Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/103

Dying put on the weeds of Dominic,
Or in Franciscan think to pass disguised.480
They pass the planets seven, and pass the fixed,
And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs
The trepidation talked, and that first moved;
And now Saint Peter at Heaven's wicket seems
To wait them with his keys, and now at foot
Of Heaven's ascent they lift their feet, when lo!
A violent cross-wind from either coast
Blows them transverse, ten thousand leagues awry,
Into the divious air. Then might ye see
Cowls, hoods, and habits with their wearers, toss490
And fluttered into rags; then reliques, beads,
Indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls,
The sport of winds; all these, upwhirled aloft,
Fly o'er the backside of the World far off
Into a Limbo large and broad, since called
The Paradise of Fools, to few unknown
Long after, now unpeopled and untrod.
All this dark globe the Fiend found as he passed,
And long he wandered, till at last a gleam
Of dawning light turned thitherward in haste500
His traveled steps. Far distant he descries,