For so I created them free and free they must remain.

Yet I shall temper so Justice with mercy, as may illustrate most Them fully satisfy'd, and thee appease.

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

Sable-vested Night, eldest of things.

His sleep Was aery light, from pure digestion bred.

His form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appear'd Less than archangel ruin'd, and th' excess Of glory obscur'd.

And the earth self-balanced on her centre hung.