From the Ninth Book of Klopstock's Messiah

Where, in the midst of vast Infinitude, The arm creative stopp'd,—dread bound of space, Alien to God, and from his sight exil'd, Hell rolls her sulph'rous torrents. There, nor law Of motion, nor eternal Order reigns; But anarchy instead, and wild uproar, And ruinous tumult. Now with lightning speed Th' accursed sphere, with all its flames, flies up Into the void abrupt, and with its roar, With groans commixt, and shrieks, and boundless yells, Astounds the nearest stars: calm now and slow, With dreadful peace the universal waves Of sulphur roll, and pour a mightier flood On those tormented, their eternal crimes Avenging with fresh pain and sharper darts Of never-dying torture.—They meanwhile, The caitiff and his puissant guide, on wing Impetuous, skirt creation's flaming waste, And suns innumerable, and with prone flight Descending down, light sheer upon the coast Of outmost Night. The guard seraphic knows. That power ministrant,—— ——and with quick despatch Unfolds the Stygian doors, that jarring hoarse Slow on their adamantine hinges turn'd, And open'd to their ken the dread abyss, Unfathomably deep, mother of woes. Not mountains pil'd on mountains would close up Th' infernal entrance: they would but increase Its native ruggedness. No path leads down To those abhorred deeps. Close by the gate Impendent rocks with fiery whirlwinds cleft For ever fell into the deep abyss, Continuous ruin.—— ——On the hideous brink Of this great tomb, where Death nor sleeps, nor dies, In dreadful silence, with the wretch hell-doom'd, Stood the Death-angel.——