Thomas Desforges > Recent Status Updates

We sunk thus low? Th’ ascent is easy then;
Th’ event is feared; should we again provoke
Our stronger, some worse way his wrath may find
To our destruction: if there be in Hell
Fear to be worse destroyed: what can be worse
Than to dwell here, driv’n out from bliss, condemned
In this abhorrèd deep to utter woe;
Where pain of unextinguishable fire
Must exercise us without hope of end
The vassals of his anger,…

For while the sit contriving, shall the rest,
Millions that stand in arms, and longing wait
The signal to ascend, sit ling’ring here
Heav’n’s fugitives, and for their dwelling place
Accept this dark opprobious den of shame,
The prison of his tyranny who reigns
By our delay? No, let us rather choose
Armed with Hell flames and fury all at once
O’er Heav’n’s high tow’rs to force resistless way,
…

There stood a hill not far whose grisly top
Belched fire and rolling smoke; the rest entire
Shone with a glossy scurf, undoubted sign
That in his womb was hid metallic ore,
The work of sulphur.

The fellows of his crime, the followers rather
(Far other once beheld in bliss) condemned
For ever now to have their lot in pain,
Millions of Spirits for his fault amerced
Of Heav’n, and from eternal splendours flung
For his revolt, yet faithful how they stood,
Their glory withered.

For Spirits when they please
Can either sex assume, or both; so soft
And uncompounded is their essence pure;
Not tied or manacled with joint or limb,
Nor founded on the brittle strength of bones,
Like cumbrous flesh; but in what shape they choose
Dilated or condensend, bright or obscure,
Can execute their airy purposes,
And works of love or enmity fulfil.

The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a Heav’n of Hell, a Hell of Heav’n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less than he
Whom thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th’ Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choice
…
Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav’n.

Of subterranean wind transports a hill
Torn from Pelorus, or the shattered side
Of thund’ring Etna, whose combustible
And fuelled entrails thence conceiving fire,
Sublimed with mineral fury, aid the winds,
And leave a singèd bottom all involved
With stench and smoke: such resting found the sole