Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven firstborn,
Or of the Eternal coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam’d?  since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from eternity, dwelt then in thee
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear”st thou rather pure ethereal stream,
Whose fountain who shall tell?  before the sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,
Escap’d the Stygian pool, though long detain’d
In that obscure sojourn, while in my flight
Through utter and through middle darkness borne,
With other notes than to the Orphean lyre
I sung of Chaos and eternal Night;
Taught by the heavenly Muse to venture down
The dark descent, and up to re-ascend,
Though hard and rare:  Thee I revisit safe,
And feel thy sovran vital lamp; but thou
Revisit’st not these eyes, that roll in vain
To find thy piercing ray, and find no dawn;
So  thick a drop serene hath quench’d their orbs,
Or dim suffusion veil’d.  Yet not the more
Cease I to wander, where the Muses haunt,
Clear spring, or shady grove, or sunny hill,
Smit with the love of sacred song; but chief
Thee, Sion, and the flowery brooks beneath,
That wash thy hallow’d feet, and warbling flow,
Nightly I visit:  nor sometimes forget
So were I equall’d with them in renown,
Thy sovran command, that Man should find grace;
Blind Thamyris, and blind Maeonides,
And Tiresias, and Phineus, prophets old:
Then feed on thoughts, that voluntary move
Harmonious numbers; as the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note.  Thus with the year
Seasons return; but not to me returns
Day, or the sweet approach of even or morn,
Or sight of vernal bloom, or summer’s rose,
Or flocks, or herds, or human face divine;
But cloud instead, and ever-during dark
Surrounds me, from the cheerful ways of men
Cut off, and for the book of knowledge fair
Presented with a universal blank
Of nature’s works to me expung’d and ras’d,
And wisdom at one entrance quite shut out.
So much the rather thou, celestial Light,
Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers
Irradiate; there plant eyes, all mist from thence
Purge and disperse, that I may see and tell
Of things invisible to mortal sight.
Now had the Almighty Father from above,
From the pure empyrean where he sits
High thron’d above all highth, bent down his eye
His own works and their works at once to view:
About him all the Sanctities of Heaven
Stood thick as stars, and from his sight receiv’d
Beatitude past utterance; on his right
The radiant image of his glory sat,
His only son; on earth he first beheld
Our two first parents, yet the only two
Of mankind in the happy garden plac’d
Reaping immortal fruits of joy and love,
Uninterrupted joy, unrivall’d love,
In blissful solitude; he then survey’d
Hell and the gulf between, and Satan there
Coasting the wall of Heaven on this side Night
In the dun air sublime, and ready now
To stoop with wearied wings, and willing feet,
On the bare outside of this world, that seem’d
Firm land imbosom’d, without firmament,
Uncertain which, in ocean or in air.
Him God beholding from his prospect high,
Wherein past, present, future, he beholds,
Thus to his only Son foreseeing spake.
Only begotten Son, seest thou what rage
Transports our Adversary?  whom no bounds
Prescrib’d no bars of Hell, nor all the chains
Heap’d on him there, nor yet the main abyss
Wide interrupt, can hold; so bent he seems
On desperate revenge, that shall redound
Upon his own rebellious head.  And now,
Through all restraint broke loose, he wings his way
Not far off Heaven, in the precincts of light,
Directly towards the new created world,
And man there plac’d, with purpose to assay
If him by force he can destroy, or, worse,
By some false guile pervert; and shall pervert;
For man will hearken to his glozing lies,
And easily transgress the sole command,
Sole pledge of his obedience:  So will fall
He and his faithless progeny:  Whose fault?
Whose but his own?  ingrate, he had of me
All he could have; I made him just and right,
Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Such I created all the ethereal Powers
And Spirits, both them who stood, and them who fail’d;
Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.
Not free, what proof could they have given sincere
Of true allegiance, constant faith or love,
Where only what they needs must do appear’d,
Not what they would?  what praise could they receive?
What pleasure I from such obedience paid,
When will and reason (reason also is choice)
Useless and vain, of freedom both despoil’d,
Made passive both, had serv’d necessity,
Not me?  they therefore, as to right belong$ ‘d,
So were created, nor can justly accuse
Their Maker, or their making, or their fate,
As if predestination over-rul’d
Their will dispos’d by absolute decree
Or high foreknowledge they themselves decreed
Their own revolt, not I; if I foreknew,
Foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,
Which had no less proved certain unforeknown.
So without least impulse or shadow of fate,
Or aught by me immutably foreseen,
They trespass, authors to themselves in all
Both what they judge, and what they choose; for so
I form’d them free: and free they must remain,
Till they enthrall themselves; I else must change
Their nature, and revoke the high decree
Unchangeable, eternal, which ordain’d
$THeir freedom: they themselves ordain’d their fall.
The first sort by their own suggestion fell,
Self-tempted, self-deprav’d:  Man falls, deceiv’d
By the other first:  Man therefore shall find grace,
The other none:  In mercy and justice both,
Through Heaven and Earth, so shall my glory excel;
But Mercy, first and last, shall brightest shine.
Thus while God spake, ambrosial fragrance fill’d
All Heaven, and in the blessed Spirits elect
Sense of new joy ineffable diffus’d.
Beyond compare the Son of God was seen
Most glorious; in him all his Father shone
Substantially express’d; and in his face
Divine compassion visibly appear’d,
Love without end, and without measure grace,
Which uttering, thus he to his Father spake.
O Father, gracious was that word which clos’d
Thy sovran command, that Man should find grace;
, that Man should find grace;
For which both Heaven and earth shall high extol
Thy praises, with the innumerable sound
Of hymns and sacred songs, wherewith thy throne
Encompass’d shall resound thee ever blest.
For should Man finally be lost, should Man,
Thy creature late so lov’d, thy youngest son,
Fall circumvented thus by fraud, though join’d
With his own folly?  that be from thee far,
That far be from thee, Father, who art judge
Of all things made, and judgest only right.
Or shall the Adversary thus obtain
His end, and frustrate thine?  shall he fulfill
His malice, and thy goodness bring to nought,
Or proud return, though to his heavier doom,
Yet with revenge accomplish’d, and to Hell
Draw after him the whole race of mankind,
By him corrupted?  or wilt thou thyself
Abolish thy creation, and unmake
For him, what for thy glory thou hast made?
So should thy goodness and thy greatness both
Be question’d and blasphem’d without defence.
To whom the great Creator thus replied.
O son, in whom my soul hath chief delight,
Son of my *****, Son who art alone.
My word, my wisdom, and effectual might,
All hast thou spoken as my thoughts are, all
As my eternal purpose hath decreed;
Man shall not quite be lost, but sav’d who will;
Yet not of will in him, but grace in me
Freely vouchsaf’d; once more I will renew
His lapsed powers, though forfeit; and enthrall’d
By sin to foul exorbitant desires;
Upheld by me, yet once more he shall stand
On even ground against his mortal foe;
By me upheld, that he may know how frail
His fallen condition is, and to me owe
All his deliverance, and to none but me.
Some I have chosen of peculiar grace,
Elect above the rest; so is my will:
The rest shall hear me call, and oft be warn’d
Their sinful state, and to appease betimes
The incensed Deity, while offer’d grace
Invites; for I will clear their senses dark,
What may suffice, and soften stony hearts
To pray, repent, and bring obedience due.
To prayer, repentance, and obedience due,
Though but endeavour’d with sincere intent,
Mine ear shall not be slow, mine eye not shut.
And I will place within them as a guide,
My umpire Conscience; whom if they will hear,
Light after light, well us’d, they shall attain,
And to the end, persisting, safe arrive.
This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,
They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;
But hard be harden’d, blind be blinded more,
That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;
And none but such from mercy I exclude.
But yet all is not done; Man disobeying,
Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins
Against the high supremacy of Heaven,
Affecting God-head, and, so losing all,
To expiate his treason hath nought left,
But to destruction sacred and devote,
He, with his whole posterity, must die,
Die he or justice must; unless for him
Some other able, and as willing, pay
The rigid satisfaction, death for death.
Say, heavenly Powers, where shall we find such love?
Which of you will be mortal, to redeem
Man’s mortal crime, and just the unjust to save?
Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?
And silence was in Heaven: $ on Man’s behalf
He ask’d, but all the heavenly quire stood mute,
Patron or intercessour none appear’d,
Much less that durst upon his own head draw
The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.
And now without redemption all mankind
Must have been lost, adjudg’d to Death and Hell
By doom severe, had not the Son of God,
In whom the fulness dwells of love divine,
His dearest mediation thus renew’d.
Father, thy word is past, Man shall find grace;
And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,
The speediest of thy winged messengers,
To visit all thy creatures, and to all
Comes unprevented, unimplor’d, unsought?
Happy for Man, so coming; he her aid
Can never seek, once dead in sins, and lost;
Atonement for himself, or offering meet,
Indebted and undone, hath none to bring;
Behold me then:  me for him, life for life
I offer: on me let thine anger fall;
Account me Man; I for his sake will leave
Thy *****, and this glory next to thee
Freely put off, and for him lastly die
Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage.
Under his gloomy power I shall not long
Lie vanquished. Thou hast given me to possess
Life in myself for ever; by thee I live;
Though now to Death I yield, and am his due,
All that of me can die, yet, that debt paid,
$ thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave
His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul
For ever with corruption there to dwell;
But I shall rise victorious, and subdue
My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.
Death his death’s wound shall then receive, and stoop
Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed;
I through the ample air in triumph high
Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell, and show
The powers of darkness bound. Thou, at the sight
Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,
While, by thee raised, I ruin all my foes;
Death last, and with his carcase glut the grave;
Then, with the multitude of my redeemed,
Shall enter Heaven, long absent, and return,
Father, to see thy face, wherein no cloud
Of anger shall remain, but peace assured
And reconcilement: wrath shall be no more
Thenceforth, but in thy presence joy entire.
His words here ended; but his meek aspect
Silent yet spake, and breathed immortal love
To mortal men, above which only shone
Filial obedience: as a sacrifice
Glad to be offered, he attends the will
Of his great Father. Admiration seized
All Heaven, what this might mean, and whither tend,
Wondering; but soon th’ Almighty thus replied.
O thou in Heaven and Earth the only peace
Found out for mankind under wrath, O thou
My sole complacence! Well thou know’st how dear
To me are all my works; nor Man the least,
Though last created, that for him I spare
Thee from my ***** and right hand, to save,
By losing thee a while, the whole race lost.

Thou, therefore, whom thou only canst redeem,
Their nature also to thy nature join;
And be thyself Man among men on Earth,
Made flesh, when time shall be, of ****** seed,
By wondrous birth; be thou in Adam’s room
The head of all mankind, though Adam’s son.
As in him perish all men, so in thee,
As from a second root, shall be restored
As many as are restored, without thee none.
His crime makes guilty all his sons; thy merit,
Imputed, shall absolve them who renounce
Their own both righteous and unrighteous deeds,
And live in thee transplanted, and from thee
Receive new life.  So Man, as is most just,
Shall satisfy for Man, be judged and die,
And dying rise, and rising with him raise
His brethren, ransomed with his own dear life.
So heavenly love shall outdo hellish hate,
Giving to death, and dying to redeem,
So dearly to redeem what hellish hate
So easily destroyed, and still destroys
In those who, when they may, accept not grace.
Nor shalt thou, by descending to assume
Man’s nature, lessen or degrade thine own.
Because thou hast, though throned in highest bliss
Equal to God, and equally enjoying
God-like fruition, quitted all, to save
A world from utter loss, and hast been found
By merit more than birthright Son of God,
Found worthiest to be so by being good,
Far more than great or high; because in thee
Love hath abounded more than glory abounds;
Therefore thy humiliation shall exalt
With thee thy manhood also to this throne:
Here shalt thou sit incarnate, here shalt reign
Both God and Man, Son both of God and Man,
Anointed universal King; all power
I give thee; reign for ever, and assume
Thy merits; under thee, as head supreme,
Thrones, Princedoms, Powers, Dominions, I reduce:
All knees to thee shall bow, of them that bide
In Heaven, or Earth, or under Earth in Hell.
When thou, attended gloriously from Heaven,
Shalt in the sky appear, and from thee send
The summoning Arch-Angels to proclaim
Thy dread tribunal; forthwith from all winds,
The living, and forthwith the cited dead
Of all past ages, to the general doom
Shall hasten; such a peal shall rouse their sleep.
Then, all thy saints assembled, thou shalt judge
Bad Men and Angels; they, arraigned, shall sink
Beneath thy sentence; Hell, her numbers full,
Thenceforth shall be for ever shut.  Mean while
The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring
New Heaven and Earth, wherein the just shall dwell,
And, after all their tribulations long,
See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,
With joy and peace triumphing, and fair truth.
Then thou thy regal scepter shalt lay by,
For regal scepter then no more shall need,
God shall be all in all.  But, all ye Gods,
Adore him, who to compass all this dies;
Adore the Son, and honour him as me.
No sooner had the Almighty ceased, but all
The multitude of Angels, with a shout
Loud as from numbers without number, sweet
As from blest voices, uttering joy, Heaven rung
With jubilee, and loud Hosannas filled
The eternal regions:  Lowly reverent
Towards either throne they bow, and to the ground
With solemn adoration down they cast
Their crowns inwove with amarant and gold;
Immortal amarant, a flower which once
In Paradise, fast by the tree of life,
Began to bloom; but soon for man’s offence
To Heaven removed, where first it grew, there grows,
And flowers aloft shading the fount of life,
And where the river of bliss through midst of Heaven
Rolls o’er Elysian flowers her amber stream;
With these that never fade the Spirits elect
Bind their resplendent locks inwreathed with beams;
Now in loose garlands thick thrown off, the bright
Pavement, that like a sea of jasper shone,
Impurpled with celestial roses smiled.
Then, crowned again, their golden harps they took,
Harps ever tuned, that glittering by their side
Like quivers hung, and with preamble sweet
Of charming symphony they introduce
Their sacred song, and waken raptures high;
No voice exempt, no voice but well could join
Melodious part, such concord is in Heaven.
Thee, Father, first they sung

Descend from Heaven, Urania, by that name
If rightly thou art called, whose voice divine
Following, above the Olympian hill I soar,
Above the flight of Pegasean wing!
The meaning, not the name, I call: for thou
Nor of the Muses nine, nor on the top
Of old Olympus dwellest; but, heavenly-born,
Before the hills appeared, or fountain flowed,
Thou with eternal Wisdom didst converse,
Wisdom thy sister, and with her didst play
In presence of the Almighty Father, pleased
With thy celestial song.  Up led by thee
Into the Heaven of Heavens I have presumed,
An earthly guest, and drawn empyreal air,
Thy tempering: with like safety guided down
Return me to my native element:
Lest from this flying steed unreined, (as once
Bellerophon, though from a lower clime,)
Dismounted, on the Aleian field I fall,
Erroneous there to wander, and forlorn.
Half yet remains unsung, but narrower bound
Within the visible diurnal sphere;
Standing on earth, not rapt above the pole,
More safe I sing with mortal voice, unchanged
To hoarse or mute, though fallen on evil days,
On evil days though fallen, and evil tongues;
In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,
And solitude; yet not alone, while thou
Visitest my slumbers nightly, or when morn
Purples the east: still govern thou my song,
Urania, and fit audience find, though few.
But drive far off the barbarous dissonance
Of Bacchus and his revellers, the race
Of that wild rout that tore the Thracian bard
In Rhodope, where woods and rocks had ears
To rapture, till the savage clamour drowned
Both harp and voice; nor could the Muse defend
Her son.  So fail not thou, who thee implores:
For thou art heavenly, she an empty dream.
Say, Goddess, what ensued when Raphael,
The affable Arch-Angel, had forewarned
Adam, by dire example, to beware
Apostasy, by what befel in Heaven
To those apostates; lest the like befall
In Paradise to Adam or his race,
Charged not to touch the interdicted tree,
If they transgress, and slight that sole command,
So easily obeyed amid the choice
Of all tastes else to please their appetite,
Though wandering.  He, with his consorted Eve,
The story heard attentive, and was filled
With admiration and deep muse, to hear
Of things so high and strange; things, to their thought
So unimaginable, as hate in Heaven,
And war so near the peace of God in bliss,
With such confusion: but the evil, soon
Driven back, redounded as a flood on those
From whom it sprung; impossible to mix
With blessedness.  Whence Adam soon repealed
The doubts that in his heart arose: and now
Led on, yet sinless, with desire to know
What nearer might concern him, how this world
Of Heaven and Earth conspicuous first began;
When, and whereof created; for what cause;
What within Eden, or without, was done
Before his memory; as one whose drouth
Yet scarce allayed still eyes the current stream,
Whose liquid murmur heard new thirst excites,
Proceeded thus to ask his heavenly guest.
Great things, and full of wonder in our ears,
Far differing from this world, thou hast revealed,
Divine interpreter! by favour sent
Down from the empyrean, to forewarn
Us timely of what might else have been our loss,
Unknown, which human knowledge could not reach;
For which to the infinitely Good we owe
Immortal thanks, and his admonishment
Receive, with solemn purpose to observe
Immutably his sovran will, the end
Of what we are.  But since thou hast vouchsafed
Gently, for our instruction, to impart
Things above earthly thought, which yet concerned
Our knowing, as to highest wisdom seemed,
Deign to descend now lower, and relate
What may no less perhaps avail us known,
How first began this Heaven which we behold
Distant so high, with moving fires adorned
Innumerable; and this which yields or fills
All space, the ambient air wide interfused
Embracing round this floried Earth; what cause
Moved the Creator, in his holy rest
Through all eternity, so late to build
In Chaos; and the work begun, how soon
Absolved; if unforbid thou mayest 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
End, and dismiss thee ere the morning shine.
Thus Adam his illustrious guest besought:
And thus the Godlike Angel answered mild.
This also thy request, with caution asked,
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
I have received, to answer thy desire
Of knowledge within bounds; beyond, abstain
To ask; nor let thine own inventions hope
Things not revealed, which the invisible King,
Only Omniscient, hath suppressed 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 returned
Victorious with his Saints, the Omnipotent
Eternal Father from his throne beheld
Their multitude, and to his Son thus spake.
At least our envious Foe hath failed, who thought
All like himself rebellious, by whose aid
This inaccessible high strength, the seat
Of Deity supreme, us dispossessed,
He trusted to have seised, and into fraud
Drew many, whom their place 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 deemed, 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;
And Earth be changed to Heaven, and Heaven to Earth,
One kingdom, joy and union without end.
Mean while inhabit lax, ye Powers of Heaven;
And thou my Word, begotten Son, by thee
This I perform; speak thou, and be it done!
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
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 ordained
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:  Mean while the Son
On his great expedition now appeared,
Girt with Omnipotence, with radiance crowned
Of Majesty Divine; sapience and love
Immense, and all his Father in him shone.
About his chariot numberless were poured
Cherub, and Seraph, Potentates, and Thrones,
And Virtues, winged Spirits, and chariots winged
From the armoury of God; where stand of old
Myriads, between two brazen mountains lodged
Against a solemn day, harnessed at hand,
Celestial equipage; and now came forth
Spontaneous, for within them Spirit lived,
Attendant on their Lord:  Heaven opened 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
They viewed the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turned by furious winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven’s highth, and with the center mix the pole.
Silence, ye troubled Waves, and thou Deep, peace,
Said then the Omnifick Word; your discord end!
Nor staid; 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
Followed in bright procession, to behold
Creation, and the wonders of his might.
Then staid 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 centered, and the other turned
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 unformed and void:  Darkness profound
Covered 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 center hung.
Let there be light, said God; and forthwith Light
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 filled,
And touched 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 firmament
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 formed, but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involved,
Appeared not: over all the face of Earth
Main ocean flowed, not idle; but, with warm
Prolifick humour softening all her globe,
Fermented the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture; when God said,
Be gathered now ye waters under Heaven
Into one place, and let dry land appear.
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky:
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep,
Capacious bed of waters:  Thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, uprolled,
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry:
Part rise in crystal wall, or ridge direct,
For haste; such flight the great command impressed
On the swift floods:  As armies at the call
Of trumpet (for of armies thou hast heard)
Troop to their standard; so the watery throng,
Wave rolling after wave, where way they found,
If steep, with torrent rapture, if through plain,
Soft-ebbing; nor withstood them rock or hill;
But they, or under ground, or circuit wide
With serpent errour wandering, found their way,
And on the washy oose deep channels wore;
Easy, ere God had bid the ground be dry,
All but within those banks, where rivers now
Stream, and perpetual draw their humid train.
The dry land, Earth; and the great receptacle
Of congregated waters, he called Seas:
And saw that it was good; and said, Let the Earth
Put forth the verdant grass, herb yielding seed,
And fruit-tree yielding fruit after her kind,
Whose seed is in herself upon the Earth.
He scarce had said, when the bare Earth, till then
Desart and bare, unsightly, unadorned,
Brought forth the tender grass, whose verdure clad
Her universal face with pleasant green;
Then herbs of every leaf, that sudden flowered
Opening their various colours, and made gay
Her *****, smelling sweet: and, these scarce blown,
Forth flourished thick the clustering vine, forth crept
The swelling gourd, up stood the corny reed
Embattled in her field, and the humble shrub,
And bush with frizzled hair implicit:  Last
Rose, as in dance, the stately trees, and spread
Their branches hung with copious fruit, or gemmed
Their blossoms:  With high woods the hills were crowned;
With tufts the valleys, and each fountain side;
With borders long the rivers: that Earth now
Seemed like to Heaven, a seat where Gods might dwell,
Or wander with delight, and love to haunt
Her sacred shades: though God had yet not rained
Upon the Earth, and man to till the ground
None was; but from the Earth a dewy mist
Went up, and watered all the ground, and each
Plant of the field; which, ere it was in the Earth,
God made, and every herb, before it grew
On the green stem:  God saw that it was good:
So even and morn recorded the third day.
Again the Almighty spake, Let there be lights
High in the expanse of Heaven, to divide
The day from night; and let them be for signs,
For seasons, and for days, and circling years;
And let them be for lights, as I ordain
Their office in the firmament of Heaven,
To give light on the Earth; and it was so.
And God made two great lights, great for their use
To Man, the greater to have rule by day,
The less by night, altern; and made the stars,
And set them in the firmament of Heaven
To illuminate the Earth, and rule the day
In their vicissitude, and rule the night,
And light from darkness to divide.  God saw,
Surveying his great work, that it was good:
For of celestial bodies first the sun
A mighty sphere he framed, unlightsome first,
Though of ethereal mould: then formed the moon
Globose, and every magnitude of stars,
And sowed with stars the Heaven, thick as a field:
Of light by far the greater part he took,
Transplanted from her cloudy shrine, and placed
In the sun’s orb, made porous to receive
And drink the liquid light; firm to retain
Her gathered beams, great palace now of light.
Hither, as to their fountain, other stars
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light,
And hence the morning-planet gilds her horns;
By tincture or reflection they augment
Their small peculiar, though from human sight
So far rem

I am afraid.
Afraid that I will lose you
To the merciless entropy of the Universe,
Or to the inexorable mystery of God’s plan,
Call it whatever you want, but whatever it is
I am afraid that it will take you from me at any moment,
And that I will be alone again.

I am afraid.
Afraid that every moment with you will be the last,
And our last shared experience will be an insignificant goodbye,
And that will be the last memory I have of you.
That is why I insist on physical contact, because
It reassures me that you’re real and
I am afraid that if I don’t constantly remind myself
I will forget what you felt like,
And then I will forget what we felt like.

I am afraid.
Afraid that I will lose you and not remember you,
That I will feel an unbearable and aching emptiness
And not know why.
I am afraid of fading memories,
As they suggest an essential futility in the beautiful endeavor
That was us.
They suggest that we is incapable of being constant,
That we is merely a rotation of the stone
As it continues its mossless journey to the sea.

I am afraid.
Afraid that in losing we I will lose a part of myself
And remain forever broken and immutably unwhole,
Unable to put myself back together because
My pieces are missing.
I am afraid that we is an essential part of me,
And that I will never recover from the loss.

I am afraid of losing you and afraid of losing me.
I am afraid of being alone and afraid of being broken.

I am afraid that we will lose we and
Then nothing will ever be okay again.

I am afraid.
I am afraid.
I am afraid.

Great cities rise and have their fall; the brass
That held their glories moulders in its turn.
Hard granite rots like an uprooted ****,
And ever on the palimpsest of earth
Impatient Time rubs out the word he writ.
But one thing makes the years its pedestal,
Springs from the ashes of its pyre, and claps
A skyward wing above its epitaph—
The will of man willing immortal things.

The ages are but baubles hung upon
The thread of some strong lives—and one slight wrist
May lift a century above the dust;
For Time,
The Sisyphean load of little lives,
Becomes the globe and sceptre of the great.
But who are these that, linking hand in hand,
Transmit across the twilight waste of years
The flying brightness of a kindled hour?
Not always, nor alone, the lives that search
How they may ****** a glory out of heaven
Or add a height to Babel; oftener they
That in the still fulfilment of each day’s
Pacific order hold great deeds in leash,
That in the sober sheath of tranquil tasks
Hide the attempered blade of high emprise,
And leap like lightning to the clap of fate.

So greatly gave he, nurturing ‘gainst the call
Of one rare moment all the daily store
Of joy distilled from the acquitted task,
And that deliberate rashness which bespeaks
The pondered action passed into the blood;
So swift to harden purpose into deed
That, with the wind of ruin in his hair,
Soul sprang full-statured from the broken flesh,
And at one stroke he lived the whole of life,
Poured all in one libation to the truth,
A brimming flood whose drops shall overflow
On deserts of the soul long beaten down
By the brute hoof of habit, till they spring
In manifold upheaval to the sun.

Call here no high artificer to raise
His wordy monument—such lives as these
Make death a dull misnomer and its pomp
An empty vesture. Let resounding lives
Re-echo splendidly through high-piled vaults
And make the grave their spokesman—such as he
Are as the hidden streams that, underground,
Sweeten the pastures for the grazing kine,
Or as spring airs that bring through prison bars
The scent of freedom; or a light that burns
Immutably across the shaken seas,
Forevermore by nameless hands renewed,
Where else were darkness and a glutted shore.

Fecklessly eremitical
Scholars of sorcery wizened
As a thousand dew drops
Sullenly fall like tears
From furtive circean eyes,
Gnarling pious pyrognomic malevolance
Within the nebulous netherworlds
Salamandrous sanctity
Summonsing the heliacally
Resurgant vaticide from
The pheonixs flames
Newly baptised;
Immutably the darkest
Light that ever shone
Upon halcyon times.


ELEETE J MUIR

immutably so, we continue
ever upward and onward,
we sail in, and back out
and still yet-
Under the facade,
everything's askew.
The news is old
The days fly by
And we continue
ever upward, ever onward
we hold out,
Knowing full well
That that ship has sailed.
in, then back out.
when did everything
once held sacred,
disappear?

the futures always never immediate
imminently futile brief furious
not like fields outward sprawling
instantaneously 'neath an entire
sea of stars faultless unheaving
pastoral breathless catches you
sharply between your *******
quivering elated passing immutably
into dust

                (and i just laugh and pull
                 the finite immeasurable
                 lust of thy beginning kiss
                 into a trembling pile of lips,

                                                                '

                                                          ,


                                                                     ,



                                            '



                                                                                .

Through the telephone wire (remember those?)

crawled in an earwig, such a talented insect. He

would take over, chew and choose the words,

words heard or not, from time after, a stranger

called to tell me you were dead. This bug in my ear,

sent by a stranger to allow a coping mechanism in.

That voracious little beetle heard everything since.

What he does not spit out, relayed through pinchers

immutably clamped upon my right eardrum. This

strange and pleasing tic of mine, my earwig

is evolutionary. Something I consider gifted from

Late Triassic period, a time I refuse to remember.

A transmitter and editing device, only letting in

what is endurable, so I need not wrestle with rest.

My happy parasite, working so hard to eliminate

pain of many deaths that came after first one,

all the lovers lost. Pestilence still vibrates

through a tuning fork on back end of bug.

Chaw and discharge, seeping out my ear can

no longer be ignored. No longer holds on.

wherefore are you mover    ?       (into unbriefest silence
                                                                                                )

and crisp eyes

                                  hard

                          glassy

                                      body's

                                   , because

                           strike gold 'tween each
                           finger paired over the
                           fragile morn'
                           ,                             a lot

                                                         is sick
                                                         pretty
                                                                  
                                         has night colour
                                                from its untimid
                                                          shoulders
                                                                          flayed

so why Stealer

                          girlsboys

           from kissing

                             ?

take immediately into notsavored
forever

                  could you say perhaps

                            why struck from

                        raw untidy
                        
                           LIFE

                       ,you

                                  Death

                             immutably

              filch
                                the pollen of young flowers
                                and the agile stem
                                                                  crush?

'sometimes

         sometimes"
sometimes i am like
                             the
                       crinkled edges immutably
shattered leaves of grass. frail walled
towers quickly evaporated patrons.

i(n the fields comes the pale scythe. call me to
the lady death and number me among her sons.
a new sorrow so ancient unremembered eternal,   )

     sometimes we are like:
the vein heavy throbbing perfect union of skin
i don't want to leave her naked cradle. basking
in the dew of her impenetrable

             somEtimes she is like an ideal
unparalleled goldenbrown olive symphony cascading
rhythm glints onto the sudden gasping heart kiss blessed
cheek i wear worn to her constant lip strokes]

sometimes

                     sometimes

    sometimes i am like the rain

I once set down my pen,
and with free fists equipped,
a sword.
Utter savagery and violence,
the mantle I adorned.
It's long been sheathed
but woe is me
the living and the scorned.
Hands forever bloodied,
words immutably,
forlorn.

The scents of Illness fade again
As godly Schedules run—
Her victor's Streak will be obtained
To blaspheme selfly Funds—

Then She awaits the planning shared
Immutably discreet—
For only apt the Mammal pair
When Intellectually—

soot, steam, broken beams
the moon gives off its sickly sheen
Mars and the stars
might make a good team,
but lightyears and time warps are not what they seem

badly behaved scars are finally burning out of fashion;
this sunset-stained skin is just a distraction.
if space is a vacuum,
and devoid of passion,
if violence is golden and we pray for inaction.
then the love you couldn't feel
for the things you had to steal
just wasn't right, and wasn't real.

so bow to the stillness, surrender and kneel;
pretend the darkness if not nipping at your heels,
pretend that you are made
of molten gold and liquid steal.
for your lashes are ashen, your cheeks are charred.
your footprints are formed from embers and tar.
your framented fingertips are immutably marred.

and she never intended
for it to turn out this way -
for her rotten heart to seethe with decay -
and if you ask her politely, all she will say
is that she did her best
to keep the twilight at bay.

there is by you occasionally a mouth,
i would like to climb inside(.)it Spring
under it the red pink occlusion: stupid
                                                          ­        youth

hanging by a hangs on a string,
of smart immutable dumb loveless loving

careens and gestures (which of) there is
a thing not like a thing i have ever. (have you?)

                     an ever have you a
                     dumb youth wanted
                     to immutably break
                                  ?


i that might like could you like to to.

if you'd like to too.

i could climb too into you

sinners: his cane dislodged

l

Cane:

To an awake friend, he said mesmerized "rest on gorgeous fields are made for soccer players,"

The motion analogy is the lake or the river, at the school, reminds me of that the left row of made of pink lamps is still a malls sweat on their knees, whose above?

I lift your nudged fox to the women with the air filled with music in your clothes

Chicago is today, sick of the warm color warmed colored walnut an elementary something, happy by troubled, world only only world, enter my vision of art - the movie set, really,  

At the table, Socrates came from out of the cave,
of the center opened of the like a snoring beast snoring beast,
up staircases inside the small indent of the university, legs-crossed, lectures partially complete, and contemplated a 4 winged bird which leapt from the ground: cone-less and timeless.  

Frank Sinatra is on center stage, the square, literally, like being the poetess naked in the garden, singing with her husband went missing for several days reciting Shakespeare.

Eden, no that Eden, Eden is gorgeous and mothers multiple their eggs in wombs, they are birds, by way of television - sick of that rhythm, inside the history of museums, public images paint delicately.

                               Fathers are all brilliant and masterminds, the inside of the skyline fits my heart,

Driving to the national rabbit we liked the peanuts which were snacks and
saw walrus near the ocean with non-fury legs, their paws with peaches, pinks from schools like sugar Montessories, whole swarms of bees learning that John Ashberry's  mind used mine to mind dollars bills he finds off the street in New York to tell you that you should learn what a unit is. Close the world, close the window in the other room and when you to go to work and maybe to bring a snack where creativity is here and there. I see differently the trees and red wheel-barrow. My water bottle is purified and the reverse is the Cosmos on calcium. I want more chloride and sodium - make that ingredient good, good enough for your doctor, good enough for me, a cake for us, and faster because Arkansas is always walking, it is plastered rich sandwiches, missing girls are little and little on TV, the bud of a flower is a direction.

Space is big but my things are spill proof, the pumpkin we seed inside the my house next to the popcorns guitars are colored blue and fall immutably pulling loudly from men, in their canes, shaven cane, clean cane, looking at me looking at the portrait saying, I can see the red and blue in black and the dove sits on the statue on Monday and flew in cold from Alaska over whole towns, and the bird said, yes the bird said, he said "A fisherman saw, he was bearded and arrived on Friday, photos on the ground, animals are outside, libraries filled with no books and no their indexes leading to prologues that Freud says is moral but I've been saying better and reasoning that her makeup is missing and no shampoo in the bathroom, blush hands up in Vegas, fold - our cars are stuck on the highways means is leaving the only bar that is yellowish only from blue painters who paint with their paint brushes such that ballet dancers contemplate their watch. The Nutcracker and Animal Farm are complete. Bearded and braided black man, your is hair completely skinless in San Francisco which I've been to for two weeks because the back of the pack on back of the feet of the ton of the ground street lights guide us to a single number such is an exciting job opportunity, inside classroom, the difference is I'm in the front, how ludic it is, isn't it? Get dressed or get in we're going dancing. Drive or I can drive only to recognize a slip of free will, you're in white, the forums we enjoy are for professors which are only in my mind and therefore sprung forth whenever I want them. There are a couple of whole armies giving trees, Dr. Pink wants motion to activate a concert such that I like the words operraeta and subscribing to the dictionary, Mainly up is laughing are diamonds in hands in apartments are feet and hands, and almost wind, fire, water, turning from distance brothers and cowards uses his left hand and experiences sleep and whole days in a single sentence. It's cruel really to be beautiful and no I don't feel back for you. Your just a memory of him riding the shopping cart down the aisle of HEB - insight into psychologist's events - welcomed with nobility bowing down near the single article, sitting in front of our produced and not free laptops, their machines were used to make paintings and sculptures, thousand of journalists in their ties dress with microscopes in front of classrooms like a style that is thoughtful, high on salamanders, wait salamanders? No, a sad living room examining a firefly is a history of museums, it is useless. It is a calm waterfall, it is back from the seminary, it back from the river we sat at before inside of a conference room near downtown, the light of love produced kayaks.

We currently sit younger pondering an ice rink made of children dressed for Halloween, a few feathers but I know down on my injured fence after a tornado came in and placed beautiful women, their naked bodies and all, are here as a college student staying awake from both for Sundays and U-HAULs are only like criminal floats down the formed uselessness of that jars of pennies. But we selected! Entertained and busy, working, on a math problem from universities, I was reading Einstein earlier, bought it and profoundly expressed I am personally interested in Dvorak's String Quintet in B major Op. 77. That is, while watching YouTube videos of mysterious friendly characters although I'm standing naked in a bathroom, a peacock created the world, leaves fell, fire on the dirt, it doesn't burn too bad, does it? We pose another  question, to what sickness can I stand on a bench suit jacket, ill-fitted and have a friend say to me, you look like a philosopher?

I stick my leg out quietly because clouds coolly that day spent on wooden tables is possible and not meant to able to assuage the sun even for you school bus, actual school bus, hiding from large groups of people scared while the congregation sits praying,

Even for you, helmet,
On a football field, orange Spain leant me a hande, our dogs were not beside us though while Mr. Grinch sits in his apartment, editors don't want him pulling flowers from, for example, the baseball fields, doing baseball players are plays catcher, dresses in the same uniform totally is mesmerized by how water becomes ice, such that the eye bending time like a green cactus, objects and mountains and the insides of the restaurants, eight o clock evening dinners,

Dancing with angels the devil is ugly, trains go through time and say biology is easier than white picket fences, it makes me sad, it should make me sad, but there is new hope.

So more difficult the white flower is the candle menacing number 3 thousands of logically lettered alphabets for the alphabets, and for her, waiting at trees rooted but you know, construction men leaving everything at that grocery store where I can sit down and wouldn't buy a lottery ticket, sorry.

II  

Dislodged:

Entering my vision are tragedies
collages of white photos
eat our sons
              we
           swarm
          predators
          slowly
          down
             the
            street
                is
                a
             cigarette
                  is
busting friends out of apartments into huge houses after coming from grocery stores, passing fields, outside and zoos visited, jealous of her offices,
200 page completed novels completed, my way home, it's our problem really, but that comma coulda dressed in a suit, coulda been someone must run the title of his license plate

III

Cane Dislodged:

Settle down, the movie sat at the bar is dumb, i sit alone, I sit alone, still I sit alone, I sit alone. Tea from down the street is expensive so
we can't believe that the founders of the Quakers movement did that and that they are made in the image of empires such that a body ignorant because smudged paintings are the mouse, right?

"The aches have grown within my body and veins,
I feel my heart pumping enduringly immutably,
Ever with invincible strength returning into my heart,
I continue to write as my heart is still filled with passion,

Destiny nay in my favor everything has diminished,
She cajoled me to maligned covenant of deception,
As the attainment of misery of solitude alights,
I aspire thee nothing more to delineate from,      

Most inculpable I am I feel exacerbated of this adieu,
Memory fulfilling thoughts of her cognizance,
It may be we shall one light reach elated enclaves,
The equal temper of annexed noble hearts,

How many more lonely years am I to meander,
When I will risible that one vivacious love,
I do not know how to love without her,
In end I must learn to live void of her,
I must propagate the silt of the ennui”

“By Andrew Guzaldo © 07/04/2020 Posted HP #193

I feel the source of creation inside of me

I expand with every uninhibited inhalation

I contract with every exalted exhalation


The observer -

Ordered masses each doing that which is its prescribed duty

Driving forward and ever expanding -
Exerting dominion over all

Rejoicing the adoration of all who look upon its beauty

Et cetera
Et cetera
Ad infinitum
So mote it be

The birds of the South American jungle carry seeds to Norwegian fjords whose scent floats on wind to Australian plains whose creatures sing songs to which Californian redwoods dance to the admiration of Himalayan peaks who greet the birds on their return from where they came

I see standing before me a visage which I can not comprehend

Benevolent strength - awful power

I feel behind me his guardian - vestige of warriors

Grabbing my right wrist the pillar of justice - immutably unspoken

I hear to my left a roaring thunder which holds secrets none living may speak

I try to say the name and my tongue becomes a dagger

I drink from the waters of the Moroccan coast and they become dry

Pillars of salt rise before me

Irony

The cruel fate of thirst

To come to the place where it may be quelled and find only its first cause

In perpetuity

God is a lie

All is I

Health to those who seek

Health

To those who seek

I’m summoned,
Beckoned by the understated curl of a single finger,
The nail long, blood red, filed to a point.
The command is unmistakable.
But the rhythm of the room – not empty, not packed – continues to beat:
The gentle hum of bored chatter,
The ice in drained glasses clattering in accompaniment;
Suits and flowery dresses
Unobservant, immutably ignorant of us and of our purposes.
But as I wander through their casual clusterings,
I shiver - a delicious ecstasy of terror -
In glorious dread of what I must soon endure.