He next pictures the defeated rebels as:
"...All blind and overcast
With shrouding mists, and horribly deformed."
Then he concludes with stern sententiousness:
"Thus is his fate who would assail God's Throne,"
which the choristers as gravely repeat.
The expected catastrophe has occurred, and the terrible conclusion has been described. In the stormy wake of the sad fall of the angels follows the no less sad fall of man—the loss of
"The primal innocence 'mid Eden's bowers."
The heaving, seething seas of rebellion, "swollen to the skies," have, it is true, subsided; but again they gather momentum for one more wave of disaster, which now breaks upon the shore of Earth, spreading death and desolation throughout the sinless groves of Paradise; for Gabriel now approaches and hurls into the joyful camp a thunderbolt of sad surprise. "Alas! alas!" he cries, breaking into lamentation, "our triumph is in vain;" and he announces the fall of Adam.
Michael is astounded, and shudders as he hears the news. With infinite distress he listens to Gabriel's interesting account of how the overthrow was effected. Gabriel first describes the "dim, infernal consistory" far, far below. Here Lucifer called together all his chieftains, who now
"Unto each other turned abhorring gaze."