Holy and just! thrice happy, if they know
Their happiness, and persevere upright !'

"So sung they, and the Empyrean rung
With halleluiahs. Thus was Sabbath kept.
And thy request think now fulfilled, that asked
How first this World and face of things began,
And what before thy memory was done
From the beginning, that posterity,
Informed by thee, might know.

If else thou seek'st

Aught, not surpassing human measure, say.”

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THE END OF THE SEVENTH BOOK.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK VIII.

THE ARGUMENT.

Adam inquires concerning celestial motions; is doubtfully answered, and exhorted to search rather things more worthy of knowledge. Adam assents, and, still desirous to detain Raphael, relates to him what he remembered since his own creation-his placing in Paradise; his talk with God concerning solitude and fit society; his first meeting and nuptials with Eve. His discourse with the Angel thereupon; who, after admonitions repeated, departs.

THE Angel ended, and in Adam's ear

So charming left his voice that he a while Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear; Then, as new-waked, thus gratefully replied :“What thanks sufficient, or what recompense Equal, have I to render thee, divine Historian, who thus largely hast allayed The thirst I had of knowledge, and voutsafed This friendly condescension to relate Things else by me unsearchable-now heard With wonder, but delight, and, as is due, With glory attributed to the high Creator? Something yet of doubt remains, Which only thy solution can resolve. When I behold this goodly frame, this World, Of Heaven and Earth consisting, and compute Their magnitudes-this Earth, a spot, a grain, An atom, with the Firmament compared And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll Spaces incomprehensible (for such

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Their distance argues, and their swift return
Diurnal) merely to officiate light

Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot,
One day and night, in all their vast survey
Useless besides—reasoning, I oft admire
How Nature, wise and frugal, could commit
Such disproportions, with superfluous hand
So many nobler bodies to create,
Greater so manifold, to this one use,

For aught appears, and on their Orbs impose
Such restless revolution day by day
Repeated, while the sedentary Earth,
That better might with far less compass move,
Served by more noble than herself, attains
Her end without least motion, and receives,
As tribute, such a sumless journey brought
Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light:
Speed, to describe whose swiftness number fails."

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So spake our Sire, and by his countenance seemed
Entering on studious thoughts abstruse; which Eve
Perceiving, where she sat retired in sight,
With lowliness majestic from her seat,

And grace that won who saw to wish her stay,
Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers,
To visit how they prospered, bud and bloom,
Her nursery; they at her coming sprung,
And, touched by her fair tendance, gladlier grew.
Yet went she not as not with such discourse
Delighted, or not capable her ear

Of what was high. Such pleasure she reserved,

Adam relating, she sole auditress;

4I

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Her husband the relater she preferred
Before the Angel, and of him to ask

Chose rather; he, she knew, would intermix

Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute
With conjugal caresses: from his lip

Not words alone pleased her. Oh, when meet now
Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined ?
With goddess-like demeanour forth she went,
Not unattended; for on her as Queen
A pomp of winning Graces waited still,
And from about her shot darts of desire
Into all eyes, to wish her still in sight.
And Raphael now to Adam's doubt proposed
Benevolent and facile thus replied:-

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"To ask or search I blame thee not; for Heaven Is as the Book of God before thee set,

Wherein to read his wondrous works, and learn
His seasons, hours, or days, or months, or years.
This to attain, whether Heaven move or Earth
Imports not, if thou reckon right; the rest
From Man or Angel the great Architect
Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge
His secrets, to be scanned by them who ought
Rather admire. Or, if they list to try
Conjecture, he his fabric of the Heavens
Hath left to their disputes-perhaps to move
His laughter at their quaint opinions wide
Hereafter, when they come to model Heaven,
And calculate the stars; how they will wield
The mighty frame; how build, unbuild, contrive
To save appearances; how gird the Sphere
With Centric and Eccentric scribbled o'er,
Cycle and Epicycle, Orb in Orb.

Already by thy reasoning this I guess,

Who art to lead thy offspring, and supposest

That bodies bright and greater should not serve
The less not bright, nor Heaven such journeys run,
Earth sitting still, when she alone receives
The benefit. Consider, first, that great
Or bright infers not excellence. The Earth,
Though, in comparison of Heaven, so small,

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Nor glistering, may of solid good contain
More plenty than the Sun that barren shines,
Whose virtue on itself works no effect,
But in the fruitful Earth; there first received,
His beams unactive else, their vigour find.
Yet not to Earth are those bright luminaries
Officious, but to thee, Earth's habitant.
And, for the Heaven's wide circuit, let it speak
The Maker's high magnificence, who built
So spacious, and his line stretched out so far,
That Man may know he dwells not in his own-
An edifice too large for him to fill,

Lodged in a small partition, and the rest
Ordained for uses to his Lord best known.
The swiftness of those Circles attribute,
Though numberless, to his omnipotence,
That to corporeal substances could add

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Speed almost spiritual. Me thou think'st not slow, Who since the morning-hour set out from Heaven III Where God resides, and ere mid-day arrived

In Eden-distance inexpressible

By numbers that have name.

But this I urge,

Admitting motion in the Heavens, to show
Invalid that which thee to doubt it moved;
Not that I so affirm, though so it seem

To thee who hast thy dwelling here on Earth.
God, to remove his ways from human sense,

Placed Heaven from Earth so far, that earthly sight,

If it presume, might err in things too high,
And no advantage gain. What if the Sun
Be centre to the World, and other Stars,

By his attractive virtue and their own
Incited, dance about him various rounds?

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Their wandering course, now high, now low, then hid Progressive, retrograde, or standing still,

In six thou seest; and what if, seventh to these,