In mutual conflict would they rise, and wage

Eternal war, till one was quite devour’d.

But not for this, ordain’d their boundless rage;

When Heaven’s inferior instruments of wrath,

War, famine, pestilence, are found too weak

To scourge a world for her enormous crimes,

These are let loose, alternate: down they rush,

Swift and tempestuous, from th’ eternal throne,

With irresistible commission arm’d,

The world, in vain corrected, to destroy, 150