Paradise Regain'd

By one man's disobedience lost, now fing
Recover'd Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully try'd
Through all temptation, and the tempter foil'd
In all his wiles, defeated and repuls’d,
And Eden rais'd in the waste wilderness.

Thou Spi'rit who ledst this glorious eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field,
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him thence 10
By proof th’undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song else mute,
And bear through highth or depth of nature's bounds
With prosp'rous wing full fumm’d, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,

15 And unrecorded left through many an age, Worthy t' have not remain'd so long unsung, Now had the great Proclamer, with a voice

A 2

More awful than the sound of trumpet, cry'd
Repentance, and Heav'n's kingdom nigh at hand 20
To all baptiz'd: to his great baptism flock'd
With awe the regions round, and with them came
From Nazareth the son of Joseph deem'd
To the flood Jordan, came as then obscure,
Unmark'd, unknown; but him the Baptist soon 25
Descry'd, divinely warn’d, and witness bore
As to his worthier, and would have resign'd,
To him his heav'nly office, nor was long
His witness unconfirm’d: on him baptiz'd
Heav'n open'd, and in likeness of a dove
The Spi'rit descended, while the Father's voice
From Heav'n pronounc'd him his beloved Son.
That heard the Adversary, who roving still
About the world, at that assembly fam’d
Would not be last, and with the voice divine 35
Nigh thunder-struck, th’exalted man, to whom ·
Such high attest was giv'n, a while survey'd
With wonder, then with envy fraught and rage
Flies to his place, nor rests, but in mid air
To council summons all his mighty peers, 40
Within thick clouds and dark ten-fold involv'd,
A gloomy consistory; and them amidt
With looks aghast and fad he thus bespake.

O ancient Pow’rs of air and this wide world,
For much more willingly I mention air,

45 This our old conquest, than remember Hell,

Our

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Paradise Regain'd: A Poem, in Four Books. To which is Added Samson Agonistes ...