FIRST BOOK .

Dismounted from the high-aspiring hills
Which the all-empty airy kingdom fills,
Leaving the scorched mountains threatening heaven,
From whence fell fiery rage my soul hath driven,
Passing the down-steep valleys all in hast,
Have tript it through the woods; and now, at last,
Am veiled with a stony sanctuary,
To save my ire-stuft soul, lest it miscarry,
From threatening storms, o'erturning verity,
That shames to see truth's refin'd purity;
Those open plains, those high sky-kissing mounts,
Where huffing winds cast up their airy accounts,
Were too, too open, shelter yielding none,
So that the blasts did tyrannize upon
The naked carcass of my heavy soul,
And with their fury all my all control.
But now, environ'd with a brazen tower,
I little dread their stormy-raging power;
Witness this black defying embassy,
That wanders them beforn in majesty,
Undaunted of their bugbear threatening words,
Whose proud-aspiring vaunts time past records.
Now, windy parasites, or the slaves of wine,
That wind from all things save the truth divine,
Wind, turn, and toss, into the depth of spite,
Your devilish venom cannot me affright;
It is a cordial of a candy taste,
I'll drink it up, and then let 't run at waste;
Whose druggy lees, mix'd with the liquid flood
Of muddy fell defiance, as it stood,
I'll belch into your throats all open wide,
Whose gaping swallow nothing runs beside;
And if it venom, take it as you list;
He spites himself that spites a satirist.