The Poetical Works of John Milton


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His hand to execute what his Decree  
Fixd on this day? why do I overlive,  
Why am I mockt with death, and length'nd out  
To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet  
Mortalitie my sentence, and be Earth  
Insensible, how glad would lay me down  
As in my Mothers lap? there I should rest  
And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more  
Would Thunder in my ears, no fear of worse  
To mee and to my ofspring would torment me  
With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt  
780  
Pursues me still, least all I cannot die,  
Least that pure breath of Life, the Spirit of Man  
Which God inspir'd, cannot together perish  
With this corporeal Clod; then in the Grave,  
Or in some other dismal place, who knows  
But I shall die a living Death? O thought  
Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath  
Of Life that sinn'd; what dies but what had life  
And sin? the Bodie properly hath neither.  
All of me then shall die: let this appease  
The doubt, since humane reach no further knows.  
For though the Lord of all be infinite,  
790  
Is his wrauth also? be it, man is not so,  
But mortal doom'd. How can he exercise  
Wrath without end on Man whom Death must end?  
552  


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550 551 552 553 554

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1 198 395 593 790