Can Any Mortal Mixture Of Earth's Mould

Leaves Have Their Time To Fall, And Flowers To Wither At The North - Wind's Breath, And Stars To Set; But All, Thou Hast All Seasons For Thine Own, O Death!

Now I See Peace To Corrupt No Less Than War To Waste.

Nor Aught Availed Him Now To Have Built In Heaven High Towers; Nor Did He Scrape By All His Engines, But Was Headlong Sent With His Industrious Crew To Build In Hell.

Alas! What Boots It With Uncessant Care To Tend The Homely Slighted Shepherd's Trade, And Strictly Meditate The Thankless Muse; Were It Not Better Done As Others Use, To Sport With Amaryllis In The Shade, Or With The Tangles Of Neaera's Hair? Fame Is The Spur That The Clear Spirit Doth Raise (that Last Infirmity Of Noble Mind) To Scorn Delights, And Live Laborious Days; But The Fair Guerdon When We Hope To Find, And Think To Burst Out Into Sudden Blaze, Comes The Blind Fury With Th'abhorred Shears, And Slits The Thin-spun Life.

O Fairest Of Creation, Last And Best Of All God's Works, Creature In Whom Excelled Whatever Can To Sight Or Thought Be Formed, Holy, Divine, Good, Amiable, Or Sweet! How Art Thou Lost, How On A Sudden Lost, Defaced, Deflow'red, And Now To Death Devote? Paradise Lost