To whom thus Adam gratefully replied: “Ascend; I follow thee, safe guide, the path Thou lead’st me, and to the hand of Heaven submit, However chastening; to the evil turn My obvious breast, arming to overcome By suffering, and earn rest from labour won, If so I may attain.” So both ascend In the visions of God. It was a hill, Of Paradise the highest, from whose top The hemisphere of Earth, in clearest ken, Stretched out to the amplest reach of prospect lay. Not higher that hill, nor wider looking round, Whereon for different cause the Tempter set Our second Adam, in the wilderness, To show him all Earth’s kingdoms and their glory. His eye might there command wherever stood City of old or modern fame, the seat Of mightiest empire, from the destined walls Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can, And Samarchand by Oxus, Temir’s throne, To Paquin of Sinaean kings, and thence To Agra and Lahor of Great Mogul, Down to the golden Chersonese, or where The Persian in Ecbatan sat, or since