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! O, were I able

To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!

So disinherited, how would you bless

Me, now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind,

For one man’s fault, thus guiltless be condemned,

It 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 desirest,

And what thou fearest, 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, and cool, and mild, but with black air

Accompanied; with damps, and dreadful gloom;

Which to his evil conscience represented

All things with double terrour: On the ground

Outstretched 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 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

Thy inward fraud; to warn all creatures from thee

Henceforth; lest that too heavenly form, pretended