REDEMPTION. 157
Preferring freedom here, to vassalage
la heav'n, albeit obnoxious to some pain?
Goodness and virtue ! Ah me ! in them once,
How pre-eminent I stood ! How fall'n now !
And what would venture to regain that state,
Created first like others to enjoy.
Are these made better, and more firm to stand?
This second Eve, this Man, so godlike both,
Are they superior e'en t' angelic mold?
So my repulsion ruinous forebodes.
But may not this foreboding me deceive?
Howe'er it be, deceiving or deceived,
One thing is fix'd, my enmity is his;
My force shall him oppose, while force remains.
He can but conquer; I, annihilate,
But die ; if this ethereal substance can
Dissolve, which much I doubt, since it withstands,
And has so long withstood, his fiercest brunts.
Not deathless, then far better death, better
Annihilation, than the contest yield.
What e'er result, or be he God, or man,
Or both united, him I now essay."
Thus he, the while a cormorant, high perch'd, New frauds devised; and then, on gyral wing, Foul, graveolent, to eye the spot where he Might best alight, soar'd high in ambient air. Far in the wilderness a ravine deep, Near Galaad lies, through which the Jaboc Coursed its way to blend with Jordan's stream, Hard by the witness heap, which Laban raised, His cov'nant with the patriarch to seal. Thither, sore journey, after many days were pass'd,
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