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
Can he make deathless death? That were to
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 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
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
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
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 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
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
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!
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,
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
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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