Dark With Excessive Bright.

Must I Thus Leave Thee, Paradise?-thus Leave Thee, Native Soil, These Happy Walks And Shades?

I Sung Of Chaos And Eternal Night, Taught By The Heav'nly Muse To Venture Down The Dark Descent, And Up To Reascend.

Me Miserable! Which Way Shall I Fly Infinite Wrath And Infinite Despair? Which Way I Fly Is Hell; Myself Am Hell; And In The Lowest Deep A Lower Deep, Still Threat'ning To Devour Me, Opens Wide, To Which The Hell I Suffer Seems A Heaven.

Thou O Spirit, That Dost Prefer Before All Temples Th' Upright Heart And Pure, Instruct Me, For Thou Know'st; Thou From The First Wast Present, And With Mighty Wings Outspread Dove-like Satst Brooding On The Vast Abyss And Mad'st It Pregnant: What Is In Me Dark Illumine, What Is Low Raise And Support; That To The Heighth Of This Great Argument I May Assert Eternal Providence, And Justify The Ways Of God To Men.

If Weakness May Excuse, What Murderer, What Traitor, Parricide, Incestuous, Sacrilegious, But May Plead It? All Wickedness Is Weakness; That Plea, Therefore, With God Or Man Will Gain Thee No Remission.