![John Milton, Satan’s First Speech, Paradise Lost Book I, 1667](https://pbcdn1.podbean.com/imglogo/ep-logo/pbblog17215692/John-milton_gephis_300x300.jpg)
A personal favourite. Paradise Lost is a giant, incomprehensible tome suited only to literary scholars and religious maniacs, but it gives us a speech that has resonated through time. You can really feel the fire in Satan's blood as he contemplates his rejection from Heaven and casting down to hell.
John Milton, Satan’s First Speech, Paradise Lost Book I, 1667
Is this the Region, this the Soil, the Clime,
Said then the lost Arch Angel, this the seat
That we must change for Heav'n, this mournful gloom
For that celestial light? Be it so, since hee
Who now is Sovran can dispose and bid
What shall be right: fardest from him is best
Whom reason hath equald, force hath made supream
Above his equals. Farewel happy Fields
Where Joy for ever dwells: Hail horrours, hail
Infernal world, and thou profoundest Hell
Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings
A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.
The mind is its own place, and in it self
Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.
What matter where, if I be still the same,
And what I should be, all but less then hee
Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least
We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:
Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce
To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:
Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.
But wherefore let we then our faithful friends,
Th' associates and copartners of our loss
Lye thus astonisht on th' oblivious Pool,
And call them not to share with us their part
In this unhappy Mansion, or once more
With rallied Arms to try what may be yet
Regaind in Heav'n, or what more lost in Hell?
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