So sehe grim Feature, and upturnd
His Nostril wide into the murkie Air, [ 280 ]
Sagacious of his Quarry from so farr.
Then Both from out Hell Gates into the waste
Wide Anarchie of Chaos damp and dark
Flew divers, and with Power (thir Power was great)
H upoers; what they met [ 285 ]
Solid or slimie, as in raging Sea
Tost up and down, together crowded drove
From each side shoaling towards the mouth of Hell.
As when two Polar Winds blowing adverse
Upon the iaogether drive [ 290 ]
Mountains of Ice, that stop th imagind way
Beyosora Eastward, to the rich
Cathaian Coast. The aggregated Soyle
Death with his Mace petrific, cold and dry,
As with a Trident smote, and fixt as firm [ 295 ]
As Delos floating ohe rest his look
Bound with Gonian rigor not to move,
And with Asphaltic slime; broad as the Gate,
Deep to the Roots of Hell the gatherd beach
They fastend, and the Mole immense wraught on [ 300 ]
Over the foaming deep high Archt, a Bridge
Of length prodigious joyning to the Wall
Immovable of this now fenceless world
Forfeit to Death; from hence a passage broad,
Smooth, easie, inoffensive down to Hell. [ 305 ]
So, if great things to small may be pard,
Xerxes, the Libertie of Greece to yoke,
From Susa his Memnonian Palace high
Came to the Sea, and over Hellespont
Bridging his way, Europe with Asia joynd, [ 310 ]
And scd with many a stroak th indignant waves.
Now had they brought the work by wondrous Art
Pontifical, a ridge of pe Rock
Over the vext Abyss, following the track
Of Satan, to the self same place where hee [ 315 ]
First lighted from his Wing, and landed safe
From out of Chaos to the out side bare
Of this round World: with Pinns of Adamant
And s they made all fast, too fast they made
And durable; and now in little space [ 320 ]
The fines met of Empyrean Heavn
And of this World, and on the left hand Hell
With long reaterposd; three sevral wayes
In sight, to each of these three places led.