REDEMPTION. 295
Seeing his aims accomplish' d, straight withdraws His dev'lish bands, exulting in their might. Swift as electric flame athwart the sky, More baleful than a comet in its course, They noxious way hold down from earth to hell. Where, when arrived, upon his flecker'd throne Of sulph'rous fires, the Stygian Power sits, Till dense around him draw th' infernal peers, To hear related his advent'rous brigue. Nor more delays the fiend, but thus begins :
" Ye pow'rs of hell, who long our coming stay, Behold return' d the legions which you sent, Nor sent in vain, earth's empire to defend, When first the note of danger to our state, Was sounded through the flaming vaults of hell. Who victory sought, are now with victory crown'd ; As right, to wisdom, valor, victory Belongs. Not that ye else should deem, who ne'er Defeat could brook; for what reverses Might, sometimes, our arms attend, not long remain' d, Nor unrequited, nor without repair, As well they know, who battle with our hosts. So this event proves, as in brief now hear : The King of heav'n, (so call him .while he reigns, Though brief his empire, soon to end abrupt,) Had late perfected, so he thought, his scheme, To wrest our mundane empire from our lien. By what mean think ye ? why, as if our spite To bait, the same, with slight reverse, as when Of old, created he the human pair ; Adam made first, and after him, first Eve; Now second Eve, th' abortive Hand first form'd,
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