687
Beneath Magellan.5540 At that tasted fruit5541
688
The sun, as from Thyestean banquet,5542 turned
689
His course intended: else how had the world
690
Inhabited,5543 though sinless more than now,
691
Avoided pinching5544 cold and scorching heat?
692
These changes in the heav’ns, though slow, produced
693
Like5545 change on sea and land, sideral 5546 blast,
694
Vapor, and mist, and exhalation hot,
695
Corrupt and pestilent. Now from the north
696
Of Norumbega,5547 and the Samoed shore, 5548
697
Bursting their brazen dungeon,5549 armed with ice,
698
And snow, and hail, and stormy gust and flaw, 5550
699
Boreas,5551 and Caecias,5552 and Argestes5553 loud,
700
And Thrascias,5554 rend the woods, and seas upturn.
701
With adverse 5555 blast upturns them from the south
702
Notus,5556 and Afer, 5557 black with thund’rous clouds
703
From Serraliona.5558 Thwart of 5559 these, as 5560 fierce,
704
Forth rush the Levant 5561 and the Ponent 5562 winds,
705
Eurus and Zephyr, with their lateral 5563 noise,5564
706
Sirocco5565 and Libecchio. 5566
Thus began
707
Outrage5567 from lifeless things, but Discord first,
708
Daughter of Sin, among th’ irrational 5568
709
Death introduced, through fierce antipathy. 5569
710
Beast now with beast ’gan war, and fowl with fowl,
711
And fish with fish. To graze the herb all leaving, 5570
712
Devoured each other, nor stood much in awe
713
Of man, but fled him or, with count’nance grim,5571
714
Glared on him passing.
These were from without5572
715
The growing miseries, which Adam saw
716
Already in part, though hid in gloomiest shade,
717
To sorrow abandoned, but worse felt within,
718
And in a troubled sea of passion tossed,
719
Thus to disburden sought5573 with sad complaint:
720
“O miserable of 5574 happy! Is this the end
721
Of this new glorious world, and me so late5575
722
The glory of that glory, who now become
723
Accursed, of 5576 blessèd? Hide me from the face
724
Of God, whom to behold was then my height
725
Of happiness! Yet well,5577 if here would end
726
The misery. I deserved it, and would 5578 bear
727
My own deservings. But this will not serve:5579
728
All that I eat or drink, or shall beget,
729
Is propagated 5580 curse. O voice, once heard
730
Delightfully, ‘Increase and multiply,
731
Now death to hear! For what can I increase
732
Or multiply, but curses on my head?
733
Who of all ages to succeed,5581 but feeling
734
The evil on him brought by me, will curse
735
My head? ‘Ill fare our ancestor impure,
736
For this we may thank Adam!’ But his thanks
737
Shall be the execration.5582 So, besides
738
Mine own5583 that bide5584 upon me, all from me
739
Shall with a fierce reflux5585 on me redound—5586
740
On me, as on their natural center, light 5587
741
Heavy, though in their place. 5588 O fleeting joys
742
Of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes!
743
Did I request thee, Maker, from my clay
744
To mould me man? Did I solicit Thee
745
From darkness to promote5589 me, or here place
746
In this delicious5590 garden? As my will
747
Concurred 5591 not to my being, it were but right
748
And equal to reduce me to my dust,
749
Desirous to resign5592 and render back
750
All I received, unable to perform
751
Thy terms too hard, by which I was to hold
752
The good I sought not. To the loss of that,
753
Sufficient penalty: why hast Thou added
754
The sense of endless woes? Inexplicable
755
Thy Justice seems. Yet to say truth, too late
756
I thus contest. Then should have been refused
757
Those terms whatever, when they were proposed.
758
Thou5593 didst accept them. Wilt thou5594 enjoy the good,
759
Then cavil 5595 the conditions? And though God
760
Made thee without thy leave, 5596 what if thy 5597 son
761
Prove disobedient, and reproved, retort,
762
‘Wherefore did’st thou beget me? I sought it not.
763
Would’st thou admit 5598 for his contempt of thee
764
That proud excuse? Yet him not thy election5599
765
But natural necessity begot.5600
766
God made thee of choice His own, and of His own
767
To serve Him: thy reward was of His grace,
768
Thy punishment then justly is at His will.
769
“Be it so, for I submit: His doom5601 is fair,
770
That dust I am, and shall to dust return.
771
O welcome hour whenever! Why delays
772
His hand to execute what His decree
773
Fixed 5602 on this day? 5603 Why do I overlive,5604
774
Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out
775
To deathless pain? How gladly would I meet
776
Mortality, my sentence, and be earth
777
Insensible!5605 How glad would lay me down
778
As in my mother’s lap! There I should rest,
779
And sleep secure. 5606 His dreadful voice no more
780
Would thunder in my ears. No fear of worse
781
To me, and to my offspring, would torment me
782
With cruel expectation.
“Yet one doubt
783
Pursues me still, lest all 5607 I cannot die,
784
Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man
785
Which God inspired, cannot together perish
786
With this corporeal clod.5608 Then in the grave,
787
Or in some other dismal place, who knows
788
But I shall die a living death? O t
hought
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 appease5609
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
Impossible is held,5611 as argument 5612
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
To the reception5615 of their matter, act,5616
808
Not to th’ extent of their own sphere.
“But say
809
That death be not one stroke, as I supposed,
810
Bereaving5617 sense, but endless misery
811
From this day onward, which I feel begun
812
From in5618 me, and without 5619 me—and so last
813
To perpetuity. Aye me, that fear
814
Comes thundering back with dreadful revolution5620
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 waste5623 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 depraved5624
826
Not to do only, but to will the same
827
With5625 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 lights5627 due.
834
So might the wrath. Fond 5628 wish! Could’st thou5629 support
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
To Satan only like5632 both crime and doom.5633
842
O Conscience! Into what abyss of fears
843
And horrors hast thou5634 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 ere5635 man fell,
847
Wholesome, and cool, and mild, but with black air
848
Accompanied, with damps,5636 and dreadful gloom,
849
Which to his5637 evil conscience represented5638
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 denounced5639
854
The day of his offence. “Why comes not Death,
855
Said he, “with one thrice-acceptable5640 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
Mends5641 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
Befits5645 thee, with him leagued,5646 thyself as false
869
And hateful.5647 Nothing wants,5648 but that thy shape,
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, pretended5649
873
To hellish falsehood, snare them! But 5650 for thee
874
I had 5651 persisted 5652 happy, had not thy pride
875
And wand’ring 5653 vanity, when least was safe,
876
Rejected my forewarning and disdained
877
Not to be trusted—longing to be seen,
878
Though by the Devil himself, him overweening5654
879
To over-reach,5655 but with the serpent meeting
880
Fooled and beguiled. By him, thou, I by thee.
881
To trust thee from my side, imagined 5656 wise,
882
Constant, mature, proof against all assaults,
883
And understood not 5657 all was but a show
884
Rather than solid virtue, all but a rib
885
Crookèd by nature, bent, as now appears,
886
More to the part sinister, 5658 from me drawn,5659
887
Well if thrown out, as supernumerary5660
888
To my just number found.5661 O why did God,
889
Creator wise, that peopled highest Heav’n
890
With Spirits masculine, create at last
891
This
novelty on earth, this fair defect
892
Of Nature, and not fill the world at once
893
With men, as5662 Angels without feminine,
894
Or find some other way to generate5663
The Annotated Milton: Complete English Poems Page 54
