So spake the seraph Abdiel, faithful found; Among the faithless, faithful only he.

And these gems of Heav'n, her starry train.

For contemplation he and valour formed; / For softness she and sweet attractive grace, / He for God only, she for God in him: / His fair large front and eye sublime declared / Absolute rule.

Hope allows us to bid farewell to fear.

Into this wild abyss, The womb of Nature and perhaps her grave.

A poet soaring in the high reason of his fancies, with his garland and singing robes about him.

Now came still evening on, and twilight gray Had in her sober livery all things clad; Silence accompany'd; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch, these to their nests, Were slunk, all but the wakeful nightingale; She all night long her amorous descant sung; Silence was pleas'd. Now glow'd the firmament With living sapphires; Hesperus, that led The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, Rising in clouded majesty, at length Apparent queen unveil'd her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.