The Poetical Works of John Milton


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His Armes clung to his Ribs, his Leggs entwining  
Each other, till supplanted down he fell  
A monstrous Serpent on his Belly prone,  
Reluctant, but in vaine, a greater power  
Now rul'd him, punisht in the shape he sin'd,  
According to his doom: he would have spoke,  
But hiss for hiss returnd with forked tongue  
To forked tongue, for now were all transform'd  
Alike, to Serpents all as accessories  
520  
To his bold Riot: dreadful was the din  
Of hissing through the Hall, thick swarming now  
With complicated monsters, head and taile,  
Scorpion and Asp, and Amphisbaena dire,  
Cerastes hornd, Hydrus, and Ellops drear,  
And Dipsas (Not so thick swarm'd once the Soil  
Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the Isle  
Ophiusa) but still greatest hee the midst,  
Now Dragon grown, larger then whom the Sun  
Ingenderd in the Pythian Vale on slime,  
Huge Python, and his Power no less he seem'd  
Above the rest still to retain; they all  
530  
Him follow'd issuing forth to th' open Field,  
Where all yet left of that revolted Rout  
Heav'n-fall'n, in station stood or just array,  
Sublime with expectation when to see  
In Triumph issuing forth thir glorious Chief;  
542  


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540 541 542 543 544

Quick Jump
1 198 395 593 790