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Are found eternal, and incorporates 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 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 condemned, If guiltless? But from me what can proceed But all corrupt; both mind and will depraved, 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 But to my own conviction: first and last On me-me only, as the source and spring Of all corruption, all the blame lights due; So might the wrath! Fond wish! couldst thou support That burden, heavier than the earth to bear-Than all the world much heavier, though divided With that bad woman? Thus, what thou desirest, And what thou fearest, alike destroys all hope Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable Beyond all past example and future; To Satan only like, both crime and doom. O conscience! Into what abyss of fears And horrors hast thou driven me; out of which I find no way, from deep to deeper plunged! Thus Adam to himself lamented loud, Through the still night; not now, as ere man fell, Wholesome, and cool, and mild, but with black air Accompanied; with damps and dreadful gloom, Which to his evil conscience represented

All things with double terror, on the ground

Outstretched he lay, on the cold ground, and oft

Cursed his creation; Death as oft accused

Of tardy execution, since denounced

The day of his offence. Why comes not Death,

Said he, with one thrice-acceptable stroke

To end me? Shall truth fail to keep her word,

Justice divine not hasten to be just?

But Death comes not at call; justice divine

Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries.

O woods, O fountains, hillocks, dales, and bowers!

With other echo late I taught your shades

To answer, and resound far other song.

Whom thus afflicted, when sad Eve beheld,

Desolate where she sat, approaching nigh,

Soft words to his fierce passion she assayed;

But her, with stern regard, he thus repelled:

PARADISE LOST.

Out of my sight, thou serpent! That name best Befits thee, with him leagued, thyself as false And hateful. Nothing wants, but that thy shape, Like his, and colour serpentine, may show Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee Henceforth, lest that too heavenly form, pretended To hellish falsehood, snare them! But for thee I had persisted happy, had not thy pride And wandering vanity, when least was safe, Rejected my forewarning, and disdained Not to be trusted; longing to be seen, Though by the Devil himself, him overweening To over-reach; but, with the serpent meeting, Fooled and beguiled; by him thou, I by thee, To trust thee from my side, imagined wise, Constant, mature, proof against all assaults; And understood not all was but a show, Rather than solid virtue; all but a rib Crooked by nature, bent, as now appears, More to the part sinister, from me drawn; Well if thrown out, as supernumerary