bring Their embryon atoms; they around the flag Of each his faction, in their sev'ral clans, Light-arm'd or heavy, sharp, fmooth, fwift or flow, Swarm populous, un-numbred as the fands OF BARCA or CYRENE'S torrid foil, Levi'd to fide with warring winds, and poise Their lighter wing. To whom these most adhere, He rules a moment; CHAOS umpire fits, And by decifion more embroils the fray By which he reigns: next him high arbiter CHANCE governs all. Into this wild abyss, (The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave,) Of neither fea, nor shoar, nor air, non fire, But all these in their pregnant causes mix'd Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight, (Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain His dark materials to create more worlds) Into this wild abyss the wary Fiend Stood on the brink of Hell, and look'd a while, Pond'ring his voyage; (for no narrow frith He had to cross): nor was his ear less peal'd With noises loud and ruinous (to compare Great things with small) than when BELLONA storms, With all her batt'ring engins bent to rafe Some capital city; or less than if this frame Of heav'n were falling, and these elements In mutiny had from her axle torn The stedfast earth. At last his fail-broad vans He fpreads for flight, and in the surging smoke Uplifted spurns the ground: thence many a league, As in a cloudy chair, afcending rides Audacious; but that feat foon failing, meets A vast vacuity: all unawares

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Flut

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Flutt'ring his pennons vain, plumb down he drops
Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour
Down had been falling, had not by ill chance 935
The strong rebuff of fome tumultuous cloud,
Instinct with fire and nitre, hurried him
As many miles aloft: that fury stay'd,
Quencht in a boggy syrtis, neither fea,
Nor good dry land, nigh founder'd on he fares, 940.
Treading the crude confiftence, half on foot,
Half flying; behooves him now both oar and fail.
As when a gryfon, through the wilderness
With winged course o'er hill or moory dale,
Persues the ARIMASPIAN, who by stealth
Had from his wakeful custody purloin'd
The guarded gold so eagerly the Fiend
O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,
With head, hands, wings or feet perfues his way;
And swims, or finks, or wades, or creeps, or flies. 950
At length a universall hubbub wild
Of stunning founds, and voices all confus'd,
Born through the hallow dark affaults his ear
With loudest vehemence: thither he plies,
Undaunted to meet there whatever Pow'r,
Or fpirit of the nethermoft abyss,
Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask
Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies
Bordering on light: when strait behold the throne
OF CHAOS, and his dark pavilion spread
Wide on the wasteful deep: with him inthron'd
Sate fable-vested NIGHT, eldest of things,
The confort of his reign and by them stood,
ORCHUS and ADES, and the dreaded name.
OF DEMOGORGON: RUMOR next and CHANCE, 965
And TUMULT and CONFUSION all imbroil'd,
And DISCORD with a thousand various mouths.
T'whom SATAN turning boldly, thus. --- Ye Pow'rs,
And fpirits of this nethermoft Abyss,
CHAOS and antient NIGHT, I come no spy 970

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