PARADISE LOST , EXCERPT

"Hither of ill-joined sons and daughters born First from the ancient world those giants came with vain exploits, though then renowned: The builders next of Babel on the plain of Sennar, and still with vain design, New Babels, had they wherewithal, would build: Others came single; he, who, to be deemed a God, leaped fondly into Aetna flames, Empedocles ; and he, to enjoy Plato's Elysium, leaped into the sea, Cleombrotus; and many more too long, Embryos and idiots, eremites and friars White, black and gray, with all their trumpery.... "And now St. Peter at Heaven's wicket seems to wait them with his keys, and now at foot Of Heaven 's ascent they lift their feet, when to a violent cross wind from either coast Blows them transverse , ten thousand leagues awry Into the devious air:Then might ye see Cowls, hoods, and habits , with their wearers, lost, And fluttered into rags; then, reliques, beads , indulgences, dispenses, pardons, bulls, The sport of winds: All these, upwhorled aloft, Fly over the backside of the world far off into a Limbo large and broad, since called the Paradise of Fools, to few unknown Long after; now unpeopled and untrod." P. 30-31, PARADISE LOST by John Milton (1667, 2015)