Paradise Lost.
Manuscript of Book I, in the hand of an amanuensis, ca. 1665.
Purchased by Pierpont Morgan, 1904
In bigness [ ] giant-sons
Now lesse then smallest dwarfs, in narrow room
Throng numberless [ ] that pigmean race
Beyond the Indian mount, or Faerie Elves
Whose midnight revells, by a forrest side
Or fountain, some belated peasant sees,
Or dreams hee sees, while over head the Moon
Sits arbitress, and neerer to the earth
Wheels her pale course: they on thir mirth & d[ ]
Intent, with jocond music charme his eare;
At once with joy and fear his heart rebounds.
Thus incorporeal spirits to smallest forms
Reduc'd thir shapes immense, and were at l[ ]
Though without number still amidst the hall
Of that infernall court. But farr within
And in thir own dimensions like themselves
The great Seraphic Lords and Cherubim
In close recesse and secret conclave sat
A thousand Demy-gods on golden seat's
Frequent and full. After short silence then
And summons read, the great consult began.
Paradise Lost. Manuscript of Book I, in the hand of an amanuensis, ca. 1665.