In Chaos; and the work begun, how soon
Absolved; if unforbid thou mayst unfold
What we, not to explore the secrets, ask,
Of his eternal empire, but the more

To magnify his works, the more we know:
And the great light of day yet wants to run
Much of his race though steep; suspense in heaven,

Held by thy voice, thy potent voice, he hears;
And longer will delay to hear thee tell

His generation, and the rising birth
Of Nature from the unapparent deep:
Or if the star of evening and the moon

Haste to thy audience, night with her will bring
Silence; and Sleep, listening to thee, will watch;
Or we can bid his absence, till thy song

h

End, and dismiss thee ere the morning shine.
Thus Adam his illustrious guest besought;
And thus the godlike angel answer'd mild:

This also thy request, with caution ask'd,
Obtain; though to recount almighty works
What words or tongue of seraph can suffice,
Or heart of man suffice to comprehend?

Yet what thou canst attain, which best may serve
To glorify the Maker, and infer

Thee also happier, shall not be withheld

Thy hearing; such commission from above

Of knowledge within bounds; beyond, abstain

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I have received, to answer thy desire

To ask; nor let thine own inventions' hope
Things not reveal'd, which the invisible King,

And the great light of day.

Mr. Thyer is of opinion that there is not a greater instance of our author's exquisite skill in the art of poetry than this and the following lines. There is nothing more really to be expressed than Adam's telling Raphael his desire to hear the continuance of his relation: and yet the poet, by a series of strong and noble figures, has worked it up into half a score of as fine lines as any in the poem. Lord Shaftesbury has observed, that Milton's beauties generally depend upon solid thought, strong reasoning, noble passion, and a continued thread of moral doctrine; but in this place he has shown what an exalted fancy and mere force of poetry can do.-NEWTON.

Lord Shaftesbury had not a very accurate idea of Milton's genius; which, if it had all the qualities here ascribed to it, was not less rich and gigantic in imagination and invention.

End.

h Bid his absence, till thy song

The sun did stand still at the voice of Joshua.-NEWTON.
Milton's favourite Ovid touches upon the suspense of day:---

-et euntem multa loquendo

Detinuit sermone diem.

i Thine own inventions.

So in Psalm evi. 29: "Thus they provoked him to anger with their own inventions." -PEARCE.

The invisible King.

As God is styled, 1 Tim. i. 17, "The invisible King," so this is the properest epithet that could have been employed here, when he is speaking of "things not revealed,

Only Omniscient, hath suppress'd in night,
To none communicable in earth or heaven;
Enough is left besides to search and know:
But knowledge is as food, and needs no less
Her temperance over appetite, to know
In measure what the mind may well contain;
Oppresses else with surfeit, and soon turns
Wisdom to folly, as nourishment to wind.*

Know then, that, after Lucifer from heaven
(So call him, brighter once amidst the host
Of angels, than that star the stars among)
Fell with his flaming legions through the deep
Into his place, and the great Son return'd
Victorious with his saints, the Omnipotent
Eternal Father from his throne beheld
Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake :

All like himself rebellious; by whose aid

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At least our envious foe hath fail'd, who thought

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This inaccessible high strength, the seat

Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed,

He trusted to have seized, and into fraud

Drew many, whom their place1 knows here no more;
Yet far the greater part have kept, I see,
Their station; heaven, yet populous, retains
Number sufficient to possess her realms
Though wide, and this high temple to frequent
With ministeries due, and solemn rites:
But, lest his heart exalt him in the harm
Already done, to have dispeopled heaven,
My damage fondly deem'd, I can repair
That detriment, if such it be to lose
Self-lost; and in a moment will create
Another world, out of one man a race
Of men innumerable, there to dwell
Not here; till by degrees of merit raised,

They open to themselves at length the way

Up hither, under long obedience tried;

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And earth be changed to heaven, and heaven to earth,

One kingdom, joy and union without end.

Meanwhile inhabit lax, ye powers of heaven;

And thou, my Word, begotten Son, by thee
This I perform; speak thou, and be it done!

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suppressed in night, to none communicable in earth or heaven," neither to men nor angels; as it is said of the day of judgment, Matt. xxiv. 36: "Of that day and hour knoweth no man: no not the angels of heaven, but my Father only."-NEWTON.

* Nourishment to wind.

See St. Paul, 1 Cor. viii. 1: "Knowledge puffeth up.”—TODD.

1 Whom their place.

See Job vii. 10: "Neither shall his place know him any more."-NEWTON.

My overshadowing Spirit and Might with thee
I send along ride forth, and bid the deep
Within appointed bounds be heaven and earth;
Boundless the deep, because I Am, who fill
Infinitude; nor vacuous the space;
Though I, uncircumscribed myself, retire,
And put not forth my goodness, which is free
To act or not necessity and chance
Approach not me, and what I will is fate.

So spake the Almighty, and to what he spake,
His Word, the filial Godhead, gave effect.
Immediate are the acts of God, more swift
Than time or motion; but to human ears
Cannot without process of speech be told,
So told as earthly notion can receive.

Great triumph and rejoicing was in heaven,

When such was heard declared the Almighty's will;
Glory they sung to the Most High, good will

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To future men, and in their dwellings peace:

Glory to him, whose just avenging ire

Had driven out the ungodly from his sight
And the habitations of the just; to him
Glory and praise, whose wisdom had ordain'd
Good out of evil to create; instead

Of spirits malign, a better race to bring
Into their vacant room, and thence diffuse
His good to worlds and ages infinite.

So sang the hierarchies: meanwhile the Son
On his great expedition now appear'd,
Girt with omnipotence, with radiance crown'd
Of majesty divine: sapience and love
Immense, and all his Father in him shone.
About his chariot numberless were pour'd
Cherub and seraph, potentates and thrones,
And virtues, winged spirits, and chariots wing'd
From the armoury of God; where stand of old
Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged
Against a solemn day, harness'd at hand,
Celestial equipage; and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within them spirit lived,
Attendant on their Lord: heaven open'd wide
Her ever-during gates, harmonious sound,
On golden hinges moving, to let forth
The King of Glory, in his powerful Word
And Spirit, coming to create new worlds.

On heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore

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See Luke i. 35: "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee."-NEWTON.

They view'd" the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turn'd by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven's highth, and with the centre mix the pole.
Silence, ye troubled waves,"
, and thou deep, peace,

Said then the omnific Word; your discord end!
Nor stay'd; but, on the wings of cherubim
Uplifted, in paternal glory rode

Far into Chaos, and the world unborn;

For Chaos heard his voice: him all his train
Follow'd in bright procession, to behold
Creation and the wonders of his might.

Then stay'd the fervid wheels; and in his hand
He took the golden compasses, prepared

In God's eternal store, to circumscribe

This universe, and all created things:

One foot he centred, and the other turn'd
Round through the vast profundity obscure;
And said, Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds;
This be thy just circumference, O world!
Thus God the heaven created, thus the earth,
Matter unform'd and void: darkness profound
Cover'd the abyss; but on the watery calm
His brooding wings the Spirit of God outspread,
And vital virtue infused, and vital warmth,
Throughout the fluid mass; but downward purged
The black, tartareous, cold, infernal dregs,
Adverse to life: then founded, then conglobed
Like things to like; the rest to several place
Disparted, and between spun out the air;
And earth, self-balanced, on her centre hung.
Let there be light, said God; and forthwith light

They view'd.

n From the shore

Here is a most magnificent picture, breathing all the powers of poetry.

• Silence, ye troubled waves.

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How much does the brevity of the command add to the sublimity and majesty of it! It is the same kind of beauty that Longinus admires in the Mosaic history of the creation it is of the same strain with the same "Omnific Word's" calming the tempest in the Gospel, when he said to the raging sea, "Peace, be still." Mark iv. 39. And how elegantly has he turned the commanding words, silence and peace, making one the first and the other the last in the sentence, and thereby giving the greater force and emphasis to both!-NEWTON.

P He took the golden compasses.

See Prov. viii. 27: "When he prepared the heavens I was there: when he set a compass upon the face of the deep."-RICHARDSON.

q Thus God the heaven created.

The reader will naturally remark how exactly Milton copies Moses in his account of the creation. The seventh book of Paradise Lost may be called a larger sort of paraphrase upon the first chapter of Genesis: Milton not only observes the same series and order, but preserves the very words as much as he can.-NEWTON.

Let there be light, said God.

Gen. i. 3.-"And God said, Let there be light; and there was light." This is the

Ethereal, first of things, quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from her native east
To journey through the aery gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud, for yet the sun
Was not; she in a cloudy tabernacle

Sojourned the while. God saw the light was good;
And light from darkness by the hemisphere
Divided: light the day, and darkness night

He named. Thus was the first day even and morn:
Nor past uncelebrated, nor unsung

By the celestial quires, when orient light
Exhaling first from darkness they beheld:

Birth-day of heaven and earth: with joy and shout
The hollow universal orb they fill'd,

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6

And touch'd their golden harps, and hymning praised
God and his works; Creator him they sung,
Both when first evening was, and when first morn.
Again, God said, Let there be firmamentt

Amid the waters, and let it divide

The waters from the waters: and God made
The firmament, expanse of liquid, pure,
Transparent, elemental air, diffused

In circuit to the uttermost convex

Of this great round; partition firm and sure,
The waters underneath from those above
Dividing for as earth, so he the world
Built on circumfluous waters calm, in wide
Crystalline ocean, and the loud misrule

Of Chaos far removed; lest fierce extremes
Contiguous might distemper the whole frame:
And heaven" he named the firmament: so even
And morning chorus sung the second day.

The earth was form'd, but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involved,
Appear'd not over all the face of earth

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passage that Longinus particularly admires; and no doubt its sublimity is greatly owing to its conciseness: but our poet enlarges upon it, endeavouring to give some account how light was created the first day, when the sun was not formed till the fourth day. He says that it was sphered in a radiant cloud, and so journeyed round the earth in a cloudy tabernacle; and herein is he justified by the authority of some commentators, though others think this light shone but imperfectly, and did not appear in full lustre till the fourth day.-NEWTON.

With joy and shout.

Job. xxxviii. 4, 7. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth; when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?"-NEWTON. t Let there be firmament.

See Gen. i. 6:"Firmament" signifies expansion.-NEWTON.

" And heaven.

So Gen. i. 8. According to the Hebrews, there were three heavens. The first is the air, wherein the clouds move, and the birds fly; the second is the starry heaven; and the third is the habitation of the angels and the seat of God's glory. Milton is speak ing here of the first heaven, as he mentions the others in other places.-NEWTON.