Fate shall yield
To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.
To fickle Chance, and Chaos judge the strife.
Which, if not victory, is yet revenge.
Our torments also may in length of time Become our elements, these piercing fires As soft as now severe, our temper changed Into their temper.
For contemplation he and valour formed; / For softness she and sweet attractive grace, / He for God only, she for God in him: / His fair large front and eye sublime declared / Absolute rule.
With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout, Confusion worse confounded.
This horror will grow mild, this darkness light.
A grateful mind/ By owing owes not, but still pays, at once/ Indebted and discharg’d.
And on the Tree of Life, The middle tree and highest there that grew, Sat like a cormorant.
With thee conversing I forget all time.
So he with difficulty and labour hard Mov’d on, with difficulty and labour he.
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy.
And fast by, hanging in a golden chain, This pendent world, in bigness as a star Of smallest magnitude, close by the moon.
And feel by turns the bitter change
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.
Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.
Be lowly wise: Think only what concerns thee and thy being.
Abash’d the Devil stood, And felt how awful goodness is.
‘Paradise Lost’ is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
