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adore him; they obey, amid hymning to their Harps in full Quire,
celebrate the Father and the Son.. Mean while Satan alights upon the
bare convex of this Worlds outermost Orb; where wandring he first finds
a place since call'd The Lymbo of Vanity, what persons and things fly up
thither; thence comes to the Gate of Heaven, describ'd ascending by
stairs and the waters above the Firmament that flow about it: His
passage thence to the Orb of the Sun; he finds there Uriel the Regent of
that Orb, but first changes himself into the shape of a meaner Angel;
and pretending a zealous desire to behold the new Creation and Man whom
God had plac't here, inquires of him the place of his habitation, and is
directed; alights first on Mount Niphates.
Hail holy light, ofspring of Heav'n first-born,
Or of th' Eternal Coeternal beam
May I express thee unblam'd? since God is light,
And never but in unapproached light
Dwelt from Eternitie, dwelt then in thee,
Bright effluence of bright essence increate.
Or hear'st thou rather pure Ethereal stream,
Whose Fountain who shall tell? before the Sun,
Before the Heavens thou wert, and at the voice
Of God, as with a Mantle didst invest
The rising world of waters dark and deep,
Won from the void and formless infinite.
Thee I re-visit now with bolder wing,
10
Escap't the Stygian Pool, though long detain'd
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