Elena Melkan

What if the breath that kindled those grim fires
Awaked, should blow them into sevenfold rage
And plunge us in the flames; or from above
Should intermitted vengeance arm again
His red right hand to plague us?

What if all
Her stores were opened,
and this firmament
Of Hell should spout her cataracts of fire,
Impendent horrors, threatening hideous fall
One day upon our heads; while we perhaps,
Designing or exhorting glorious war,
Caught in a fiery tempest, shall be hurled.

Each on his rock transfixed, the sport and prey
Of racking whirlwinds, or for ever sunk
Under yon boiling ocean, wrapt in chains,
There to converse with everlasting groans,
Unrespited, unpitied, unreprieved,
Ages of hopeless end? This would be worse.


Paradise Lost: Book II, The Argument