round. And higher than that wall a circling row Of goodliest trees, loaden with fairest fruit, Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue, Appeared, with gay enamelled colours mixed; On which the sun more glad impressed his beams Than in fair evening cloud, or humid bow, When God hath showered the earth: so lovely seemed That landskip. And of pure now purer air Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires Vernal delight and joy, able to drive All sadness but despair; now gentle gales, Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are past Mozambic, off at sea north-east winds blow Sabaean odours from the spicy shore Of Araby the Blest: with such delay Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles: So entertained those odorous sweets the Fiend Who came their bane, though with them better pleased Than Asmodeus with the fishy fume That drove him, though enamoured, from the spouse Of Tobit’s son, and with a vengeance sent From Media post to Egypt, there fast bound.
Now to the ascent of that steep savage hill Satan had journeyed on, pensive and slow; But further way found none; so thick entwined, As one continued brake, the undergrowth Of shrubs and tangling bushes had perplexed All path of man or beast that passed that way. One gate there only was, and that looked east On the other side: which when the Arch-Felon saw, Due entrance he disdained, and in contempt At one slight bound high overleaped all bound Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf, Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve, In hurdled cotes amid the field secure, Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold; Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault, In at the window climbs, or o’er the tiles: So clomb this first grand thief into God’s fold: So since into his Church lewd hirelings