Thy punishment then justly is at his will. Be it so, for I submit; his doom is fair, 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 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 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 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 Of life that sinned: what dies but what had life And sin? the body properly hath neither.