With Ruin Upon Ruin, Rout On Rout,

How Oft, In Nations Gone Corrupt, And By Their Own Devices Brought Down To Servitude, That Man Chooses Bondage Before Liberty. Bondage With Ease Before Strenuous Liberty.

Back To Thy Punishment, False Fugitive, And To Thy Speed Add Wings.

Yet Beauty, Though Injurious, Hath Strange Power, After Offence Returning, To Regain Love Once Possess'd.

A Gulf Profound As That Serbonian Bog Betwixt Damiata And Mount Casius Old, Where Armies Whole Have Sunk: The Parching Air Burns Frore, And Cold Performs Th' Effect Of Fire. Thither By Harpy-footed Furies Hal'd, At Certain Revolutions All The Damn'd Are Brought, And Feel By Turns The Bitter Change Of Fierce Extremes,-extremes By Change More Fierce; From Beds Of Raging Fire To Starve In Ice Their Soft Ethereal Warmth, And There To Pine Immovable, Infix'd, And Frozen Round, Periods Of Time; Thence Hurried Back To Fire.

What Better Can We Do Than Prostrate Fall Before Him Reverent, And There Confess Humbly Our Faults, And Pardon Beg With Tears Watering The Ground?