It's appropriate that I finished Paradise Lost on the morning of Christmas Eve, because the poem ends in glorious hope for the coming Messiah, the one who will overturn the curse for Adam's sin. In the last two books of the poem, the Archangel Michael reveals the future to Adam: one day, the Seed of the Woman will come and restore the world to Paradise--this time, for all eternity.

In the Christmas spirit, I loved these lines from Book XII:

     . . . At his birth a Star,
     Unseen before in heaven, proclaims him come,
     And guides the eastern sages, who inquire
     His place, to offer incense, myrrh, and gold:
     His place of birth a solemn Angel tells
     To simple shepherds, keeping watch by night;
     They gladly thither haste, and by a quire
     Of squadroned Angels hear his carol sung.
     A Virgin is his mother, but his sire
     The Power of the Most High. He shall ascend
     The throne hereditary, and bound his reign
     With Earth’s wide bounds, his glory with the Heavens.

lines 360-371