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pilgrimage upon earth; to consider ourselves as sent here upon trial, that 
after a very few years, which, compared to eternity, amounts to one grain of 
sand to the whole mass confining the vast ocean, the soul will quit the body, 
which confines it like a clog upon this earth, and degrades it by its wants, 
to enjoy in elysian fields, or, as scripture better expresses its true name, in 
Paradise ,* there to converse with pure spirits (embodied, or unembodied, 
we know not), to contemplate new flowers,f more exquisite in shape and 
beauty than any here on earth, never blighted by mildews, or winter; to 
behold new animals, new fishes, birds, insects, and shells; to hear the 
murmuring of numberless rivulets or fountains; the chorusses of birds, not 
now dreading the hawk or fowler; to see edifices, nay palaces, erected in 
beautiful architecture of massy jewels; to behold gold and silver, not alloyed 
for a base currency, but pure, assuming, by finest workmanship, the shapes 
of all forms of birds, beasts, and flowers; to join often, with heavenly 
instruments, in praise of him, whence all this happiness proceeds; and, 
* Milton thus describes Paradise: 
Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose, 
Another side, umbrageous grots and caves 
Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine 
Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps 
Luxuriant: mean while murm’ring waters fall 
Down the slope hills, dispers’d, or in a lake, 
That to the fringed bank, with myrtle crown’d. 
Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams. 
The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs. 
Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune 
The trembling leaves, while universal Pan, 
Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, 
Led on th’ eternal spring. 
f How exquisitely does Milton describe Eve lamenting the loss of the flowers in Paradise: 
—-— ----O flowers. 
That never will in other climates 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 you 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 ? 
4 D 
