To whom the warrior Angel soon replied: “To say and straight unsay, pretending first Wise to fly pain, professing next the spy, Argues no leader, but a liar traced, Satan; and couldst thou ‘faithful’ add? O name, O sacred name of faithfulness profaned! Faithful to whom? to thy rebellious crew? Army of fiends, fit body to fit head, Was this your discipline and faith engaged, Your military obedience, to dissolve Allegiance to the acknowledged Power Supreme? And thou, sly hypocrite, who now wouldst seem Patron of liberty, who more than thou Once fawned, and cringed, and servilely adored Heaven’s awful Monarch? wherefore, but in hope To dispossess him, and thyself to reign? But mark what I areed thee now: Avaunt! Fly thither whence thou fledst. If from this hour Within these hallowed limits thou appear, Back to the infernal pit I drag thee chained, And seal thee so as henceforth not to scorn The facile gates of Hell too slightly barred.”
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