Джон Мильтон – Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained (страница 33)

And to the end, persisting, safe arrive.

This my long sufferance, and my day of grace,

They who neglect and scorn, shall never taste;

But hard be harden’d, blind be blinded more,

That they may stumble on, and deeper fall;

And none but such from mercy I exclude.

But yet all is not done; Man disobeying,

Disloyal, breaks his fealty, and sins

Against the high supremacy of Heaven,

Affecting God-head, and, so losing all,

To expiate his treason hath nought left,

But to destruction sacred and devote,

He, with his whole posterity, must die,

Die he or justice must; unless for him

Some other able, and as willing, pay

The rigid satisfaction, death for death.

Say, heavenly Powers, where shall we find such love?

Which of you will be mortal, to redeem

Man’s mortal crime, and just the unjust to save?

Dwells in all Heaven charity so dear?”

He ask’d, but all the heavenly quire stood mute,

And silence was in Heaven: on Man’s behalf

Patron or intercessour none appear’d,

Much less that durst upon his own head draw

The deadly forfeiture, and ransom set.

And now without redemption all mankind

Must have been lost, adjudg’d to Death and Hell

By doom severe, had not the Son of God,

In whom the fulness dwells of love divine,

His dearest mediation thus renew’d.

“Father, thy word is past, Man shall find grace;

And shall grace not find means, that finds her way,

The speediest of thy winged messengers,

To visit all thy creatures, and to all

Comes unprevented, unimplor’d, unsought?

Happy for Man, so coming; he her aid

Can never seek, once dead in sins, and lost;

Atonement for himself, or offering meet,

Indebted and undone, hath none to bring;

Behold me then: me for him, life for life

I offer: on me let thine anger fall;

Account me Man; I for his sake will leave

Thy bosom, and this glory next to thee

Freely put off, and for him lastly die

Well pleased; on me let Death wreak all his rage.

Under his gloomy power I shall not long

Lie vanquished. Thou hast given me to possess

Life in myself for ever; by thee I live;

Though now to Death I yield, and am his due,

All that of me can die, yet, that debt paid,

Thou wilt not leave me in the loathsome grave

His prey, nor suffer my unspotted soul

For ever with corruption there to dwell;

But I shall rise victorious, and subdue

My vanquisher, spoiled of his vaunted spoil.

Death his death’s wound shall then receive, and stoop

Inglorious, of his mortal sting disarmed;

I through the ample air in triumph high

Shall lead Hell captive maugre Hell, and show

The powers of darkness bound. Thou, at the sight

Pleased, out of Heaven shalt look down and smile,

While, by thee raised, I ruin all my foes;

Death last, and with his carcass glut the grave;

Then, with the multitude of my redeemed,

Shall enter Heaven, long absent, and return,