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To sorrow abandoned, but worse felt within, 
And in a troubled sea of passion tost. 
Thus to disburden sought with sad complaint. 
“ O miserable of happy! is this the end 
Of this new glorious world, and me so late 
The glory of that glory, who now become 
Accurs’d of blessed, hide me from the face 
Of God, whom to behold was then my height 
Of happiness!- 
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 jlowers, 
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 th’ ambrosial fount? 
Thee lastly, nuptial bow’r, by me adorn’d 
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 I breathe in other air 
Less pure, accustom’d to immortal fruits? 
O miserable of Mankind, to what fall 
Degraded, to what wretched state reserv’d! 
Better end here unborn. Why is life given 
To be thus wrested from us ? rather why 
Obtruded on us thus? who, if we knew 
What we receive, would either not accept 
Life offer’d, or soon beg to lay it down. 
Glad to be so dismiss’d in peace. Can thus 
Th’ image of God, in man created once 
So goodly and erect, though faulty since. 
To such unsightly sufferings be debas’d 
Under inhuman pains ? Why should not man. 
Retaining still divine similitude 
In part, from such deformities be free. 
And for his Maker’s image sake exempt?” 
“ Their Maker’s image,” answer’dMicHAEL, “then 
Forsook them, when themselves they vilify’d 
To serve ungovern’d appetite, and took 
His image whom they serv’d, a brutish vice, 
Inductive mainly to the sin of Eve. 
Therefore so abject is their punishment. 
Disfiguring not God’s likeness, but their own. 
Or of his likeness, by themselves defac’d. 
While they pervert pure Nature’s healthful rules 
To loathsome sickness, worthily, since they 
God’s image did not reverence in themselves. 
