On the tawny sands and shelves trip the pert fairies and the dapper elves.

Yet I argue not Against Heav'n's hand or will, nor bate a jot Of heart or hope; but still bear up and steer Right onward.

O fairest of creation, last and best Of all God's works, creature in whom excelled Whatever can to sight or thought be formed, Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet! How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost, Defaced, deflow'red, and now to death devote? Paradise Lost

No war or battle sound Was heard the world around.

Or if Virtue feeble were, Heav'n itself would stoop to her.

'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.

For books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a potency of life in them to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve as in a vial the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them.