Джон Мильтон – Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained (страница 36)

The aspiring Dominations: Thou that day

Thy Father’s dreadful thunder didst not spare,

Nor stop thy flaming chariot-wheels, that shook

Heaven’s everlasting frame, while o’er the necks

Thou drovest of warring Angels disarrayed.

Back from pursuit thy Powers with loud acclaim

Thee only extolled, Son of thy Father’s might,

To execute fierce vengeance on his foes,

Not so on Man: Him through their malice fallen,

Father of mercy and grace, thou didst not doom

So strictly, but much more to pity incline:

No sooner did thy dear and only Son

Perceive thee purposed not to doom frail Man

So strictly, but much more to pity inclined,

He to appease thy wrath, and end the strife

Of mercy and justice in thy face discerned,

Regardless of the bliss wherein he sat

Second to thee, offered himself to die

For Man’s offence. O unexampled love,

Love nowhere to be found less than Divine!

Hail, Son of God, Saviour of Men! Thy name

Shall be the copious matter of my song

Henceforth, and never shall my heart thy praise

Forget, nor from thy Father’s praise disjoin.

Thus they in Heaven, above the starry sphere,

Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent.

Meanwhile upon the firm opacous globe

Of this round world, whose first convex divides

The luminous inferior orbs, enclosed

From Chaos, and the inroad of Darkness old,

Satan alighted walks: A globe far off

It seemed, now seems a boundless continent

Dark, waste, and wild, under the frown of Night

Starless exposed, and ever-threatening storms

Of Chaos blustering round, inclement sky;

Save on that side which from the wall of Heaven,

Though distant far, some small reflection gains

Of glimmering air less vexed with tempest loud:

Here walked the Fiend at large in spacious field.

As when a vulture on Imaus bred,

Whose snowy ridge the roving Tartar bounds,

Dislodging from a region scarce of prey

To gorge the flesh of lambs or yeanling kids,

On hills where flocks are fed, flies toward the springs

Of Ganges or Hydaspes, Indian streams;

But in his way lights on the barren plains

Of Sericana, where Chineses drive

With sails and wind their cany wagons light:

So, on this windy sea of land, the Fiend

Walked up and down alone, bent on his prey;

Alone, for other creature in this place,

Living or lifeless, to be found was none;

None yet, but store hereafter from the earth

Up hither like aerial vapours flew

Of all things transitory and vain, when sin

With vanity had filled the works of men:

Both all things vain, and all who in vain things

Built their fond hopes of glory or lasting fame,

Or happiness in this or the other life;

All who have their reward on earth, the fruits

Of painful superstition and blind zeal,

Nought seeking but the praise of men, here find

Fit retribution, empty as their deeds;

All the unaccomplished works of Nature’s hand,

Abortive, monstrous, or unkindly mixed,