Five Sentences From Page 123 Book Meme

Lillie Yifu has an interesting book meme on her blog. The rules are fairly straight-forward:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

I wasn't tagged, but this is an interesting meme to me, so here goes. Besides, it gives me an opportunity to raise the reading level of my blog.

Find a book of at least 123 pages.
Hmm, "Go Dog Go!", not enough pages, although I wish there was a sequel, it's one of my favorite books. Let's try the next one. "Dick and Jane." Not enough pages, but I have to remember to finish that adventure novel, I had just made it to the good part where Dick and Jane were running and I want to find out where they were running to. Next book (seriously ;)

Post five sentences after sentence five from page 123.
Paradise Lost, by John Milton

Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
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 Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all; so thou,
Centring, receivest 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 summed up in Man.
With what delight could I have walked 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 crowned,
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 Heaven much worse would be my state.
But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven'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
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed,
Or won to what may work his utter loss,
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory sole among
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days
Continued making; and who knows how long
Before had been contriving?

Good old John, he loves the run-on sentences. It is not exactly my favorite passage from Paradise Lost. Also, I am reading it online, which made finding page 123 a problem, but I pasted it into a work processor and went with the result.

By the way, "Go Dog Go" is one of my favorite books - I remember it fondly from my childhood; reading it over and over and looking at the pictures.