Poem 9

“O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built With second thoughts, reforming what was old! For what God, after better, worse would build? Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps, Light above light, for thee alone, as seems, In thee concentring all their precious beams Of sacred influence! As God in Heaven Is centre, yet extends to all, so thou Centring receiv’st from all those orbs; in thee, Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth Of creatures animate with gradual life Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man. With what delight could I have walked thee round, If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains, Now land, now sea, and shores with forest crowned, Rocks, dens, and caves! but I in none of these Find place or refuge; and the more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me, as from the hateful siege Of contraries; all good to me becomes Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state. But neither here seek I, no, nor in Heaven To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven’s Supreme; Nor hope to be myself less miserable By what I seek, but others to make such As I, though thereby worse to me redound: For only in destroying I find ease To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed, Or won to what may work his utter loss, For whom all this was made, all this will soon Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe; In woe then, that destruction wide may range! To me shall be the glory sole among The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days Continued making, and who knows how long Before had been contriving? though perhaps Not longer than since I in one night freed From servitude inglorious well nigh half The Angelic name, and thinner left the throng Of his adorers. He, to be avenged, And to repair his numbers thus impaired⁠— Whether such virtue spent of old now failed More Angels to create, if they at least Are his created, or to spite us more⁠— Determined to advance into our room A creature formed of earth, and him endow, Exalted from so base