In bulk as huge....
As that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim the ocean stream.
Him, haply, slumbering on the Norway foam
The pilot of some small night-founder'd skiff,
Deeming some island, oft, as seamen tell,
With fixed anchor in his scaly rind,
Moors by his side under the lee, while night
Invests the sea, and wished morn delays.
(Liv. I.)
At least appear
Hell bounds, high reaching to the horrid roof,
And thrice threefold the gates: three folds were brass,
Three iron, three of adamantine rock
Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,
Yet unconsumed.—Before the gates there sat
On either side a formidable shape.
The one seem'd a woman to the waist, and fair,
But ended foul in many a scaly fold
Voluminous and vast: a serpent arm'd
With mortal sting. About her middle round
A cry of Hell-hounds never ceasing bark'd
With wide Cerberean mouths full loud, and rung
A hideous peal; yet, when they list, would creep,
If aught disturb'd their noise, into her womb,
And kennel there: yet there still bark'd and howl'd,
Within, unseen....
The other shape,
If shape it might be call'd that shape had none
Distinguishable in member, joint or limb;
Or substance might be call'd that shadow seem'd,
For each seem'd either; black it stood as night,
Fierce as ten Furies, terrible as Hell,
And shook a dreadful dart; what seem'd his head
The likeness of a kingly crown had on.
Satan was now at hand, and from his seat
The monster moving onward came as fast
With horrid strides; Hell trembled as he strode.
The undaunted Fiend what this might be admired,
Admired, not fear'd.
(Liv. II.)
On heavenly ground they stood; and from the shore
They view'd the vast immeasurable abyss
Outrageous as a sea, dark, wasteful, wild,
Up from the bottom turn'd by tempestuous winds
And surging waves, as mountains, to assault
Heaven's height and with the centre mix the pole.
"Silence, ye troubled waves, and thou, Deep, peace,"
Said then the omnific word; "your discord end!"....
.... Let there be light, said God, and forthwith Light
Etherial, first of things, quintessence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from her native East
To journey through the very gloom began,
Sphered in a radiant cloud....
The Earth was form'd; but in the womb as yet
Of waters, embryon immature involved,
Appear'd not: over al the faces of Earth
Main Ocean flow'd, not idle; but, with warm
Prolific humour softening all her globe,
Fermented the great mother to conceive,
Satiate with genial moisture; when God said:
"Be gather'd now, ye water under Heaven,
"Into one place, and let dry land appear."
Immediately the mountains huge appear
Emergent, and their broad bare backs upheave
Into the clouds; their tops ascend the sky.
So high as heaved the tumid hills, so low
Down sunk a hollow bottom broad and deep
Capacious bed of waters. Thither they
Hasted with glad precipitance, unroll'd,
As drops on dust conglobing from the dry.
The sun now fallen....
Arraying with reflected purple and gold
The clouds that on his western throne attend.
Now came still Evening on, and Twilight gray
Had in her sober livery all things clad;
Silence accompanied: for beast and bird,
They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,
Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleas'd: now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires; Hesperus that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length
Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
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