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Paradise Lost

This is for that paradise lost

And how that wretched Satan accosts

Every generation of our souls

In quest to confound with that age-old riddle of original sin

Thus, it began where it always begins in our pandemonium

“The World was all before [us], where to choose

[our] place of rest, and Providence [our] guide

[We], hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow

Through Eden took our solitary way”

As did Adam, so did Eve

Step across the threshold of fiery swords sent to impede

Leaving but dust-laden footprints to mark the path

That free will chose

A memorial to innumerable curses

All but children of one fatal choice

Told forever in the greatest of all words

Burned eternal and forever reiterated

To satisfy this ignoble flesh

For that which I do I allow not

For what I would, that do I not

But what I hate, that do I

As it is written it is true

No man can serve two masters

Loyalty being such a fickle creature

Torn with eyes to the lamb

Hearts infected with bestial nature

Though reprehensible and immoral

Desires bear thoughts

Thoughts bear deeds and repercussions so deplorable

I chose

We chose

Because he elected her primacy

And now true orphans as none before in God’s fold

We journey as the seed never alone

Forced to bear the weight of the depth of our restraint

And the chains of our faith

The product of our folly to dance

In flames void of light

Our glory extinct

Swallowed in endless misery

Trapped eternal in sulfurous hail

Left to cry on suppliant knee

Eyes tied to a night without stars, without hope, without grace

Burning inferno without heat, only pain and sorrow

Hobbling on a barren plain that cannot harbor rest

Free of the conscience of the Almighty

And no marvel for Satan himself transformed into an angel of light

The lion and the wolf with heart as black as the darkest night

Since sin without form first sprang from Satan’s mind

This fatal cancer of his pride

With whom he with sin in pleasures so joyously entwined

Begot death who he himself could not surmount

Yet he with unyielding aim turned his sight toward the only pain deemed worthy of the victor’s aseity

Toward changing the nature of man’s heart from grace into seeds to grow

Not the fruit of Jehovah but of the world

For us to believe that the sweetness of our sin is freedom

Our minds not changed by place or circumstance

Nay, not even the promises beyond heaven’s gate

The happy fields where joy forever dwells

And the golden roads and mansions with peace eternal

Transfixed in feral instants unhindered to perseverate offense

And heap upon ourselves damnation

Our station sufficient in itself with choice

To make hell of heaven or heaven of hell

Isolated in the glory obscured by sin released

Ingloriously eclipsed with covenants of Azazel

Our travail to perceive

There was nothing good left in him only ill

That fallen cherubim of erred fate

Seamless victim of his own end

Infinite study of unconquerable will and immortal hate

His greatest strength the courage never to submit

And make all but God’s greatest man weak (for none deserve the glory)

And yet this titan of the gloomy deep

This archfiend of revenge stands reduced to but a tool of his father’s providence

For out of his evil to bring forth good ends

To YHWH always be the glory!