Where Eldest Night And Chaos, Ancestors Of

His Form Had Yet Not Lost All Her Original Brightness, Nor Appear'd Less Than Archangel Ruin'd, And Th' Excess Of Glory Obscur'd.

A Gulf Profound As That Serbonian Bog Betwixt Damiata And Mount Casius Old, Where Armies Whole Have Sunk: The Parching Air Burns Frore, And Cold Performs Th' Effect Of Fire. Thither By Harpy-footed Furies Hal'd, At Certain Revolutions All The Damn'd Are Brought, And Feel By Turns The Bitter Change Of Fierce Extremes,-extremes By Change More Fierce; From Beds Of Raging Fire To Starve In Ice Their Soft Ethereal Warmth, And There To Pine Immovable, Infix'd, And Frozen Round, Periods Of Time; Thence Hurried Back To Fire.

But Let My Due Feet Never Fail To Walk The Studious Cloisters Pale, And Love The High Embowed Roof, With Antique Pillars Massy Proof, And Storied Windows Richly Dight; Casting A Dim Religious Light.

Long Is The Way And Hard, That Out Of Hell Leads Up To Light.

If This Fail, The Pillar'd Firmament Is Rottenness, And Earth's Base Built On Stubble.