shall pay. 
  Accept me; and, in me, from these receive
  The smell of peace toward mankind:  let him live
  Before thee reconciled, at least his days
  Numbered though sad; till death his doom (which I
  To mitigate thus plead, not to reverse,)
  To better life shall yield him:  where with me
  All my redeemed may dwell in joy and bliss;
  Made one with me, as I with thee am one.” 
    To whom the Father, without cloud, serene. 
  “All thy request for Man, accepted Son,
  Obtain; all thy request was my decree: 
  But, longer in that Paradise to dwell,
  The law I gave to Nature him forbids: 
  Those pure immortal elements, that know
  No gross, no unharmonious mixture foul,
  Eject him, tainted now; and purge him off,
  As a distemper, gross, to air as gross,
  And mortal food; as may dispose him best
  For dissolution wrought by sin, that first
  Distempered all things, and of incorrupt
  Corrupted.  I, at first, with two fair gifts
  Created him endowed; with happiness,
  And immortality:  that fondly lost. 
  This other served but to eternize woe;
  Till I provided death:  so death becomes
  His final remedy; and, after life,
  Tried in sharp tribulation, and refined
  By faith and faithful works, to second life,
  Waked in the renovation of the just,
  Resigns him up with Heaven and Earth renewed.”

  EVE’S LAMENT.

    O unexpected stroke, worse than of death! 
  Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
  Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades,
  Fit haunt of gods; where I had hope to spend,
  Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
  That must be mortal to us both?  O flowers,
  That never will in other climate grow,
  My early visitation, and my last
  At even, which I bred up with tender hand
  From the first opening bud, and gave ye names! 
  Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
  Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount? 
  Thee, lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned
  With what to sight or smell was sweet, from thee
  How shall I part, and whither wander down
  Into a lower world, to this obscure
  And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
  Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

  EVE TO ADAM.

    With sorrow and heart’s distress
  Wearied, I fell asleep.  But now lead on;
  In me is no delay; with thee to go,
  Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
  Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me
  Art all things under heaven, all places thou,
  Who for my wilful crime art banished hence. 
  This further consolation, yet secure,
  I carry hence; though all by me is lost,
  Such favor I unworthy am vouchsafed,
  By me the promised Seed shall all restore.

BOOK XII.

  THE DEPARTURE FROM PARADISE.