And either tropic now ’Gan thunder, and both ends of heaven; the clouds 410 From many a horrid rift abortive poured Fierce rain with lightning mixed, water with fire, In ruin reconciled; nor slept the winds Within their stony caves, but rushed abroad From the four hinges of the world, and fell On the vexed wilderness, whose tallest pines, Though rooted deep as high, and sturdiest oaks, Bowed their stiff necks, loaden with stormy blasts, Or torn up sheer. Ill wast thou shrouded then, O patient Son of God, yet only stood’st 420 Unshaken! Nor yet staid the terror there: Infernal ghosts and hellish furies round Environed thee; some howled, some yelled, some shrieked, Some bent at thee their fiery darts, while thou Sat’st unappalled in calm and sinless peace. Thus passed the night so foul, till Morning fair Came forth with pilgrim steps, in amice grey, Who with her radiant finger stilled the roar Of thunder, chased the clouds, and laid the winds, And griesly spectres, which the Fiend had raised 430 To tempt the Son of God with terrors dire. And now the sun with more effectual beams Had cheered the face of earth, and dried the wet From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds, Who all things now behold more fresh and green, After a night of storm so ruinous, Cleared up their choicest notes in bush and spray, To gratulate the sweet return of morn. Nor yet, amidst this joy and brightest morn, Was absent, after all his mischief done, 440 The Prince of Darkness; glad would also seem Of this fair change, and to our Saviour came; Yet with no new device (they all were spent), Rather by this his last affront resolved, Desperate of better course, to vent his rage And mad despite to be so oft repelled. Him walking on a sunny hill he found, Backed on the north and west by a thick wood; Out of the wood he starts in wonted shape, And in a careless mood thus to him said:— 450 “Fair morning yet betides thee, Son of God, After a dismal night. I heard the wrack, As earth and sky would mingle; but myself Was distant; and these flaws, though mortals fear them, As dangerous to the pillared frame of Heaven, Or to the Earth’s dark basis underneath, Are to the main as inconsiderable And harmless, if not wholesome, as a sneeze To man’s less universe, and soon are gone. Yet, as being ofttimes noxious where they light 460 On man, beast, plant, wasteful and turbulent, Like turbulencies in the affairs of men, Over whose heads they roar, and seem to point, They oft fore-signify and threaten ill. This tempest at this desert most was bent; Of men at thee, for only thou here dwell’st. Did I not tell thee, if thou didst reject The perfect season offered with my aid To win thy destined seat, but wilt prolong All to the push of fate, pursue thy way 470 Of gaining David’s throne no man knows when (For both the when and how is nowhere told), Thou shalt be what thou art ordained, no doubt; For Angels have proclaimed it, but concealing