第 14 页

Of Heaven arrived, the gate self-opened wide

On golden hinges turning, as by work

Divine the sovran Architect had framed.

From hence no cloud, or, to obstruct his sight,

Star interposed, however small he sees,

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Not unconformed to other shining globes,

Earth, and the garden of God, with cedars crowned

Above all hills. As when by night the glass

Of Galileo, less assured, observes

Imagined lands and regions in the moon:

Or pilot, from amidst the Cyclades

Delos or Samos first appearing, kens

A cloudy spot. Down thither prone in flight

He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky

Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing

Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan

Winnows the buxom air; till, within soar

Of towering eagles, to all the fowls he seems

A phoenix, gazed by all as that sole bird,

When, to enshrine his reliques in the Sun’s

Bright temple, to Egyptian Thebes he flies.

At once on the eastern cliff of Paradise

He lights, and to his proper shape returns

A Seraph winged: Six wings he wore, to shade

His lineaments divine; the pair that clad

Each shoulder broad, came mantling o’er his breast

With regal ornament; the middle pair

Girt like a starry zone his waist, and round

Skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold

And colours dipt in Heaven; the third his feet

Shadowed from either heel with feathered mail,

Sky-tinctured grain. Like Maia’s son he stood,

And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance filled

The circuit wide. Straight knew him all the bands

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Of Angels under watch; and to his state,

And to his message high, in honour rise;

For on some message high they guessed him bound.

Their glittering tents he passed, and now is come

Into the blissful field, through groves of myrrh,

And flowering odours, cassia, nard, and balm;

A wilderness of sweets; for Nature here

Wantoned as in her prime, and played at will

Her virgin fancies pouring forth more sweet,

Wild above rule or art, enormous bliss.

Him through the spicy forest onward come

Adam discerned, as in the door he sat

Of his cool bower, while now the mounted sun

Shot down direct his fervid rays to warm

Earth’s inmost womb, more warmth than Adam needs:

And Eve within, due at her hour prepared

For dinner savoury fruits, of taste to please

True appetite, and not disrelish thirst

Of nectarous draughts between, from milky stream,

Berry or grape: To whom thus Adam called.

Haste hither, Eve, and worth thy sight behold

Eastward among those trees, what glorious shape

Comes this way moving; seems another morn

Risen on mid-noon; some great behest from Heaven

To us perhaps he brings, and will vouchsafe

This day to be our guest. But go with speed,

And, what thy stores contain, bring forth, and pour

Abundance, fit to honour and receive

Our heavenly stranger: Well we may afford

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Our givers their own gifts, and large bestow

From large bestowed, where Nature multiplies

Her fertile growth, and by disburthening grows

More fruitful, which instructs us not to spare.

To whom thus Eve. Adam, earth’s hallowed mould,

Of God inspired! small store will serve, where store,

All seasons, ripe for use hangs on the stalk;

Save what by frugal storing firmness gains

To nourish, and superfluous moist consumes:

But I will haste, and from each bough and brake,

Each plant and juciest gourd, will pluck such choice

To entertain our Angel-guest, as he

Beholding shall confess, that here on Earth

God hath dispensed his bounties as in Heaven.

So saying, with dispatchful looks in haste

She turns, on hospitable thoughts intent

What choice to choose for delicacy best,

What order, so contrived as not to mix

Tastes, not well joined, inelegant, but bring

Taste after taste upheld with kindliest change;

Bestirs her then, and from each tender stalk

Whatever Earth, all-bearing mother, yields

In India East or West, or middle shore

In Pontus or the Punick coast, or where

Alcinous reigned, fruit of all kinds, in coat

Rough, or smooth rind, or bearded husk, or shell,

She gathers, tribute large, and on the board

Heaps with unsparing hand; for drink the grape

She crushes, inoffensive must, and meaths

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From many a berry, and from sweet kernels pressed

She tempers dulcet creams; nor these to hold

Wants her fit vessels pure; then strows the ground

With rose and odours from the shrub unfumed.

Mean while our primitive great sire, to meet

His God-like guest, walks forth, without more train

Accompanied than with his own complete

Perfections; in himself was all his state,

More solemn than the tedious pomp that waits

On princes, when their rich retinue long

Of horses led, and grooms besmeared with gold,

Dazzles the croud, and sets them all agape.

Nearer his presence Adam, though not awed,

Yet with submiss approach and reverence meek,

As to a superiour nature bowing low,

Thus said. Native of Heaven, for other place

None can than Heaven such glorious shape contain;

Since, by descending from the thrones above,

Those happy places thou hast deigned a while

To want, and honour these, vouchsafe with us

Two only, who yet by sovran gift possess

This spacious ground, in yonder shady bower

To rest; and what the garden choicest bears

To sit and taste, till this meridian heat

Be over, and the sun more cool decline.

Whom thus the angelick Virtue answered mild.

Adam, I therefore came; nor art thou such

Created, or such place hast here to dwell,

As may not oft invite, though Spirits of Heaven,

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To visit thee; lead on then where thy bower

O’ershades; for these mid-hours, till evening rise,

I have at will. So to the sylvan lodge

They came, that like Pomona’s arbour smiled,

With flowerets decked, and fragrant smells; but Eve,

Undecked save with herself, more lovely fair

Than Wood-Nymph, or the fairest Goddess feigned

Of three that in mount Ida naked strove,

Stood to entertain her guest from Heaven; no veil

She needed, virtue-proof; no thought infirm

Altered her cheek. On whom the Angel Hail

Bestowed, the holy salutation used

Long after to blest Mary, second Eve.

Hail, Mother of Mankind, whose fruitful womb

Shall fill the world more numerous with thy sons,

Than with these various fruits the trees of God

Have heaped this table!—Raised of grassy turf

Their table was, and mossy seats had round,

And on her ample square from side to side

All autumn piled, though spring and autumn here

Danced hand in hand. A while discourse they hold;

No fear lest dinner cool; when thus began

Our author. Heavenly stranger, please to taste

These bounties, which our Nourisher, from whom

All perfect good, unmeasured out, descends,

To us for food and for delight hath caused

The earth to yield; unsavoury food perhaps

To spiritual natures; only this I know,

That one celestial Father gives to all.

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To whom the Angel. Therefore what he gives

(Whose praise be ever sung) to Man in part

Spiritual, may of purest Spirits be found

No ingrateful food: And food alike those pure

Intelligential substances require,

As doth your rational; and both contain

Within them every lower faculty

Of sense, whereby they hear, see, smell, touch, taste,

Tasting concoct, digest, assimilate,

And corporeal to incorporeal turn.

For know, whatever was created, needs

To be sustained and fed: Of elements

The grosser feeds the purer, earth the sea,

Earth and the sea feed air, the air those fires

Ethereal, and as lowest first the moon;

Whence in her visage round those spots, unpurged

Vapours not yet into her substance turned.

Nor doth the moon no nourishment exhale

From her moist continent to higher orbs.

The sun that light imparts to all, receives

From all his alimental recompence

In humid exhalations, and at even

Sups with the ocean. Though in Heaven the trees

Of life ambrosial fruitage bear, and vines

Yield nectar; though from off the boughs each morn

We brush mellifluous dews, and find the ground

Covered with pearly grain: Yet God hath here

Varied his bounty so with new delights,

As may compare with Heaven; and to taste

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Think not I shall be nice. So down they sat,

And to their viands fell; nor seemingly

The Angel, nor in mist, the common gloss

Of Theologians; but with keen dispatch

Of real hunger, and concoctive heat

To transubstantiate: What redounds, transpires

Through Spirits with ease; nor wonder;if by fire

Of sooty coal the empirick alchemist

Can turn, or holds it possible to turn,

Metals of drossiest ore to perfect gold,

As from the mine. Mean while at table Eve

Ministered naked, and their flowing cups

With pleasant liquours crowned: O innocence

Deserving Paradise! if ever, then,

Then had the sons of God excuse to have been

Enamoured at that sight; but in those hearts

Love unlibidinous reigned, nor jealousy

Was understood, the injured lover’s hell.

Thus when with meats and drinks they had sufficed,

Not burdened nature, sudden mind arose

In Adam, not to let the occasion pass

Given him by this great conference to know

Of things above his world, and of their being

Who dwell in Heaven, whose excellence he saw

Transcend his own so far; whose radiant forms,

Divine effulgence, whose high power, so far

Exceeded human; and his wary speech

Thus to the empyreal minister he framed.

Inhabitant with God, now know I well

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Thy favour, in this honour done to Man;

Under whose lowly roof thou hast vouchsafed

To enter, and these earthly fruits to taste,

Food not of Angels, yet accepted so,

As that more willingly thou couldst not seem

At Heaven’s high feasts to have fed: yet what compare

To whom the winged Hierarch replied.

O Adam, One Almighty is, from whom

All things proceed, and up to him return,

If not depraved from good, created all

Such to perfection, one first matter all,

Endued with various forms, various degrees

Of substance, and, in things that live, of life;

But more refined, more spiritous, and pure,

As nearer to him placed, or nearer tending

Each in their several active spheres assigned,

Till body up to spirit work, in bounds

Proportioned to each kind. So from the root

Springs lighter the green stalk, from thence the leaves

More aery, last the bright consummate flower

Spirits odorous breathes: flowers and their fruit,

Man’s nourishment, by gradual scale sublimed,

To vital spirits aspire, to animal,

To intellectual; give both life and sense,

Fancy and understanding; whence the soul

Reason receives, and reason is her being,

Discursive, or intuitive; discourse

Is oftest yours, the latter most is ours,

Differing but in degree, of kind the same.

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Wonder not then, what God for you saw good

If I refuse not, but convert, as you

To proper substance. Time may come, when Men

With Angels may participate, and find

No inconvenient diet, nor too light fare;

And from these corporal nutriments perhaps

Your bodies may at last turn all to spirit,

Improved by tract of time, and, winged, ascend

Ethereal, as we; or may, at choice,

Here or in heavenly Paradises dwell;

If ye be found obedient, and retain

Unalterably firm his love entire,

Whose progeny you are. Mean while enjoy

Your fill what happiness this happy state

Can comprehend, incapable of more.

To whom the patriarch of mankind replied.

O favourable Spirit, propitious guest,

Well hast thou taught the way that might direct

Our knowledge, and the scale of nature set

From center to circumference; whereon,

In contemplation of created things,

By steps we may ascend to God. But say,

What meant that caution joined, If ye be found

Obedient? Can we want obedience then

To him, or possibly his love desert,

Who formed us from the dust and placed us here

Full to the utmost measure of what bliss

Human desires can seek or apprehend?

To whom the Angel. Son of Heaven and Earth,

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Attend! That thou art happy, owe to God;

That thou continuest such, owe to thyself,

That is, to thy obedience; therein stand.

This was that caution given thee; be advised.

God made thee perfect, not immutable;

And good he made thee, but to persevere

He left it in thy power; ordained thy will

By nature free, not over-ruled by fate

Inextricable, or strict necessity:

Our voluntary service he requires,

Not our necessitated; such with him

Finds no acceptance, nor can find; for how

Can hearts, not free, be tried whether they serve

Willing or no, who will but what they must

By destiny, and can no other choose?

Myself, and all the angelick host, that stand

In sight of God, enthroned, our happy state

Hold, as you yours, while our obedience holds;

On other surety none: Freely we serve,

Because we freely love, as in our will

To love or not; in this we stand or fall:

And some are fallen, to disobedience fallen,

And so from Heaven to deepest Hell; O fall

From what high state of bliss, into what woe!

To whom our great progenitor. Thy words

Attentive, and with more delighted ear,

Divine instructer, I have heard, than when

Cherubick songs by night from neighbouring hills

Aereal musick send: Nor knew I not

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To be both will and deed created free;

Yet that we never shall forget to love

Our Maker, and obey him whose command