_Eve._ Why seek you death? consider, ere you speak, The laws were hard, the power to keep them, weak. Did we solicit heaven to mould our clay? From darkness to produce us to the day? Did we concur to life, or chuse to be? Was it our will which formed, or was it He? Since 'twas his choice, not ours, which placed us here, The laws we did not chuse why should we bear? _Adam._ Seek not, in vain, our Maker to accuse; Terms were proposed; power left us to refuse. The good we have enjoyed from heaven's free will, And shall we murmur to endure the ill? Should we a rebel son's excuse receive, Because he was begot without his leave? Heaven's right in us is more: first, formed to serve; The good, we merit not; the ill, deserve. _Raph._ Death is deferred, and penitence has room To mitigate, if not reverse the doom: But, for your crime, the Eternal does ordain In Eden you no longer shall remain. Hence, to the lower world, you are exiled; This place with crimes shall be no more defiled. _Eve._ Must we this blissful paradise forego? _Raph._ Your lot must be where thorns and thistles grow, Unhid, as balm and spices did at first; For man, the earth, of which he was, is cursed. By thy own toil procured, thou food shalt eat; [_To_ ADAM. And know no plenty, but from painful sweat. She, by a curse, of future wives abhorred, Shall pay obedience to her lawful lord; And he shall rule, and she in thraldom live, Desiring more of love than man can give. _Adam._ Heaven is all mercy; labour I would chuse; And could sustain this paradise to lose: The bliss, but not the place: Here, could I say, Heaven's winged messenger did pass the day; Under this pine the glorious angel staid: Then, show my wondering progeny the shade. In woods and lawns, where-e'er thou didst appear, Each place some monument of thee should bear. I, with green turfs, would grateful altars raise, And heaven, with gums, and offered incense, praise. _Raph._ Where-e'er thou art, He is; the Eternal Mind Acts through all places; is to none confined: Fills ocean, earth, and air, and all above, And through the universal mass does move. Thou canst be no where distant: Yet this place Had been thy kingly seat, and here thy race, From all the ends of peopled earth had come To reverence thee, and see their native home. Immortal, then; now sickness, care, and age, And war, and luxury's more direful rage, Thy crimes have brought, to shorten mortal breath, With all the numerous family of death. _Eve._ My spirits faint, while I these ills foreknow, And find myself the sad occasion too. But what is death? _Raph._ In vision thou shalt see his griesly face, The king of terrors, raging in thy face. That, while in future fate thou shar'st thy part, A kind remorse, for sin, may seize thy heart. _The_ SCENE _shifts, and discovers deaths of several sorts. A Battle at Land, and a Naval Fight._