"Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount, Westward, much nearer by south-west; behold Where on the Aegean shore a city stands, Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil-- Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts And eloquence, native to famous wits Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, City or suburban, studious walks and shades. See there the olive-grove of Academe, Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long; There flow'ry hill Hymettus, with the sound Of bees' industrious murmur, oft invites To studious musing; there Ilissus rolls His whispering stream. Within the walls then view The schools of ancient sages, his who bred Great Alexander to subdue the world, Lyceum there; and painted Stoa next. There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power Of harmony, in tones and numbers hit By voice or hand, and various-measured verse, Aeolian charms and Dorian lyric odes, And his who gave them breath, but higher sung, {206} Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called, Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own. Thence what the lofty grave Tragedians taught In chorus or iambic, teachers best Of moral prudence, with delight received In brief sententious precepts, while they treat Of fate, and chance, and change in human life, High actions and high passions best describing." It is plainly the very voice of the poet himself, and he may have felt certain that we should so understand it. But it is difficult not to regret that it is the Devil who is made to pay Milton's great debt to Athens and Christ who is made to repudiate it.