But say That death be not one stroke, as I supposed, Bereaving sense, but endless misery From this day onward, which I feel begun Both in me, and without me, and so last To perpetuity; ay me, that fear Comes thund'ring back with dreadful revolution On my defenceless head; both Death and I Am found eternal, and incorporate both, Nor I on my part single, in me all Paradise Lost Posterity stands cursed: fair patrimony That I must leave ye, sons; O were I able To waste it all myself, and leave ye none!

The oracles are dumb, No voice or hideous hum Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving. Apollo from his shrine Can no more divine, With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving. No nightly trance or breathed spell Inspires the pale-eyed priest from the prophetic cell.

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps At wisdom's gate, and to simplicity Resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill Where no ill seems.

That power Which erring men call Chance.

Truth is as impossible to be soiled by any outward touch as the sunbeam.

Ask for this great deliverer now, and find him Eyeless in Gaza at the mill with slaves.

Justice divine Mends not her slowest pace for prayers or cries.