Bent their aspect, and whom they wish'd beheld, With complicated monsters head and tail,
Their mighty chief return’d: loud was the acclaim : Scorpion, and asp, and amphisbæna dire,
Forth rush'd in haste the great consulting peers, Cerastes horn'd, hydrus, and elops drear,
Rais'd from their dark divan, and with like joy And dipsas; (not so thick swarm'd once the soil
Congratulant approach'd him ; who with hand Bedropt with blood of Gorgon, or the isle
Silence, and with these words, attention won. Ophiusa,) but still greatest he the midst,
“ Thrones, dominations, princedoms, virtues, Now dragon grown, larger than whom the Sun
powers;

Engender'd in the Pythian vale or slime,
For in possession such, not only of right,

Huge Python, and his power no less he seem'd I call ye, and declare ye now; return'd

Above the rest still to retain; they all Successful beyond hope, to lead ye forth

Him follow'd, issuing forth to the open field, Triumphant out of this infernal pit

Where all yet left of that revolted rout, Abominable, accurs'd, the house of woe,

Heaven-fall’n, in station stood or just array ;
And dungeon of our tyrant: now possess,

Sublime with expectation when to see
As lords, a spacious world, to our native Heaven In triumph issuing forth their glorious chief;
Little inferior, by my adventure hard

They saw, but other sight instead! a crowd
With peril great achiev'd. Long were to tell Of ugly serpents ; horror on them fell,
What I have done ; what suffer'd ; with what pain And horrid sympathy; for, what they saw,
Voyag'd th' unreal, vast, unbounded deep They felt themselves, now changing; down their arms,
Of horrible confusion; over which

Down fell both spear and shield ; down they as fast; By Sin and Death a broad way now is pav'd And the dire hiss renew'd, and the dire form To expedite your glorious march ; but I

Catch'd, by contagion; like in punishment. Toil'd out my uncouth passage, forc'd to ride As in their crime. Thus was the applause they meant, The untractable abyss, plung’d in the womb Turn'd to exploding hiss, triumph to shame Of unoriginal Night and Chaos wild;

Cast on themselves from their own mouths. There That, jealous of their secrets, fiercely oppos'd

stood My journey strange, with clamorous uproar A grove hard by, sprung up with this their change, Protesting Fate supreme; thence how I found His will who reigns above, to aggravate The new created world, which fame in Heaven Their penance, laden wiih fair fruit, like that Long had foretold, a fabric wonderful

Which grew in Paradise, the bait of Eve Of absolute perfection! therein Man

Us'd by the tempter: on that prospect strange Plac'd in a Paradise, by our exíle

Their earnest eyes they fix'd, imagining Made happy: him by fraud I have seduc'd For one forbidden tree a multitude From his Creator; and, the more to increase Now ris'n, to work them further woe or shame; Your wonder, with an apple; he, thereat Yet, parch'd with scalding thirst and hunger fierce. Offended, worth your laughter! hath given up Though to delude them sent, could not abstain; Both his beloved Man and all his world,

But on they roll'd in heaps, and up the trees To Sin and Death a prey, and so to us,

Climbing, sat thicker than the snaky locks Without our hazard, labor, or alarm;

That curld Megæra : greediły they pluck'd To range in, and to dwell, and over Man

The fruitage fair to sight, like that which grew To rule, as over all he should have ruld.

Near that bituminous lake where Sudd flam'd: True is, me also he hath judg'd, or rather This more delusive, not the touch, but taste Me not, but the brute serpent in whose shape Deceiv’d: they, fondly thinking to allay Man I deceiv’d: that which to me belongs Their appetite with gust, instead of fruit Is enmity, which he will put between

Chew'd bitter ashes, which the offended tasto Me and mankind; I am to bruise his heel; With spattering noise rejected : oft they assay'd, His seed, when is not set, shall bruise my head : Hunger and thirst constraining; drugg'd as oft, A world who would not purchase with a bruise, With hatefullest disrelish writh'd their jaws, Or much more grievous pain ?-Ye have the account With soot and cinders filld; so oft they fell of my performance: what remains, ye gods, Into the same illusion, not as Man (plagu'd But up, and enter now into full bliss ?"

Whom they triumph'd once laps'd. Thus were they So having said, awhile he stood, expecting And worn with famine, long and ceaseless hiss, Their universal shout and high applause,

Till their lost shape, permitted, they resum'd ; To fill his ear; when, contrary, he lears Yearly enjoin'd, some say, to undergo On all sides, from innumerable tongues,

This annual humbling certain number'd days, A dismal universal hiss, the sound

To dash their pride, and joy, for Man seduc'd. Of public scorn; he wonder'd, but not long However, some tradition they dispers'd Had leisure, wondering at himself now more ; Among the Heathen, of their purchase got, His visage drawn he felt to sharp and spare ; And fabled how the serpent, whom they callid His arms elung to his ribs; his legs entwining Ophion, with Eurynome, the wideEach other, till supplanted down he fell

Encroaching Eve perhaps, had first the rule A monstrous serpent on his belly prone,

Of high Olympus; thence by Saturn driven Reluctant, but in vain ; a greater power

And Ops, ere yet Dictæan Jove was born. Now ruled him, punish'd in the shape he sinn'd, Meanwhile in Paradise the hellish pair According to his doom : he would have spoke, Too soon arriv'd ; Sin, there in power before, But hiss for hiss retum'd with forked tongue Once actual; now in body, and to dwell To forked tongue; for now were all transform'd Habitual habitant; behind her Death, Alike, to serpents all, as accessories

Close following pace for pace, not mounted yet To his bold riot : dreadful was the din

On his pale horse: to whom Sin thus began. Of hissing ihrough the hall, thick swarming now Second of Satan sprung, all-conquering Death

MILTON.

94

What think’st thou of our empire now, though earn'd In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite,
With travel difficult, not better far

Of noxious efficacy, and when to join
Than still at Hell's dark threshold to have sat watch, In synod unbenign; and taught the fix'd
Unnam’d, undreaded, and thyself half-starv'd ?" Their influence malignant when to shower,

Whom thus the Sin-born monster answer'd soon. Which of them rising with the Sun, or falling, “ To me, who with eternal famine pine,

Should prove tempestuous; to the winds they set
Alike is Hell, or Paradise, or Heaven;

Their corners, when with bluster to confound
There best, where most with ravine I may meet; Sea, air, and shore; the thunder when to roll
Which here, though plenteous, all too liitle seerns With terror through the dark aëreal hall.
To stuff this maw, this vast unhide-bound corps." Some say he bid his angels turn askance

To whom the incestuous mother thus replied. The poles of Earth, twice ten degrees and more
Thou therefore on these herbs, and fruits, and From the Sun's axle; they with labor push'u
flowers,

Oblique the centric globe: some say, the Sun
Feed first ; on each beast next, and fish and fowl; Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road
No homely morsels! and whatever thing

Like distant breadth to Taurus with the seven
The scythe of Time mows down, devour unspar'd; Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins,
Till I, in Man residing, through the race, Up to the tropic Crab: thence down amain
His thoughts, his looks, words, actions, all infect; By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales,
And season him thy last and sweetest prey." As deep as Capricorn; to bring in change

This said, they both betook them several ways, Or seasons to each clime; else had the spring
Both to destroy, or unirnmortal make

Perpetual smild on Earth with vernant flow'rs,
All kinds, and for destruction to mature

Equal in days and nights, except to those
Sooner or later; which the Almighty seeing. Beyond the polar circles; to them day
From his transcendent seat the saints among Had unbenighted shone, while the low Sun,
To those bright orders uttered thus his voice. To recompense his distance, in their sight

"See, with what heat these dogs of Hell advance Had rounded still the horizon, and not known To waste and havoc yonder world, which I Or east or west; which had forbid the snow So fair and good created; and had still

From cold Estotiland, and south as far Kept in that state, had not the folly of Man Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit Let in these wasteful furies, who impute

The Sun, as from Thyestean banquet, turn'd
Folly to me; so doth the prince of Hell

His course intended ; else, how had the world
And his adherents, that with so much ease Inhabited, though sinless, more than now,
I suffer them to enter and possess

Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat?
A place so heavenly: and, conniving, seem These changes in the Heavens, though slow, produc'd
To gratify my scornful enemies,

Like change on sea and land ; sideral blast,
That laugh, as if, transported with some fit Vapor, and mist, and exhalation hot,
Of passion, I to them had quitted all,

Corrupt and pestilent: now, from the north
At random yielded up to their misrule;

Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shore,
And know not that I callid, and drew them thither, Bursting their brazen dungeon, arm'd with ice,
My Hell-hounds, to lick up the draff and filth And snow, and hail, and stormy gust and flaw,
Which Man's polluting sin with taint hath shed Boreas, and Cæcias, and Argestes loud,
On what was pure; till crammid and gorg’d, nigh And Thrascias, rend the woods, and seas upturn,
burst

With adverse blast upturns them from the south
With suck'd and glutted ofsal, at one sling

Notus, and Afer black with thunderous clouds
Of thy victorious arm, well pleasing Son,

From Serraliona; thwart of these, as fierce,
Both Sin, and Death, and yawning Grave, at last, Forth rush the Lévant and the Ponent winds,
Through Chaos hurl’d, obstruct the mouth of Hell Eurus and Zephyr, with their lateral noise,
For ever, and seal up his ravenous jaws.

Sirocco and Libecchio. Thus began
Then Heaven and Earth renew'd shall be made pure Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first,
To sanctity, that shall receive no stain:

Daughter of Sin, among the irrational
Till then, the curse pronounc'd on both precedes." Death introduc'd, through fierce antipathy:

He ended, and the heavenly audience loud Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl
Sung Halleluiah, as the sound of seas,

And fish with fish: to graze the herb all leaving,
Through multitude that sung: “ Just are thy ways, Devour'd each other; nor stood much in awe
Righteous are thy decrees on all thy works ; Of man, but fed him: or, with countenance grim,
Who can extenuate thee? Next, to the Son, Glar'd on him passing. These were from without
Destin'd Restorer of mankind, by whom

The growing miseries, which Adam saw
New Heaven and Earth shall to the ages rise, Already in part, though hid in gloomiest shade
Or down frorn Heaven descend."-Such was their To sorrow abandon'd, but worse felt within ;
song ;

And, in a troubled sea of passion tost,
While the Creator, calling forth by name

Thus to disburden sought with sad complaint.
His mighty angels, gave them several charge, “O miserable of happy! Is this the end
As sorted best with present things. The Sun of this new glorious world, and me so late
Had first his precept so to move, so shine, The glory of that glory, who now become
As might affect the Earth with cold and heat Accurs'd, of blessed? hide me from the face
Scarce tolerable, and from the north to call of God, whom to behold was then my height
Decrepit winter; from the south to bring

of happiness !-Yet well, if here would end
Solstitial summer's heat. To the blanc Moon The misery; I deservd it, and would bear
Her office they prescribed; to the other five My own deservings; but this will not serve:
Their planetary motions, and aspécts,

All that I eat or drink, or shall begel,

Is propagated curse. voice, once heard

Strange contradiction, which to God himself Delightfully, Increase and multiply;

Impossible is held; as argument Now death to hear! for what can I increase, Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw out, Or multiply, but curses on my head?

For anger's sake, finite to infinite, Who of all ages to succeed, but, feeling

In punish'd Man, to satisfy his rigor, The evil on him brought by me, will curse Satisfied never? That were to extend My head? Ill fare our ancestor impure,

His sentence beyond dust and Nature's law: For this we may thank Adam! but his thanks By which all causes else, according still Shall be the execration : so, besides

To the reception of their matter, act; Mine own that bide upon me, all from me

Not to the extent of their own sphere. But say Shall with a fierce reflux on me rebound;

That death be not one stroke, as I supposid,
On me, as on their natural centre, light

Bereaving sense, but endless misery
Heavy, though in their place. O fleeting joys From this day onward; which I feel begurr
Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes ! Both in me, and without me: and so last
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay

To perpetuity :-Ay me! that fear
To moald me Man? Did I solicit thee

Comes thundering back with dreadful revolution
From darkness to promote me, or here place On my defenceless head; both Death and I
In this delicious garden? As my will

Are found eternal, and incorporate both;
Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right Nor I on my part single; in me all
And equal to reduce me to my dust;

Posterity stands curs’d: fair patrimony
Desirous to resign and render back

That I must leave ye, sons ! O, were I able All I receivid ; unable to perform

To waste it all myself, and leave ye none ! Thy terms too hard, by which I was to hold So disinherited, how would you bless The good I sought not. To the loss of that, Me, now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added

For one man's fault, thus guiltless be condemn'd, The sense of endless woes? Inexplicable

If guiltless ? But from me what can proceed, Thy justice seems; yet, to say truth, too late But all corrupt; both mind and will deprav'd I thus contest; then should have been refus'd Not to do only, but to will the same Those terms, whatever, when they were propos'd: With me? How can they then acquitted stand Thou didst accept them: wilt thou enjoy the good, In sight of God? Him, after all disputes, Then cavil the conditions? and, though God Forc'd I absolve: all my evasions vain, Made thee without thy leave, what if thy son And reasonings, though through mazes, lead me still Prove disobedient; and, reprov'd, retort,

But to my own conviction : first and last Wherefore didst thou beget me? I sought it not:' On me, me only, as the source and spring Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee Of all corruption, all the blame lights due ; That proud excuse ? yet him not thy election, So might the wrath! fond wish! couldst thou support But natural necessity, begot.

That burden, heavier than the Earth to bear; God made thee of choice his own, and of his own Than all the world much heavier, though divided To serve him; thy reward was of his grace; With that bad woman? Thus, what thou desir'st, Thy punishment then justly is at his will. And what thou fear’st, alike destroys all hope Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair,

Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
That dust I am, and shall to dust return:

Beyond all past example and future;
O welcome hour whenever! Why delays To Satan only like both crime and doom.
His hand to execute what his decree

O Conscience! into what abyss of fears
Fix'd on this day? Why do I overlive?

And horrors hast thou driven me; out of which Why am I mock'd with death, and lengthen'd out I find no way, from deep to deeper plung'd !" To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet Thus Adam to himself lamented loud, Mortality my sentence, and be earth

Through the still night; not now, as ere Man fell, Insensible! How glad would lay me down Wholesome, and cool, and mild, but with black air As in my mother's lap! There I should rest Accompanied ; with damps, and dreadful gloom; And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more Which to his evil conscience represented Would thunder in my ears; no fear of worse All things with double terror : on the ground To me, and to my offspring, would torment me Outstretch'd he lay, on the cold ground ; and oft With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt

Curs'd his creation ; Death as oft accus'd Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die ;

Of tardy execution since denounc'd Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of Man The day of his offence. “Why comes not Death," Which God inspir'd, cannot together perish Said he,“ with one thrice-acceptable stroke With this corporeal clod; then, in the grave, To end me? Shall Truth fail to keep her word, Or in some other dismal place, who knows Justice Divine not hasten to be just ? But I shall die a living death? O thought But Death comes not at call; Justice Divine Horrid, if true! Yet why? It was but breath Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries. Of life that sinn'd; what dies but what had life O woods, O fountains, hillocks, dales, and bowers ! And sin? The body properly hath neither. With other echo late I taught your shades All of me then shall die : let this appease To answer, and resound far other song."The doubt, since human reach no further knows. Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld For though the Lord of all be infinite,

Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh, Is his wrath also ? Be it, Man is not so,

Soft words to his fierce passion she assay'd: But mortal doom'd. How can he exercise But her with stem regard he thus repell’d. Wrath without end on Man, whom death must end? “Out of my sight, thou serpent! That name best Can he make deathless death? That were to make Befits thee with him leagu'd, thyself as false

!

And hateful; nothing wants, but that thy shape, Acknowledg'd and deplor'd in Adam wrought
Like his, and color serpentine, may show

Commiseration : soon his heart relented
'Thy inward fraud; to warn all creatures from thee Towards her, his life so late, and sole delight,
Henceforth ; lest that too heavenly form, pretended Now at his feet submissive in distress ;
To hellish falsehood, snare them! But for thee Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking,
I had persisted happy; had not thy pride

His counsel, whom she had displeas'd, his aid :
And wandering vanity, when least was safe, As one disarm’d, his anger all he lost,
Rejected my forewarning, and disdain'd

And thus with peaceful words uprais'd her soon.
Not to be trusted ; longing to be seen,

“ Unwary, and too desirous, as before,
Though by the Devil himself; him overweening So now of what thou know'st not, who desir’st
To over-reach; but, with the serpent meeting, The punishment all on thyself; alas!
Fool'd and beguil'd; by him thou, I by thee, Bear thine own first, ill able to sustain
To trust thee from my side; imagin'd wise, His full wrath, whose thou feelst as yet least part,
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults ; And my displeasure bear'st so ill. If prayers
And understood not all was but a show,

Could alter high decrees, I to that place
Rather than solid virtue; all but a rib

Would speed before thee, and be louder heard,
Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears, That on my head all might be visited;
More to the part sinister, from me drawn;

Thy frailty and infirmer sex forgiven,
Well if thrown out, as supernumerary

To me committed, and by me expos'd.
To my just number found. 0! why did God, But rise ;—let us no more contend, nor blame
Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven Each other, blam'd enough elsewhere; but strive
With spirits masculine, create at last

In offices of love, how we may lighten
This novelty on Earth, this fair defect

Each other's burthen, in our share of woe; Of Nature, and not fill the world at once

Since this day's death denounc'd, if aught I see, With men, as angels, without feminine ;

Will prove no sudden, but a slow-pac'd, evil ; Or find some other way to generate

A long day's dying to augment our pain,
Mankind ? This mischief had not then befall'n, And to our seed (O hapless seed!) deriv'd."
And more that shall befall; innumerable

To whom thus Eve, recovering heart, replied.
Disturbances on Earth through female snares, “ Adam, by sad experiment I know
And straight conjunction with this sex: for either How little weight my words with thee can find,
He never shall find out fit mate, but such

Found so erroneous; thence by just event
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake; Found so unfortunate: nevertheless,
Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain Restor’d by thee, vile as I am, to place
Through her perverseness, but shall see her gaind of new acceptance, hopeful to regain
By a far worse; or, if she love, withheld Thy love, the sole contentment of my heart
By parents; or his happiest choice too late Living or dying, from thee I will not hide
Shall meet, already link'd and wedlock-bound What thoughts in my unquiet breast are risen,
To a fell adversary, his hate or shame;

Tending to some relief of our extremes,
Which infinite calamity shall cause

Or end; though sharp and sad, yet tolerable.
To human life, and household peace confound." As in our evils, and of easier choice.

He added not, and from her turn'd; but Eve, If care of our descent perplex us most,
Not so repuls'd, with tears that ceas'd not flowing Which must be born to certain woe, devour'd
And tresses all disorder'd, at his feet

By Death at last ; and miserable it is,
Fell humble; and, embracing them, besought To be to others cause of misery,
His peace, and thus proceeded in her plaint. Our own begotten, and of our loins to bring

“ Forsake me not thus, Adam! witness Heaven Into this cursed world a woful race,
What love sincere, and reverence in my heart That after wretched life must be at last
I bear thee, and unweeting have offended, Food for so foul a monster; in thy power
Unhappily deceiv'd! Thy suppliant

It lies, yet ere conception, to prevent
I beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not, The race unblest, to being yet unbegot.
Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid,

Childless thou art, childless remain : so Death
Thy counsel, in this uttermost distress,

Shall be deceiv'd his glut, and with us two
My only strength and stay: forlorn of thee, Be forc'd to satisfy his ravenous maw.
Whither shall I betake me, where subsist? But if thou judge it hard and difficult,
While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps, Conversing, looking, loving, to abstain
Between us two let there be peace; both joining, From love's due rites, nuptial embraces sweet,
As join'd in injuries, one enmity

And with desire to languish without hope,
Against a foe by doom express assign'd us, Before the present object languishing
That cruel serpent: on me exercise not

With like desire ; which would be misery
Thy hatred for this misery befallin;

And torment less than none of what we dread:
On me already lost, me than myself

Then, both ourselves and seed at once to free
More miserable! Both have sinn'd; but thou From what we fear for both, let us make short,
Against God only; I against God and thee; Let us seek Death ;-or, he not found, supply
And to the place of judgment will return, With our own hands his office on ourselves :
There with my crimes importune Heaven; that all Why stand we longer shivering under fears,'
The sentence, from thy head remov'd, may light That show no end but death, and have the power
On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe;
Me, me only, just object of his ire !"

of many ways to die the shortest choosing,

Destruction with destruction to destroy !"-
She ended weeping; and her lowly plight, She ended here, or vehement despair
Immovable, till peace obtain'd from fault Broke off the rest: so much of death her thought

Had entertain'd, as dy'd her cheeks with pale. Which might supply the Sun: such fire to use,
But Adam, with such counsel nothing sway'd, And what may else be remedy or cure
To better hopes his more attentive mind

To evils which our own misdeeds have wrought. Laboring had rais’d; and thus to Eve replied. He will instruct us praying, and of grace

“Eve, thy contempt of life and pleasure seems Beseeching him ; so as we need not fear To argue in thee something more sublime To pass commodiously this life, sustain'd And excellent, than what thy mind contemns ; By him with many comforts, till we end But self-destruction therefore sought, refutes In dust, our final rest and native home. That excellence thought in thee; and implies, What better can we do, than, to the place Not thy contempt, but anguish and regret Repairing where he judg'd us, prostrate fall For loss of life and pleasure overlov’d.

Before him reverent; and there confess Or if thou covet death, as utmost end

Humbly our faults, and pardon beg; with tears Of misery, so thinking to evade

Watering the ground, and with our sighs the air The penalty pronounc'd ; doubt not but God Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign Hath wiselier arm'd his vengeful ire, than so Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek? To be forestallid ; much more I fear lest death, Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn So snatch'd, will not exempt us from the pain From his displeasure ; in whose looks serene, We are by doom to pay; rather, such acts When angry most he seem'd and most severe, Of contumacy will provoke the Highest

What else but favor, grace, and mercy, shone?" To make death in us live: then let us seek

So spake our father penitent; nor Eve Some safer resolution, which methinks

Felt less remorse: they, forth with to the place
I have in view, calling to mind with heed Repairing where he judg'd them, prostrate fell
Part of our sentence, that thy seed shall bruise Before him reverent; and both confessid
The serpent's head; piteous amends! unless Humbly their faults, and pardon begg'd; with tea
Be meant, whom I conjecture, our grand foe, Watering the ground, and with their sighs the air
Satan; who, in the serpent, hath contriv'd Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign
Against us this deceit: to crush his head

Of sorrow unfeign'd, and humiliation meek.
Would be revenge indeed! which will be lost
By death brought on ourselves, or childless days
Resolv'd, as thou proposest : so our foe

BOOK XI.
Shall 'scape his punishment ordain'd, and we
Instead shall double ours upon our heads.

THE ARGUMENT.
No more be mention'd then of violence
Against ourselves; and wilful barrenness,

The Son of God presents to his Father the praye That cuts us off from hope ; and savors only of our first parents now repenting, and inte Rancor and pride, impatience and despite,

cedes for them: God accepts them, but declar Reluctance against God and his just yoke

that they must no longer abide in Paradise, senc Laid on our necks. Remember with what mild Michael with a band of cherubim to disposseAnd gracious temper he both heard, and judg'd, them; but first 10 reveal to Adam future things Without wrath or reviling; we expected

Michael's coming down. Adam shows to Eva Immediate dissolution, which we thought

certain ominous signs; he discerns Michael's ay Was meant by death that day; when lo! to thee proach ; goes out to meet him : the angel de Pains only in child-bearing were foretold,

nounces their departure. Eve's lamentation. Adar And bringing forth ; soon recompens'd with joy, pleads, but submits; the angel leads him up 10 Fruit of thy womb: on me the curse aslope

high hill ; sets before him in vision what sha Glanc'd on the ground; with labor I must earn happen till the Flood. My bread; what harm ? Idleness had been worse; My labor will sustain me; and, lest cold

Thus they, in lowliest plight, repentant stood Or heat should injure us, his timely care

Praying; for from the mercy-seat above Hath, unbesought, provided ; and his hands Prevenient grace descending had remov'd Cloth'd us unworthy, pitying while he judg'd ; The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh How much more if we pray him, will his ear Regenerate grow instead ; that sighs now breath'd Be open, and his heart to pity incline,

Unutterable; which the spirit of prayer And teach us further by what means to shun Inspir’d, and wing'd for Heaven with speedier fligh The inclement seasons, rain, ice, hail, and snow? Than loudest oratory: yet their port Which now the sky, with various face, begins Not of mean suitors; nor important less To show us in this mountain ; while the winds Seem'd their petition, than when the ancient pair Blow moist and keen, shattering the graceful locks In fables old, less ancient yet than these, Of these fair spreading trees; which bids us seek Deucalion and chaste Pyrrha, to restore Some better shroud, some better warmth to cherish The race of mankind drown'd, before the shrine Our limbs benumb'd, ere this diurnal star

Of Themis stood devout. To Heaven their prayers Leave cold the night, how we his gather'd beams Flew up, nor miss'd the way, by envious winds Reflected may with matter sere foment;

Blown vagabond or frustrate : in they pass'd Or, by collision of two bodies, grind

Dimensionless through heavenly doors; then clad
The air attrite to fire; as late the clouds

With incense, where the golden altar fum'd,
Justling, or push'd with winds, rude in their shock, By their great Intercessor, came in sight
Tine the slant lightning; whose thwart flame, driven Before the Father's throne : them the giad Son
down,

Presenting, thus to intercede began.
Kindles the gummy bark of fir or pine ;

“See, Father, what first-fruits on Earth are sprung And sends a comfortable heat from far

From thy implanted grace in Man; these sighs 14