In the remotest gulphs _of dark_ they land, Here vengeance gives them leave to make their stand, Not that to _steps_ and _measures_ they pretend, _Councils_ and _schemes_ their station to defend; But broken, disconcerted and _dismay'd_, By guilt and fright to guilt and fright _betray'd_; Rage and confusion ev'ry Spirit possess'd, And _shame_ and _horror_ swell'd in ev'ry breast; Transforming envy to their essentials burns, And _the bright_ Angel to a _frightful Devil_ turns. _Thus Hell began_; the fire of conscious rage No years can quench, no length of time asswage. _Material Fire_, with its intensest flame, Compar'd _with this_ can scarce deserve a Name; How should it up to _immaterials_ rise, When we're _all flame_, we shall _all fire_ despise. This fire outrageous and its heat intense Turns all the pain _of loss_ to pain _of sense_. The folding flames _concave_ and _inward_ roll, Act _upon spirit_ and penetrate _the soul_: Not force of _Devils_ can its new powers repel, Where'er it burns _it finds_ or _makes_ a HELL; For _Satan_ flaming with unquench'd desire Forms _his own Hell_, and kindles _his own fire_, Vanquish'd, _not humbl'd_, not in will brought low, But as _his powers_ decline _his passions_ grow: The malice, _Viper like_, takes vent within, Gnaws its own bowels, and bursts in _its own sin_: Impatient of the change _he scorns to bow_, And never _impotent_ in power _till now_; Ardent with hate, and _with revenge_ distract, A will to new attempts, _but none_ to act; Yet all _seraphick_, and in just degree, Suited _to Spirits high sense_ of misery, Deriv'd from _loss_ which _nothing_ can repair, And _room for nothing left_ but meer despair. _Here's finish'd Hell!_ what fiercer fire _can burn_? Enough ten thousand Worlds to over-turn. HELL's but the frenzy of defeated pride, Seraphick Treason's strong impetuous tide, Where vile ambition _disappointed_ first, To its _own rage_ and _boundless hatred_ curst; The hate's _fan'd up to fury_, that to _flame_, For _fire_ and _fury_ are in kind the same; These burn unquenchable in every face, And the word ENDLESS constitutes the place. O _state of Being!_ where being's the only grief, And the _chief torture_'s to be damn'd to life; _O life!_ the only thing they have to hate; The _finish'd torment_ of a future state, Compleat in all the parts of endless misery, And worse ten thousand times than _not_ to BE! Could but the Damn'd _the immortal law_ repeal, And _Devils dye_, there'd be _an end of Hell_; Could they that thing call'd _Being_ annihilate, There'd be _no sorrows_ in a future state; The Wretch, whose crimes had shut him out _on high_, Could be reveng'd on God himself _and die_; _Job's Wife_ was in the right, and always we Might end _by death_ all human misery, } Might have it in our choice, _to be_ or not to be. } CHAP. IV.