No More Learning

--The Fiends' Conclave_

High on a throne of royal state, which far
Outshone the wealth of Ormus or of Ind,
Or where the gorgeous East with richest hand
Showers on her kings barbaric pearl and gold,
Satan exalted sat, by merit raised
To that bad eminence.

Here his compeers gathered round to advise. First Moloch, the
"strongest and the fiercest Spirit that fought in Heaven," counselled
war. Then uprose Belial--"a fairer person lost not Heaven"--and
reasoned that force was futile.

"The towers of Heaven are filled
With armed watch, that render all access
Impregnable. "

Besides, failure might lead to their annihilation, and who wished for
that?

"Who would lose,
Though full of pain, this intellectual being,
These thoughts that wander through eternity? "

They were better now than when they were hurled from Heaven, or when
they lay chained on the burning lake. Their Supreme Foe might in time
remit his anger, and slacken those raging fires. Mammon also advised
them to keep the peace, and make the best they could of Hell, a policy
received with applause; but then Beelzebub, "than whom, Satan except,
none higher sat," rose, and with a look which "drew audience and
attention still as night," developed the suggestion previously made by
Satan, that they should attack Heaven's High Arbitrator through His
new-created Man, waste his creation, and "drive as we are driven. "

"This would surpass
Common revenge, and interrupt His joy
In our confusion, and our joy upraise
In His disturbance. "

This proposal was gleefully received. But then the difficulty arose
who should be sent in search of this new world? All sat mute, till
Satan declared that he would "abroad through all the coasts of dark
destruction," a decision hailed with reverent applause. The Council
dissolved, the Infernal Peers disperse to their several employments:
some to sports, some to warlike feats, some to argument, "in wandering
mazes lost," some to adventurous discovery; while Satan wings his
way to the nine-fold gate of Hell, guarded by Sin, and her abortive
offspring, Death; and Sin, opening the gate for him to go out, cannot
shut it again.
The Fiend stands on the brink, "pondering his voyage,"
while before him appear

The secrets of the hoary Deep--on dark
Illimitable ocean, without bound,
Without dimension; where length, breadth, and highth,
And time, and place, are lost; where eldest Night
And Chaos, ancestors of Nature, hold
Eternal anarchy.

At last he spreads his "sail-broad vans for flight," and, directed by
Chaos and sable-vested Night, comes to where he can see far off

The empyreal Heaven, once his native seat,
And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent World.


_III. --Satan Speeds to Earth_

An invocation to Light, and a lament for the poet's blindness now
preludes a picture of Heaven, and the Almighty Father conferring with
the only Son.

Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven first-born!
Bright effluence of bright essence uncreate!
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!
. . . . . . . .