The Poetical Works of John Milton


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And by decision more imbroiles the fray  
By which he Reigns: next him high Arbiter  
Chance governs all. Into this wilde Abyss,  
The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,  
Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,  
But all these in thir pregnant causes mixt  
Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,  
Unless th' Almighty Maker them ordain  
His dark materials to create more Worlds,  
Into this wilde Abyss the warie fiend  
910  
Stood on the brink of Hell and look'd a while,  
Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith  
He had to cross. Nor was his eare less peal'd  
With noises loud and ruinous (to compare  
Great things with small) then when Bellona storms,  
With all her battering Engines bent to rase  
Som Capital City, or less then if this frame  
Of Heav'n were falling, and these Elements  
In mutinie had from her Axle torn  
920  
The stedfast Earth. At last his Sail-broad Vannes  
He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoak  
Uplifted spurns the ground, thence many a League  
As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides  
930  
Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets  
A vast vacuitie: all unawares  
Fluttring his pennons vain plumb down he drops  
273  


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271 272 273 274 275

Quick Jump
1 198 395 593 790