Fragment of 'Paradise Lost' Regained

As when the treach'rous quicksand bids

Unwary rustic swain tread path unsure,

Though seeming firm, he sets his cloddish foot

In obstinate bog, and sinks precipitate

Through ooze profound, drinking the while his fill

Of filth and slime, so Satan's crafty spouse,

The mistress Sin, sore-tempts her hellish mate

To leave his thoughts of vengeance absolute

And find consolement rare and sweet in arms

Of carrion concubine. His brutish mind

With jocund thoughts lascivious inflamed

Envisions bliss renewed (O world of vain

Delights!) in license rude, and like the Jove

False pagans fabled takes on bestial form

(With his foul temperament agreeing best)

To soothe desire's burning in his heart.

Thus Satan to his wife approaching nigh:

"If thou beest she; But O how ugly! That she

Whom mutual league and conjoint enterprise

The honoured wife of Satan made, his spouse,

His mistress, and his paramour, of joys

His partner, and of woes his healing balm,

And anodyne, at whose sight all the fiends

Hide their disgusted heads; to thee I call,

But with no lover's voice, and add thy name

O Sin, to tell thee how I hate thy face

That brings to my remembrance to what depths

I fell, and what eternal lot is mine."

Thus spoke the fierce Archangel, fiery fiend,

And was the first to hide his lustful thoughts

Behind a mask of high disdainful scorn

To make his mirthful mate more tractable

To all venereal schemes his brain could form.

But Sin, the Stygian matron, nothing loath

To brave the bitter words of Satan's wiles,

Stands undiscomforted, with aspect meek,

And to her fell companion thus replies:

"It is not meet that friends fast sworn and true,

In love compact, should thus debate and give

To Vigilance Eternal cause to say

That Hell knows neither vows nor loyal pair.

I never shall believe, tho' sworn on Styx,

That Satan is indifferent to the joys

He takes from his beloved spouse. For I

Have often heard thee sigh, when to the world

Thou though'st thy bed-mate's keen audition closed

That thou hast never felt in Hell or Heav'n,

One half the joys thou drinks't from proffered cup

Of Sin, thy dearest child." Thus ceased the vile

Enchantress, but the lust of Satan's flesh

Could never cease, and to his paramour

He says, with ribald countenace abashed:

"Beloved, if to thy high mind and soul

Divine I failed to render homage due

I renovate my fault, forgiveness beg,

And freely state 'fore all the world and you

Thy front begrimed and visage putrefied

Doth frighten only milk-sop mewling boys,

Taunt-couriers of all-spiteful God, who sends

His angels here to mock thy surface form.

But these shows be but outward seen, and who

So fond to nominate external for

Internal man, or woman (oft'ner doomed

Most falsely by her surface frailties).

Not Satan fond, nor fooled by thy obtuse

Without, to seek his joy in beauteous face

Benign that promises a heaven's bliss

But hides a hellish mind. Embracing you

I pioneer the utmost verge and clime

Of Empery's enjoyment and possess

A Paradise within thee, happier far."

Thus saying, Satan seized his sordid spouse

And with suspiring sighs surprised her sense,

Meaning to take his pleasure there, and joy

Obscene, but she, defending Sin's repute

(For even villains have a sense of shame)

Leapt backwards letting greedy Satan slip

To ground, abject and ignominious

His fall. The save thrust of husband's will

Thus parrying, sweet Sin stands mute, the while

Dejected Satan to his wife complains:

'It is your duty, haughty bride, to serve

Your lord and master's ev'ry wish. If I

Perceive the faintest motion retrograde

In you I will not cease until I take

My plaint on High, and seek in Heaven's grand

Tribunal just divorce from she who makes

My life a Hell for me." So Satan seeth'd.

But his fair compeer only laughs to hear

A fiend thus call on Heaven, and replies:

"A likely hearing thou should'st get, my lord,

Impartial trial and august judgment fair

From God and his empanelled Angels twelve,

Who know too well and to their cost thy faith

And will reject thy sland'rous perjured oaths

As I reject thy proffered pleas of love."

Thus saying, Sin departs, and leaves her spouse

To sigh his sorrows forth in plaintive voice:

"Is this the liberty and promised land

For which I bartered Heaven, throne of light,

And seat celestial?" Here Satan paused

But how the Fiend continued his lament

I must not here relate, my Muse forbids

That I bestain my holy verse with words

As vehement and vulgate foul as those

Employed by the hellish hound in his despair.

But if the ancient Enemy of Man,

Whom poets in after ages styled Old Nick,

Mephisto, Lucifer, and Mister Scratch,

This battered hulk of proud, angelic bark,

Can feel the chafe of choking marriage yoke,

Shall Man himself endure the parlous fate

Of prisoned bed connubial? Not so,

And let no carping or defaming tongue

Say Milton, English Bard, the Scourge of Kings,

And Liberty's Defender, speaks to free

A roving eye and heart licentiate.

My heart is pure, and never strays from home,

Fair domicile, though married to puling wench,

To puling wench though married, and in-laws vile.

Not Thee, mean I, O Sacred Muse, though oft

With Thee I sleep, and take a husband's joy

In thy sweet converse amorous, but she

To whom I waken must each morn when from

My watchful slumbers I am rudely ripped

By raucous rant of wretched lady's wrath,

My wife. So scorn not him, who thee adores,

For Thou art Heavenly, she a nightmare grim.