Bursting their brazen dungeon, arm'd with ice, And snow, aud hail, and stormy gust and flaw, Boreas, and Cæcias, and Argestes loud, And Thracias, rend the woods, and seas upturn; With adverse blast upturns them from the south Notus, and Afer black with thundrous clouds From Serraliona; thwart of these, as fierce, Forth rush the Levant and the Ponent winds, Eurus and Zephyr, with their lateral noise, Sirocco and Libecchio. Thus began Ontrage from lifeless things; but discord first, Daughter of sin, among the irrational
Death introduced, through fierce antipathy;
Beast now with beast 'gan war, and fowl with fowl, And fish with fish; to graze the herb all leaving, Devour'd each other; nor stood much in awe Of man, but fled him; or, with countenance grim, Glared on him; passing. These were from without The growing miseries, which Adam saw Already in part, though hid in gloomiest shade, To sorrow abandon'd, but worse felt within; And, in a troubled sea of passion toss'd, Thus to disburden sought with sad complaint: O miserable of happy! Is this the end Of this new glorious world, and me so late The glory of that glory, who now become Accursed of blessed? hide me from the face Of God, whom to behold was then my heigth Of happiness!-Yet well, if here would end The misery; I deserved it, and would bear My own deservings; but this will not serve: All that I eat or drink, or shall beget, Is propagated curse. O voice, once heard Delightfully, Increase and multiply;
Now death to hear! for what can I increase, Or multiply, but curses on my head? Who of all ages to succeed, but, feeling The evil on him brought by me, will curse
My head? Ill fare our ancestors impure, For this we may thank Adam! but his thanks Shall be the execration. so, besides
Mine own that bide upon me, all from me Shall with a fierce reflux on me rebound; On me, as on their natural centre, light Heavy, though in their place. O fleeting joys Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes! Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay To mould me man? did I solicit thee From darkness to promote me, or here place In this delicious garden. As my will Concurr'd not to my being, it were but right And equal to reduce me to my dust: Desirous to resign and render back All I received; unable to perform
Thy terms too hard, by which I was to hold The good I sought not. To the loss of that, Sufficient penalty, why hast thou added The sense of endless woes? Inexplicable Thy justice seems; yet, to say truth, too late I thus contest; then should have been refused 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 Prove disobedient; and, reproved, retort, Wherefore didst thou beget me? I sought it not: Wouldst thou admit for his contempt of thee: That proud excuse? yet him not thy election, 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, That dust I am, and shall to dust return: O welcome hour whenever! Why delays His hand to execute what his decree
Fix'd on this day: Why do I overlive:
Why am I mock'd with death, and lengthen'd out To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet Mortality my 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 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 And sin! The body properly had 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 wrath also! Be it, man is not so,
But mortal doom'd. How can he exercise
Wrath without end on man, whom death must end? Can he make deathless death? That were to make Strange contradiction, which to God himself Impossible is held; as argument
Of weakness, not of power. Will he draw out For anger's sake, finite to infinite,
In punish'd man, to satisfy his rigor Satisfied never? That were to extend His sentence beyond dust and Natuers 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
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