"There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit By voice or hand, and various-measured verse. To sage philosophy next lend thine ear, From Heaven descended to the low-roofed house Of Socrates."
Christ replies that whoever seeks true wisdom in the philosophies, moralities and conjectures of men finds her not, and that the poetry of Greece will not compare with "Hebrew songs and harps." It is the prophets who teach most plainly
"What makes a nation happy, and keeps it so; What ruins kingdoms, and lays cities flat?"
Finding all these temptations futile, Satan explodes:
"Since neither wealth nor honour, arms nor arts, Kingdom nor empire pleases thee, nor aught By me proposed in life contemplative Or active, tended on by glory or fame; What dost thou in this world? The wilderness For thee is fittest place. I found thee there And thither will return thee."
So he transports the passive Saviour back to his homeless solitude.
Our Saviour, meek, and with untroubled mind, Hungry and cold betook himself to rest. The Tempter watched, and soon with ugly dreams Disturbed his sleep. And either tropic now 'Gan thunder, and both ends of Heaven; the clouds From many a rift abortive poured Fierce rain with lightning mixed; water with fire In ruin reconciled. Ill wast Thou shrouded then, O patient Son of God! Yet only stood'st Unshaken! Nor yet staid the terror there.
Infernal ghosts of hellish furies round Environed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked, Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou Sat'st unappalled in calm and sinless peace. Thus passed the night so foul, till morning fair Came forth with pilgrim steps, in amice grey, Who with her radiant finger stilled the roar Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the winds, And grisly spectres, which the Fiend had raised To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire. And now the sun with more effectual beams Had cheered the face of earth, and dried the wet From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds, Who all things now beheld more fresh and green, After a night of storm so ruinous, Cleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray, To 'gratulate the sweet return of morn.
Satan, in anger, begins the last temptation.
Feigning to doubt whether the Saviour is the Son of God, he snatches him up and carries him to where, in
Fair Jerusalem, the Holy City lifted high her towers And higher yet the glorious Temple reared Her pile; far off appearing like a mount Of alabaster, topp'd with golden spires: There on the highest pinnacle he set The Son of God, and added thus in scorn: "There stand if thou wilt stand; to stand upright will task thy skill." "Tempt not the Lord thy God," He said, and stood. But Satan, smitten with amazement, fell, And to his crew, that sat consulting, brought Ruin, and desperation, and dismay. So Satan fell; and straight a fiery globe, Of angels, on full sail of wing flew nigh, Who on their plumy vans received Him soft, From His uneasy station, and upbore As on a floating couch through the blithe air; Then in a flowery valley set Him down On a green bank, and set before Him, spread, A table of celestial food.... ....And as He fed, angelic quires Sang Heavenly anthems of His victory Over temptation and the Tempter proud.