Page:The Complete Poetical Works of John Milton.djvu/273

 BOOK ELEVENTH

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��To whom thus Michael : " Death thou

hast seen

In his first shape on Man ; but many shapes Of Death, and many are the ways that lead To his grim cave all dismal, yet to sense More terrible at the entrance than within. 470

Some, as thou saw'st, by violent stroke

shall die, By fire, flood, famine; by intemperance

more In meats and drinks, which on the Earth

shall bring

Diseases dire, of which a monstrous crew Before thee shall appear, that thou may'st

know

What misery the inabstinence of Eve Shall bring on men." Immediately a place Before his eyes appeared, sad, noisome,

dark;

A lazar-house it seemed, wherein were laid Numbers of all diseased all maladies 480 Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture

qualms

Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds, Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs, Intestine stone and ulcer, colic pangs, Dsemoniac phrenzy, moping melancholy, And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy, Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence, Dropsies and asthmas, and joint-racking

rheums.

Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; De- spair

Tended the sick, busiest from couch to couch; 490

And over them triumphant Death his dart Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft in- voked 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 ex- cess, And, scarce recovering words, his plaint

renewed :

" O miserable Mankind, to what fall 500 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 not 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 510 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 Mi- chael, " 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, 520 Disfiguring not God's likeness, but their

own;

Or, if his likeness, by themselves defaced While they pervert pure Nature's health- ful rules To loathsome sickness worthily, since

they

God's image did not reverence in them- selves."

" I yield it just," said Adam, " and sub- mit.

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 530

The rule of Not too much, by temperance

taught In what thon eat'st and drink'st, seeking

from thence

Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight, Till many years over thy head return. So may'st thou live, till, like ripe fruit, thou

drop

Into thy mother's lap, or be with ease Gathered, not 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 grey; thy senses then, 540

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