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be death.

79° less?

Horrid, if true! Yet why? It was but breath Can
Of life that sinned: what dies but what had Death
life
And sin? The body properly hath neither.
All of me, then, shall die: let this appease
The doubt, since human reach no further knows.
For, though the Lord of all be infinite,

Is his wrath also? Be it, Man is not so,
But mortal doomed. 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 himself
Impossible is held, as argument

800

Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw out,
For anger's sake, finite to infinite

In punished Man, to satisfy his rigour
Satisfied never? That were to extend
His sentence beyond dust and Nature's law;
By which all causes else according still
To the reception of their matter act,

Not to the extent of their own sphere. But say
That death be not one stroke, as I supposed,
Bereaving sense, but endless misery

From this day onward, which I feel begun
Both in me and without me, and so last
To perpetuity-Ay me! that fear

810

Comes thundering back with dreadful revolution
On my defenceless head! Both Death and I
Am found eternal, and incorporate both :
Nor I on my part single; in me all
Posterity stands cursed. Fair patrimony
That I must leave ye, sons! Oh, were I able

ye

none !

820

The To waste it all myself, and leave stings So disinherited, how would ye bless of Con- Me, now your curse! Ah, why should all

science

Mankind,

For one man's fault, thus guiltless be condemned?
If guiltless! But from me what can proceed
But all corrupt-both mind and will depraved
Not to do only, but to will the same

With me? How can they, then, acquitted stand
In sight of God? Him, after all disputes,
Forced I absolve. All my evasions vain
And reasonings, though through mazes, lead me
still

830

But to my own conviction: first and last
On me, me only, as the source 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-
Than all the world much heavier, though divided
With that bad Woman? Thus, what thou desir❜st,
And what thou fear'st, alike destroys all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
Beyond all past example and futúre—
To Satan only like, both crime and doom.
O Conscience! into what abyss of fears
And horrors hast thou driven me; out of which
I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged!'
Thus Adam to himself lamented loud

840

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

Outstretched he lay, on the cold ground, and oft Adam re-
Cursed his creation; Death as oft accused
Of tardy execution, since denounced

The day of his offence. Why comes not Death,'
Said he, with one thrice-acceptable stroke

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To end me? Shall Truth fail to keep her word,
Justice divine not hasten to be just?

But Death comes not at call; Justice divine
Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries.
O woods, O fountains, hillocks, dales, and
bowers!

860

With other echo late I taught your shades
To answer, and resound far other song.'
Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,
Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,
Soft words to his fierce passion she assayed;
But her, with stern regard, he thus repelled :-
"Out of my sight, thou serpent! That name
best

Befits thee, with him leagued, thyself as false
And hateful: nothing wants, but that thy shape
Like his, and colour serpentine, may show 870
Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee
Henceforth, lest that too heavenly form, pretended
To hellish falsehood, snare them. But for thee
I had persisted happy, had not thy pride
And wandering vanity, when least was safe,
Rejected my forewarning, and disdained
Not to be trusted-longing to be seen,
Though by the Devil himself; him overweening
To overreach; but, with the Serpent meeting,
Fooled and beguiled; by him thou, I by thee, 880
To trust thee from my side, imagined wise,
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults,

proaches Eve

950 part,

The So now, of what thou know'st not, who desir❜st recon- The punishment all on thyself! Alas! ciliation Bear thine own first, ill able to sustain His full wrath whose thou feel'st as yet least And my displeasure bear'st so ill. If prayers Could alter high decrees, I to that place Would speed before thee, and be louder heard, That on my head all might be visited, Thy frailty and infirmer sex forgiven, To me committed, and by me exposed. But rise; let us no more contend, nor blame Each other, blamed enough elsewhere, but strive In offices of love how we may lighten Each other's burden in our share of woe; Since this day's death denounced, if aught I see, Will prove no sudden, but a slow-paced evil, A long day's dying, to augment our pain, And to our seed (O hapless seed!) derived.' To whom thus Eve, recovering heart, replied:

• Adam, by sad experiment I know

960

970

How little weight my words with thee can find,
Found so erroneous, thence by just event
Found so unfortunate. Nevertheless,
Restored by thee, vile as I am, to place
Of new acceptance, hopeful to regain
Thy love, the sole contentment of my heart,
Living or dying from thee I will not hide
What thoughts in my unquiet breast are risen,
Tending to some relief of our extremes,
Or end, though sharp and sad, yet tolerable,
As in our evils, and of easier choice.
If care of our descent perplex us most,

Which must be born to certain woe, devoured 980

By Death at last (and miserable it is
To be to others cause of misery,

Our own begotten, and of our loins to bring
Into this cursed world a woeful race,
That, after wretched life, must be at last
Food for so foul a monster), in thy power
It lies, yet ere conception, to prevent
The race unblest, to being yet unbegot.
Childless thou art; childless remain. So Death
Shall be deceived his glut, and with us two 990
Be forced to satisfy his ravenous maw.
But, if thou judge it hard and difficult,
Conversing, looking, loving, to abstain
From love's due rites, nuptial embraces sweet,
And with desire to languish without hope
Before the present object languishing
With like desire-which would be misery
And torment less than none of what we dread-
Then, both ourselves and seed at once to free
From what we fear for both, let us make short;
Let us seek Death, or, he not found, supply 1000
With our own hands his office on ourselves.
Why stand we longer shivering under fears
That show no end but death, and have the power,
Of many ways to die the shortest choosing,
Destruction with destruction to destroy?'
She ended here, or vehement despair
Broke off the rest; 80 much of death her
thoughts

Had entertained as dyed her cheeks with pale.
But Adam, with such counsel nothing swayed, 1010
To better hopes his more attentive mind
Labouring had raised, and thus to Eve replied:-
'Eve, thy contempt of life and pleasure seems

'What if we seek Death at once?'

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