Page:Paradise lost by Milton, John.djvu/108

What wonder then if fields and regions here
Breathe forth elixir pure, and rivers run
Potable gold, when, with one virtuous touch,
The arch-chemic sun, so far from us remote,
Produces, with terrestrial humor mixed,610
Here in the dark so many precious things,
Of colour glorious, and effect so rare!
Here matter new to gaze the Devil met
Undazzled. Far and wide his eye commands;
For sight no obstacle found here nor shade,
But all sunshine, as when his beams at noon
Culminate from the equator, as they now
Shot upward still direct, whence no way round
Shadow from body opaque can fall; and the air,
Nowhere so clear, sharpened his visual ray620
To objects distant far, whereby he soon
Saw within ken a glorious Angel stand,
The same whom John saw also in the sun.
His back was turned, but not his brightness hid;
Of beaming sunny rays a golden tiar
Circled his head, nor less his locks behind
Illustrious, on his shoulders fledge with wings,
Lay waving round; on some great charge employed
He seemed, or fixed in cogitation deep.
Glad was the spirit impure, as now in hope630
To find who might direct his wandering flight
To Paradise, the happy seat of Man,