So stretched out huge in length the Arch-fiend lay Chained on the burning lake.” “He, above the rest In shape and gesture proudly eminent, Stood like a tower: his form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appeared Less than archangel ruined, and the excess Of glory obscured: as when the sun new-risen Looks through the horizontal misty air, Shorn of his beams; or from behind the moon, In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs: darkened so, yet shone Above them all the Archangel.” “As when far off at sea a fleet descried Hangs in the clouds, by equinoctial winds Close sailing from Bengala or the isles Of Ternate and Tidore, whence merchants bring Their spicy drugs: they on the trading flood Through the wide Aethiopian to the Cape Ply, stemming nightly toward the pole: so seemed Far off the flying fiend.” “On the other side, Satan, alarmed, Collecting all his might, dilated stood, Like Teneriff or Atlas, unremoved: His stature reached the sky, and on his crest Sat horror plumed; nor wanted in his grasp What seemed both spear and shield.” ↩