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Of sorrow unfeigned and humiliation meek?
Undoubtedly he will relent and turn
From his displeasure, in whose look serene,
When angry most he seemed and most severe,
What else but favor, grace, and mercy shone?”

So spake our father penitent, nor Eve Felt less remorse: they forthwith to the place ? Repairing where he judged them prostrate fell Before him reverent, and both confessed Humbly their faults, and pardon begged, with tears Watering the ground, and with their sighs the air Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign Of sorrow unfeigned and humiliation meek.

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BOOK XI.

THE ARGUMENT.

THE Son of God presents to his Father the prayers of our first parents now repenting, and intercedes for them. God accepts them, but declares that they must no longer abide in Paradise: sends Michael with a band of Cherubim to dispossess them; but first to reveal to Adam future things. Michael's coming down. Adam shows to Eve certain ominous signs; he discerns Michael's approach, goes out to meet him: the Angel denounces their departure. Eve's lamentation. Adam pleads, but submits. The Angel leads him up to a high hill, sets before him in vision what shall happen till the flood.

THUS they in lowliest plight repentant stood
Praying; for from the mercy-seat above
Prevenient grace descending had removed
The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh
Regenerate grow instead, that sighs now breathed
Unutterable, which the spirit of prayer

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Inspired, and winged for Heaven with speedier flight Than loudest oratory: yet their port

Not of mean suitors, nor important less

Seemed their petition, than when the ancient pair 10 In fables old, less ancient yet than these,

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PARADISE LOST.

Deucalion and chaste Pyrrha, to restore

[BOOK XI.

The race of mankind drowned, before the shrine
Of Themis stood devout. To Heaven their prayers
Flew up, nor missed the way by envious winds
Blown vagabond or frustrate: in they passed
Dimensionless through heavenly doors; then clad
With incense, where the golden altar fumed,
By their great Intercessor, came in sight
Before the Father's throne: them the glad Son
Presenting, thus to intercede began :

"See, Father, what first fruits on

sprung

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20

earth are

From thy implanted grace in man, these sighs
And prayers, which in this golden censer, mixed
With incense, I thy priest before thee bring,
Fruits of more pleasing savor from thy seed
Sown with contrition in his heart, than those
Which, his own hand manuring, all the trees
Of Paradise could have produced, ere fallen
From innocence. Now therefore bend thine ear
To supplication, hear his sighs though mute;
Unskilful with what words to pray, let me
Interpret for him, me his advocate

And propitiation; all his works on me,
Good or not good, ingraft; my merit those
Shall perfect, and for these my death shall pay.
Accept me, and in me from these receive

16. vagabond, to and fro; wandering. -frustrate, frustrated; made vain.

17. Dimensionless, immaterial; not having dimensions like matter.

24. golden altar. "The golden altar which was before the throne." See Revelation viii. 3, 4.

28. manuring. See IV. 628.

25

30

35

33-34. his advocate and propitiation. "And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world." 1 John ii. 1, 2. 35. those, his good works. 36. these, his works not good. 37. these. See lines 20, 23, 31.

The smell of peace toward mankind; let him live
Before thee reconciled, at least his days
Numbered, though sad, till death, his doom (which I
To mitigate thus plead, not to reverse),

To better life shall yield him, where with me
All my redeemed may dwell in joy and bliss,
Made one with me, as I with thee am one."

To whom the Father, without cloud, serene :
"All thy request for man, accepted Son,
Obtain; all thy request was my decree.
But longer in that Paradise to dwell,
The law I gave to Nature him forbids:
Those pure immortal elements, that know
No
gross, no unharmonious mixture foul,
Eject him tainted now and purge him off
As a distemper, gross to air as gross,
And mortal food, as may dispose him best
For dissolution wrought by sin, that first
Distempered all things, and of incorrupt
Corrupted. I at first with two fair gifts
Created him endowed, with happiness
And immortality; that fondly lost,
This other served but to eternize woe,
Till I provided death; so death becomes
His final remedy, and after life,

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45

50

55

60

Tried in sharp tribulation and refined

By faith and faithful works, to second life
Waked in the renovation of the just,

Resigns him up with heaven and earth renewed.

39. his days, through all his days.

42. with me. "I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am." John xvii. 24.

44. Made one. See John xvii. 21.

47. my decree, what I had before decreed.

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But let us call to synod all the blest

Through Heaven's wide bounds; from them I will not hide

My judgments, how with mankind I proceed,

As how with peccant angels late they saw,

70

And in their state, though firm, stood more confirmed."

He ended, and the Son gave signal high
To the bright minister that watched; he blew
His trumpet, heard in Oreb since perhaps
When God descended, and perhaps once more
To sound at general doom.

The angelic blast

Filled all the regions: from their blissful bowers

Of amarantine shade, fountain or spring,

By the waters of life, where'er they sat

In fellowships of joy, the sons of light
Hasted, resorting to the summons high,

And took their seats; till from his throne supreme
The Almighty thus pronounced his sovran will:

"O sons, like one of us Man is become
To know both good and evil, since his taste
Of that defended fruit; but let him boast
His knowledge of good lost and evil got,
Happier had it sufficed him to have known
Good by itself, and evil not at all.

He sorrows now, repents, and prays contrite,
My motions in him; longer than they move,

70. peccant, sinning. late they saw. See VI. 831-877.

73. minister, servant; chief attendant. See Exodus xxiv. 13. Matthew xx. 26.

74. heard in Oreb. See Exodus xix. 19. Oreb, Horeb or Sinai. - perhaps, perhaps the

same.

75. once more. "For the trumpet shall sound." 1 Corinthians xv. 52.

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78. amarantine shade. See III. 353-361.

79. the waters of life. "And he shewed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb." Revelation xxii. 1.

86. defended, forbidden.

91. longer than they move, when they cease to move.

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