Оценить:
 Рейтинг: 0

Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Год написания книги
2019
<< 1 ... 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 ... 67 >>
На страницу:
56 из 67
Настройки чтения
Размер шрифта
Высота строк
Поля

For heavenly minds from such distempers foul

Are ever clear. Whereof he soon aware,

Each perturbation smoothed with outward calm,

Artificer of fraud; and was the first

That practised falsehood under saintly show,

Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge:

Yet not enough had practised to deceive

Uriel once warned; whose eye pursued him down

The way he went, and on the Assyrian mount

Saw him disfigured, more than could befall

Spirit of happy sort; his gestures fierce

He marked and mad demeanour, then alone,

As he supposed, all unobserved, unseen.

So on he fares, and to the border comes

Of Eden, where delicious Paradise,

Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green,

As with a rural mound, the champaign head

Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides

With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild,

Access denied; and overhead upgrew

Insuperable height of loftiest shade,

Cedar, and pine, and fir, and branching palm,

A sylvan scene, and, as the ranks ascend,

Shade above shade, a woody theatre

Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops

The verdurous wall of Paradise upsprung;

Which to our general sire gave prospect large

Into his nether empire neighbouring round.

And higher than that wall a circling row

Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit,

Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue,

Appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed:

On which the sun more glad impressed his beams

Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow,

When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed

That landskip: And of pure now purer air

Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires

Vernal delight and joy, able to drive

All sadness but despair: Now gentle gales,

Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense

Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole

Those balmy spoils. As when to them who fail

Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past

Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow

Sabean odours from the spicy shore

Of Araby the blest; with such delay

Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league

Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles:

So entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend,

Who came their bane; though with them better pleased
<< 1 ... 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 ... 67 >>
На страницу:
56 из 67