1. |
With Loss of Eden
02:42
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Of man’s first disobedience
and the fruit of that forbidden tree.
Whose mortal taste
brought death into the world.
With loss of Eden.
With loss of Eden.
It’s gone.
Sing, oh Heavenly Muse that, on the secret top
invoke thy aid to my song.
That with no middle flight intends to soar.
With loss of Eden
With loss of Eden
Things unattempted yet in prose or rhyme, instruct me!
for thou knows; thou from the first.
What in me is dark
illume, what’s low raise to the height of this great argument.
I may assert eternal providence.
And justify the ways of God to men.
With loss of Eden
With loss of Eden
Let’s go.
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2. |
A Golden Chain
02:09
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Now sad to mention,
through dire change befallen unforeseen.
I come to set free
from this house of pain.
This errand soul,
and one for all
with lonely steps to tread.
Th’ void immense to search a place foretold
With thoughts inflamed of high design,
puts on swift wings, toward the Gates of Hell he flies,
and explores his solitary quest;
He scours the right
some times the left,
then soars up in the clouds.
Spreads his wings, at leisure to behold:
Light appears,
and from the walls of Heaven,
Shoots into night nature begins
Far off,
Empyreal Heaven, extended wide
once his native seat.
Accursed, and in a cursed hour, he hies,
full, with mischievous revenge.
This pendant world,
in bigness as a star and fast, by
hanging in a golden chain.
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3. |
They in Heaven
02:57
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From Book III of John Milton's "Paradise Lost," in which God asks his angels for a volunteer to save them by dying. The angels take a huge step backwards, then God's son steps up and says he'll do it. An angel party ensues.
This long sufferance and my day of grace
they who neglect and scorn,
shall never taste.
He with his whole posterity must die,
unless for him, some other pay
death for death.
Where shall we find
such love,
which of ye will be mortal
to redeem man’s crime?
All the Heavenly choir stood mute:
on man’s behalf none appeared.
I offer, on me let thine anger fall;
Account me man; for his sake I’ll leave
Now to Death I yield, and am his due
all of me can die, yet that debt paid.
Then the multitude of angels with a shout
sung omnipotent, immortal, infinite.
Their happy hours in joy and hymning spent.
Thus they in Heaven, above the starry sphere.
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4. |
Fair Foundation
03:12
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Delicious Paradise, crowns with her enclosure green,
a woody theater of stately view.
Two creatures new to sight and strange:
Far nobler shape erect and tall,
with native honor clad
seemed lords of all.
Oh, fair foundation.
Simple and spotless innocence of God or angel.
Naked and hand in hand they passed.
Ah gentle pair, ye little think
your change approaches
when all delights will vanish,
deliver ye to woe.
Oh, fair foundation.
One fatal tree stands of Knowledge called,
Forbidden to taste: can it be sin to know?
Why should their Lord envy them that?
Proof of their obedience and their faith?
By ignorance is that their happy state?
He hath no need, requires no other service,
not to taste that only tree
So near grows Death to Life,
what ere Death is.
Oh, fair foundation
whereon to build their ruin!
Oh, fair foundation.
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5. |
A Dream
02:52
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For I this night have dreamed,
brought me on to the tree.
Beside it stood one winged like one from Heaven
‘Oh, fair plant,’ said he, ‘with fruit surcharged,
is knowledge so despised?
This said, he plucked, he tasted.
Me damp horror chilled
But he thus, overjoyed; ‘O fruit divine,
able to make gods of men:
And why not since good, the more communicated, the author not impaired, but honored more?’
‘Here, taste this, and be among the gods,
ascend to Heaven and see
what life the gods live there, and such live thou!’
I could not but taste:
Forthwith up to the clouds, with him I flew,
and underneath beheld, the earth outstretched immense.
Suddenly, my guide was gone,
and I sunk down and fell asleep.
Oh, how glad I waked
to find this but a dream!
But a dream.
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6. |
His Countenance
02:44
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His fierce chariot
of torrent floods, numerous host,
gloomy night under his burning wheels.
His right hand
grasping ten thousand thunders,
sent over helmed heads as he rode.
His arrows
distinct with eyes from living wheels,
one spirit in them, shot forth fire.
His countenance
into terror changed.
And full of wrath
bent on his enemies.
His thunder
meant but root them down from heaven,
burnt after them to the bottomless pit.
His wild anarchy
so huge a rout,
fraught with fire, the house of woe and pain.
His countenance
too severe to behold.
And full of wrath
with dreadful shade.
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7. |
The World Unborn
02:02
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Silence, ye troubled waves
thou deep, peace, your discord end:
Far into chaos
and the world unborn.
The golden compasses
to circumscribe this universe
One foot centered,
and the other turned.
Round vast profundity obscure,
thy just circumference
matter unformed
covered the abyss.
And vital virtue infused
throughout the fluid mass
like to like,
spun out the air.
Earth on her center hung
sprung from the deep
for yet the Sun was not,
cloudy tabernacle sojourned
Divided, thus the hollow universal orb filled.
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8. |
Lowly Wise
02:50
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When I behold this goodly frame,
and all her numbered stars,
round this opacous earth
in all their vast survey.
So many nobler bodies
greater to this one use.
Such restless revolution,
merely to light this earth?
Think only what concerns thee,
dream not of other worlds.
Heaven is too high to know, be lowly wise.
The book of God before thee,
did conceal, and not divulge
when they come to model Heaven
and calculate the stars.
That man may know he dwells not in his own;
an edifice too large,
in a small partition, for uses to
his lord best known.
Think only what concerns thee,
dream not of other worlds.
Heaven is too high to know, be lowly wise.
Taught to live, the easiest way,
nor with perplexing thoughts.
Not to know of things remote
in things too high, no advantage.
Which before us
lies in daily life,
is the prime
The prime wisdom.
Think only what concerns thee,
dream not of other worlds.
Heaven is too high to know, be lowly wise.
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9. |
One Heart, One Soul
02:04
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But to Adam in what sort
shall I appear?
Give him to partake
full happiness with me.
One heart, one soul.
Render me more equal,
for inferior who is free?
Confirmed then I resolve;
Adam shall share bliss or woe with me.
One heart, one soul in both,
death or aught shall separate us.
Linked in love to undergo
with me one guilt, one crime.
Tasting this fair fruit,
this happy trial of thy love.
One heart, one soul.
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10. |
Thine Now
03:30
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Their great adventurer ascended his high throne
clad with permissive glory since his fall.
Their mighty chief returned, and
and with these words attention won:
I call ye and declare ye forth triumphant
out of this dungeon of our tyrant as Lords;
a spacious world, to our native heaven little inferior.
Thine now is all this world.
The new world, which fame in Heaven foretold
a fabric wonderful of absolute perfection,
therein man placed
in a paradise by our exile.
His creator hath given up both man and his world
to Sin and Death a prey, and so to us,
to range in over man
to rule as he should have.
Thine now is all this world.
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11. |
Oh, Flowers
02:38
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Oh unexpected stroke, worse than death,
must I thus leave thee Paradise?
These happy walks and shades,
the day that must be mortal to us both.
Oh flowers,
that never will in other climate grow.
Oh flowers,
which I bred with tender hand and gave ye names.
Thee lastly bower, by me adorned
with what to sight or smell was sweet;
from thee how shall I part,
and wander down into a lower world?
Oh flowers,
that never will in other climate grow.
Oh flowers,
which I bred with tender hand and gave ye names.
Who now shall rear ye to the sun,
rank your tribes and water from the fount?
How shall we breath in other air
less pure accustomed to immortal fruits?
Oh flowers,
that never will in other climate grow.
Oh flowers,
which I bred with tender hand and gave ye names.
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12. |
Wandering Steps
02:37
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The cherubim descended;
on the ground gliding, as evening mist
risen from a river.
Homeward returning,
high in front the brandished sword
of God before them blazed.
In either hand the hastening angel caught
our lingering parents,
and led them to the subjected plain.
They looking back, beheld their happy seat,
waved over by that flaming brand, the gate
with dreadful faces thronged.
Some natural tears they dropped, but wiped them soon;
the world was all before them, where to choose
their place of rest, and providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wandering steps and slow,
through Eden took their solitary way.
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