Where, in the midst of vast Infinitude,
The arm creative stopp'd,--dread bound of space,
Alien to God, and from his sight exil'd,
Hell rolls her sulph'rous torrents. There, nor law
Of motion, nor eternal Order reigns;
But anarchy instead, and wild uproar,
And ruinous tumult. Now with lightning speed
Th' accursed sphere, with all its flames, flies up
Into the void abrupt, and with its roar,
With groans commixt, and shrieks, and boundless yells,
Astounds the nearest stars: calm now and slow,
With dreadful peace the universal waves
Of sulphur roll, and pour a mightier flood
On those tormented, their eternal crimes
Avenging with fresh pain and sharper darts
Of never-dying torture.--They meanwhile,
The caitiff and his puissant guide, on wing
Impetuous, skirt creation's flaming waste,
And suns innumerable, and with prone flight
Descending down, light sheer upon the coast
Of outmost Night. The guard seraphic knows.
That power ministrant, ----
---- and with quick despatch
Unfolds the Stygian doors, that jarring hoarse
Slow on their adamantine hinges turn'd,
And open'd to their ken the dread abyss,
Unfathomably deep, mother of woes.
Not mountains pil'd on mountains would close up
Th' infernal entrance: they would but increase
Its native ruggedness. No path leads down