The Poetical Works of John Milton


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False fugitive, and to thy speed add wings,  
Least with a whip of Scorpions I pursue  
Thy lingring, or with one stroke of this Dart  
Strange horror seise thee, and pangs unfelt before.  
So spake the grieslie terrour, and in shape,  
So speaking and so threatning, grew ten fold  
More dreadful and deform: on th' other side  
Incenc't with indignation Satan stood  
700  
Unterrifi'd, and like a Comet burn'd,  
That fires the length of Ophiucus huge  
In th' Artick Sky, and from his horrid hair  
Shakes Pestilence and Warr. Each at the Head  
Level'd his deadly aime; thir fatall hands  
No second stroke intend, and such a frown  
Each cast at th' other, as when two black Clouds  
With Heav'ns Artillery fraught, come rattling on  
Over the Caspian, then stand front to front  
Hov'ring a space, till Winds the signal blow  
To joyn thir dark Encounter in mid air:  
So frownd the mighty Combatants, that Hell  
Grew darker at thir frown, so matcht they stood;  
For never but once more was either like  
To meet so great a foe: and now great deeds  
Had been achiev'd, whereof all Hell had rung,  
Had not the Snakie Sorceress that sat  
710  
720  
Fast by Hell Gate, and kept the fatal Key,  
265  


Page
263 264 265 266 267

Quick Jump
1 198 395 593 790