第 21 页

And every creeping thing that creeps the ground.

This said, he formed thee, Adam, thee, O Man,

Dust of the ground, and in thy nostrils breathed

The breath of life; in his own image he

Created thee, in the image of God

Express; and thou becamest a living soul.

Male he created thee; but thy consort

Female, for race; then blessed mankind, and said,

Be fruitful, multiply, and fill the Earth;

Subdue it, and throughout dominion hold

Over fish of the sea, and fowl of the air,

And every living thing that moves on the Earth.

Wherever thus created, for no place

Is yet distinct by name, thence, as thou knowest,

He brought thee into this delicious grove,

This garden, planted with the trees of God,

Delectable both to behold and taste;

And freely all their pleasant fruit for food

Gave thee; all sorts are here that all the Earth yields,

Variety without end; but of the tree,

Which, tasted, works knowledge of good and evil,

Thou mayest not; in the day thou eatest, thou diest;

Death is the penalty imposed; beware,

And govern well thy appetite; lest Sin

Surprise thee, and her black attendant Death.

Here finished he, and all that he had made

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Viewed, and behold all was entirely good;

So even and morn accomplished the sixth day:

Yet not till the Creator from his work

Desisting, though unwearied, up returned,

Up to the Heaven of Heavens, his high abode;

Thence to behold this new created world,

The addition of his empire, how it showed

In prospect from his throne, how good, how fair,

Answering his great idea. Up he rode

Followed with acclamation, and the sound

Symphonious of ten thousand harps, that tuned

Angelick harmonies: The earth, the air

Resounded, (thou rememberest, for thou heardst,)

The heavens and all the constellations rung,

The planets in their station listening stood,

While the bright pomp ascended jubilant.

Open, ye everlasting gates! they sung,

Open, ye Heavens! your living doors;let in

The great Creator from his work returned

Magnificent, his six days work, a World;

Open, and henceforth oft; for God will deign

To visit oft the dwellings of just men,

Delighted; and with frequent intercourse

Thither will send his winged messengers

On errands of supernal grace. So sung

The glorious train ascending: He through Heaven,

That opened wide her blazing portals, led

To God’s eternal house direct the way;

A broad and ample road, whose dust is gold

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And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear,

Seen in the galaxy, that milky way,

Which nightly, as a circling zone, thou seest

Powdered with stars. And now on Earth the seventh

Evening arose in Eden, for the sun

Was set, and twilight from the east came on,

Forerunning night; when at the holy mount

Of Heaven’s high-seated top, the imperial throne

Of Godhead, fixed for ever firm and sure,

The Filial Power arrived, and sat him down

With his great Father; for he also went

Invisible, yet staid, (such privilege

Hath Omnipresence) and the work ordained,

Author and End of all things; and, from work

Now resting, blessed and hallowed the seventh day,

As resting on that day from all his work,

But not in silence holy kept: the harp

Had work and rested not; the solemn pipe,

And dulcimer, all organs of sweet stop,

All sounds on fret by string or golden wire,

Tempered soft tunings, intermixed with voice

Choral or unison: of incense clouds,

Fuming from golden censers, hid the mount.

Creation and the six days acts they sung:

Great are thy works, Jehovah! infinite

Thy power! what thought can measure thee, or tongue

Relate thee! Greater now in thy return

Than from the giant Angels: Thee that day

Thy thunders magnified; but to create

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Is greater than created to destroy.

Who can impair thee, Mighty King, or bound

Thy empire! Easily the proud attempt

Of Spirits apostate, and their counsels vain,

Thou hast repelled; while impiously they thought

Thee to diminish, and from thee withdraw

The number of thy worshippers. Who seeks

To lessen thee, against his purpose serves

To manifest the more thy might: his evil

Thou usest, and from thence createst more good.

Witness this new-made world, another Heaven

From Heaven-gate not far, founded in view

On the clear hyaline, the glassy sea;

Of amplitude almost immense, with stars

Numerous, and every star perhaps a world

Of destined habitation; but thou knowest

Their seasons: among these the seat of Men,

Earth, with her nether ocean circumfused,

Their pleasant dwelling-place. Thrice happy Men,

And sons of Men, whom God hath thus advanced!

Created in his image, there to dwell

And worship him; and in reward to rule

Over his works, on earth, in sea, or air,

And multiply a race of worshippers

Holy and just: Thrice happy, if they know

Their happiness, and persevere upright!

So sung they, and the empyrean rung

With halleluiahs: Thus was sabbath kept.

And thy request think now fulfilled, that asked

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How first this world and face of things began,

And what before thy memory was done

From the beginning; that posterity,

Informed by thee, might know: If else thou seekest

Aught, not surpassing human measure, say.

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Book VIII

The Angel ended, and in Adam’s ear

So charming left his voice, that he a while

Thought him still speaking, still stood fixed to hear;

Then, as new waked, thus gratefully replied.

What thanks sufficient, or what recompence

Equal, have I to render thee, divine

Historian, who thus largely hast allayed

The thirst I had of knowledge, and vouchsafed

This friendly condescension to relate

Things, else by me unsearchable; now heard

With wonder, but delight, and, as is due,

With glory attributed to the high

Creator! Something yet of doubt remains,

Which only thy solution can resolve.

When I behold this goodly frame, this world,

Of Heaven and Earth consisting; and compute

Their magnitudes; this Earth, a spot, a grain,

An atom, with the firmament compared

And all her numbered stars, that seem to roll

Spaces incomprehensible, (for such

Their distance argues, and their swift return

Diurnal,) merely to officiate light

Round this opacous Earth, this punctual spot,

One day and night; in all her vast survey

Useless besides; reasoning I oft admire,

How Nature wise and frugal could commit

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Such disproportions, with superfluous hand

So many nobler bodies to create,

Greater so manifold, to this one use,

For aught appears, and on their orbs impose

Such restless revolution day by day

Repeated; while the sedentary Earth,

That better might with far less compass move,

Served by more noble than herself, attains

Her end without least motion, and receives,

As tribute, such a sumless journey brought

Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light;

Speed, to describe whose swiftness number fails.

So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed

Entering on studious thoughts abstruse; which Eve

Perceiving, where she sat retired in sight,

With lowliness majestick from her seat,

And grace that won who saw to wish her stay,

Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers,

To visit how they prospered, bud and bloom,

Her nursery; they at her coming sprung,

And, touched by her fair tendance, gladlier grew.

Yet went she not, as not with such discourse

Delighted, or not capable her ear

Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved,

Adam relating, she sole auditress;

Her husband the relater she preferred

Before the Angel, and of him to ask

Chose rather; he, she knew, would intermix

Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute

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With conjugal caresses: from his lip

Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now

Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined?

With Goddess-like demeanour forth she went,

Not unattended; for on her, as Queen,

A pomp of winning Graces waited still,

And from about her shot darts of desire

Into all eyes, to wish her still in sight.

And Raphael now, to Adam’s doubt proposed,

Benevolent and facile thus replied.

To ask or search, I blame thee not; for Heaven

Is as the book of God before thee set,

Wherein to read his wonderous works, and learn

His seasons, hours, or days, or months, or years:

This to attain, whether Heaven move or Earth,

Imports not, if thou reckon right; the rest

From Man or Angel the great Architect

Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge

His secrets to be scanned by them who ought

Rather admire; or, if they list to try

Conjecture, he his fabrick of the Heavens

Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move

His laughter at their quaint opinions wide

Hereafter; when they come to model Heaven

And calculate the stars, how they will wield

The mighty frame; how build, unbuild, contrive

To save appearances; how gird the sphere

With centrick and eccentrick scribbled o’er,

Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb:

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Already by thy reasoning this I guess,

Who art to lead thy offspring, and supposest

That bodies bright and greater should not serve

The less not bright, nor Heaven such journeys run,

Earth sitting still, when she alone receives

The benefit: Consider first, that great

Or bright infers not excellence: the Earth

Though, in comparison of Heaven, so small,

Nor glistering, may of solid good contain

More plenty than the sun that barren shines;

Whose virtue on itself works no effect,

But in the fruitful Earth; there first received,

His beams, unactive else, their vigour find.

Yet not to Earth are those bright luminaries

Officious; but to thee, Earth’s habitant.

And for the Heaven’s wide circuit, let it speak

The Maker’s high magnificence, who built

So spacious, and his line stretched out so far;

That Man may know he dwells not in his own;

An edifice too large for him to fill,

Lodged in a small partition; and the rest

Ordained for uses to his Lord best known.

The swiftness of those circles attribute,

Though numberless, to his Omnipotence,

That to corporeal substances could add

Speed almost spiritual: Me thou thinkest not slow,

Who since the morning-hour set out from Heaven

Where God resides, and ere mid-day arrived

In Eden; distance inexpressible

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By numbers that have name. But this I urge,

Admitting motion in the Heavens, to show

Invalid that which thee to doubt it moved;

Not that I so affirm, though so it seem

To thee who hast thy dwelling here on Earth.

God, to remove his ways from human sense,

Placed Heaven from Earth so far, that earthly sight,

If it presume, might err in things too high,

And no advantage gain. What if the sun

Be center to the world; and other stars,

By his attractive virtue and their own

Incited, dance about him various rounds?

Their wandering course now high, now low, then hid,

Progressive, retrograde, or standing still,

In six thou seest; and what if seventh to these

The planet earth, so stedfast though she seem,

Insensibly three different motions move?

Which else to several spheres thou must ascribe,

Moved contrary with thwart obliquities;

Or save the sun his labour, and that swift

Nocturnal and diurnal rhomb supposed,

Invisible else above all stars, the wheel

Of day and night; which needs not thy belief,

If earth, industrious of herself, fetch day

Travelling east, and with her part averse

From the sun’s beam meet night, her other part

Still luminous by his ray. What if that light,

Sent from her through the wide transpicuous air,

To the terrestrial moon be as a star,

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Enlightening her by day, as she by night

This earth? reciprocal, if land be there,

Fields and inhabitants: Her spots thou seest

As clouds, and clouds may rain, and rain produce

Fruits in her softened soil for some to eat

Allotted there; and other suns perhaps,

With their attendant moons, thou wilt descry,

Communicating male and female light;

Which two great sexes animate the world,

Stored in each orb perhaps with some that live.

For such vast room in Nature unpossessed

By living soul, desart and desolate,

Only to shine, yet scarce to contribute

Each orb a glimpse of light, conveyed so far

Down to this habitable, which returns

Light back to them, is obvious to dispute.

But whether thus these things, or whether not;

But whether the sun, predominant in Heaven,

Rise on the earth; or earth rise on the sun;

He from the east his flaming road begin;

Or she from west her silent course advance,

With inoffensive pace that spinning sleeps

On her soft axle, while she paces even,

And bears thee soft with the smooth hair along;

Sollicit not thy thoughts with matters hid;

Leave them to God above; him serve, and fear!

Of other creatures, as him pleases best,

Wherever placed, let him dispose; joy thou

In what he gives to thee, this Paradise

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And thy fair Eve; Heaven is for thee too high

To know what passes there; be lowly wise:

Think only what concerns thee, and thy being;

Dream not of other worlds, what creatures there

Live, in what state, condition, or degree;

Contented that thus far hath been revealed

Not of Earth only, but of highest Heaven.

To whom thus Adam, cleared of doubt, replied.

How fully hast thou satisfied me, pure

Intelligence of Heaven, Angel serene!

And, freed from intricacies, taught to live