All I receiv'd, unable to perform
Thy terms, too hard, by which I was to hold
The good I fought not. To the loss of that,
Sufficient penalty, why haft thou added
The sense of endless woes? inexplicable
Thy justice seems; yet, to fay truth, too late
I thus conteft; then should have been refus'd
Those terms whatever, when they were propos'd:
Thou didft accept them; wilt thou enjoy the good,
Then cavil the conditions? and though God
Made thee without thy leave, what if thy Son 760
Prove disobedient, and reprov'd, retort,
Wherefore didft thou beget me? I fought it not:
Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee
That proud excuse? yet him not thy election,
But natural necessity begot.
God made thee of choice his own, and of his own
To ferve him; thy reward was of his grace,
Thy punishment then juftly is at his will.
Be it fo, for I fubmit; his doom is fair,
That duft I am, and shall to duft return:
O welcome hour whenever! why delays
His hand to execute what his decree
Fix'd on this day? why do I overlive,
Why am I mock'd with death, and lengthen'd out To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet
Mortality my fentence, and be earth
Infenfible, how glad would lay me down
As in my mother's lap? there I should rest
And fleep fecure; his dreadful voice no more
Would thunder in my ears, no fear of worse,
To me and to my ofspring,would torment me
With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt
Pursues me ftill, left all I cannot die,
Left that pure breath of life, the spirit of Man,
Which God infpir'd, cannot together perish
With this corporeal clod; then in the gráve,
Or in some other dismal place, who knows
But I fhall die a living death? O thought
Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath
Of life that finn'd; what dies but what had life 790
And fin? the body properly hath neither.
All of me then shall die: let this appease
The doubt, fince human reach no further knows. For though the Lord of all be infinite,
Is his wrath alfo? be it, Man is not fo,
But mortal doom'd. How can he exercise
Wrath without end on Man,whom death must end? Can he make deathless death? that were to make Strange contradiction, which to God himfelf
Impoffible is held, as argument
Of weakness, not of pow'r. Will he draw out,
For anger's fake, finite to infinite
In punish'd Man, to fatisfy his rigor
Satisfy'd never? that were to extend
His fentence beyond dust and nature's law,
By which all caufes elfe according ftill
To the reception of their matter act,
Not to th' extent of their own sphere. But say
That death be not one stroke, as I fuppos'd,
Bereaving sense, but endless misery
From this day onward, which I feel begun
Both in me, and without me, and fo last
To perpetuity; Ay me, that fear
Comes thund'ring back, with dreadful revolution,
On
my defenfelefs head; both Death and I
Am found eternal, and incorporate both;
Nor I on my part fingle, in me all
Pofterity stands curs'd: Fair patrimony
That I must leave ye, Sons; O were I able
To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!
So difinherited how would ye blefs
Me now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind
For one man's fault thus guiltless be condemn'd,
If guiltless? But from me what can proceed,
But all corrupt, both mind and will deprav'd; 825
Not to do only, but to will the same
With me? how can they then acquitted stand
In fight of God? Him, after all disputes,
Forc'd I abfolve: all my evafions vain,
And reasonings, though through mazes, lead me ftill
But to my own conviction: first and last
On me, me only, as the fource and spring
Of all corruption, all the blame lights due;
So might the wrath. Fond wish! couldst thou support
That burden heavier than the earth to bear,
835
Than all the world much heavier, though divided
With that bad Woman? Thus what thou defir'st
And what thou fear'st, alike destroys all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
Beyond all paft example and future,
To Satan only like both crime and doom.
O Conscience, into what abyfs of fears
And horrors haft thou driv'n me; out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd!
Thus Adam to himself lamented loud
Through the still night; not now, as ere Man fell,
Wholesome and cool, and mild, but with black air
Accompanied, with damps and dreadful gloom,
Which to his evil conscience represented
All things with double terror: on the ground 850
Outftretch'd he lay, on the cold ground, and oft
Curs'd his creation, death as oft accus'd
Of tardy execution, fince denounc'd
The day of his offence. Why comes not death,
Said he, with one thrice acceptable stroke
To end me? fhall truth fail to keep her word,
Justice divine not haften to be just?
But death comes not at call, justice divine
Mends not her flowest pace for pray'rs or cries.
O woods, O fountains, hillocs, dales and bowers, 860 With other echo late I taught your fhades
To answer, and refound far other fong.
Whom thus afflicted when fad Eve beheld,
Defolate where she fat, approaching nigh,
Soft words to his fierce paffion she assay'd:
But her with ftern regard he thus repell❜d.
Out of my fight, thou Serpent; that name best
Befits thee with him leagu'd, thyself as false
And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape,
Like his, and color ferpentine, may show 8.70
Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee
Henceforth; left that too heav'nly form, pretended
To hellish falfhood, fnare them. But for thee
I had perfifted happy, had not thy pride
And wand'ring vanity, when least was safe,
Rejected my forewarning, and disdain'd
Not to be trufted, longing to be seen
Though by the Devil himself, him overweening
To over-reach; but with the Serpent meeting
Fool'd and beguil'd, by him thou, I by thee,
To truft thee from my fide, imagin'd wife,
Conftant, mature, proof against all assaults,
And understood not all was but a fhow
Rather than folid virtue, all but a rib
Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears,
More to the part finifter, from me drawn,
Well if thrown out, as fupernumerary
To my just number found. O why did God,
Creator wife, that peopled highest Heaven
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