Chapter 2 2

OF Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste Brought Death into the World, and all our woe, With loss of Eden, till one greater Man Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat, [ 5 ] Sing Heavnly Muse, that on the secret top Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, In the Beginning how the Heavns and Earth Rose out of Chaos: Or if Sion Hill [ 10 ] Delight thee more, and Siloas Brook that flowed Fast by the Oracle of God; Invoke thy aid to my adventrous Song, That with no middle flight intends to soar

Above th Aonian Mount, while it pursues [ 15 ] Things unattempted yet in Prose or Rhime. And chiefly Thou O Spirit, that dost prefer Before all Temples th upright heart and pure, Instruct me, for Thou known; Thou from the first Wast present, and with mighty wings outspread [ 20 ] Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss And madst it pregnant: What in me is dark Illumin, what is low raise and support; That to the highth of this great Argument I may assert Eternal Providence, [ 25 ] And justify the ways of God to men. Say first, for Heavn hides nothing from thy view

Nor the deep Tract of Hell, say first what cause Moved our Grand Parents in that happy State, Favored of Heavn so highly, to fall off [ 30 ] From thir Creator, and transgress his Will For one restraint, Lords of the World besides? Who first seduced them to that foul revolt? Th inner Serpent; he it was, whose guile Stird up with Envy and Revenge, deceivd [ 35 ] The Mother of Mankind, what time his Pride Had cast him out from Heavn, with all his Host Of Rebel Angels, by whose aid aspiring To set himself in Glory above his Peers, He trusted to have equald the most High, [ 40 ]