第 31 页

And teach us further by what means to shun

The inclement seasons, rain, ice, hail, and snow!

Which now the sky, with various face, begins

To show us in this mountain; while the winds

Blow moist and keen, shattering the graceful locks

Of these fair spreading trees; which bids us seek

Some better shroud, some better warmth to cherish

Our limbs benummed, ere this diurnal star

Leave cold the night, how we his gathered beams

Reflected may with matter sere foment;

Or, by collision of two bodies, grind

The air attrite to fire; as late the clouds

Justling, or pushed with winds, rude in their shock,

Tine the slant lightning; whose thwart flame, driven down

Kindles the gummy bark of fir or pine;

And sends a comfortable heat from far,

Which might supply the sun: Such fire to use,

And what may else be remedy or cure

To evils which our own misdeeds have wrought,

He will instruct us praying, and of grace

Beseeching him; so as we need not fear

To pass commodiously this life, sustained

By him with many comforts, till we end

In dust, our final rest and native home.

What better can we do, than, to the place

Repairing where he judged us, prostrate fall

Before him reverent; and there confess

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Humbly our faults, and pardon beg; with tears

Watering the ground, and with our sighs the air

Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign

Of sorrow unfeigned, and humiliation meek

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Book XI

Undoubtedly he will relent, and turn

From his displeasure; in whose look serene,

When angry most he seemed and most severe,

What else but favour, grace, and mercy, shone?

So spake our father penitent; nor Eve

Felt less remorse: they, forthwith to the place

Repairing where he judged them, prostrate fell

Before him reverent; and both confessed

Humbly their faults, and pardon begged; with tears

Watering the ground, and with their sighs the air

Frequenting, sent from hearts contrite, in sign

Of sorrow unfeigned, and humiliation meek.

Thus they, in lowliest plight, repentant stood

Praying; for from the mercy-seat above

Prevenient grace descending had removed

The stony from their hearts, and made new flesh

Regenerate grow instead; that sighs now breathed

Unutterable; which the Spirit of prayer

Inspired, and winged for Heaven with speedier flight

Than loudest oratory: Yet their port

Not of mean suitors; nor important less

Seemed their petition, than when the ancient pair

In fables old, less ancient yet than these,

Deucalion and chaste Pyrrha, to restore

The race of mankind drowned, before the shrine

Of Themis stood devout. To Heaven their prayers

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Flew up, nor missed the way, by envious winds

Blown vagabond or frustrate: in they passed

Dimensionless through heavenly doors; then clad

With incense, where the golden altar fumed,

By their great intercessour, came in sight

Before the Father’s throne: them the glad Son

Presenting, thus to intercede began.

See$ Father, what first-fruits on earth are sprung

From thy implanted grace in Man; these sighs

And prayers, which in this golden censer mixed

With incense, I thy priest before thee bring;

Fruits of more pleasing savour, from thy seed

Sown with contrition in his heart, than those

Which, his own hand manuring, all the trees

Of Paradise could have produced, ere fallen

From innocence. Now therefore, bend thine ear

To supplication; hear his sighs, though mute;

Unskilful with what words to pray, let me

Interpret for him; me, his advocate

And propitiation; all his works on me,

Good, or not good, ingraft; my merit those

Shall perfect, and for these my death shall pay.

Accept me; and, in me, from these receive

The smell of peace toward mankind: let him live

Before thee reconciled, at least his days

Numbered, though sad; till death, his doom, (which I

To mitigate thus plead, not to reverse,)

To better life shall yield him: where with me

All my redeemed may dwell in joy and bliss;

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Made one with me, as I with thee am one.

To whom the Father, without cloud, serene.

All thy request for Man, accepted Son,

Obtain; all thy request was my decree:

But, longer in that Paradise to dwell,

The law I gave to Nature him forbids:

Those pure immortal elements, that know,

No gross, no unharmonious mixture foul,

Eject him, tainted now; and purge him off,

As a distemper, gross, to air as gross,

And mortal food; as may dispose him best

For dissolution wrought by sin, that first

Distempered all things, and of incorrupt

Corrupted. I, at first, with two fair gifts

Created him endowed; with happiness,

And immortality: that fondly lost,

This other served but to eternize woe;

Till I provided death: so death becomes

His final remedy; and, after life,

Tried in sharp tribulation, and refined

By faith and faithful works, to second life,

Waked in the renovation of the just,

Resigns him up with Heaven and Earth renewed.

But let us call to synod all the Blest,

Through Heaven’s wide bounds: from them I will not

hide

My judgements; how with mankind I proceed,

As how with peccant Angels late they saw,

And in their state, though firm, stood more confirmed.

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He ended, and the Son gave signal high

To the bright minister that watched; he blew

His trumpet, heard in Oreb since perhaps

When God descended, and perhaps once more

To sound at general doom. The angelick blast

Filled all the regions: from their blisful bowers

Of amarantine shade, fountain or spring,

By the waters of life, where’er they sat

In fellowships of joy, the sons of light

Hasted, resorting to the summons high;

And took their seats; till from his throne supreme

The Almighty thus pronounced his sovran will.

O Sons, like one of us Man is become

To know both good and evil, since his taste

Of that defended fruit; but let him boast

His knowledge of good lost, and evil got;

Happier! had it sufficed him to have known

Good by itself, and evil not at all.

He sorrows now, repents, and prays contrite,

My motions in him; longer than they move,

His heart I know, how variable and vain,

Self-left. Lest therefore his now bolder hand

Reach also of the tree of life, and eat,

And live for ever, dream at least to live

For ever, to remove him I decree,

And send him from the garden forth to till

The ground whence he was taken, fitter soil.

Michael, this my behest have thou in charge;

Take to thee from among the Cherubim

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Thy choice of flaming warriours, lest the Fiend,

Or in behalf of Man, or to invade

Vacant possession, some new trouble raise:

Haste thee, and from the Paradise of God

Without remorse drive out the sinful pair;

From hallowed ground the unholy; and denounce

To them, and to their progeny, from thence

Perpetual banishment. Yet, lest they faint

At the sad sentence rigorously urged,

(For I behold them softened, and with tears

Bewailing their excess,) all terrour hide.

If patiently thy bidding they obey,

Dismiss them not disconsolate; reveal

To Adam what shall come in future days,

As I shall thee enlighten; intermix

My covenant in the Woman’s seed renewed;

So send them forth, though sorrowing, yet in peace:

And on the east side of the garden place,

Where entrance up from Eden easiest climbs,

Cherubick watch; and of a sword the flame

Wide-waving; all approach far off to fright,

And guard all passage to the tree of life:

Lest Paradise a receptacle prove

To Spirits foul, and all my trees their prey;

With whose stolen fruit Man once more to delude.

He ceased; and the arch-angelick Power prepared

For swift descent; with him the cohort bright

Of watchful Cherubim: four faces each

Had, like a double Janus; all their shape

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Spangled with eyes more numerous than those

Of Argus, and more wakeful than to drouse,

Charmed with Arcadian pipe, the pastoral reed

Of Hermes, or his opiate rod. Mean while,

To re-salute the world with sacred light,

Leucothea waked; and with fresh dews imbalmed

The earth; when Adam and first matron Eve

Had ended now their orisons, and found

Strength added from above; new hope to spring

Out of despair; joy, but with fear yet linked;

Which thus to Eve his welcome words renewed.

Eve, easily my faith admit, that all

The good which we enjoy from Heaven descends;

But, that from us aught should ascend to Heaven

So prevalent as to concern the mind

Of God high-blest, or to incline his will,

Hard to belief may seem; yet this will prayer

Or one short sigh of human breath, upborne

Even to the seat of God. For since I sought

By prayer the offended Deity to appease;

Kneeled, and before him humbled all my heart;

Methought I saw him placable and mild,

Bending his ear; persuasion in me grew

That I was heard with favour; peace returned

Home to my breast, and to my memory

His promise, that thy seed shall bruise our foe;

Which, then not minded in dismay, yet now

Assures me that the bitterness of death

Is past, and we shall live. Whence hail to thee,

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Eve rightly called, mother of all mankind,

Mother of all things living, since by thee

Man is to live; and all things live for Man.

To whom thus Eve with sad demeanour meek.

Ill-worthy I such title should belong

To me transgressour; who, for thee ordained

A help, became thy snare; to me reproach

Rather belongs, distrust, and all dispraise:

But infinite in pardon was my Judge,

That I, who first brought death on all, am graced

The source of life; next favourable thou,

Who highly thus to entitle me vouchsaf’st,

Far other name deserving. But the field

To labour calls us, now with sweat imposed,

Though after sleepless night; for see!the morn,

All unconcerned with our unrest, begins

Her rosy progress smiling: let us forth;

I never from thy side henceforth to stray,

Where’er our day’s work lies, though now enjoined

Laborious, till day droop; while here we dwell,

What can be toilsome in these pleasant walks?

Here let us live, though in fallen state, content.

So spake, so wished much humbled Eve; but Fate

Subscribed not: Nature first gave signs, impressed

On bird, beast, air; air suddenly eclipsed,

After short blush of morn; nigh in her sight

The bird of Jove, stooped from his aery tour,

Two birds of gayest plume before him drove;

Down from a hill the beast that reigns in woods,

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First hunter then, pursued a gentle brace,

Goodliest of all the forest, hart and hind;

Direct to the eastern gate was bent their flight.

Adam observed, and with his eye the chase

Pursuing, not unmoved, to Eve thus spake.

O Eve, some further change awaits us nigh,

Which Heaven, by these mute signs in Nature, shows

Forerunners of his purpose; or to warn

Us, haply too secure, of our discharge

From penalty, because from death released

Some days: how long, and what till then our life,

Who knows? or more than this, that we are dust,

And thither must return, and be no more?

Why else this double object in our sight

Of flight pursued in the air, and o’er the ground,

One way the self-same hour? why in the east

Darkness ere day’s mid-course, and morning-light

More orient in yon western cloud, that draws

O’er the blue firmament a radiant white,

And slow descends with something heavenly fraught?

He erred not; for by this the heavenly bands

Down from a sky of jasper lighted now

In Paradise, and on a hill made halt;

A glorious apparition, had not doubt

And carnal fear that day dimmed Adam’s eye.

Not that more glorious, when the Angels met

Jacob in Mahanaim, where he saw

The field pavilioned with his guardians bright;

Nor that, which on the flaming mount appeared

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In Dothan, covered with a camp of fire,

Against the Syrian king, who to surprise

One man, assassin-like, had levied war,

War unproclaimed. The princely Hierarch

In their bright stand there left his Powers, to seise

Possession of the garden; he alone,

To find where Adam sheltered, took his way,

Not unperceived of Adam; who to Eve,

While the great visitant approached, thus spake.

Eve$ now expect great tidings, which perhaps

Of us will soon determine, or impose

New laws to be observed; for I descry,

From yonder blazing cloud that veils the hill,

One of the heavenly host; and, by his gait,

None of the meanest; some great Potentate

Or of the Thrones above; such majesty

Invests him coming! yet not terrible,

That I should fear; nor sociably mild,

As Raphael, that I should much confide;

But solemn and sublime; whom not to offend,

With reverence I must meet, and thou retire.

He ended: and the Arch-Angel soon drew nigh,

Not in his shape celestial, but as man

Clad to meet man; over his lucid arms

A military vest of purple flowed,

Livelier than Meliboean, or the grain

Of Sarra, worn by kings and heroes old

In time of truce; Iris had dipt the woof;

His starry helm unbuckled showed him prime

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In manhood where youth ended; by his side,

As in a glistering zodiack, hung the sword,

Satan’s dire dread; and in his hand the spear.

Adam bowed low; he, kingly, from his state

Inclined not, but his coming thus declared.

Adam, Heaven’s high behest no preface needs:

Sufficient that thy prayers are heard; and Death,

Then due by sentence when thou didst transgress,

Defeated of his seisure many days