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 Norumbegao 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 Thrasciasó 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 Zephyr7 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,

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Tsk, ry, I dextris it, and row bear
My own artike, on this will not serve;
All that I want, a drink, a shail veget,
1x praguri curse, Ovoise once heard
Delightfaily, Encrease and multiply,
Now death to learfor what can I encrease
Or multiply, but cards 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 P As

my

will
curr'd not to my being, it were but right

qual to reduce me to my dust,
is to resign, and render back
ceived, 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 P 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

a

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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