[Illustration: "Thus lion, dragon, driver, all plunge down."]
Praise be to God! Upon your knees 300 Fall down and worship Him! O Lucifer, Ah! where now is that fickle confidence? In what strange shape shall I, alas! behold Thee soon? Where now are thy proud splendors, that All other pomp so easily outshone?
Even as bright day to gloomy night is changed, Whene'er the sun forgets his golden glow, So in his downward fall his beauty turned To something monstrous and most horrible: Into a brutish snout his face, that shone 310 So glorious; his teeth into large fangs, Sharpened for gnawing steel; his hands and feet Into four various claws; into a hide Of black that shining skin of pearl; while from His bristled back two dragon wings did sprout. Alas! the proud Archangel, whom but now All Angels honored here, hath changed his shape into a hideous medley of seven beasts, As outwardly appears: A lion proud; A greedy, gluttonous swine; a slothful ass; 320 A fierce rhinoceros, with rage inflamed; An ape, in every part obscene and vile, By nature lewd and most lascivious; A dragon, full of envy; and a wolf Of sordid avarice. His beauteous form Is now a monster execrable, by God And Spirit and man e'er to be cursed. That beast Doth shrink to view its own deformity, And veils with darkling mists its Gorgon face.
Thus shall Ambition learn how vain to tilt 330 For God's own crown. Where stayed Apollion?
He saw his tide ebb when his star declined, And fled: so fled they all. Then, from above, The celestial ordnance pours forth shot on shot, With lightning flash and rolling thunders loud, Causing the monsters that into the light Have crawled to swell the rout; and pleased are all. With God's array, to aid in such pursuit! O! what a whirl of storms in one resolved! And what a noisy tumult rises round! 340 What floods sweep by! Our legions, blessed by God, Advance, and strike and crush whatever they meet. What cries of pain now burst forth everywhere, As from the fleeing hordes one hears, amid This wild confusion and this change of form In limbs and shapes, their roars and bellowings. Some yell, and others howl. What fearful frowns Those Angel faces wear, the mirrors dread Of Hell's infernal horrors. Hark! I hear Michael return, triumphant, to display, 350 Here in the light, the spoil from Angels reft. The choristers now greet him with their songs Of praise, with sound of cymbal, pipe, and drum. They come in front, and strew their laurel leaves 'Mid those celestial harmonies around.