ET: Almanac

 Before their eyes in sudden view appear

The secrets of a hoary deep, a dark

Illimitable Ocean without bound, 

Without dimension, where length, breadth, and heighth, 

And time a place are lost; where eldest Night

And Chaos, Ancestors of Nature, hold

Eternal Anarchy, amidst the noise

Of endless wars, and by confusion stand.

For hot, cold, moist, and dry, four Champions fierce

Strive here for Mast'ry, and to Battle bring

Their embryon Atoms; they around the flag

Of each his faction, in their several Clans,

Light-arm'd or heavy, sharp, smooth, swift or slow,

Swarm populous, unnumber'd as the Sands

Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil,

Levied to side with warring Winds, and poise

Their lighter wings. To whom these most adhere,

He rules a moment; Chaos Umpire sits,

And by decision more embroils the fray

By which he Reigns; next him high Arbiter

Chance governs all. into this wild Abyss,

The Womb of nature and perhaps her Grave,

Of neither Sea, nor Shore, nor Air, nor Fire,

But all these in their pregnant causes mixt

Confus'dly, and which thus must ever fight,

Unless th'Almighty Maker them ordain

His dark materials to create more Worlds,

Into this wild Abyss the wary fiend

Stood on the brink of Hell and looked a while,

Pondering his Voyage; for no narrow frith

He had to cross. Nor was his ear less peal'd 

With noises loud and ruinous (to compare

Great things with small) than when Bellona storms,

With all her battering Engines bent to raze

Some Capital City, or less than if this frame

Of Heav'n were falling, and these Elements

In mutiny had from her Axle torn

The steadfast Earth. At last his Sail-broad Vans

He spreads for flight, and in the surging smoke

Uplifted spurns the ground, thence many a League

As in a cloudy Chair ascending rides

Audacious, but that seat soon failing, meets

A vast vacuity: all unawares

Flutt'ring his pennons vain plumb-down he drops

Ten thousand fathom deep, and to this hour

Down had been falling, ahd not by ill chance

The strong rebuff of some tumultuous cloud

Instinct with Fire and Nitre hurried him

As many miles aloft: that fury stay'd

Quencht in a Boggy Syrtis, neither Sea,

Nor good dry Land: nigh founder'd on he fares,

Trending the crude consistence, half on foot,

Half flying; behooves him now both Oar and Sail. 

As when a Gryphon through the Wilderness 

With winged course o'er Hill or moory Dale,

Pursues the Arimaspian, who by stealth

Had from his wakeful custody purloin'd

The guarded Gold: So eagerly the fiend

O'er bog or steep, through straight, rough, dense, or rare,

With head, hands, wings, or feet pursues his way,

And swims or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies: 

At length a universal hubbub wild

Of stunning sounds and voices all confus'd

Born through the hollow dark assaults his ear

With loudest vehemence: thither he plies

Undaunted to meet there whatever power

Or Spirit of the nethermost Abyss

Might in that noise reside, of whom to ask

Which way the nearest coast of darkness lies

Bordering on light; when straight behold the Throne

Of Chaos, and his dark Pavilion spread

Wide on the wasteful Deep; with him Enthron'd

Sat Sable-vested Night, eldest of things,

The consort of his Reign; and by them astood 

Orens and Ades, and the dreaded name

of Demogorgon; Rumour next and Chance,

And Tumult and Confusion all embroil'd

And discord with a thousand various mouths. 

T'whom Satan turning boldly, thus, "Ye Powers

And Spirits of this nethermost Abyss,

Chaos and ancient Night, I come no spy, 

With purpose to explore or to disturb

The secrets of your Realm, but by constaint

Wand'ring this darksome desert, as my way

Lies through your spacious Empire up to light,

Alone, and without guide, half lost, I seek

What readiest path leads where your gloomy bounds

Confine with Heav'n; or if some other place

From your Dominion won, th'Ethereal King

Possesses lately, thither to arrive

I travel this profound, direct my course; 

Directed, no means recompense it brings

To your behoof, if I that Region lost,

All usurpation thence expell'd, reduce

To her original darkness and your sway

(Which is my present journey) and once more

Erect the Standard there of ancient Night;

Yours be th'advantage all, mine the revenge."

Thus Satan; and him thus Anarch old

With falt'ring speech and visage incompos'd

Answer'd. "I know thee, stranger, who thou art,

That mighty leading Angel, who of late

Made head against Heav'n's King, though overthrown. 

I saw and heard, for such a numerous host

Fled not in silence through the frighted deep

With ruin upon ruin, rout on rout,

Confusion worse confounded; and Heav'n Gates

Pour'd out by millions her victorious Bands

Pursuing. I upon my Frontiers here

Keep residence; if all I can will serve,

That little which is left so to defend

Encroacht on still through our intestine broils

Weak'ning the Scepter of old Night: first Hell

Your dungeon stretching far and wide beneath

Now lately Heaven and Earth, another World

Hung o'er my Real, link'd in a golden Chain

To that side Heav'n from whence your Legions fell:

If that way be your walk, you have not far;

So much the nearer danger; go and speed; 

Havoc and spoil and ruin are my gain."

He ceas'd; and Satan stay'd not to reply

But glad that now his Sea should find a shore,

With fresh alacrity and force renew'd

Springs upward like a Pyramid of fire

Into the wild expanse, and through the shock

Of fighting Elements, on all sides roud

Environ'd wins his way; harder beset

And more endanger'd, than when Argo pas'd

Through Bosporus betwixt the justling Rocks:

Or when Ulysses on the Larboard shunn'd

Charybdis, and by th'other whirlpool steer'd.

So he with difficulty and labour hard

Mov'don, with difficulty and labour hee;

But hee once past, soon after when man fell,

Strange alteration! Sin and Death amain

Following his track, such was the will of Heav'n

Pav'd after him a broad and beat'n way

Over the dark Abyss, whose boiling Gulf

Tamely endur'd a Brdige of wondrous length

From Hell continu'd reaching th'utmost Orb

Of this frail World; by which the Spirits perverse

With easy intercourse pass to and fro

To tempt or punish mortals, except whom

God and good Angels guard by special grace

But now at last the sacred influence

Of light appears, and from the walls of Heav'n

Shoots far into the bosom of dim Night

A glimmering dawn; here Nature first begins 

Her farthest verge, and Chaos to retire

As from her outmost works a brok'n foe

With tumult less and with less hostile din

That Satan with less toll, and now with ease

Wafts on the calmer wave with dubious light

And like a weather-beaten vessel holds 

Gladly the Port, though Shrouds and Tackle torn; 

Or in the emptier waste, resembling Air,

Weighs his spread wings, at leisure to behold

Far off th'Empyreal Heav'n, extended wide

In circuit, undetermin'd square or round,

With Opal Tow'rs and Battlements adorn'd

Of living Saphhire, once his native Seat;

And fast by hanging in a golden Chain

This pendent world, in bigness as a Star

Of smallest Magnitude close by the Moon.

Thither full fraught with mischievous revenge,

Accurst, and in a cursed hour he hies. 

John Milton: Paradise Lost