O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred More justlydetails

O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferr’d

More justly; seat worthier of Gods, as built

With second thoughts, reforming what was old!

For what God after better worse would build?

Terrestrial Heav’n, danced round by other Heav’ns

That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps,

Light above light, for thee alone, as seems,

In thee concentring all their precious beams

Of sacred influence. As God in Heav’n

Is center, yet extends to all, so thou

Centring receiv’st from all those orbs: in thee,

Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears

Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth

Of creatures animate with gradual life

Of growth, sense, reason, all summ’d up in man.

With what delight could I have walk’d thee round,

If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange

Of hill and valley, rivers, woods, and plains,

Now land, now sea, and shores with forest crown’d,

Rocks, dens, and caves! but I in none of these

Find place or refuge; and the more I see

Pleasures about me, so much more I feel

Torment within me, as from the hateful siege

Of contraries; all good to me becomes

Bane, and in heav’n much worse would be my state.

But neither here seek I, no nor in Heav’n

To dwell, unless by mastering Heav’n’s Supreme;

Nor hope to be myself less miserable

By what I seek, but others to make such

As I, though thereby worse to me redound:

For only in destroying I find ease