Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet Mortality, my sentence, and be earth
Insensible! How glad would lay me down, As in my mother's lap! There I should rest, And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more Would thunder in my ears; no fear of worse To me, and to my offspring, would torment me With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt
Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die;
Lest that pure breath of life the spirit of Man Which God inspired, cannot together perish With this corporeal clod; then, in the grave, Or in some other dismal place, who knows But I shall die a living death? O thought Horrid, if true! Yet why? It was but breath Of life that sinned. What dies but what had life And sin? The body properly had neither.
All of me, then, shall die: let this appease
The doubt, since human reach no farther 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
Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw out,
For anger's sake, finite to infinite
In punished man, to satisfy his rigor,
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: ah, me! that fear
Comes thundering back with dreadful revolution On my defenseless head. defenseless head. Both death and I Are found eternal, and incorporate both;
Nor I on my part single; in me all
Posterity stands cursed
That I must leave ye, sons! Oh, were I able To waste it all myself, and leave ye none:
So disinherited, how would ye bless
Me, now your curse! Ah, why should all 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 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 desirest, And what thou fearest, alike destroys all hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable Beyond all past example and future;
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,
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 Outstretched he lay, on the cold ground, and oft Cursed his creation; Death as oft accused Of tardy execution, since denounced
The day of his offense. Why comes not Death, Said he, with one thrice-acceptable stroke
To end me? Shall Truth fail to keep her word, Justice divine not hasten to be just?
But Death comes not at all; Justice divine
Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries. O woods, O fountains, hillocks, dales, and bowers! 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 color serpentine, may show
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 over-reach; but, with the serpent meeting, Fooled and beguiled; by him thou, I by thee, To trust thee from my side, imagined wise,
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults; And understood not all was but a show, Rather than solid virtue; all but a rib Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears, More to the part sinister, from me drawn; Well if thrown out, as supernumerary
To my just number found. Oh! why did God, Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven With spirits masculine, create at last
This novelty on Earth, this fair defect Of nature, and not fill the world at once With men, as angels, without feminine; Or find some other way to generate
Mankind? This mischief had not then befallen, And more that shall befall; innumerable Disturbances on earth through female snares, And straight conjunction with this sex: for either He never shall find out fit mate, but such
As some misfortune brings him, or mistake; Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain, Through her perverseness, but shall see her gained By a far worse; or, if she love, withheld By parents; or his happiest choice too late Shall meet, already linked and wedlock-bound To a fell adversary, his hate or shame; Which infinite calamity shall cause
To human life, and household peace confound. He added not, and from her turned. Not so repulsed, with tears that ceased not flowing, And tresses all disordered, at his feet
Fell humble; and, embracing them, besought His peace, and thus proceeded in her plaint:
Forsake me not thus, Adam! witness, Heaven, What love sincere, and reverence in my heart, I bear thee, and unweeting have offended, Unhappily deceived! Thy suppliant,
I beg, and clasp thy knees; bereave me not, Whereon I live, thy gentle looks, thy aid, Thy counsel, in this uttermost distress My only strength and stay; forlorn of thee, Whither shall I betake me, where subsist? While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps, Between us two let there be peace; both joining, As joined in injuries, one enmity
Against a foe by doom express assigned us, That cruel serpent. On me exercise not Thy hatred for this misery befallen;
On me, already lost, me than thyself
More miserable. Both have sinned; but thou Against God only, I against God and thee; And to the place of judgment will return, There with my cries importune Heaven, that all The sentence, from thy head removed, may light On me, sole cause to thee of all this woe;
me only, just object of his ire!
She ended, weeping; and her lowly plight Immovable till peace obtained from fault Acknowledged and deplored, in Adam wrought Commiseration. Soon his heart relented, Towards her, his life so late, and sole delight, Now at his feet submissive in distress; Creature so fair his reconcilement seeking, His counsel, whom she had displeased, his aid. As one disarmed, his anger all he lost,
And thus with peaceful words upraised her soon: Unwary, and too desirous, as before,
So now, of what thou knowest not, who desirest The punishment all on thyself; alas!
Bear thine own first, ill able to sustain
His full wrath, whose thou feelest as yet least part, And my displeasure bearest so ill. If prayers
Could alter high decrees, I to that place
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