While thus heav’n’s highest counsels, by the low
Footsteps of their effects, he traced too well,
He tost his troubled eyes, embers that glow
Now with new rage, and wax too hot for hell.
With his foul claws he fenced his furrow’d brow,
And gave a ghastly shriek, whose horrid yell
Ran trembling through the hollow vaults of night.’
The poet adds—
‘The while his twisted tail he knaw’d for spite.’
There is no keeping in this. This action of meanness and mere vulgar spite, common to the most contemptible creatures, takes away from the terror and power just ascribed to the prince of Hell, and implied in the nature of the consequences attributed to his every movement of mind or body. Satan’s soliloquy to himself is more beautiful and more in character at the same time.