Read The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Online
Authors: John Milton,Burton Raffel
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Literary Collections, #Poetry, #Classics, #English; Irish; Scottish; Welsh, #English poetry
788
But I shall die a living death? O thought
789
Horrid, if true! Yet why? It was but breath
790
Of life that sinned. What dies but what had life
791
And sin? The body properly had neither.
792
All of me then shall die: let this appease
5609
793
The doubt, since human reach no further knows.
794
For though the Lord of all be infinite,
795
Is His wrath also? Be it, man is not so,
796
But mortal doomed.
5610
How can He exercise
797
Wrath without end on man, whom death must end?
798
Can He make deathless death? That were to make
799
Strange contradiction, which to God Himself
800
801
Of weakness, not of power. Will He draw out,
802
For anger’s sake, finite to infinite,
803
In punished man, to satisfy His rigor,
5613
804
Satisfied never? That were to extend
805
His sentence beyond dust and Nature’s law,
806
By which all causes else,
5614
according still
807
808
Not to th’ extent of their own sphere.
“But say
809
That death be not one stroke, as I supposed,
810
Bereaving
5617
sense, but endless misery
811
From this day onward, which I feel begun
812
813
To perpetuity. Aye me, that fear
814
Comes thundering back with dreadful revolution
5620
815
On my defenceless head. Both Death and I
816
Am found eternal, and incorporate
5621
both,
817
Nor I on my part single.
5622
In me all
818
Posterity stands cursed: fair patrimony
819
That I must leave ye, sons. O were I able
820
To waste
5623
it all myself, and leave ye none!
821
So disinherited, how would you bless
822
Me, now your curse! Ah, why should all mankind,
823
For one man’s fault, thus guiltless be condemned—
824
If guiltless? But from me what can proceed,
825
But all corrupt, both mind and will depraved
5624
826
Not to do only, but to will the same
827
With
5625
me? How can they then acquitted stand
828
In sight of God? Him after all disputes,
829
Forced
5626
I absolve. All my evasions vain,
830
And reasonings, though through mazes, lead me still
831
But to my own conviction: first and last
832
On me, me only, as the source and spring
833
Of all corruption, all the blame lights
5627
due.
834
835
That burden, heavier than the earth to bear,
836
Than all the world much heavier, though divided
5630
837
With that bad woman?
5631
Thus what thou desir’st,
838
And what thou fear’st, alike destroys all hope
839
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable
840
Beyond all past example and future.
841
842
O Conscience! Into what abyss of fears
843
And horrors hast thou
5634
driv’n me, out of which
844
I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged!
845
Thus Adam to himself lamented loud
846
Through the still night—not now, as ere
5635
man fell,
847
Wholesome, and cool, and mild, but with black air
848
Accompanied, with damps,
5636
and dreadful gloom,
849
850
All things with double terror. On the ground
851
Outstretched he lay, on the cold ground, and oft
852
Cursed his creation, Death as oft accused
853
Of tardy execution, since denounced
5639
854
The day of his offence. “Why comes not Death,
855
Said he, “with one thrice-acceptable
5640
stroke
856
To end me? Shall truth fail to keep her word,
857
Justice Divine not hasten to be just?
858
But Death comes not at call, Justice Divine
859
Mends
5641
not her slowest pace for prayers or cries.
860
O woods, O fountains, hillocks, dales, and bow’rs!
861
With other echo late
5642
I taught your shades
862
To answer, and resound
5643
far other song!
863
Whom thus afflicted when sad Eve beheld,
864
Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh
865
Soft words to his fierce passion she assayed,
5644
866
But her with stern regard he thus repelled:
867
“Out of my sight, thou serpent! That name best
868
869
870
Like his, and color serpentine, may show
871
Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee
872
Henceforth, lest that too Heav’nly form, pretended
5649
873
To hellish falsehood, snare them! But
5650
for thee
874
875
And wand’ring
5653
vanity, when least was safe,