22O
��PARADISE LOST
��I thus contest; then should have been re- fused 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 760
Prove disobedient, and, reproved, retort, 4 Wherefore didst thou beget me ? I
sought it not ! ' Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of
thee
That proud excuse ? yet him not thy elec- tion,
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, 769 That dust I am, and shall to dust return. O welcome hour whenever ! Why delays His hand to execute what his decree Fixed on this day ? Why do I overlive ? Why am I mocked with death, and length- ened out To deathless pain ? How gladly would I
meet
Mortality, ny 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 780
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 790
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 wrauth also ? Be it, Man is not so, But mortal doomed. How can he exercise Wrauth without end on Man, whom death
must end ? Can he make deathless death ? That were
to make
Strange contradiction; which to God him- self
Impossible is held, as argument 800
Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw
out,
For anger's sake, finite to infinite In punished 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 the extent of their own sphere.
But say
That death be not one stroke, as I supposed, Bereaving sense, but endless misery 8xo 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 revo- lution 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 ! Oh, were I able 819
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 con- demned ?
If guiltless ! But from me what can pro- ceed
But all corrupt both mind and will de- praved
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 830
But to my own conviction: first and last
�� �
