Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.

Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair

Tended the sick busiest from couch to couch;

And over them triumphant Death his dart

Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft invoked

With vows, as their chief good, and final hope.

Sight so deform what heart of rock could long

Dry-eyed behold? Adam could not, but wept,

Though not of woman born; compassion quelled

His best of man, and gave him up to tears

A space, till firmer thoughts restrained excess;

And, scarce recovering words, his plaint renewed.

“O miserable mankind, to what fall

Degraded, to what wretched state reserved!

Better end here unborn. Why is life given

To be thus wrested from us? rather, why

Obtruded on us thus? who, if we knew

What we receive, would either no accept

Life offered, or soon beg to lay it down;

Glad to be so dismissed in peace. Can thus

The image of God in Man, created once

So goodly and erect, though faulty since,

To such unsightly sufferings be debased

Under inhuman pains? Why should not Man,

Retaining still divine similitude

In part, from such deformities be free,

And, for his Maker’s image sake, exempt?”

“Their Maker’s image,” answered Michael, “then

Forsook them, when themselves they vilified

To serve ungoverned Appetite; and took

His image whom they served, a brutish vice,

Inductive mainly to the sin of Eve.

Therefore so abject is their punishment,

Disfiguring not God’s likeness, but their own;

Or if his likeness, by themselves defaced;

While they pervert pure Nature’s healthful rules

To loathsome sickness; worthily, since they

God’s image did not reverence in themselves.”

“I yield it just,” said Adam, “and submit.

But is there yet no other way, besides

These painful passages, how we may come

To death, and mix with our connatural dust?”

“There is,” said Michael, “if thou well observe

The rule of Not too much; by temperance taught,

In what thou eatest and drinkest; seeking from thence

Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight,

Till many years over thy head return:

So mayest thou live; till, like ripe fruit, thou drop

Into thy mother’s lap; or be with ease

Gathered, nor harshly plucked; for death mature:

This is Old Age; but then, thou must outlive

Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty; which will change

To withered, weak, and gray; thy senses then,

Obtuse, all taste of pleasure must forego,

To what thou hast; and, for the air of youth,

Hopeful and cheerful, in thy blood will reign

A melancholy damp of cold and dry

To weigh thy spirits down, and last consume

The balm of life.” To whom our ancestor.

“Henceforth I fly not death, nor would prolong

Life much; bent rather, how I may be quit,

Fairest and easiest, of this cumbrous charge;

Which I must keep till my appointed day

Of rendering up, and patiently attend

My dissolution.” Michael replied.

“Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou livest