Thou haft not miss'd one thought that could be fit, So that no room is here for writers left, 30 That majesty which through thy Work doth reign, Draws the devout, deterring the profane: And things divine thou treat'st of in such state 35 At once delight and horror on us feize, 40 Where could'st thou words of fuch a compass find? Whence furnish such a vast expense of mind? Juft Heav'n thee, like Tirefias, to requite, Rewards with prophefy thy lofs of fight. Well might'st thou scorn thy readers to allure 45 With tinkling rhyme, of thy own sense secure; While the Town-Bays writes all the while and spells, And like a pack-horse tires without his bells: Their fancies like our bushy points appear, The poets tag them, we for fashion wear. I too, tranfported by the mode, commend, 50 And while I meant to praise thee, must offend. ANDREW MARVEL. THE measure is English heroic verse without rime, as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin; rime being no necessary adjunů or true ornament of poem or good verfe, in longer works efpecially, but the invention of a barbarous age, to fet off wretched matter and lame meter; grac'd indeed fince by the use of fome famous modern pocts, carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part, worse than elfe they would have express'd them. Not without cause, therefore, fome both Italian and Spanish poets of prime note have rejected rime both in longer and shorter works, as have alfo long fince our best English tragedies, as a thing of itself, to all judicious ears, trivial, and of no true musical delight; which confifis only in apt numbers, fit quantity of fyllables, and the fenfe variously drawn out from one verfe into another, not in the jingling found of like endings, a fault avoided by the learned Ancients both in poetry and all good oratory. This negle& then, of rime, fo little is to be taken for a defect, though it may Seem fo perhaps to vulgar readers, that it rather is to be efteemed an example fet, the first in English, of ancient liberty recovered to heroic poem, from the troublesome and modern bondage of riming. 3 BOOK I. The Argument. This First Book propofes, firft in brief, the whole fubject, Man's dif obedience, and the lofs thereupon of Paradife wherein he was plac'd: then touches the prime caufe of his fall, the ferpent, or rather Satan in the ferpent; who revolting from God, and drawing to his fide many legions of angels, was by the command of God driven out of Heaven with all his crew into the great Deep. Which action pafs'd over, the Poem haftes into the midst of things, prefenting Satan with his angels now falling into Hell, defcrib'd here, not in the center (for Heaven and Earth may be fuppos'd as yet not made, certainly not yet accurs'd) but in a place of utter darkness, fitlieft called Chaos : here Satan with his angels lying on the burning lake, thunder-ftruck and aftonifh'd, after a certain space recovers as from confufion, calls up him who next in order and dignity lay by him; they confer of their miferable fall. Satan awakens all his legions, who lay till then in the fame manner confounded: they rife, their numbers, array of battel, their chief leaders nam'd, according to the idols known afterwards in Canaan and the countries adjoining. To thefe Satan. directs his speech, conforts them with hope yet of regaining Heaven, but tells them, laftly, of a new world and new kind of creature to be created, according to an ancient prophecy or report in Heaven; for that angels were long before this vifible creation was the opinion. of many ancient Fathers. To find out the truth of this prophecy, and what to determine thereon, he refers to a full council. What his affociates thence attempt. Pandemonium the palace of Satan rife, fuddenly built out of the Deep: the infernal Peers there fie in council. OF Man's first difobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden Tree, whofe mortal tafte G Sing heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didft inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the Chofen Seed, Delight thee more, and Siloa's brook that flow'd 10 Invoke thy aid to my adventrous fong, And mad'ft it pregnant: what in me is dark I may affert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. 25 Say first, for Heav'n hides nothing from thy view, Nor the deep tract of Hell, fay first what cause Mov'd our grand parents, in that happy state, Favor'd of Heav'n fo highly, to fall off From their Creator, and tranfgrefs his will For one restraint, lords of the world befides? Who first feduc'd them to that foul revolt? 30 Th' infernal Serpent; he it was, whofe guile, To fet himself in glory' above his peers, 35 45 Nine times the space that measures day and night 50 To mortal men, he with his horrid crew Lay vanquish'd, rolling in the fiery gulf, Torments him; round he throws his baleful eyes, 55 60 |