While the Creator, calling forth by name His mighty angels, gave them several charge, As sorted best with present things. The sun Had first his precept, so to move, so shine, As might affect the earth with cold and heat, Scarce tolerable; and from the north to call Decrepit winter, from the south to bring Solstitial summer's heat. To the blank moon Her office they prescribed; to the other five, Their planetary motions, and aspects, In sextile, square, and trine, and opposite, Of noxious efficacy; and when to join In synod unbenign; and taught the fix'd, Their influence malignant, when to shower, Which of them rising with the sun, or falling, Should prove tempestuous. To the winds they set Their corners, when with bluster to confound Sea, air, and shore; the thunder when to roll With terror, through the dark aerial hall. Some say, he bid his angels turn askance The poles of earth, twice ten degrees & more, From the sun's axle: they, with labour, push'd Oblique the centric globe. Some say the sun Was bid turn reins from the equinoctial road, Like distant breadth to Taurus, with the seven Atlantic Sisters, and the Spartan Twins, Up to the Tropic Crab: thence down amain, By Leo, and the Virgin, and the Scales, As deep as Capricorn, to bring in change Of seasons to each clime; else had the Spring Perpetual smiled on earth with verdant flowers, Equal in days and nights, except to those Beyond the polar circles; to them, day Had unbenighted shone, while the low sun, To recompense his distance, in their sight Had rounded still the horizon, and not known Or east or west, which had forbid the snow From cold Estotiland, and south as far, Beneath Magellan. At that tasted fruit, The sun, as from Thyestean banquet, turn'd His course intended; else how had the world Inhabited, though sinless, more than now Avoided pinching cold and scorching heat?
These changes in the Heavens, though slow, produced
Like change on seas & land; sideral blast
Vapour, and mist, and exhalation hot,
Corrupt, and pestilent. Now from the north
Of Norumbega, and the Samoed shore, Bursting their brazen dungeon, arm'd with ice, And snow, and hail, and stormy gust, and flaw, Boreas and Cæcias, and Argestes loud, And Thrascias, rend the woods, & seas upturn ; With adverse blast upturns them, from the south, Notus and Afer, black with thunderous clouds From Serraliona; thwart of these, as fierce, Forth rush the Levant, & the Ponent winds, Eurus and Zephyr, with their lateral noise, Sirocco, and Libecchio. Thus began Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first, Daughter of Sin, among the irrational Death introduced through fierce antipathy: Beast now with beast 'gan war, & fowl with fowl, And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving, Devour'd each other; nor stood much in awe Of man, but fled him, or, with countenance grim, Glared on him passing. These were, from without The growing miseries, which Adam saw Already in part, though hid in gloomiest shade, To sorrow abandon'd; but worse felt within, And in a troubled sea of passion tost, Thus to disburden sought, with sad complaint.
"O miserable of happy! is this the end Of this new glorious world, and me, so late The glory of that glory, who now become Accursed of blessed? Hide me from the face Of God, whom to behold was then my height Of happiness; yet well, if here would end The misery I deserved it; and would bear My own deservings; but this will not serve; All that I eat, or drink, or shall beget, Is propagated curse. O voice once heard Delightfully, Increase and multiply,' Now death to hear! for what can I increase, Or multiply, but curses on my head? Who, of all ages to succeed, but feeling The evil on him brought by me, will curse My head? I fare our ancestor impure, For this we may thank Adam; but his thanks Shall be the execration; so besides Mine own that bide upon me, all from me Shall, with a fierce reflux, on me redound, On me, as on their natural centre, light Heavy, though in their place. O fleeting joys Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes!
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me Man? did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me, or here place, In this delicious garden? as my will Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right, And equal, to reduce me to my dust, Desirous to resign, and render back All I received; unable to perform Thy terms, too hard, by which I was to hold The good I sought not. To the loss of that, Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added The sense of endless woes? Inexplicable Thy justice seems; yet, to say truth, too late I thus contest; then should have been refused Those terms whatever, when they were proposed. Thou didst accept them; wilt thou enjoy the good Then cavil the conditions? and, though God Made thee without thy leave, what if thy son Prove disobedient, and reproved, retort, Wherefore didst thou beget me? I sought it not: Wouldst thou admit, for his contempt of thee, That proud excuse? yet him, not thy election, But natural necessity, begot.
God made thee, of choice his own, & of his own To serve him; thy reward was of his grace; Thy punishment then, justly is at his will. Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair That dust I am, and shall to dust return. O welcome hour whenever! why delays His hand to execute what his decree Fix'd on this day? why do I overlive? Why am I mock'd with death, & lengthen'd 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 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 doom'd. 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 punish'd man, to satisfy his rigour,
Satisfied never? that were to extend
His sentence beyond dust, & 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 defenceless head! both Death and I my 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! O 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 condemn'd, If guiltless? But from me, what can proceed, But all corrupt, both mind and will deprav'd, 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 fear'st, 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, & cool, & 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, & oft Curs'd 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, & 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 essay'd: But her, with stern regard, he thus repell'd.
"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 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 disdain'd Not to be trusted, longing to be seen, Though by the Devil himself, him overweening To over-reach; but, with the Serpent meeting, Fool'd and beguil'd; 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
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