"Where God is praised aright, and godlike men, "The Holiest of Holies, and his saints: "Such are from God inspired,-not such from thee, "Unless where moral virtue is expressed 350 By light of Nature, not in all quite lost. "Than all the oratory of Greece and Rome. So spake the Son of God: but Satan, now "Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts, "Kingdom nor empire pleases thee, nor aught "By me proposed in life contemplative, 360 370 "Or active, tended on by glory or fame, "What dost thou in this world? The wilderness "For thee is fittest place; I found thee there, "And thither will return thee: yet remember "What I foretell thee: soon thou shalt have cause "To wish thou never hadst rejected, thus 66 Nicely or cautiously, my offered aid, "Which would have set thee in short time with ease "On David's throne, or throne of all the world, "Or Heaven write aught of Fate, by what the stars "In their conjunction met, give me to spell ; "Sorrows, and labours, opposition, hate "Attend thee, scorns, reproaches, injuries, 380 "Violence and stripes, and lastly cruel death: "A kingdom they portend thee; but what kingdom, "Real or allegoric, I discern not,— 390 "Nor when ;-eternal sure, as without end, So saying, he took, (for still he knew his power Our Saviour meek, and with untroubled mind the clouds, Whose branching arms, thick intertwined, might shield 400 410 420 Environed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked, Satst unappalled in calm and sinless peace! Who with her radiant finger stilled the roar Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the winds, Cleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray, The Prince of Darkness; glad would also seem Backed on the north and west by a thick wood. "Fair morning yet betides thee, Son of God! "After a dismal night: I heard the wrack, 430 440 450 "Was distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them "As dangerous to the pillared frame of Heaven, "Or to the Earth's dark basis underneath, 66 Are, to the main, as inconsiderable "And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze "Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point, 66 They oft fore-signify and threaten ill : "This tempest at this desert most was bent; "Of men at thee, for only thou here dwellst. "Did I not tell thee, if thou didst reject 460 "The perfect season offered with my aid "Whereof this ominous night, that closed thee round, — 66 May warn thee, as a sure foregoing sign. So talked he, while the Son of God went on And staid not, but in brief him answered thus: "Me worse than wet thou findst not; other harm, "Those terrors, which thou speakst of, did me none: "I never feared they could, though noising loud "And threatening nigh: what they can do, as signs Betokening, or ill boding, I contemn 66 "As false portents, not sent from God, but thee; 66 Who, knowing I shall reign past thy preventing, "Obtrudest thy offered aid, that I, accepting, "At least might seem to hold all power of thee, "Ambitious Spirit! and wouldst be thought my God, "And stormst refused, thinking to terrify "Me to thy will! desist!-thou art discerned, "And toilst in vain-nor me in vain molest!" To whom the Fiend, now swoln with rage, replied: "Then hear, O son of David, virgin-born! "For 'Son of God' to me is yet in doubt; "Of the Messiah I have heard foretold By all the Prophets; of thy birth at length, "Announced by Gabriel, with the first I knew; "And of the angelic song in Bethlehem field, "On thy birth-night, that sung thee Saviour born. "From that time seldom have I ceased to eye 470 480 490 500 66 Thy infancy, thy childhood, and thy youth; Thy manhood last, though yet in private bred; "Till at the ford of Jordan, whither all "Flocked to the Baptist, I among the rest, (Though not to be baptized,) by voice from Heaven "Heard thee pronounced the Son of God beloved.' "Thenceforth I thought thee worth my nearer view "And narrower scrutiny, that I might learn "In what degree or meaning thou art called "The Son of God-which bears no single sense. "The Son of God I also am, or was; "And if I was, I am; relation stands : "All men are Sons of God; yet thee I thought "In some respect far higher so declared: "Therefore I watched thy footsteps from that hour, "And followed thee still on to this waste wild; "Where, by all best conjectures, I collect "Thou art to be my fatal enemy: "Good reason then, if I beforehand seek "To understand my adversary,-who "And what he is ;-his wisdom, power, intent ; "By parl or composition, truce or league, 510 520 "To win him, or win from him what I can : "And opportunity I here have had "To try thee, sift thee; and confess have found thee "Proof against all temptation, as a rock "Of adamant, and, as a centre, firm; "To the utmost of mere man both wise and good, So saying, he caught him up, and, without wing Over the wilderness and o'er the plain; 530 540 |