birth Of our joynt issue people the vast earth To shew that thou wert taken out of me Isha shall be thy name As unto thee Ravisht with love and joy my soul doth cleave So men hereafter shall their fathers leave And all relations else which are most dear That they may only to their wives adhere When marriage male and female doth combine Children in one flesh shall two parents joyn Lastly God who the sacred knot had tied With blessing his own Ordinance sanctified Encrease said he and multiply your race Fill th' Earth allotted for your dwelling place I give you right to all her fruits and plants Dominion over her inhabitants The fish that in the floods deep bosome lie All Fowls that in the airy region flie Whatever lives and feeds on the dry land Are all made subject under your command The grass and green herbs let your cattle eat And let the richer fruits be your own meat Except the Tree of knowing good and ill That by the precept of my Soveraign will You must not eat for in the day you do Inevitable death shall seize on you Thus God did the first marriage celebrate While man was in his unpolluted state And th' undefiled bed with honour deckt Though perversemen the Ordinance reject And pulling all its sacred Ensigns down To the white Virgin only give the crown Nor yet is marriage grown less sacred since Man fell from his created excellence Necessity now raises its esteem Which doth mankind from deaths vast jaws redeem Who even in their graves are yet alive While they in their posterity survive In it they find a comfort and an aid In all the ills which humane life invade This curbs and cures wild passions that arise Repairs times daily wasts with new supplies When the declining mothers youthful grace Lies dead and buried in her wrinkled face In her fair daughters it revives and grows And her dead Cinder in their new flames glows And though this state may sometimes prove accurst For of best things still the corruption's worst Sin so destroys an institution good Provided against death and solitude Eve out of sleeping Adam formed thus A sweet instructive emblem is to us How waking Providence is active still To do us good and to avert our ill When we lock'd up in stupefaction lie Not dreaming that our blessings are so nigh Blessings wrought out by providence alone Without the least assistance of our own Mans help produc'd in death-like sleep doth show Our choicest mercies out of dead wombs flow So from the second Adams bleeding side God form'd the Gospel Church his mystique Bride Whose strength was only of his firmness made His blood quick spirits into ours convey'd His wasted flesh our wasted flesh supplied And we were then revived when he died Who wak'd from that short sleep with joy did view The Virgin fair that out of his wounds grew Presented by th' eternal Fathers grace Unto his everlasting kind embrace My spouse my sister said he thou art mine I and my death I and my life are thine For thee I did my heavenly Father quit That thou with me on my high throne mayst sit My mothers humane flesh in death did leave For thee that I to thee might only cleave Redeem thee from the confines of dark hell And evermore in thy dear bosome dwell From heaven I did descend to fetch up thee Rose from the grave that thou mightst reign with me Henceforth no longer two but one we are Thou dost my merit life grace glory share As my victorious triumphs are all thine So are thy injuries and sufferings mine Which I for thee will vanquish as my own And give thee rest in the celestial throne The Bride with these caresses entertain'd In naked beauty doth before him stand And knows no shame purg'd from all foul desire Whose secret guilt kindles the blushing fire Her glorious Lord is naked too no more Conceal'd in types and shadows as before So our first parents innocently did Behold that nakedness which since is hid That lust may not catch fire from beauties flame Engendring thoughts which die the cheeks with shame Thus heaven and earth their full perfection had Thus all their hosts and ornaments were made Armies of Angels had the highest place Bright starry hosts the lower heaven did grace The Mutes encamped in the waters were The winged troops were quartered in the air The walking animals as th' infantry Of th' Universal Host at large did lie Spread over all the earths most ample face Each regiment in its assigned place Paradise the head quarter was and there The Emperour to his Viceroy did appear Him in his regal Office did install A general muster of his hosts did call Resigning up into his sole command The numerous Tribes that fill doth sea and land As each kind severally had before Blessing and approbation so once more When all together God his works review'd The blessing was confirmed and renew'd And with the sixth day the Creation ceast The seventh day the Lord himself did rest And made it a perpetual Ordinance then To be observ'd by every age of men That after six days honest labour they His precept and example should obey As he did his their works surcease and spend That day in sacred rest till that day end And in its number back again return Still consecrated till it have outworn All other time and that alone remain When neither toyl nor burthen shall again The weary lives of mortal men infest Nor intermit their holy happy rest Nor is this Rest sacred to idleness God a perpetual Act sloth cannot bless He ceast not from his own celestial joy Which doth himself perpetually employ In contemplation of himself and those Most excellent works wherein himself he shows He only ceast from making lower things By which as steps the mounting soul he brings To th' upmost height and having finisht these Himself did in his own productions please Full satisfied in their perfection Rested from what he had compleatly done And made his pattern our instruction That we as far as finite creatures may Trace him that 's infinite should in our way Rest as our Father did work as he wrought Nor cease till we have to perfection brought Whatever to his glory we intend Still making ours the same which was his end As his works in commands begin and have Conclusion in the blessings which he gave So must his Word give being to all ours And since th' events are not in our own powers We must his blessing beg his great name bless And make our thanks the crown of our success As God first heaven did for man prepare Men last for heaven created were So should
grace That we may it with fuller joy embrace Which when it brings a frighted wretch from hell Makes it love more than those who never fell But mankinds love to God grows by degrees As he more clearly Gods sweet mercy sees And God at first reveals not all his grace That men more ardently may seek his face Averted by their folly and their pride Which makes them their confounded faces hide As still the Sun 's the same behind the clouds Such is Gods love which his kind anger shrouds Which doth not all at once it self reveal But first in the thick shadows that conceal Its glory doth attenuation cause Then the black dismal curtain softly draws And lets some glimmering light of hope appear Which rather is a lessening of our fear Than an assurance of our joy and peace A truce with misery rather than release Thus had not God come in mankind had died Without repair yet came he first to chide To urge their sin with its sad consequence And make them feel the weight of their offence To ' examine and arraign them at his bar And shew them what vile criminals they were But ah our utterance here is choak'd with woe With tardy steps from Paradise we go Then let us pause on our lost joys a while Before we enter on our sad exile Canto V. SAd Natures sighs gave the Alarms And all her frighted hosts stood to their arms Waiting whom the great Soveraign would employ His all deserted rebels to destroy When God descended out of heaven above His disobedient Viceroy to remove Yet though himself had seen the forfeiture Which distance could not from his eyes obscure To teach his future Substitutes how they Should judgements execute in a right way He would not unexamin'd facts condemn Nor punish sinners without hearing them Therefore cites to his bar the Criminals And Adam first out of his covert calls Where art thou Adam the Almighty said Here Lord the trembling sinner answer made Amongst the trees I in the garden heard Thy voice and being naked was afeard Nor durst I so thy purer sight abide Therefore my self did in this shelter hide Hast thou said God eat the forbidden tree Or who declar'd thy nakedness to thee She answer'd Adam whom thou didst create To be my helper and associate Gave me the fatal fruit and I did eat Then Eve was also call'd from her retreat Woman what hast thou done th' Almighty said Lord answer'd she the serpent me betray'd And I did eat Thus did they both confess Their guilt and vainly sought to make it less By such extenuations as well weigh'd The sin so circumstanc'd more sinful made A course which still half softned sinners use Transferring blame their own faults to excuse They care not how nor where and oftentimes On God himself obliquely charge their crimes Expostulating in their discontent As if he caus'd what he did not prevent Which Adam wickedly implies when he Cries 'T was the woman That thou gavest me Oft-times make that the devils guilt alone Which was as well and equally their own His lies could never have prevail'd on Eve But that she wisht them truth and did believe A forgery that suited her desire Whose haughty heart was prone enough to ' aspire The tempting and the urging was his ill But the compliance was in her own will And herein truly lies the difference Of natural and gracious penitence The first transferreth and extenuates The guilt which the other owns and aggravates While sin is but regarded slight and small It makes the value of rich mercy fall But as our crimes seem greater in our eyes So doth our grateful sense of pardon rise Poor mankind at Gods righteous bar was cast And set for judgement by when at the last Satan within the serpent had his doom Whose execrable malice left no room For plea or pardon but was sentenc'd first Thou said the Lord above all beasts accurst Shalt on thy belly creep on dust shalt feed Between thee and the woman and her seed And thine I will put lasting enmity Thou in this war his heel shalt bruise but He Thy head shall break More various Mystery Ne're did within so short a sentence lie Here is irrevocable vengeance here Love as immutable Here doth appear Infinite Wisdome plotting with free grace Even by Mans Fall th' advance of humane race Severity here utterly confounds Here Mercy cures by kind and gentle wounds The Father here the Gospel first reveals Here fleshly veils th' eternal son conceals The law of life and spirit here takes place Given with the promise of assisting grace Here is an Oracle fore-telling all Which shall the two opposed seeds befall The great war hath its first beginning here Carried along more than five thousand year With various success on either side And each age with new combatants suppli'd Two Soveraign Champions here we find Satan and Christ contending for mankind Two Empires here two opposite Cities rise Dividing all in two Societies The little Church and the worlds larger State Pursuing it with ceaseless spite and hate Each party here erecting their own walls As one advances so the other falls Hope in the Promise the weak Church confirms Hell and the world fight upon desperate terms By this most certain Oracle they know Their war must end in final overthrow Some little present mischief they may do And this with eager malice they pursue The Angels whom Gods justice did divide Engage their mighty powers on either side Hells gloomy Princes the worlds rulers made Heavens unseen host the Churches guard and aid Till the frail womans conquering son shall tread Beneath his feet the serpents broken head Though God the speech to mans false foe address The words rich grace to fallen man express Which God will not to him himself declare Till he implore it by submissive prayer Sufficient 't is to know a latitude For hope which doth no penitent exclude Had deaths sad sentence past on man before The promise of that seed which should restore His fallen state destroying death and sin Cureless as Satans had his misery been But though free grace did future help provide Yet must he present loss and woe abide And feel the bitter curse that he may so The sweet release of saving mercy know Prepar'd with late indulged hope on Eve Th' almighty next did gentler sentence give I will said he greatly augment thy woes And thy conceptions which with painful throes Thou shalt bring forth yet shall they be to thee But a successive crop of misery Thy husband shall thy ruler be whose sway Thou shalt with passionate desires obey Alas how sadly to this day we find Th' effect of this dire curse on
we all our actions regulate Which heaven both first and last should terminate And in whatever circle else they run There should they end there should they be begun There seek their pattern and derive from thence Their whole direction and their influence As when th' Almighty this low world did frame Life by degrees to its perfection came In Vegetation first sprung up to sense Ascended next and climb'd to reason thence So we pursuing our attainments should Press forward from what 's positively good Still climbing higher until we reach the best And that acquir'd for ever fix our rest Our souls so ravisht with the joys divine That they no more to creatures can decline As Gods Rest was but a more high retreat From the delights of this inferiour seat So must our souls upon our Sabbaths climb Above the world sequestred for that time From those legitimate delights which may Rejoyce us here upon a common day As God his works compleated did retire To be ador'd by the Angelick Quire So when on us the seventh days light doth shine Should we our selves to Gods assemblies joyn Thither all hearts as one pure offring bring And all with one accord adore our King This seventh day the Lord to mankind gave Nor is it the least priviledge we have And ours peculiarly The Orbs above Aswell the seventh as the sixth day move The rain descends and the fierce tempest blows On it the restless Ocean ebbs and flows Bees that day fill the hive and on that day Ants their provisions in their store-house lay All creatures plie their works no beast But those which mankind use share in that rest Which God indulg'd only to humane race That they in it might come before his face To celebrate his worship and his praise And gain a blessing upon all their days O wretched souls of perverse men who slight So great a grace refuse such rich delight Which the inferiour creatures cannot share To which alone their natures fitted are And whereby favour'd men admitted be Into the angels blest societle Yet is this Rest but a far distant view Of that celestial life which we pursue By Satan oft so interrupted here That little of its glory doth appear Nor can our souls sick languid appetite Feast upon such substantial strong delight As musick pains the grieved aking head With which the healthful sense is sweetly fed So duties wherein sound hearts full joys find Fetters and sad loads are to a sick mind Till it thereto by force it self mure And from a loathing fall to love its cure God for his worship kept one day of seven The other six to man for mans use given Adam although so highly dignified Was not to spend in idle ease and pride Nor supine sleep drunk with his sensual pleasures Profusely wasting th' Empires sacred treasures As now his faln sons do that arrogate His forfeited dominion and high state But God his dayly Business did ordain That Kings hence taught might in their Realms maintain Fair order serving those whom they command As guardians not as owners of the land Not being set there to pluck up and destroy Those plants whose culture should their cares employ Nor doth this precept only Kings comprize The meanest must his little paradise With no less vigilance and care attend Than Princes on their vast enclosures spend All hence must learn their duty to suppress Th' intrusions of a sordid idleness Who form'd could have preserv'd the garden fair Without th' employment of mans busie care But that he will'd that our delight should be The wages of our constant industrie That we his ever bounteous hand might bless Crowning our honest labours with success And tast the joy men reap in their own fruit Loving that more to which they contribute Either the labour of their hands or brains Than better things produc'd by others pains Led by desire fed with fair hope the fruit Oft-times delights not more than the pursuit For man a nature hath to action prone That languishes and sickens finding none As standing pools corrupt water that flows More pure by its continual current grows So humane kind by active exercise Do to the heights of their perfection rise While their stock'd glory comes to no ripe growth Whose lives corrupt in idleness and sloth Which is not natural but a disease That doth upon the flesh-cloy'd spirit seize Where health untainted is then the sound mind In its employment doth its pleasure find But when death or its representer sleep Upon the mortals tired members creep This during its dull reign doth life suspend That ceasing action puts it to an end Lastly since God himself did man employ To dress up Paradise that moderate joy Which from this fair creation we derive Is not our sin but our prerogative If bounded so as we fix not our rest In creatures which but transient are at best Yet 't is sin to neglect not use or prize As well as 't is to wast and idolize Canto IV. GOod were all natures as God made them all Good was his Will permitting some to fall That th' rest renouncing their frail strength might stand Humble and firm in his supporting hand His wisdome and omnipotence might own When his Foes power and craft is overthrown Seeing his hate of sin might thence confess His pure innate and perfect Holiness And that the glory of his Justice might In the Rebels torturing flames seem bright That th' ever bless'd Redeemer might take place To illustrate his rich mercy and free grace Whereby he fallen sinners doth restore To fuller bliss than they enjoy'd before That Vertue might in its clear brightness shine Which like rich ore concealed in the mine Had not been known but that opposing vice Illustrates it by frequent exercise If all were good whence then arose the ill 'T was not in Gods but in the creatures will Averting from that good which is supream Corrupted so as a declining stream That breaks off its communion with its head By whom its life and sweetness late were fed Turns to a noisome dead and poysonous Lake Infecting all who the foul waters take Or as a Branch cut from the living Tree Passes into contempt immediately And dies divided from its glorious stock So strength disjoyned from the living rock Turns to contemned imbecillity And doth to all its grace and glory die Some new-made Angels thus not more sublime In nature than transcending in their crime Quitting th' eternal fountain of their light Became the first-born sons of woe and night Princes of Darkness and the sad Abysse Which now their cursed place and portion is Where they no more must fee Gods glorious face Nor ever taste of his refreshing grace But in the fire of his fierce anger dwell Which though it burns enlightens
god-like excellence Eve quickly caught in the foul hunters net Believ'd that death was only a vain threat Her unbelief quenching religious dread Infectious counsel in her bosome bred Dissatisfaction with her present state And fond ambition of a godlike height Who now applies herself to its pursuit With longing eyes looks on the lovely fruit First nicely plucks then eats with full delight And gratifies her murderous appetite Poyson'd with the sweet relish of her sin Before her inward torturing pangs begin The pleasure to her husband she commends And he by her persuasion too offends As by the serpents she before had done Hence learn pernicious councellors to shun Within the snake the crafty tempter smil'd To see mankind so easily beguil'd But laugh not Satan God shall thee deride The Son of God and Man shall scourge thy pride And in the time of vengeance shall exact A punishment on thee for this accursed fact Now wrought the poyson on the guilty pair Who with confusion on each other stare While death possession takes and enters in At the wide breach laid open by their sin Sound health and joy before th' intruder fled Sickness and sorrow coming in their stead Their late sweet calm did now for ever cease Storms in all quarters drove away their peace Dread guilt remorse in the benighted soul Like raging billows on each other rowl Deaths harbingers waste in each province make While thundring terrours mans whole Island shake Within without disorder'd in the storm The colour fades and tremblings change the form Heat melts their substance cold their joynts benumbs Dull languishment their vigour overcomes Grief conquer'd beauty lays down all her arms And mightier woe dissolves her late strong charms Shame doth their looks deject no chearful grace No pleasant smiles appear in their sad face They see themselves fool'd cheated and betray'd And naked in the view of heaven made No glory compasses the drooping head The sight of their own ugliness they dread And curtains of broad thin Fig-leaves devise To hide themselves from their own weeping eyes But Ah these coverings were too slight and thin To ward their shame off or to keep out sin Or the keen airs quick piercing shafts which through Both leaves and pores into the bowels flew While they remain'd in their pure innocence It was their robe of glory and defence But when sin tore that mantle off they found Their members were all naked all uncrown'd Their purity in every place defil'd Their vest of righteousness all torn and spoyl'd Wherefore through guilt the late lov'd light they shun And into the obscurest shadow run But in no darkness can their quiet find Carrying within them a disturbed mind Which doth their cureless folly represent And makes them curse their late experiment Wishing they had been pure and ignorant still Nor coveted the knowledge of their ill Ah thus it is that yet we learn our good Till it be lost but seldome understood Rich blessings while we have them little prize Until their want their value magnifies And equally doth our remorse encrease For having cast away such happiness O wretched man who at so dear a rate Purchas'd the knowledge of his own frail state Knowledge of small advantage to the wise Which only their affliction multiplies While they in painful study vex their brain Pursuing what they never can attain And what would not avail them if acquir'd Till at the length with fruitless labour tir'd All that the learned and the wise can find Is but a vain disturbance of the mind A sense of mans inevitable woes Which he but little feels who little knows While mortals holding on their error still Pursue the knowledge both of good and ill They neither of them perfectly attain But in a dark tumultuous state remain Till sense of ill encreasing like nights shade Or hath a blot of good impressions made Or good victorious as the morning light Triumph over the vanquisht opposite For both at once abide not in one place Good knowledge flies from them who ill embrace So were our parents fill'd with guilt and fear When in the groves they Gods approaches hear And from the terrour of his presence fled Whether their own convictions caus'd their dread For inward guilt of conscience might suffice To chace vile sinners from his purer eyes Or nature felt an angry Gods descent Which shook the earth and tore the firmament We are not told nor will too far enquire Lightnings and tempests might speak forth his ire For at the day of universal doom The great Judge shall in flaming vengeance come An all-consuming fire shall go before Whirlwinds and thunder shall about him roar Horror shall darken the whole troubled skies And bloody veils shall hide the worlds bright eyes While stars from the dissolving heaven drop down And funeral blazes every Turret crown The clouds shall be confounded with the waves The yawning earth shall open all her graves Loud fragors shall firm rocks in sunder rend Cleft mountains shall hells fiery jaws distend Vomiting cinders sulphur pitch and flame Which shall consume the worlds unjoynted frame And turn the Paradises we admire Into an ever-boyling lake of fire But God then in his rich grace did delay These dismalterrors till the last great day Yet even his first approach created dread And the poor mortals from his anger fled Until a calmer voice their sense did greet Love even when it chides is kind and sweet The sense of wrath far from the fear'd Power drives The sense of Love brings home the fugitives Souls flying God into despair next fall Thence into hate till black hell close up all But if sweet mercy meet them on the way That milder voyce first doth their mad flight stay And their ill-quitted hope again restore Then love that was forsaking them before Returns with a more flaming strong desire Of those sweet joys from which it did retire And in their absence woe and terror found And all those plagues that can a poor soul wound While thus this love with holy ardour burns The bleeding sinner to his God returns And prostrate at his throne of grace doth lie If death he cannot shun yet there to die Where Mercy still doth fainting souls revive And in its kind embraces keep alive A gentler fire than what it lately felt Under the sense of wrath The soul doth melt Like precious Ore which when men would refine Doth in its liquefaction brightly shine In cleansing penitential meltings so Foul sinners once again illustrious grow When Christs all-heating softning spirit hath Their Furnance been and his pure blood their Bath Now though Gods wrath bring not the sinner home Who only by sweet love attracted come Yet is it necessary that the sense Of it should make us know the excellence And taste the pleasantness of pardoning
with our parents the Almighty dealt Before their necessary woes they felt Their feeble souls rich promises upheld And their deliverance was in types reveal'd Even their bodies God himself did arm With clothes that kept them from the weathers harm But after all they must be driven away Nor in their forfeit Paradise must stay Then said the Lord with holy ironie Whence man the folly of his pride might see The earthy man like one of us is grown To whom as God both good and ill is known Now lest he also eat of th' other tree Whose fruit gives life and an Immortal be Let us by just and timely banishment His further sinful arrogance prevent Then did he them out of the garden chace And set a Cherubim to guard the place Who wav'd a flaming Sword before the door Through which the wretches must return no more May we not liken to this Sword of flame The threatning law which from Mount Sinai came With such thick flashes of prodigious fire As made the mountains shake and men retire Forbidding them all forward hope that they Could enter into life that dreadful way Whate're it was whate're it signifies It kept our parents out of Paradise Who now returning to their place of birth Found themselves strangers in their native earth Their fatal breach of Gods most strict command Had there dissolv'd all concord the sweet band Of universal loveliness and peace And now the calm in every part did cease Love tho' immutable its smiles did shrowd Under the dark veil of an angry cloud And while he seem'd withdrawn whose grace upheld The order of all things confusion fill'd The Universe The air became impure And frequent dreadful conflicts did endure With every other angry element The whirling fires its tender body rent From earth and seas gross vapours did arise Turn'd to prodigious Meteors in the skies The blustring winds let loose their furious rage And in their battels did the floods engage The Sun confounded was with natures shame And the pale Moon shrunk in her sickly flame The rude congressions of the angry Stars In Heaven begun the universal wars While their malicious influence from above On earth did various perturbations move Droughts inundations blastings kill'd the plants Worse influence wrought on th' inhabitants Inspiring lust rage ravenous appetite Which made the creatures in all regions fight The little insects in great clouds did rise And in Battalia's spread obscur'd the skies Armies of birds encountred in the air With hideous cries deciding battles there The birds of prey to gorge their appetite Seiz'd harmless fowl in their unwary flight When the dim evening had shut in the day Troops of wild beasts all marching out for prey To the restless flocks would go and there Oft-times by other troops assailed were Who snatcht out of their jaws the new slain food And made them purchase it again with blood Thus sin the whole creation did divide Into th' oppressing and the suffering side Those still employing craft and violence To ' ensnare and murther simple innocence True emblems were of Satans craft and power In daily ambuscado to devour Nor only emblems were but organs too In and by whom he did his mischiefs do While persecuting cruelty and rage Them in his cursed party did engage Love meekness patience gentleness combin'd The tamer brood with those of their own kind Wherefore God chose them for his sacrifice When he the proud and mighty did despise And his most certain Oracles declare They mans restored peace at last shall share But to our parents then sad was the change Which them from peace and safety did estrange Brought universal woe and discord in The never failing consequents of sin Nor only made all things without them jar But in their breasts rais'd up a civil war Reason and sense maintain'd continual fight Urging th' aversion and the appetite Which led two different troops of passions out Confounding all in their tumultuous rout The less world with the great proportion held As winds the caverns sighs the bosomes fill'd So flowing tears did beauties fair fields drown As inndations kept within no bound Fear earth-quakes made lust in the fancy whirl'd Turn'd into flame and bursting fir'd the world Spite hate revenge ambition avarice Made innocence a prey to monstrous vice The cold and hot diseases represent The perturbations of the element Thus woe and danger had beset them round Distrest without within no comfort found Even as a Monarchs Favourite in disgrace Suffers contempt both from the high and base And the most abject most insult o're them Whom the offended Soveraigns condemn So after man th' Almighty disobey'd Each little fly durst his late King invade Aswell as the woods monsters wolves and bears And all things else that exercise his fears Methinks I hear sad Eve in some dark Vale Her woful state with such sad plaints bewail Ah! why doth death its latest stroke delay If we must leave the light why do we stay By slow degrees more painfully to die And languish in a long calamity Have we not lost by one false cheating sin All peace without all sweet repose within Is there a pleasure vet that life can show Doth not each moment multiplie our woe And while we live thus in perpetual dread Our hope and comfort long before us dead Why should we not our angry maker pray At once to take our wretched lives away Hath not our sin all natures pure leagues rent And arm'd against us every element Have not our subjects their allegiance broke Doth not each worm scorn our unworthy yoak Are we not half with griping hunger pin'd Before we bread amongst the brambles find All pale diseases in our members reign Anguish and grief no less our sick souls pain Whereever I my eyes or thoughts convert Each object adds new tortures to my heart If I look up I dread heavens threatning frown Thorns prick my eyes when shame hath cast them down Dangers I see looking on either hand Before me all in fighting posture stand If I cast back my sorrow-drowned eyes I see our ne're to be recover'd Paradise The flaming Sword which doth us thence exclude By sad remorse and ugly guilt pursued If I on thee a private glance reflect Confusion doth my shameful eyes deject Seeing the man I love by me betray'd By me who for his mutual help was made Who to preserve thy life ought to have died And I have kill'd thee by my foolish pride Defil'd thy glory and pull'd down thy throne O that I had but sin'd and died alone Then had my torture and my woe been less I yet had flourisht in thy happiness If these words Adams melting soul did move He might reply with kind rebuking love Cease cease O foolish woman to dispute Gods soveraign will and Power are absolute If he will have us soon or
slow to die Frail worms must yield but must not question why When his great hand appears we must conclude All that he doth is wife and just and good Though our poor sin-benighted fouls are blind Nor can the mysteries of his wisdome find Yet in our present case we must confess His justice and our own unrighteousness He warn'd us of this fatal consequence That death must wait on disobedience Yet we despis'd his threat and broke his law So did destruction on our own heads draw Now under his afflicting hand we lie Reaping the fruit of our iniquity Which had not he prevented when we fell At once had plung'd us in the lowest hell But by his mercy yet we have reprieve And yet are shew'd how we in death may live If we improve our short indulged space To understand prize and accept his grace Did all of us at once like brutes expire And cease to be we might quick death desire But since our chief and immaterial part Not fram'd of dust doth not to dust revert Its death not an annihilation is But to be cut off from its supream bliss Whatever here to mortals can befal Compar'd to future miseries is small The saddest sharpest and the longest have Their final consummations in the grave These have their intermissions and allays Though black and gloomy ones these nights have days The worst calamities we here endure Admit a possibility of cure Our miseries here are varied in their kind And in that change the wretched some ease find Sleep here our pained senses stupifies And cheating dreams in our sick fancies rise But in our future sufferings 't is not so There is no end no intermitted woe No more return from the accursed place No hope no possibility of grace No sleepy intervals no pleasant dreams No mitigations of those sad extreams No gentle mixtures no soft changes there Perpetual tortures heightned with despair Eternal horror and eternal night Eternal burnings with no glance of light Eternal pain O 't is a thought too great Too terrible for any to repeat Who have not scap'd the dread Let 's not to shun Heavens scorching rays into hells furnace run But having slain our selves let 's flie to him Who only can our souls from death redeem To undo what 's done is not within our power No more than to call back the last fled hour To think we can our fallen state restore Or without hope our ruine to deplore Are equal aggravating crimes the first Repeats that sin for which we were accurst while we with foolish arrogating pride More in our selves than in our God confide The last is both ungrateful and unjust That doth his goodness or his power distrust Which wheresoe're we look without within Above beneath in every place is seen Doth Heaven frown Above the sullen shrouds God sits and sees through all the blackest clouds Sin casts about us like the misty night Which hide his pleasing glances from our sight Nor only sees but darts on us his beams Ministring comfort in our worst extreams When lightnings flie dire storm and thunder roars He guides the shafts the serene calm restores When shadows occupie days vacant room He makes new glory spring from night dark womb When the black Prince of air le ts loose the winds The furious warriours he in prison binds If burning stars do conflagrations threat He gives cool breezes to allay the heat When cold doth in its rigid season reign He melts the snows and thaws the air again Restoring the vicissitude of things He still new good from every evil brings He holds together the worlds shaken frame Ordaining every change is still the same If he permit the elements to fight The rage of storms the blackness of the night 'T is that his power love and wisdome may More glory have restoring calm and day That we may more the pleasant blessings prize Laid in the ballance with their contraries Though dangers then like gaping monsters stand Ready to swallow us on either hand Let us despise them firm in this faith still If God will save they can nor hurt nor kill If by his just permission we are slain His power can heal and quicken us again If briers and thorns which from our sins arise Looking on earth pierce through our guilty eyes Let 's yet give thanks they have not choak'd the seed Which should with better fruit our sad lives feed If discord set the inward world on fire With hast let 's to the living spring retire There quench and quiet the disturbed soul There on Loves sweet refreshing green banks rowl Where ecstasied with joy we shall not feel The Serpents little nibblings at our heel If we look back on Paradise late lost Joys vanisht like swift dreams thaw'd like a frost Converting pleasant walks to dirt and mire Would we such frail delights again desire Which at their best however excellent Had this defect they were not permanent If sin remorse and guilt give us the chace Let us lie close in mercies sweet embrace Which when it us asham'd and naked found In the soft arms of melting pity bound Eternal glorious triumphs did prepare Arm'd us with clothes against the wounding air By expiating sacrifices taught How new life shall by death to light be brought If we before us look although we see All things in present fighting posture be Yet in the promise we a prospect have Of victory swallowing up the empty grave Our foes all vanquisht death it self lies dead And we shall trample on the monsters head Entring into a new and perfect joy Which neither sin nor sorrow can destroy A lasting and refin'd felicity For which even we our selves refin'd must be Then shall we laugh at our now childish woes And hug the birth that issues from these throes Let not my share of grief afflict thy mind But let me comfort in thy courage find 'T was not thy malice but thy ignorance That lately my destruction did advance Nor can I my own self excuse 't was I Undid my self by my facility Let 's not in vain each other now upbraid But rather strive to afford each other aid And our most gracious Lord with due thanks bless Who hath not left us single in distress When fear chills thee my hope shall make thee warm When I grow faint thou shalt my courage arm When both our spirits at a low ebb are We both will joyn in mutual fervent prayer To him whose gracious succour never fails When sin and death poor feeble man assails He that our final triumph hath decreed And promis'd thee salvation in thy seed Ah! can I this in Adams person say While