Folio 6v

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John Milton
1608–1674

Paradise Lost.

Manuscript of Book I, in the hand of an amanuensis, ca. 1665.

Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1904

MA 307
Transcription: 

Heap on himselfe damnation, while hee sought
Evill to others, and enrag'd might see
How all his malice serv'd but to bring forth
Infinite goodnesse, grace and mercy, shewn
On man by him seduc't, but on himselfe
Treble confusion, wrauth and vengeance pour'd.
Forth with upright he rears from off the poole
His mighty stature; on each hand the flames
Driv'n backward slope thir poynting spires, & rowld
In billows, leave ith' midst a horrid vale.
Then with expanded wings he steares his flight
Aloft, incumbent on the dusky air
That felt unusuall waight, till on dry land
He lights, if it were land that ever burn'd
With solid, as the Lake with liquid fire,
And such appear'd in hew; as when the force
Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shatter'd side
Of thundring Etna, whose combustible
And fewell'd entrails thence conceiving fire
Sublim'd with minerall fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singed bottom all involv'd
With stench and smoak. Such resting found the sole
Of unblest feet: him followd his next Mate