BOOK TENTH
��On me, me oiily, as the source and spring Of all corruption, all the blame lights due. So might the wrauth ! 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
desir'st, And what thou fear'st, alike destroys all
hope
Of refuge, and concludes thee miserable Beyond all past example and future' 840 To Satan only like, both crime and doom.
Conscience ! into what abyss of fears And horrors hast thou driven me; out of
which
1 find no way, from deep to deeper
plunged ! "
Thus Adain 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 850
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 ! 860
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 as- sayed ;
But her, with stern regard, he thus re- pelled : " 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 shew Thy inward fraud, to warn all creatures from thee 871
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 over- weening
To overreach; but, with the Serpent meet- ing.
Fooled and beguiled; by him thou, I by thee, 880
To trust thee from my side, imagined wise, Constant, mature, proof against all as- saults,
And understood not all was but a shew, 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 To my just number found ! Oh, why did
God,
Creator wise, that peopled highest Heaven With Spirits masculine, create at last 890 This novelty on Earth, this fair defect Of Nature, and not fill the World at once With men as Angels, without feminine ; Or find some other way to generate Mankind ? This mischief had not then
befallen,
And more that shall befall innumerable Disturbances on Earth through female
snares, And strait conjunction with this sex. For
either
He never shall find out fit mate, but such As some misfortune brings him, or mis- take ; 900 Or whom he wishes most shall seldom gain, Through her perverseness, but shall see her
gained
By a far worse, or, if she love, withheld By parents; or his happiest choice too late Shall meet, already linked and wedlock- bound
�� �
