Milton Describing Satan's Shield, Paradise Lost, Book 1 (ll. 283-330)

[setting: the Fallen Angels have awakened to find themselves floating on the surface of a lake of fire in Hell, and Beelzebub, Satan's chief lieutenant, has roused his commander to resume his command of the fallen legions]   

[Beelzebub] scarce had ceased when the superior Fiend            [i.e., Satan]

Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield

Ethereal temper, massy, large and round,

Behind him cast; the broad circumference

Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb

Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views                        [i.e., Galileo]

At evening from the top of Fesole,

Or in Valdarno, to descry new lands,

Rivers or mountains in her spotty globe.

His spear, to equal which the tallest pine

Hewn on Norwegian hills, to be the mast

Of some great ammiral, were but a wand,

He walked with to support uneasy steps

Over the burning marl, not like those steps

On heaven's azure; and the torrid clime

Smote on him sore besides, vaulted with fire;

Nathless he so endured, till on the beach

Of that inflamed sea, he stood and called

His legions, angel forms, who lay entranced

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks

In Vallombrosa, where th' Etrurian shades

High overarched embow'r; or scattered sedge

Afloat, when with fierce winds Orion armed

Hath vexed the Red Sea coast, whose waves o'erthew

Busiris and his Memphian chivalry,                              

While with perfidious hatred they pursued

The sojourners of Goshen, who beheld           [i.e., Israelites fleeing Egyptians at Red Sea's parting]

From the safe shore their floating carcasses

And broken chariot wheels; so thick bestrown

Abject and lost lay these, covering the flood

Under amazement of their hideous change.