No more of talk where God or Angel guest
With Man, as with his friend, familiar us'd
To sit indulgent, and with him partake

Rural repast; permitting him the while
Venial discourse unblam'd. I now must change
Those notes to tragick; foul distrust, and breach

Disloyal on the part of Man, revolt
And disobedience: on the part of Heaven
Now alienated, distance and distaste

Anger and just rebuke, and judgement given
That brought into this world a world of woe
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery

Death's harbinger: Sad talk!yet argument
Not less but more heroick than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursued

Thrice fugitive about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd;
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's, that so long

Perplexed the Greek, and Cytherea's son:
If answerable style I can obtain
Of my celestial patroness, who deigns

Her nightly visitation unimplor'd
And dictates to me slumbering; or inspires
Easy my unpremeditated verse:

Since first this subject for heroick song
Pleas'd me long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite

Wars, hitherto the only argument
Heroick deem'd chief mastery to dissect
With long and tedious havock fabled knights

In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroick martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games

Or tilting furniture, imblazon'd shields
Impresses quaint, caparisons and steeds
Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights

At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers and seneshals;
The skill of artifice or office mean

Not that which justly gives heroick name
To person, or to poem. Me, of these
Nor skill'd nor studious, higher argument

Remains; sufficient of itself to raise
That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing

Depress'd; and much they may, if all be mine
Not hers, who brings it nightly to my ear
The sun was sunk, and after him the star

Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter
"twixt day and night, and now from end to end

Night's hemisphere had veil'd the horizon round:
When satan, who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd

In meditated fraud and malice, bent
On Man's destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless returned

From compassing the earth; cautious of day
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
His entrance, and foreworned the Cherubim

That kept their watch; thence full of anguish driven
The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness; thrice the equinoctial line

He circled; four times crossed the car of night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
On the eighth returned; and, on the coast averse

From entrance or Cherubick watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way. There was a place
Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the change

Where Tigris, at the foot of Paradise
Into a gulf shot under ground, till part
Rose up a fountain by the tree of life:

In with the river sunk, and with it rose
Satan, involved in rising mist; then sought
Where to lie hid; sea he had searched, and land

From Eden over Pontus and the pool
Maeotis, up beyond the river Ob;
Downward as far antarctick; and in length
West from Orontes to the ocean barred
At Darien ; thence to the land where flows

Ganges and Indus: Thus the orb he roamed
With narrow search; and with inspection deep
Considered every creature, which of all
Most opportune might serve his wiles; and found
The Serpent subtlest beast of all the field

Him after long debate, irresolute
Of thoughts revolved, his final sentence chose
Fit vessel, fittest imp of fraud, in whom
To enter, and his dark suggestions hide
From sharpest sight: for, in the wily snake

Whatever sleights, none would suspicious mark
As from his wit and native subtlety
Proceeding; which, in other beasts observed
Doubt might beget of diabolick power
Active within, beyond the sense of brute

Thus he resolved, but first from inward grief
His bursting passion into plaints thus poured
More justly, seat worthier of Gods, as built
With second thoughts, reforming what was old!
O Earth, how like to Heaven, if not preferred
For what God, after better, worse would build?

Terrestrial Heaven, danced round by other Heavens
That shine, yet bear their bright officious lamps
Light above light, for thee alone, as seems
In thee concentring all their precious beams
Of sacred influence! As God in Heaven
Is center, yet extends to all; so thou
Centring, receivest from all those orbs: in thee

Not in themselves, all their known virtue appears
Productive in herb, plant, and nobler birth
Of creatures animate with gradual life
Of growth, sense, reason, all summed up in Man
With what delight could I have walked thee round
If I could joy in aught, sweet interchange
Of hill, and valley, rivers, woods, and plains

Now land, now sea and shores with forest crowned
Rocks, dens, and caves! But I in none of these
Find place or refuge; and the more I see
Pleasures about me, so much more I feel
Torment within me, as from the hateful siege
Of contraries: all good to me becomes
Bane, and in Heaven much worse would be my state

But neither here seek I, no nor in Heaven
To dwell, unless by mastering Heaven's Supreme;
Nor hope to be myself less miserable
By what I seek, but others to make such
As I, though thereby worse to me redound:
For only in destroying I find ease
To my relentless thoughts; and, him destroyed

Or won to what may work his utter loss
For whom all this was made, all this will soon
Follow, as to him linked in weal or woe;
In woe then; that destruction wide may range:
To me shall be the glory sole among
The infernal Powers, in one day to have marred
What he, Almighty styled, six nights and days

Continued making; and who knows how long
Before had been contriving? though perhaps
Not longer than since I, in one night, freed
From servitude inglorious well nigh half
The angelick name, and thinner left the throng
Of his adorers: He, to be avenged
And to repair his numbers thus impaired
Whether such virtue spent of old now failed
More Angels to create, if they at least
Are his created, or, to spite us more
Determined to advance into our room
A creature formed of earth, and him endow
Exalted from so base original
With heavenly spoils, our spoils: What he decreed
He effected; Man he made, and for him built
Magnificent this world, and earth his seat
Him lord pronounced; and, O indignity!
Subjected to his service angel-wings
And flaming ministers to watch and tend
Their earthly charge: Of these the vigilance
I dread; and, to elude, thus wrapt in mist
Of midnight vapour glide obscure, and pry
In every bush and brake, where hap may find
The serpent sleeping; in whose mazy folds
To hide me, and the dark intent I bring
O foul descent! that I, who erst contended
With Gods to sit the highest, am now constrained
Into a beast; and, mixed with bestial slime
This essence to incarnate and imbrute
That to the highth of Deity aspired!
But what will not ambition and revenge
Descend to? Who aspires, must down as low
As high he soared; obnoxious, first or last
To basest things. Revenge, at first though sweet
Bitter ere long, back on itself recoils:
Let it; I reck not, so it light well aimed
Since higher I fall short, on him who next
Provokes my envy, this new favourite
Of Heaven, this man of clay, son of despite
Whom, us the more to spite, his Maker raised
From dust: Spite then with spite is best repaid
So saying, through each thicket dank or dry
Like a black mist low-creeping, he held on
His midnight-search, where soonest he might find
The serpent; him fast-sleeping soon he found
In labyrinth of many a round self-rolled
His head the midst, well stored with subtile wiles:
Not yet in horrid shade or dismal den
Nor nocent yet; but, on the grassy herb
Fearless unfeared he slept: in at his mouth
The Devil entered; and his brutal sense
In heart or head, possessing, soon inspired
With act intelligential; but his sleep
Disturbed not, waiting close the approach of morn
Now, when as sacred light began to dawn
In Eden on the humid flowers, that breathed
Their morning incense, when all things, that breathe
From the Earth's great altar send up silent praise
To the Creator, and his nostrils fill
With grateful smell, forth came the human pair
And joined their vocal worship to the quire
Of creatures wanting voice; that done, partake
The season prime for sweetest scents and airs:
Then commune, how that day they best may ply
Their growing work: for much their work out-grew
The hands' dispatch of two gardening so wide
And Eve first to her husband thus began
Adam, well may we labour still to dress
This garden, still to tend plant, herb, and flower
Our pleasant task enjoined; but, till more hands
Aid us, the work under our labour grows
Luxurious by restraint; what we by day
Lop overgrown, or prune, or prop, or bind
One night or two with wanton growth derides
Tending to wild. Thou therefore now advise
Or bear what to my mind first thoughts present:
Let us divide our labours; thou, where choice
Leads thee, or where most needs, whether to wind
The woodbine round this arbour, or direct
The clasping ivy where to climb; while I
In yonder spring of roses intermixed
With myrtle, find what to redress till noon:
For, while so near each other thus all day
Our task we choose, what wonder if so near
Looks intervene and smiles, or object new
Casual discourse draw on; which intermits
Our day's work, brought to little, though begun
Early, and the hour of supper comes unearned?
To whom mild answer Adam thus returned
Sole Eve, $$#ociate sole, to me beyond
Compare above all living creatures dear!
Well hast thou motioned, well thy thoughts employed
How we might best fulfil the work which here
God hath $$#igned us; nor of me shalt pass
Unpraised: for nothing lovelier can be found
In woman, than to study houshold good
And good works in her husband to promote
Yet not so strictly hath our Lord imposed
Labour, as to debar us when we need
Refreshment, whether food, or talk between
Food of the mind, or this sweet intercourse
Of looks and smiles; for smiles from reason flow
To brute denied, and are of love the food;
Love, not the lowest end of human life
For not to irksome toil, but to delight
He made us, and delight to reason joined
These paths and bowers doubt not but our joint hands
Will keep from wilderness with ease, as wide
As we need walk, till younger hands ere long
Assist us; But, if much converse perhaps
Thee satiate, to short absence I could yield:
For solitude sometimes is best society
And short retirement urges sweet return
But other doubt possesses me, lest harm
Befall thee severed from me; for thou knowest
What hath been warned us, what malicious foe
Envying our happiness, and of his own
Despairing, seeks to work us woe and shame
By sly $$#ault; and somewhere nigh at hand
Watches, no doubt, with greedy hope to find
His wish and best advantage, us asunder;
Hopeless to circumvent us joined, where each
To other speedy aid might lend at need:
Whether his first design be to withdraw
Our fealty from God, or to disturb
Conjugal love, than which perhaps no bliss
Enjoyed by us excites his envy more;
Or this, or worse, leave not the faithful side
That gave thee being, still shades thee, and protects
The wife, where danger or dishonour lurks
Safest and seemliest by her husband stays
Who guards her, or with her the worst endures
To whom the virgin majesty of Eve
As one who loves, and some unkindness meets
With sweet austere composure thus replied
Offspring of Heaven and Earth, and all Earth's Lord!
That such an enemy we have, who seeks
Our ruin, both by thee informed I learn
And from the parting Angel over-heard
As in a shady nook I stood behind
Just then returned at shut of evening flowers
But, that thou shouldst my firmness therefore doubt
To God or thee, because we have a foe
May tempt it, I expected not to hear
His violence thou fearest not, being such
As we, not capable of death or pain
Can either not receive, or can repel
His fraud is then thy fear; which plain infers
Thy equal fear, that my firm faith and love
Can by his fraud be shaken or seduced;
Thoughts, which how found they harbour in thy breast
Adam, mis-thought of her to thee so dear?
To whom with healing words Adam replied
Daughter of God and Man, immortal Eve!
For such thou art; from sin and blame entire:
Not diffident of thee do I dissuade
Thy absence from my sight, but to avoid
The attempt itself, intended by our foe
For he who tempts, though in vain, at least asperses
The tempted with dishonour foul; supposed
Not incorruptible of faith, not proof
Against temptation: Thou thyself with scorn
And anger wouldst resent the offered wrong
Though ineffectual found: misdeem not then
If such affront I labour to avert
From thee alone, which on us both at once
The enemy, though bold, will hardly dare;
Or daring, first on me the $$#ault shall light
Nor thou his malice and false guile contemn;
Subtle he needs must be, who could seduce
Angels; nor think superfluous other's aid
I, from the influence of thy looks, receive
Access in every virtue; in thy sight
More wise, more watchful, stronger, if need were
Of outward strength; while shame, thou looking on
Shame to be overcome or over-reached
Would utmost vigour raise, and raised unite
Why shouldst not thou like sense within thee feel
When I am present, and thy trial choose
With me, best witness of thy virtue tried?
So spake domestick Adam in his care
And matrimonial love; but Eve, who thought
Less attributed to her faith sincere
Thus her reply with accent sweet renewed
If this be our condition, thus to dwell
In narrow circuit straitened by a foe
Subtle or violent, we not endued
Single with like defence, wherever met;
How are we happy, still in fear of harm?
But harm precedes not sin: only our foe
Tempting, affronts us with his foul esteem
Of our integrity: his foul esteem
Sticks no dishonour on our front, but turns
Foul on himself; then wherefore shunned or feared
By us? who rather double honour gain
From his surmise proved false; find peace within
Favour from Heaven, our witness, from the event
And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
Alone, without exteriour help sustained?
Let us not then suspect our happy state
Left so imperfect by the Maker wise
As not secure to single or combined
Frail is our happiness, if this be so
And Eden were no Eden, thus exposed
To whom thus Adam fervently replied
O Woman, best are all things as the will
Of God ordained them: His creating hand
Nothing imperfect or deficient left
Of all that he created, much less Man
Or aught that might his happy state secure
Secure from outward force; within himself
The danger lies, yet lies within his power:
Against his will he can receive no harm
But God left free the will; for what obeys
Reason, is free; and Reason he made right
But bid her well be ware, and still erect;
Lest, by some fair-appearing good surprised
She dictate false; and mis-inform the will
To do what God expressly hath forbid
Not then mistrust, but tender love, enjoins
That I should mind thee oft; and mind thou me
Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve;
Since Reason not impossibly may meet
Some specious object by the foe suborned
And fall into deception unaware
Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warned
Seek not temptation then, which to avoid
Were better, and most likely if from me
Thou sever not: Trial will come unsought
Wouldst thou approve thy constancy, approve
First thy obedience; the other who can know
Not seeing thee attempted, who attest?
But, if thou think, trial unsought may find
Us both securer than thus warned thou seemest
Go; for thy stay, not free, absents thee more;
Go in thy native innocence, rely
On what thou hast of virtue; summon all!
For God towards thee hath done his part, do thine
So spake the patriarch of mankind; but Eve
Persisted; yet submiss, though last, replied
With thy permission then, and thus forewarned
Chiefly by what thy own last reasoning words
Touched only; that our trial, when least sought
May find us both perhaps far less prepared
The willinger I go, nor much expect
A foe so proud will first the weaker seek;
So bent, the more shall shame him his repulse
Thus saying, from her husband's hand her hand
Soft she withdrew; and, like a Wood-Nymph light
Oread or Dryad, or of Delia's train
Betook her to the groves; but Delia's self
In gait surpassed, and Goddess-like deport
Though not as she with bow and quiver armed
But with such gardening tools as Art yet rude
Guiltless of fire, had formed, or Angels brought
To Pales, or Pomona, thus adorned
Likest she seemed, Pomona when she fled
Vertumnus, or to Ceres in her prime
Yet virgin of Proserpina from Jove
Her long with ardent look his eye pursued
Delighted, but desiring more her stay
Oft he to her his charge of quick return
Repeated; she to him as oft engaged
To be returned by noon amid the bower
And all things in best order to invite
Noontide repast, or afternoon's repose
O much deceived, much failing, hapless Eve
Of thy presumed return! event perverse!
Thou never from that hour in Paradise
Foundst either sweet repast, or sound repose;
Such ambush, hid among sweet flowers and shades
Waited with hellish rancour imminent
To intercept thy way, or send thee back
Despoiled of innocence, of faith, of bliss!
For now, and since first break of dawn, the Fiend
Mere serpent in appearance, forth was come;
And on his quest, where likeliest he might find
The only two of mankind, but in them
The whole included race, his purposed prey
In bower and field he sought, where any tuft
Of grove or garden-plot more pleasant lay
Their tendance, or plantation for delight;
By fountain or by shady rivulet
He sought them both, but wished his hap might find
Eve separate; he wished, but not with hope
Of what so seldom chanced; when to his wish
Beyond his hope, Eve separate he spies
Veiled in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood
Half spied, so thick the roses blushing round
About her glowed, oft stooping to support
Each flower of slender stalk, whose head, though gay
Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold
Hung drooping unsustained; them she upstays
Gently with myrtle band, mindless the while
Herself, though fairest unsupported flower
From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh
Nearer he drew, and many a walk traversed
Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;
Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen
Among thick-woven arborets, and flowers
Imbordered on each bank, the hand of Eve:
Spot more delicious than those gardens feigned
Or of revived Adonis, or renowned
Alcinous, host of old Laertes' son;
Or that, not mystick, where the sapient king
Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse
Much he the place admired, the person more
As one who long in populous city pent
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air
Forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight;
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound;
If chance, with nymph-like step, fair virgin pass
What pleasing seemed, for her now pleases more;
She most, and in her look sums all delight:
Such pleasure took the Serpent to behold
This flowery plat, the sweet recess of Eve
Thus early, thus alone: Her heavenly form
Angelick, but more soft, and feminine
Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture, or least action, overawed
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought:
That space the Evil-one abstracted stood
From his own evil, and for the time remained
Stupidly good; of enmity disarmed
Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge:
But the hot Hell that always in him burns
Though in mid Heaven, soon ended his delight
And tortures him now more, the more he sees
Of pleasure, not for him ordained: then soon
Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts
Of mischief, gratulating, thus excites
Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what sweet
Compulsion thus transported, to forget
What hither brought us! hate, not love;nor hope
Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to taste
Of pleasure; but all pleasure to destroy
Save what is in destroying; other joy
To me is lost. Then, let me not let pass
Occasion which now smiles; behold alone
The woman, opportune to all attempts
Her husband, for I view far round, not nigh
Whose higher intellectual more I shun
And strength, of courage haughty, and of limb
Heroick built, though of terrestrial mould;
Foe not informidable! exempt from wound
I not; so much hath Hell debased, and pain
Enfeebled me, to what I was in Heaven
She fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods!
Not terrible, though terrour be in love
And beauty, not approached by stronger hate
Hate stronger, under show of love well feigned;
The way which to her ruin now I tend
So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed
In serpent, inmate bad! and toward Eve
Addressed his way: not with indented wave
Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear
Circular base of rising folds, that towered
Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;
With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect
Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass
Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape
And lovely; never since of serpent-kind
Lovelier, not those that in Illyria changed
Hermione and Cadmus, or the god
In Epidaurus; nor to which transformed
Ammonian Jove, or Capitoline, was seen;
He with Olympias; this with her who bore
Scipio, the highth of Rome. With tract oblique
At first, as one who sought access, but feared
To interrupt, side-long he works his way
As when a ship, by skilful steersmen wrought
Nigh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind
Veers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail:
So varied he, and of his tortuous train
Curled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve
To lure her eye; she, busied, heard the sound
Of rusling leaves, but minded not, as used
To such disport before her through the field
From every beast; more duteous at her call
Then at Circean call the herd disguis'd
He, bolder now, uncalled before her stood
But as in gaze admiring: oft he bowed
His turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck
Fawning; and licked the ground whereon she trod
His gentle dumb expression turned at length
The eye of Eve to mark his play; he, glad
Of her attention gained, with serpent-tongue
Organick, or impulse of vocal air
His fraudulent temptation thus began
Wonder not, sovran Mistress, if perhaps
Thou canst, who art sole wonder! much less arm
Thy looks, the Heaven of mildness, with disdain
Displeased that I approach thee thus, and gaze
Insatiate; I thus single;nor have feared
Thy awful brow, more awful thus retired
Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair
Thee all things living gaze on, all things thine
By gift, and thy celestial beauty adore
With ravishment beheld! there best beheld
Where universally admired; but here
In this enclosure wild, these beasts among
Beholders rude, and shallow to discern
Half what in thee is fair, one man except
Who sees thee? and what is one? who should be seen
A Goddess among Gods, adored and served
By Angels numberless, thy daily train
So glozed the Tempter, and his proem tuned:
Into the heart of Eve his words made way
Though at the voice much marvelling; at length
Not unamazed, she thus in answer spake
What may this mean? language of man pronounced
By tongue of brute, and human sense expressed?
The first, at least, of these I thought denied
To beasts; whom God, on their creation-day
Created mute to all articulate sound:
The latter I demur; for in their looks
Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears
Thee, Serpent, subtlest beast of all the field
I knew, but not with human voice endued;
Redouble then this miracle, and say
How camest thou speakable of mute, and how
To me so friendly grown above the rest
Of brutal kind, that daily are in sight?
Say, for such wonder claims attention due
To whom the guileful Tempter thus replied
Empress of this fair world, resplendent Eve!
Easy to me it is to tell thee all
What thou commandest; and right thou shouldst be obeyed:
I was at first as other beasts that graze
The trodden herb, of abject thoughts and low
As was my food; nor aught but food discerned
Or sex, and apprehended nothing high:
Till, on a day roving the field, I chanced
A goodly tree far distant to behold
Loaden with fruit of fairest colours mixed
Ruddy and gold: I nearer drew to gaze;
When from the boughs a savoury odour blown
Grateful to appetite, more pleased my sense
Than smell of sweetest fennel, or the teats
Of ewe or goat dropping with milk at even
Unsucked of lamb or kid, that tend their play
To satisfy the sharp desire I had
Of tasting those fair apples, I resolved
Not to defer; hunger and thirst at once
Powerful persuaders, quickened at the scent
Of that alluring fruit, urged me so keen
About the mossy trunk I wound me soon;
For, high from ground, the branches would require
Thy utmost reach or Adam's: Round the tree
All other beasts that saw, with like desire
Longing and envying stood, but could not reach
Amid the tree now got, where plenty hung
Tempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill
I spared not; for, such pleasure till that hour
At feed or fountain, never had I found
Sated at length, ere long I might perceive
Strange alteration in me, to degree
Of reason in my inward powers; and speech
Wanted not long; though to this shape retained
Thenceforth to speculations high or deep
I turned my thoughts, and with capacious mind
Considered all things visible in Heaven
Or Earth, or Middle; all things fair and good:
But all that fair and good in thy divine
Semblance, and in thy beauty's heavenly ray
United I beheld; no fair to thine
Equivalent or second! which compelled
Me thus, though importune perhaps, to come
And gaze, and worship thee of right declared
Sovran of creatures, universal Dame!
So talked the spirited sly Snake; and Eve
Yet more amazed, unwary thus replied
Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt
The virtue of that fruit, in thee first proved:
But say, where grows the tree? from hence how far?
For many are the trees of God that grow
In Paradise, and various, yet unknown
To us; in such abundance lies our choice
As leaves a greater store of fruit untouched
Still hanging incorruptible, till men
Grow up to their provision, and more hands
Help to disburden Nature of her birth
To whom the wily Adder, blithe and glad
Empress, the way is ready, and not long;
Beyond a row of myrtles, on a flat
Fast by a fountain, one small thicket past
Of blowing myrrh and balm: if thou accept
My conduct, I can bring thee thither soon
Lead then, said Eve. He, leading, swiftly rolled
In tangles, and made intricate seem straight
To mischief swift. Hope elevates, and joy
Brightens his crest; as when a wandering fire
Compact of unctuous vapour, which the night
Condenses, and the cold environs round
Kindled through agitation to a flame
Which oft, they say, some evil Spirit attends
Hovering and blazing with delusive light
Misleads the amazed night-wanderer from his way
To bogs and mires, and oft through pond or pool;
There swallowed up and lost, from succour far
So glistered the dire Snake, and into fraud
Led Eve, our credulous mother, to the tree
Of prohibition, root of all our woe;
Which when she saw, thus to her guide she spake
Serpent, we might have spared our coming hither
Fruitless to me, though fruit be here to excess
The credit of whose virtue rest with thee;
Wonderous indeed, if cause of such effects
But of this tree we may not taste nor touch;
God so commanded, and left that command
Sole daughter of his voice; the rest, we live
Law to ourselves; our reason is our law
To whom the Tempter guilefully replied
Indeed! hath God then said that of the fruit
Of all these garden-trees ye shall not eat
Yet Lords declared of all in earth or air?
To whom thus Eve, yet sinless. Of the fruit
Of each tree in the garden we may eat;
But of the fruit of this fair tree amidst
The garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat
Thereof, nor shall ye touch it, lest ye die
She scarce had said, though brief, when now more bold
The Tempter, but with show of zeal and love
To Man, and indignation at his wrong
New part puts on; and, as to passion moved
Fluctuates disturbed, yet comely and in act
Raised, as of some great matter to begin
As when of old some orator renowned
In Athens or free Rome, where eloquence
Flourished, since mute! to some great cause addressed
Stood in himself collected; while each part
Motion, each act, won audience ere the tongue;
Sometimes in highth began, as no delay
Of preface brooking, through his zeal of right:
So standing, moving, or to highth up grown
The Tempter, all impassioned, thus began
O sacred, wise, and wisdom-giving Plant
Mother of science! now I feel thy power
Within me clear; not only to discern
Things in their causes, but to trace the ways
Of highest agents, deemed however wise
Queen of this universe! do not believe
Those rigid threats of death: ye shall not die:
How should you? by the fruit? it gives you life
To knowledge; by the threatener? look on me
Me, who have touched and tasted; yet both live
And life more perfect have attained than Fate
Meant me, by venturing higher than my lot
Shall that be shut to Man, which to the Beast
Is open? or will God incense his ire
For such a petty trespass? and not praise
Rather your dauntless virtue, whom the pain
Of death denounced, whatever thing death be
Deterred not from achieving what might lead
To happier life, knowledge of good and evil;
Of good, how just? of evil, if what is evil
Be real, why not known, since easier shunned?
God therefore cannot hurt ye, and be just;
Not just, not God; not feared then, nor obeyed:
Your fear itself of death removes the fear
Why then was this forbid? Why, but to awe;
Why, but to keep ye low and ignorant
His worshippers? He knows that in the day
Ye eat thereof, your eyes that seem so clear
Yet are but dim, shall perfectly be then
Opened and cleared, and ye shall be as Gods
Knowing both good and evil, as they know
That ye shall be as Gods, since I as Man
Internal Man, is but proportion meet;
I, of brute, human; ye, of human, Gods
So ye shall die perhaps, by putting off
Human, to put on Gods; death to be wished
Though threatened, which no worse than this can bring
And what are Gods, that Man may not become
As they, participating God-like food?
The Gods are first, and that advantage use
On our belief, that all from them proceeds:
I question it; for this fair earth I see
Warmed by the sun, producing every kind;
Them, nothing: if they all things, who enclosed
Knowledge of good and evil in this tree
That whoso eats thereof, forthwith attains
Wisdom without their leave? and wherein lies
The offence, that Man should thus attain to know?
What can your knowledge hurt him, or this tree
Impart against his will, if all be his?
Or is it envy? and can envy dwell
In heavenly breasts? These, these, and many more
Causes import your need of this fair fruit
Goddess humane, reach then, and freely taste!
He ended; and his words, replete with guile
Into her heart too easy entrance won:
Fixed on the fruit she gazed, which to behold
Might tempt alone; and in her ears the sound
Yet rung of his persuasive words, impregned
With reason, to her seeming, and with truth:
Mean while the hour of noon drew on, and waked
An eager appetite, raised by the smell
So savoury of that fruit, which with desire
Inclinable now grown to touch or taste
Solicited her longing eye; yet first
Pausing a while, thus to herself she mused
Great are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits
Though kept from man, and worthy to be admired;
Whose taste, too long forborn, at first $$#ay
Gave elocution to the mute, and taught
The tongue not made for speech to speak thy praise:
Thy praise he also, who forbids thy use
Conceals not from us, naming thee the tree
Of knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;
Forbids us then to taste! but his forbidding
Commends thee more, while it infers the good
By thee communicated, and our want:
For good unknown sure is not had; or, had
And yet unknown, is as not had at all
In plain then, what forbids he but to know
Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise?
Such prohibitions bind not. But, if death
Bind us with after-bands, what profits then
Our inward freedom? In the day we eat
Of this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die!
How dies the Serpent? he hath eaten and lives
And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns
Irrational till then. For us alone
Was death invented? or to us denied
This intellectual food, for beasts reserved?
For beasts it seems: yet that one beast which first
Hath tasted envies not, but brings with joy
The good befallen him, author unsuspect
Friendly to man, far from deceit or guile
What fear I then? rather, what know to fear
Under this ignorance of good and evil
Of God or death, of law or penalty?
Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste
Of virtue to make wise: What hinders then
To reach, and feed at once both body and mind?
So saying, her rash hand in evil hour
Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat
Earth felt the wound; and Nature from her seat
Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe
That all was lost. Back to the thicket slunk
The guilty Serpent; and well might;for Eve
Intent now wholly on her taste, nought else
Regarded; such delight till then, as seemed
In fruit she never tasted, whether true
Or fancied so, through expectation high
Of knowledge; nor was Godhead from her thought
Greedily she ingorged without restraint
And knew not eating death: Satiate at length
And hight'nd as with wine, jocund and boon
Thus to herself she pleasingly began
O sovran, virtuous, precious of all trees
In Paradise! of operation blest
To sapience, hitherto obscured, infamed
And thy fair fruit let hang, as to no end
Created; but henceforth my early care
Not without song, each morning, and due praise
Shall tend thee, and the fertile burden ease
Of thy full branches offered free to all;
Till, dieted by thee, I grow mature
In knowledge, as the Gods, who all things know;
Though others envy what they cannot give:
For, had the gift been theirs, it had not here
Thus grown. Experience, next, to thee I owe
Best guide; not following thee, I had remained
In ignorance; thou openest wisdom's way
And givest access, though secret she retire
And I perhaps am secret: Heaven is high
High, and remote to see from thence distinct
Each thing on Earth; and other care perhaps
May have diverted from continual watch
Our great Forbidder, safe with all his spies
About him. But to Adam in what sort
Shall I appear? shall I to him make known
As yet my change, and give him to partake
Full happiness with me, or rather not
But keeps the odds of knowledge in my power
Without copartner? so to add what wants
In female sex, the more to draw his love
And render me more equal; and perhaps
A thing not undesirable, sometime
Superiour; for, inferiour, who is free
This may be well: But what if God have seen
And death ensue? then I shall be no more!
And Adam, wedded to another Eve
Shall live with her enjoying, I extinct;
A death to think! Confirmed then I resolve
Adam shall share with me in bliss or woe:
So dear I love him, that with him all deaths
I could endure, without him live no life
So saying, from the tree her step she turned;
But first low reverence done, as to the Power
That dwelt within, whose presence had infused
Into the plant sciential sap, derived
From nectar, drink of Gods. Adam the while
Waiting desirous her return, had wove
Of choicest flowers a garland, to adorn
Her tresses, and her rural labours crown;
As reapers oft are won't their harvest-queen
Great joy he promised to his thoughts, and new
Solace in her return, so long delayed:
Yet oft his heart, divine of something ill
Misgave him; he the faltering measure felt;
And forth to meet her went, the way she took
That morn when first they parted: by the tree
Of knowledge he must pass; there he her met
Scarce from the tree returning; in her hand
A bough of fairest fruit, that downy smiled
New gathered, and ambrosial smell diffused
To him she hasted; in her face excuse
Came prologue, and apology too prompt;
Which, with bland words at will, she thus addressed
Hast thou not wondered, Adam, at my stay?
Thee I have missed, and thought it long, deprived
Thy presence; agony of love till now
Not felt, nor shall be twice; for never more
Mean I to try, what rash untried I sought
The pain of absence from thy sight. But strange
Hath been the cause, and wonderful to hear:
This tree is not, as we are told, a tree
Of danger tasted, nor to evil unknown
Opening the way, but of divine effect
To open eyes, and make them Gods who taste;
And hath been tasted such: The serpent wise
Or not restrained as we, or not obeying
Hath eaten of the fruit; and is become
Not dead, as we are threatened, but thenceforth
Endued with human voice and human sense
Reasoning to admiration; and with me
Persuasively hath so prevailed, that I
Have also tasted, and have also found
The effects to correspond; opener mine eyes
Dim erst, dilated spirits, ampler heart
And growing up to Godhead; which for thee
Chiefly I sought, without thee can despise
For bliss, as thou hast part, to me is bliss;
Tedious, unshared with thee, and odious soon
Thou therefore also taste, that equal lot
May join us, equal joy, as equal love;
Lest, thou not tasting, different degree
Disjoin us, and I then too late renounce
Deity for thee, when Fate will not permit
Thus Eve with countenance blithe her story told;
But in her cheek distemper flushing glowed
On the other side Adam, soon as he heard
The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed
Astonied stood and blank, while horrour chill
Ran through his veins, and all his joints relaxed;
From his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve
Down dropt, and all the faded roses shed:
Speechless he stood and pale, till thus at length
First to himself he inward silence broke
O fairest of Creation, last and best
Of all God's works, Creature in whom excelled
Whatever can to sight or thought be formed
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost! how on a sudden lost
Defaced, deflowered, and now to death devote!
Rather, how hast thou yielded to transgress
The strict forbiddance, how to violate
The sacred fruit forbidden! Some cursed fraud
Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown
And me with thee hath ruined; for with thee
Certain my resolution is to die:
How can I live without thee! how forego
Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined
To live again in these wild woods forlorn!
Should God create another Eve, and I
Another rib afford, yet loss of thee
Would never from my heart: no, no!I feel
The link of Nature draw me: flesh of flesh
Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe
So having said, as one from sad dismay
Recomforted, and after thoughts disturbed
Submitting to what seemed remediless
Thus in calm mood his words to Eve he turned
Bold deed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve
And peril great provoked, who thus hast dared
Had it been only coveting to eye
That sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence
Much more to taste it under ban to touch
But past who can recall, or done undo?
Not God Omnipotent, nor Fate; yet so
Perhaps thou shalt not die, perhaps the fact
Is not so heinous now, foretasted fruit
Profaned first by the serpent, by him first
Made common, and unhallowed, ere our taste;
Nor yet on him found deadly; yet he lives;
Lives, as thou saidst, and gains to live, as Man
Higher degree of life; inducement strong
To us, as likely tasting to attain
Proportional ascent; which cannot be
But to be Gods, or Angels, demi-Gods
Nor can I think that God, Creator wise
Though threatening, will in earnest so destroy
Us his prime creatures, dignified so high
Set over all his works; which in our fall
For us created, needs with us must fail
Dependant made; so God shall uncreate
Be frustrate, do, undo, and labour lose;
Not well conceived of God, who, though his power
Creation could repeat, yet would be loth
Us to abolish, lest the Adversary
Triumph, and say; "Fickle their state whom God
"Most favours; who can please him long? Me first
"He ruined, now Mankind; whom will he next?"
Matter of scorn, not to be given the Foe
However I with thee have fixed my lot
Certain to undergo like doom: If death
Consort with thee, death is to me as life;
So forcible within my heart I feel
The bond of Nature draw me to my own;
My own in thee, for what thou art is mine;
Our state cannot be severed; we are one
One flesh; to lose thee were to lose myself
So Adam; and thus Eve to him replied
O glorious trial of exceeding love
Illustrious evidence, example high!
Engaging me to emulate; but, short
Of thy perfection, how shall I attain
Adam, from whose dear side I boast me sprung
And gladly of our union hear thee speak
One heart, one soul in both; whereof good proof
This day affords, declaring thee resolved
Rather than death, or aught than death more dread
Shall separate us, linked in love so dear
To undergo with me one guilt, one crime
If any be, of tasting this fair fruit;
Whose virtue for of good still good proceeds
Direct, or by occasion, hath presented
This happy trial of thy love, which else
So eminently never had been known?
Were it I thought death menaced would ensue
This my attempt, I would sustain alone
The worst, and not persuade thee, rather die
Deserted, than oblige thee with a fact
Pernicious to thy peace; chiefly $$#ured
Remarkably so late of thy so true
So faithful, love unequalled: but I feel
Far otherwise the event; not death, but life
Augmented, opened eyes, new hopes, new joys
Taste so divine, that what of sweet before
Hath touched my sense, flat seems to this, and harsh
On my experience, Adam, freely taste
And fear of death deliver to the winds
So saying, she embraced him, and for joy
Tenderly wept; much won, that he his love
Had so ennobled, as of choice to incur
Divine displeasure for her sake, or death
In recompence for such compliance bad
Such recompence best merits from the bough
She gave him of that fair enticing fruit
With liberal hand: he scrupled not to eat
Against his better knowledge; not deceived
But fondly overcome with female charm
Earth trembled from her entrails, as again
In pangs; and Nature gave a second groan;
Sky loured; and, muttering thunder, some sad drops
Wept at completing of the mortal sin
Original: while Adam took no thought
Eating his fill; nor Eve to iterate
Her former trespass feared, the more to sooth
Him with her loved society; that now
As with new wine intoxicated both
They swim in mirth, and fancy that they feel
Divinity within them breeding wings
Wherewith to scorn the earth: But that false fruit
Far other operation first displayed
Carnal desire inflaming; he on Eve
Began to cast lascivious eyes; she him
As wantonly repaid; in lust they burn:
Till Adam thus 'gan Eve to dalliance move
Eve, now I see thou art exact of taste
And elegant, of sapience no small part;
Since to each meaning savour we apply
And palate call judicious; I the praise
Yield thee, so well this day thou hast purveyed
Much pleasure we have lost, while we abstained
From this delightful fruit, nor known till now
True relish, tasting; if such pleasure be
In things to us forbidden, it might be wished
For this one tree had been forbidden ten
But come, so well refreshed, now let us play
As meet is, after such delicious fare;
For never did thy beauty, since the day
I saw thee first and wedded thee, adorned
With all perfections, so inflame my sense
With ardour to enjoy thee, fairer now
Than ever; bounty of this virtuous tree!
So said he, and forbore not glance or toy
Of amorous intent; well understood
Of Eve, whose eye darted contagious fire
Her hand he seised; and to a shady bank
Thick over-head with verdant roof imbowered
He led her nothing loth; flowers were the couch
Pansies, and violets, and asphodel
And hyacinth; Earth's freshest softest lap
There they their fill of love and love's disport
Took largely, of their mutual guilt the seal
The solace of their sin; till dewy sleep
Oppressed them, wearied with their amorous play
Soon as the force of that fallacious fruit
That with exhilarating vapour bland
About their spirits had played, and inmost powers
Made err, was now exhaled; and grosser sleep
Bred of unkindly fumes, with conscious dreams
Incumbered, now had left them; up they rose
As from unrest; and, each the other viewing
Soon found their eyes how opened, and their minds
How darkened; innocence, that as a veil
Had shadowed them from knowing ill, was gone;
Just confidence, and native righteousness
And honour, from about them, naked left
To guilty Shame; he covered, but his robe
Uncovered more. So rose the Danite strong
Herculean Samson, from the harlot-lap
Of Philistean Dalilah, and waked
Shorn of his strength. They destitute and bare
Of all their virtue: Silent, and in face
Confounded, long they sat, as strucken mute:
Till Adam, though not less than Eve abashed
At length gave utterance to these words constrained
O Eve, in evil hour thou didst give ear
To that false worm, of whomsoever taught
To counterfeit Man's voice; true in our fall
False in our promised rising; since our eyes
Opened we find indeed, and find we know
Both good and evil; good lost, and evil got;
Bad fruit of knowledge, if this be to know;
Which leaves us naked thus, of honour void
Of innocence, of faith, of purity
Our wonted ornaments now soiled and stained
And in our faces evident the signs
Of foul concupiscence; whence evil store;
Even shame, the last of evils; of the first
Be sure then.--How shall I behold the face
Henceforth of God or Angel, erst with joy
And rapture so oft beheld? Those heavenly shapes
Will dazzle now this earthly with their blaze
Insufferably bright. O! might I here
In solitude live savage; in some glade
Obscured, where highest woods, impenetrable
To star or sun-light, spread their umbrage broad
And brown as evening: Cover me, ye Pines!
Ye Cedars, with innumerable boughs
Hide me, where I may never see them more!--
But let us now, as in bad plight, devise
What best may for the present serve to hide
The parts of each from other, that seem most
To shame obnoxious, and unseemliest seen;
Some tree, whose broad smooth leaves together sewed
And girded on our loins, may cover round
Those middle parts; that this new comer, Shame
There sit not, and reproach us as unclean
So counselled he, and both together went
Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose
The fig-tree; not that kind for fruit renowned
But such as at this day, to Indians known
In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms
Branching so broad and long, that in the ground
The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow
About the mother tree, a pillared shade
High over-arched, and echoing walks between:
There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat
Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds
At loop-holes cut through thickest shade: Those leaves
They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe;
And, with what skill they had, together sewed
To gird their waist; vain covering, if to hide
Their guilt and dreaded shame! O, how unlike
To that first naked glory! Such of late
Columbus found the American, so girt
With feathered cincture; naked else, and wild
Among the trees on isles and woody shores
Thus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part
Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind
They sat them down to weep; nor only tears
Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within
Began to rise, high passions, anger, hate
Mistrust, suspicion, discord; and shook sore
Their inward state of mind, calm region once
And full of peace, now tost and turbulent:
For Understanding ruled not, and the Will
Heard not her lore; both in subjection now
To sensual Appetite, who from beneath
Usurping over sovran Reason claimed
Superiour sway: From thus distempered breast
Adam, estranged in look and altered style
Speech intermitted thus to Eve renewed
Would thou hadst hearkened to my words, and staid
With me, as I besought thee, when that strange
Desire of wandering, this unhappy morn
I know not whence possessed thee; we had then
Remained still happy; not, as now, despoiled
Of all our good; shamed, naked, miserable!
Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve
The faith they owe; when earnestly they seek
Such proof, conclude, they then begin to fail
To whom, soon moved with touch of blame, thus Eve
What words have passed thy lips, Adam severe!
Imputest thou that to my default, or will
Of wandering, as thou callest it, which who knows
But might as ill have happened thou being by
Or to thyself perhaps? Hadst thou been there
Or here the attempt, thou couldst not have discerned
Fraud in the Serpent, speaking as he spake;
No ground of enmity between us known
Why he should mean me ill, or seek to harm
Was I to have never parted from thy side?
As good have grown there still a lifeless rib
Being as I am, why didst not thou, the head
Command me absolutely not to go
Going into such danger, as thou saidst?
Too facile then, thou didst not much gainsay;
Nay, didst permit, approve, and fair dismiss
Hadst thou been firm and fixed in thy dissent
Neither had I transgressed, nor thou with me
To whom, then first incensed, Adam replied
Is this the love, is this the recompence
Of mine to thee, ingrateful Eve! expressed
Immutable, when thou wert lost, not I;
Who might have lived, and joyed immortal bliss
Yet willingly chose rather death with thee?
And am I now upbraided as the cause
Of thy transgressing? Not enough severe
It seems, in thy restraint: What could I more
I warned thee, I admonished thee, foretold
The danger, and the lurking enemy
That lay in wait; beyond this, had been force;
And force upon free will hath here no place
But confidence then bore thee on; secure
Either to meet no danger, or to find
Matter of glorious trial; and perhaps
I also erred, in overmuch admiring
What seemed in thee so perfect, that I thought
No evil durst attempt thee; but I rue
The errour now, which is become my crime
And thou the accuser. Thus it shall befall
Him, who, to worth in women overtrusting
Lets her will rule: restraint she will not brook;
And, left to herself, if evil thence ensue
She first his weak indulgence will accuse
Thus they in mutual accusation spent
The fruitless hours, but neither self-condemning;
And of their vain contest appeared no end