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Bursting their brazen dungeon, arm'd with ice,
And snow, aud hail, and stormy gust and flaw,
Boreas, and Cæcias, and Argestes loud,
And Thracias, rend the woods, and seas upturn;
With adverse blast upturns them from the south
Notus, and Afer black with thundrous clouds
From Serraliona; thwart of these, as fierce,
Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds,
Eurus and Zephyr, with their lateral noise,
Sirocco and Libecchio. Thus began
Ontrage from lifeless things; but discord first,
Daughter of sin, among the irrational

Death introduced, through fierce antipathy;

Beast now with beast 'gan war, and 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 toss'd,
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 heigth
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? Ill fare our ancestors 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 rebound;
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, and 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, and 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 had 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 rigor
Satisfied never? That were to extend
His sentence beyond dust and Natuers 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

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