Life and Existence

Before mine eyes in opposition sits Grim Death my son and foe.

At certain revolutions all the damn’d Are brought: and feel by turns the bitter change Of fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce.

Far off from these a slow and silent stream, Lethe the river of oblivion rolls.

Others apart sat on a hill retir’d, In thoughts more elevate, and reason’d high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix’d fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost.

Others apart sat on a hill retir’d, In thoughts more elevate, and reason’d high Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate, Fix’d fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, And found no end, in wand’ring mazes lost.

The never-ending flight Of future days.

The never-ending flight Of future days.

Unrespited, unpitied, unrepriev’d.

For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish rather, swallow’d up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion?

For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish rather, swallow’d up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion?

For who would lose, Though full of pain, this intellectual being, Those thoughts that wander through eternity, To perish rather, swallow’d up and lost In the wide womb of uncreated night, Devoid of sense and motion?

From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day; and with the setting sun Dropp’d from the zenith like a falling star.

From morn To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, A summer’s day; and with the setting sun Dropp’d from the zenith like a falling star.

The sun… In dim eclipse, disastrous twilight sheds On half the nations, and with fear of change Perplexes monarchs.

His form had yet not lost All her original brightness, nor appear’d Less than archangel ruin’d, and th’ excess Of glory obscur’d.

Thick as autumnal leaves that strow the brooks In Vallombrosa.

A mind not to be chang’d by place or time. The mind is its own place, and in itself Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heav’n.

What in me is dark Illumine, what is low raise and support; That to the height of this great argument I may assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men.

Of Man’s first disobedience, and the fruit Of that forbidden tree whose mortal taste Brought death into the world, and all our woe, With loss of Eden.

But oh! as to embrace me she inclin’d, I wak’d, she fled, and day brought back my night.

Methought I saw my late espoused saint Brought to me like Alcestis from the grave.

Who best Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best: his state Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o’er land and ocean without rest; They also serve who only stand and wait.

Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones Lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold; Ev’n them who kept thy truth so pure of old When all our fathers worshipp’d stocks and stones Forget not.

Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?