The Adamus exul of Grotius; or The Prototype of Paradise Lost — page 31: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

14 ADAMUS EXUL. So ugly, spiteful, horrible, and black ; Or lend the amicable womanly ear To her foul foe? Nay, in my righteous soul I must dissimulate hatred, I must cloak The goblin to the heel; for he who cheats Too openly, doth aid the antagonist most, And wrong himself much more. He ne’er can give Malice fair play, who doth not malice hide. "Tis easy love to feign ; and she who takes | Feigned love for true, doth lie to her own soul. | Too credulous hope is but self-mockery ; But if quite firm in goodness, if self-will For once befriends her, and her placable ear Is obstinately denied me, in new forms, | New shows of blandishment, will I succeed. No eye of mortal can the subtle fiend So finely masked discern, no hand detect The inscrutable demon. Such a form I'll try, Form without substance, a pure phantasm only Of plausible beauty ; for if ghostly thing Doth dress itself in body, and assume | Aught of material lineament, at once The imposture shall be proved. I will avoid This marplot of ambition, and connect My diabolical mind with that lapsed soul Of undiscoverable craft which fills 2 The serpent and his sons. And thus unknown, ; My lubricating snakeship will I wind ‘ Cunningly onward, and, observing all, Traverse this haunted garden, self-involved, In mazy complications. I can coil, And turn, and turn, and go straight on. Sweet words Must hang upon my triple-forked tongue, From which the honied prodigality Of guile, into her ear distilling, shall So metamorphose her, she shall become All appetite to taste, all hand to pluck The golden ruin. Wherefore more delay ? This very day, this hated man shall like A. god o’errule me, or a beast subserve. Chorus of Angels. They who from the etherial height Of heaven, audaciously despise Those beings of a lowlier flight, Who dwell beneath more dusky skies, Beware ; beware, ye proud ones, lest Like one our pure lips never name ; Ye learn how sweet the immortal rest Only by contrast with the pain COL @ \SOOKS.COM ,