He ceased; and Satan stayed not to reply, But, glad that now his sea should find a shore, With fresh alacrity and force renewed Springs upward, like a pyramid of fire, Into the wild expanse, and through the shock Of fighting elements, on all sides round Environed, wins his way; harder beset And more endangered, than when Argo passed Through Bosporus betwixt the justling rocks; Or when Ulysses on the larboard shunned Charybdis, and by the other whirlpool steered: So he with difficulty and labour hard Moved on: with difficulty and labour he; But, he once passed, soon after, when Man fell, Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain, Following his track (such was the will of Heaven) Paved after him a broad and beaten way Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling gulf Tamely endured a bridge of wondrous length, From Hell continued, reaching the utmost orb Of this frail world; by which the Spirits perverse With easy intercourse pass to and fro