Paradise Lost

What hath night to do with sleep?

Better to reign in Hell, than to serve in Heaven.

Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light.

Awake, arise or be for ever fall’n.

Abashed the devil stood and felt how awful goodness is and saw Virtue in her shape how lovely: and pined his loss

All is not lost, the unconquerable will, and study of revenge, immortal hate, and the courage never to submit or yield.

Never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep...

I sung of Chaos and Eternal Night, Taught by the heav'nly Muse to venture down The dark descent, and up to reascend...

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 heaven.

This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.

For so I created them free and free they must remain.

What is dark within me, illumine.

Into this wild Abyss/ The womb of Nature, and perhaps her grave--/ Of neither sea, nor shore, nor air, nor fire,/ But all these in their pregnant causes mixed/ Confusedly, and which thus must ever fight,/ Unless the 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 looked a while,/ Pondering his voyage; for no narrow frith/ He had to cross.

A mind not to be changed by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? Did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me?

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.

Our state cannot be severed, we are one, One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself.

Knowledge forbidden? Suspicious, reasonless. Why should their Lord Envy them that? Can it be a sin to know? Can it be death?

Should God create another Eve, and I Another Rib afford, yet loss of thee Would never from my heart; no no, I feel The Link of Nature draw me: Flesh of Flesh, Bone of my Bone thou art, and from thy State Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

Who overcomes By force, hath overcome but half his foe.

Ah, why should all mankind For one man's fault, be condemned, If guiltless?

From his lips/Not words alone pleased her.

They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld Of Paradise, so late their happy seat, Waved over by that flaming brand, the gate With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms: Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon; The world was all before them, where to choose Their place of rest, and Providence their guide; They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, Through Eden took their solitary way.

What though the field be lost? All is not Lost; the unconquerable will, And study of revenge, immortal hate, And the courage never to submit or yeild.

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?

Be strong, live happy and love, but first of all Him whom to love is to obey, and keep His great command!

Our cure, to be no more; sad cure!