Beyond the polar circles; to them day Had unbenighted shone, while the low sun To recompense his distance in their sight Had rounded still th' 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 heav'ns, though slow, produced Like change on sea and 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, and seas upturn; With adverse blast upturns them from the south Notus, and Afer black with thund'rous clouds From Serraliona," thwart of these as fierce Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds, Eurus and Zephyr 7 with their lateral noise Sirocco and Libecchio. Thus began
Outrage from lifeless things; but Discord first, Daughter of Sin, among th' irrational
Death introduced through fierce antipathy: Beast now with beast gan war, and fowl with fowl,
1 A tract of land north of America, near the Arctic Ocean and Hudson's Bay.-HUME.
2 Extreme south of South America.
3 Atreus, to avenge an injury, invited his brother Thyestes to a banquet, and served up for his food the flesh of his murdered children. This horrid revenge was visited on the family of Atreus for generations.
4 A province of the northern Armenia. Samoieda, in the north-east of Muscovy, upon the Frozen Sea.-HUME,
5 Names of the winds. Boreas the north; Cæcias, north-west; Argestes, north-east. Thrascias, from Thrace. Notus, the south wind. Afer, from Africa. From RICHARDSON.
6 The Lion Mountains, south-west of Africa, famous for storms.
7 Levant and Ponent are Italian names for the east and west winds, called by the Greeks Eurus and Zephyr. Sirocco and Libecchio are the south-east and south-west winds.
15 vorrow Landon L v ve hit vi Antaa tious wait pattica tos, *1:18 to Lorien vongis vit ai engin nude of happy - la tom the end Of a new goro viri, and me so ime The gory dúas gory, vio now become Lord & weal? He me from the face Of Gm, xxx to blod was then my Lighth Of happitem; 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 cat, or drink, or shall beget, Is propagated curse. O voice once heard Delightfully, Encrease and multiply, Now death to hear! for what can I encrease 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 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
yourr'd not to my being, it were but right qual to reduce me to my dust, s to resign, and render back eceived, 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 These terms, whatever, when they were proposed. Thou didst accept them; wilt thou enjoy the good, Then cavil the conditions?1 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 2 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 sinn'd; 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 and nature's law, By which all causes else, according still
To the reception of their matter, act,
Not to th' 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 thund'ring back with dreadful revolution On my defenceless head; both death and I Are 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 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 future: To Satan only like both crime and doom.
O Conscience, into what abyss of fears
And horrors hast thou driv'n 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 Outstretch'd he lay, on the cold ground, and oft 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 bow'rs, 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 assay'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
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