Before their eyes in sudden view appear The secrets of the hoary deep, a dark Illimitable ocean without bound, N Without dimension, where length, breadth, and heighth And time and place are lost, where eldest Night And Chaos, áncestors of Nature, hold Eternal anarchy amidst the noise Of endless wars and by confusion stand. For Hot, Cold, Moist, and

Back they recoiled afraid At first and called me "Sin" and for a sign Portentous held me.

Note: Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth for sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death" (James 1:15).

The other shape (If shape it might be called that shape had none Distinguishable in member, joint, or limb, Or substance might be called that shadow seemed, For each seemed either): black it stood as night, Fierce as ten furies, terrible as Hell And shook a dreadful dart. What seemed his head The likeness of a kingly crown had on.

New war provoked. Our better part remains To work in close design by fraud or guile What force effected not, that He no less At length from us may find who overcomes By force hath overcome but half His foe!

What though the field be lost?

All is not lost: th' unconquerable will

And study of revenge, immortal hate

And courage never to submit or yield

And what is else not to be overcome?

That glory never shall

His wrath or might

Extort from me: to bow and sue for grace

With suppliant knee and deify

His power Who from the terror of this arm so late

Doubted His

Many of these readers of Milton are attracted by an emerging view of him not as the untroubled high priest of Christian humanist ideology but rather as a poet struggling with and against that ideology in the face of a rapidly changing world. It is from the conflict between these incompatible viewpoints, and not from the simple desire to represent