In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades

High over-arch'd imbow'r; or scatter'd sedge

Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion arm'd

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Hath vex'd the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthrew

Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,

While with perfidious hatred they pursued

The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld

From the safe shore their floating carcases

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And broken chariot wheels: so thick bestrown,

Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood,

Under amazement of their hideous change.

He call'd so loud, that all the hollow deep

Of Hell resounded. Princes, Potentates,

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Warriors, the flow'r of heav'n, once yours, now lost,

If such astonishment as this can seize

Eternal spirits; or have ye chos'n this place

After the toil of battle to repose

find

Your wearied virtue, for the ease you
To slumber here, as in the vales of Heaven?
Or in this abject posture have ye sworn
T'adore the conqueror? who now beholds
Cherub and Seraph rolling in the flood
With scatter'd arms and ensigns, till anon

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They heard, and were abash'd, and up they sprung

Upon the wing, as when men wont to watch

On duty, sleeping found by whom they dread,
Rouse and bestir themselves ere well awake.

Nor did they not perceive the evil plight

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In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel;
Yet to their gen'ral's voice they soon obey'd
Innumerable. As when the potent rod
Of Amram's son, in Egypt's evil day,

Waved round the coast, up call'd a pitchy cloud
Of locusts, warping on the eastern wind,
That o'er the realm of impious Pharaoh hung
Like night, and darken'd all the land of Nile:
So numberless were those bad Angels seen
Hov'ring on wing under the cope of Hell
'Twixt upper, nether, and surrounding fires;
Till, as a signal giv'n, th' uplifted spear
Of their great Sultan waving to direct
Their course, in even balance down they light
On the firm brimstone, and fill all the plain;
A multitude, like which the populous north
Pour'd never from her frozen loins, to pass
Rhene or the Danaw, when her barb'rous sons
Came like a deluge on the south, and spread
Beneath Gibraltar to the Lybian sands.
Forthwith from ev'ry squadron and each band
The heads and leaders thither haste where stood

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Their great commander; Godlike shapes and forms
Excelling human, princely dignities,

And Pow'rs that erst in Heaven sat on thrones;

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Though of their names in heav'nly records now

Be no memorial, blotted out and rased

By their rebellion from the books of life.

Nor had they yet among the sons of Eve

Got them new names, till wand'ring o'ver the earth,

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Thro' God's high suff'rance for the trial of man,

By falsities and lies the greatest part

Of mankind they corrupted, to forsake
God their Creator, and th' invisible
Glory of him that made them to transform
Oft to the image of a brute, adorn'd

With gay religions full of pomp

And Devils to adore for Deities:

and gold,

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Then were they known to men by various names,

And various idols through the Heathen world.

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Say, Muse, their names then known, who first, who last

Roused from the slumber, on that fiery couch,
At their great emp'ror's call, as next in worth
Came singly where he stood on the bare strand,
While the promiscuous crowd stood yet aloof.
The chief were those who from the pit of Hell
Roaming to seek their prey on earth, durst fix
Their seats long after next the seat of God,
Their altars by his altar, Gods adored
Among the nations round, and durst abide
Jehovah thund'ring out of Sion, throned
Between the Cherubim; yea, often placed
Within his sanctuary itself their shrines,
Abominations; and with cursed things
His holy rites and solemn feasts profaned,
And with their darkness durst affront his light.

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First Moloch, horrid king, besmear'd with blood

Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears,

Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud

Their children's cries unheard, that pass'd thro' fire

To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite

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Worshipp'd in Rabba and her wat’ry plain,

In Argob and in Basan, to the stream

Of utmost Arnon. Nor content with such
Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart
Of Solomon he led by fraud to build
His temple right against the temple of God,
On that opprobrious hill; and made his grove
The pleasant vale of Hinnom, Tophet thence
And black Gehenna call'd, the type of Hell.
Next Chemos, th' obscene dread of Moab's sons,

From Aroar to Nebo, and the wild

Of southmost Abarim; in Hesebon

And Horonaim, Seon's realm, beyond

The flowery dale of Sibma clad with vines,

And Eleälé to th' Asphaltic pool.

Peor his other name, when he enticed

Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile,

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To do him wanton rites, which cost them woe.
Yet thence his lustful orgies he enlarged

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E'en to that hill of scandal, by the grove

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Of Moloch homicide; lust hard by hate;

Till good Josiah drove them thence to Hell.

With these came they, who, from the bord'ring flood
Of old Euphrates to the brook that parts

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Egypt from Syrian ground, had general names

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Of Baälim and Ashtaroth; those male,

These feminine: for spirits, when they please,
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft

And uncompounded is their essence pure

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Not tied nor manacled with joint or limb;

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Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,

Like cumbrous flesh; but, in what shape they choose

Dilated or condensed, bright or obscure,

Can execute their aëry purposes,

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And works of love or enmity fulfil.

For those the race of Israel oft forsook

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Their living Strength, and unfrequented left
His righteous altar, bowing lowly down

05

To bestial gods; for which their heads as low
Bow'd down in battle, sunk before the spear
Of despicable foes. With these in troop
Came Astoreth, whom the Phoenicians call'd
Astarte, queen of heaven, with crescent horns;
To whose bright image nightly by the moon
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs;
In Sion also not unsung, where stood

Her temple on th' offensive mountain, built

By that uxorious king, whose heart, though large,

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Beguiled by fair idolatresses, fell

To idols foul. Thammuz came next behind,

0

Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured

The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer's day;
While smooth Adonis from his native rock

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Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded: the love-tale
Infected Sion's daughters with like heat;
Whose wanton passions in the sacred porch
Ezekiel saw, when by the vision led,
His eye survey'd the dark idolatries

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Of alienated Judah. Next came one

Who mourn'd in earnest, when the captive ark

Maim'd his brute image, head and hands lopp'd off
In his own temple, on the grunsel edge,

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Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers:
Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man
And downward fish: yet had his temple high
Rear'd in Azotus, dreaded through the coast
Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,
And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.
Him follow'd Rimmon, whose delightful seat
Was fair Damascus, on the fertile banks
Of Abbana and Pharphar, lucid streams.
He also 'gainst the house of God was bold:
A leper once he lost, and gain'd a king;
Ahaz his sottish conqu'ror, whom he drew
God's altar to disparage and displace
For one of Syrian mode, whereon to burn

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His odious offerings, and adore the gods

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Whom he had vanquish'd. After these appear'd

A crew, who, under names of old renown,

Th' infection, when their borrow'd gold composed
The calf in Oreb; and the rebel king

Doubled that sin in Bethel and in Dan,

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Likening his Maker to the grazed ox;

Jehovah, who in one night when he pass'd