Paradise Lost. Джон МильтонЧитать онлайн книгу.

       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 th' utmost orb

       Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse

       With easy intercourse pass to and fro

       To tempt or punish mortals, except whom

       God and good Angels guard by special grace.

       But now at last the sacred influence

       Of light appears, and from the walls of Heaven

       Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night

       A glimmering dawn. Here Nature first begins

       Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire,

       As from her outmost works, a broken foe,

       With tumult less and with less hostile din;

       That Satan with less toil, and now with ease,

       Wafts on the calmer wave by dubious light,

       And, like a weather-beaten vessel, holds

       Gladly the port, though shrouds and tackle torn;

       Or in the emptier waste, resembling air,

       Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold

       Far off th' empyreal Heaven, extended wide

       In circuit, undetermined square or round,

       With opal towers and battlements adorned

       Of living sapphire, once his native seat;

       And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,

       This pendent World, in bigness as a star

       Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.

       Thither, full fraught with mischievous revenge,

       Accursed, and in a cursed hour, he hies.