Vain argument! for we ourselves unmake
Both what we neither make, nor yet restore.
Or what propounds the imprecated bolt
Annihilating that but itself leaves nought-
To the annihilated, and of proof
Made unintelligent; or if restored,

After what lapse of time, yet who shall know
Whether by power extrinsic or innate ?"
Thus, to the atheist, the libertine,

Dark Asmod, subtlest litigant for ill
In the infernal forum; who his foe
Reviled, and with injurious defence,
Alike derided Heaven. But now in him,
And in the angel-host, and those oppressed
Beneath the advantage that their station gave,
Hearing took sudden captive tongue and hand
And every power, as all a coming sound
Discerned, yet distant, indescribable,
Nor to be told if it was tread or flight,
Or under ground, or both in earth and air;
As when an earthquake, on its march along
The Mediterranean shore, or o'er the sea

Submerged and sunk beneath its bottom, comes

By whirlwinds trumpeted. Nor did they doubt, Who heard the sound, that, for these atheist scoffs, God, as not seldom in their impious den,

Had bared his terrible and still lurking hand.

At once for flight, the ethereous army formed Their hovering ranks, and on delayless wing Sought a near mount; and on its farther side Descending, perched, as on a leeward cliff

The ominous flocks of ocean wait the storm.

BOOK VIII.

7*

BOOK VIII.

In earth above, on the celestial round
Open to heaven, and clad with air and wave,

And on that side of the great polar stream,
Where the bold Genoese touched the strand, till then
The virgin of the sea, a marble stands,

Whose shape by old Ilissus many a one

Might equal, none excel; a fresh antique,

Birth of the old world and the new, that shows

How Orpheus at the twilight doors of hell,
Fast by lulled Cerberus, with forward stoop
And hand above his patient brow, explored
The hushed and awful deep. And thus, arrived
To where he left of late his numerous league,
With standards fixed and warlike sheen and din,
To find it silent now and void and dim,

Gazed Cecrops: and the hindered Titans stood