The subject proposed. Invocation of the Holy Spirit.The poem opens with John baptizing at the river Jordan. Jesus coming there is baptized; and is attested, by the descent of the Holy Ghost, and by a voice from Heaven, to be the Son of God. Satan, who is present, upon this immediately

flies up into the regions of the air: where, summoning his infernal council, he acquaints them with his apprehensions that Jesus is that seed of the woman, destined to destroy all their power; and points out to them the immediate necessity of bringing the matter to proof, and of attempting, by snares and fraud, to counteract and defeat the person, from whom they have so much to dread. This office he offers himself to undertake; and his offer being accepted, sets out on his enter. prise. In the mean time God, in the assembly of holy angels,

declares that he has given up his Son to be tempted by Satan;

but foretells that the tempter shall be completely defeated by

him:-upon which the angels sing a hymn of triumph. Jesus is led up by the Spirit into the wilderness, while he is meditating on the commencement of his great office of Sa viour of Mankind. Pursuing his meditations, he narrates, in a soliloquy, what divine and philanthropic impulses he had felt from his early youth, and how his mother Mary, on per

ceiving these dispositions in him, had acquainted him with the circumstances of his birth, and informed him that he was no less a person than the Son of God; to which he adds what his own inquiries and reflections had supplied in confirmation of this great truth, and particularly dwells on the recent at

find permission from above. Satan then disappears, and the book closes with a short description of night coming on in the desert.

I, who erewhile the happy garden sung
By one man's disobedience lost, now sing
Recovered Paradise to all mankind,
By one man's firm obedience fully tried
Through all temptation, and the tempter foiled
In all his wiles, defeated and repulsed,
And Eden raised in the waste wilderness.

Thou Spirit, who led'st the glorious eremite
Into the desert, his victorious field,
Against the spiritual foe, and brought'st him
thence

By proof the undoubted Son of God, inspire,
As thou art wont, my prompted song, else mute,
And bear through height or depth of nature's
bounds,

With prosperous wing full summed, to tell of deeds
Above heroic, though in secret done,
And unrecorded left through many an age;
Worthy to have not remained so long unsung.

Now had the great Proclaimer, with a voice More awful than the sound of trumpet, cried testation of it at the river Jordan. Our Lord passes forty Repentance, and Heaven's kingdom nigh at hand days, fasting in the wilderness; where the wild beasts become To all baptized: to his great baptism flocked mild and harmless in his presence. Satan now appears under With awe the regions round, and with them came the form of an old peasant; and enters into discourse with From Nazareth the son of Joseph deemed our Lord, wondering what could have brought him alone into To the flood Jordan; came, as then obscure, so dangerous a place, and at the same time professing to recognise him for the person lately acknowledged by John, at Unmarked, unknown; but him the Baptist soon the river Jordan, to be the Son of God. Jesus briefly replies. Descried, divinely warned, and witness bore Satan rejoins with a description of the difficulty of supporting As to his worthier, and would have resigned life in the wilderness; and entreats Jesus, if he be really the To him his heavenly office; nor was long Son of God, to manifest his divine power, by changing some His witness unconfirmed: on him baptized of the stones into bread. Jesus reproves him and at the same time tells him that he knows who he is. Satan instantly Heaven opened, and in likeness of a dove a vows himself, and offers an artful apology for himself and The Spirit descended, while the Father's voxe his conduc.. Our blessed Lord severely reprimands him, and From Heaven pronounced him his beloved Son refutes every part of his justification. Satan, with much That heard the Adversary, who, roving still semblance of humility, still endeavours to justify himself, and, About the world, at that assembly famed professing his admiration of Jesus and his regard for virtue, requests to be permitted at a future time to hear more of his Would not be last, and, with the voice divine conversation; but is answered, that this must be as he shall Nigh thunderstruck, the exalted Man, to worn

Such high attest was given, a while surveyed
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,
Within thick clouds and dark tenfold involved,
A gloomy consistory; and them amidst,
With ooks aghast and sad, he thus bespake.
"O ancient Powers of air, and this wide world,
(For much more willingly I mention air,
This our old conquest, than remember hell,
Our hated habitation,) well ye know
How many ages, as the years of men,
This universe we have possessed, and ruled,
In manner at our will, the affairs of earth,
Since Adam and his facile consort Eve
Lost Paradise, deceived by me; though since
With dread attending, when that fatal wound
Shall be inflicted by the seed of Eve
Upon my head; long the decrees of Heaven
Delay, for longest time to him is short;
And now, too soon for us, the circling hours
This dreaded time have compassed, wherein we
Must bide the stroke of that long-threatened wound,
(At least if so we can, and by the head
Broken be not intended all our power
To be infringed, our freedom and our being,
In this fair empire won of earth and air,)
For this ill news I bring, the woman's Seed,
Destined to this, is late of woman born.

His birth to our just fear gave no small cause;
But his growth now to youth's full flower display-
ing

All virtue, grace, and wisdom to achieve
Things highest, greatest, multiplies my fear.
Before him a great prophet, to proclaim
His coming, is sent harbinger, who all
Invites, and in the consecrated stream
Pretends to wash off sin, and fit them, so
Purified, to receive him pure, or rather
To do him honour as their king: all come,
And he himself among them was baptized;
Not thence to be more pure, but to receive
The testimony of Heaven, that who he is
Thenceforth the nations may not doubt; I saw
The prophet do him reverence; on him, rising
Out of the water, Heaven above the clouds
Unfold her crystal doors; thence on his head
A perfect dove descend, whate'er it meant,
And out of Heaven the sovereign voice I heard,
"This is my son beloved, in him am pleased.'
His mother then is mortal, but his Sire
He who obtains the monarchy of Heaven:
And what will he not do to advance his Son?
His first-begot we know, and sore have felt,
When his fierce thunder drove us to the deep:
Who this is we must learn, for man he seems
In all his lineaments, though in his face
The glimpses of his Father's glory shine.
Your danger on the utmost edge

Of hazard, which admits no long debate,
But must with something sudden be opposed,
(Not force, but well couched fraud, well woven
snares,)

Ere in the head of nations he appear,

Their king, their leader, and supreme on earth.
I, when no other durst, sole undertook
The dismal expedition to find out
And ruin Adam, and the exploit performed
Successfully; a calmer voyage now

Will waft me; and the way, found prosperous once,
Induces best to hope of like success."

He ended, and his words impression left
Of much amazement to the infernal crew,
Distracted and surprised with deep dismay
At these sad tidings; but no time was then
For long indulgence to their fears or grief:
Unanimous they all commit the care
And management of this main enterprise
To him their great dictator, whose attempt
At first against mankind so well had thrived
In Adam's overthrow, and led their march
From hell's deep vaulted den to dwell in light,
Regents, and potentates, and kings, yea gods,
Of many a pleasant realm and province wide.
So to the coast of Jordan he directs
His easy steps, girded with snaky wiles,
Where he might likeliest find this new-declared,
This man of men, attested Son of God,
Temptation and all guile on him to try;
So to subvert whom he suspected raised
To end his reign on earth, so long enjoyed:
But, contrary, unweeting he fulfilled

The purposed council, preordained and fixed,
Of the Most High; who, in full frequence bright
Of angels, thus to Gabriel smiling spake.

"Gabriel, this day by proof thou shalt behold,
Thou and all angels conversant on earth
With man or men's affairs, how I begin
To verify that solemn message, late
On which I sent thee to the Virgin pure
In Galilee, that she should bear a son,
Great in renown, and called the Son of God;
Then told'st her, doubting how these things could
be

To her a virgin, that on her should come
The Holy Ghost, and the power of the Highest
O'ershadow her: this man, born and now up-
grown,

To show him worthy of his birth divine
And high prediction, henceforth I expose
To Satan: let him tempt, and now assay
His utmost subtlety, because he boasts
And vaunts of his great cunning to the throng
Of his apostacy: he might have learnt
Less overweening, since he failed in Job,
Whose constant perseverance overcame
Whate'er his cruel malice could invent.
He now shall know I can produce a man,

Thought following thought, and step by step led on, For in the inn was left no better room:

Through many a hard assay, even to the death,
Ere I the promised kingdom can attain,
Or work redemption for mankind, whose sins
Full weight must be transferred upon my head.
Yet, neither thus disheartened or dismayed,
The time prefixed I waited; when behold
The Baptist, (of whose birth I oft had heard,
Not knew by sight,) now come, who was to come
Before Messiah, and his way prepare!
I, as all others to his baptism came,
Which I believed was from above; but he
Straight knew me, and with loudest voice pro-
claimed

Me him (for it was shown him so from Heaven,)
Me him, whose harbinger he was; and first
Refused on me his baptism to confer,

As much his greater, and was hardly won:
But as I rose out of the laving stream,
Heaven opened her eternal doors, from whence
The Spirit descended on me like a dove;
And last, the sum of all, my Father's voice,

"Sir, what ill chance hath brought thee to this place

So far from path or road of men, who pass

In troop or caravan? for single none

Durst ever, who returned, and dropt not here
His carcass, pined with hunger and with drought.
I ask the rather, and the more admire,

For that to me thou seem'st the man, whom late
Our new baptizing Prophet at the ford

Of Jordan honoured so, and called thee Son
Of God: I saw and heard, for we sometimes
Who dwell in t is wild, constrained by want, come
forth

To town or village nigh, (nighest is far,)
Where aught we hear, and curious are to hear
What happens new; fame also finds us out."

To whom the Son of God. "Who brought me
hither,

Will bring me hence; no other guide I seek.”
"By miracle he may," replied the swain,
"What other way I see not; for we here

Audibly heard from Heaven, pronounced me his, Live on tough roots and stubs, to thirst inured

Me his beloved Son, in whom alone

He was well pleased; by which I knew the time
Now full, that I no more should live obscure,
But openly begin, as best becomes,
The authority which I derived from Heaven.
And now by some strong motion I am led
Into this wilderness, to what intent

I learn not yet; perhaps I need not know,
For what concerns my knowledge God reveals."
So spake our Morning Star, then in his rise,
And looking round on every side beheld
A pathless desert, dusk with horrid shades;
The way he came not having marked, return
Was difficult, by human steps untrod:
And he still on was led, but with such thoughts
Accompanied of things past and to come
Lodged in his breast, as well might recommend
Such solitude before choicest society.
Full forty days he passed, whether on hill
Sometimes, anon in shady vale, each night
Under the covert of some ancient oak,
Or cedar, to defend him from the dew,
Or harboured in one cave, is not revealed;
Nor tasted human food, nor hunger felt,
'Till those days ended; hungered then at last
Among wild beasts: tney at this sight grew mild,
Nor sleeping him nor waking harmed; his walk
The fiery serpent fied, and noxious worm,
'The lion and fierce tiger glared aloof.
But Low an aged man in rural weeds,

More than the camel, and to drink go far,
Men to much misery and hardship born:
But, if thou be the son of God, command
That out of these hard stones be made thee breat
So shalt thou save thyself, and us relieve,
With food, whereof we wretched seldom taste."
He ended, and the Son of God replied.
"Thinkest thou such force in bread? Is it not
written,

(For I discern thee other than thou seemest,)
Man lives not by bread only, but each word
Proceeding from the mouth of God, who fed
Our fathers here with manna? in the mount
Moses was forty days, nor eat, nor drank;
And forty days Elijah, without food,
Wandered this barren waste; the same I now:
Why dost thou then suggest to me distrust,
Knowing who I am, as I know who thou art ?"
Whom thus answered the arch fiend, now un
disguised.

"Tis true, I am that Spirit unfortunate,
Who, leagued with millions more in rash revolt,
Kept not my happy station, but was driven
With them from bliss to the bottomless deep,
Yet to that hideous place not so confined
By rigour unconniving, but that oft,
Leaving my dolorous prison, I enjoy
Large liberty to round this globe of earth,
Or range in the air; nor from the Heaven of
Heavens

Following, as seemed, the quest of some stray Hath he excluded my resort sometimes.

ewe,

Or withered sticks to gather, which might serve
Against a winter's day, when winds blow keen,
To warm him wet returned from field at eve,
He saw approach, who first with curious eye
Perused him. then with words thus uttered spake.

I came among the sons of God, when he
Gave up into my hands Uzzean Job
To prove him, and illustrate his high worth;
And, when to all his angels he proposed
To draw the proud king Ahab into fraud
That he might fall in Ramoth, they demurring,