Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained

Автор

Джон Мильтон

Год написания книги

2019

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Bent all on speed, and marked his aery gait;

But in the mount that lies from Eden north,

Where he first lighted, soon discerned his looks

Alien from Heaven, with passions foul obscured:

Mine eye pursued him still, but under shade

Lost sight of him: One of the banished crew,

I fear, hath ventured from the deep, to raise

New troubles; him thy care must be to find.”

To whom the winged warrior thus returned.

“Uriel, no wonder if thy perfect sight,

Amid the sun’s bright circle where thou sitst,

See far and wide: In at this gate none pass

The vigilance here placed, but such as come

Well known from Heaven; and since meridian hour

No creature thence: If Spirit of other sort,

So minded, have o’er-leaped these earthly bounds

On purpose, hard thou knowest it to exclude

Spiritual substance with corporeal bar.

But if within the circuit of these walks,

In whatsoever shape he lurk, of whom

Thou tellest, by morrow dawning I shall know.”

So promised he; and Uriel to his charge

Returned on that bright beam, whose point now raised

Bore him slope downward to the sun now fallen

Beneath the Azores; whether the prime orb,

Incredible how swift, had thither rolled

Diurnal, or this less voluble earth,

By shorter flight to the east, had left him there

Arraying with reflected purple and gold

The clouds that on his western throne attend.

Now came still Evening on, and Twilight gray

Had in her sober livery all things clad;

Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,

They to their grassy couch, these to their nests

Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;

She all night long her amorous descant sung;

Silence was pleased: Now glowed the firmament

With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led

The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,

Rising in clouded majesty, at length

Apparent queen unveiled her peerless light,

And o’er the dark her silver mantle threw.

When Adam thus to Eve. “Fair Consort, the hour

Of night, and all things now retired to rest,

Mind us of like repose; since God hath set

Labour and rest, as day and night, to men

Successive; and the timely dew of sleep,

Now falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines

Our eye-lids: Other creatures all day long

Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest;