Paradise Lost

by John Milton

That dust I am, and shall to dust return: O welcome hour whenever! why delays His hand to execute what his decree Fixed on this day? why do I overlive, Why am I mocked with death, and lengthened out [775] To deathless pain? how gladly would I meet Mortality my sentence, and be earth Insensible, how glad would lay me down As in my mother’s lap! there I should rest And sleep secure; his dreadful voice no more [780] Would thunder in my ears, no fear of worse To me and to my offspring would torment me With cruel expectation. Yet one doubt Pursues me still, lest all I cannot die, Lest that pure breath of life, the spirit of man [785] Which God inspired, cannot together perish With this corporeal clod; then in the grave, Or in some other dismal place, who knows But I shall die a living death? O thought Horrid, if true! yet why? it was but breath [790] Of life that sinned; what dies but what had life And sin? the body properly hath neither. All of me then shall die: let this appease The doubt, since human reach no further knows.