Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/262

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��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

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