第 32 页

Given thee of grace; wherein thou mayest repent,

And one bad act with many deeds well done

Mayest cover: Well may then thy Lord, appeased,

Redeem thee quite from Death’s rapacious claim;

But longer in this Paradise to dwell

Permits not: to remove thee I am come,

And send thee from the garden forth to till

The ground whence thou wast taken, fitter soil.

He added not; for Adam at the news

Heart-struck with chilling gripe of sorrow stood,

That all his senses bound; Eve, who unseen

Yet all had heard, with audible lament

Discovered soon the place of her retire.

O unexpected stroke, worse than of Death!

Must I thus leave thee$ Paradise? thus leave

Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades,

Fit haunt of Gods? where I had hope to spend,

Quiet though sad, the respite of that day

That must be mortal to us both. O flowers,

That never will in other climate grow,

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My early visitation, and my last

;t even, which I bred up with tender hand

From the first opening bud, and gave ye names!

Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank

Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount?

Thee lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned

With what to sight or smell was sweet! from thee

How shall I part, and whither wander down

Into a lower world; to this obscure

And wild? how shall we breathe in other air

Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?

Whom thus the Angel interrupted mild.

Lament not, Eve, but patiently resign

What justly thou hast lost, nor set thy heart,

Thus over-fond, on that which is not thine:

Thy going is not lonely; with thee goes

Thy husband; whom to follow thou art bound;

Where he abides, think there thy native soil.

Adam, by this from the cold sudden damp

Recovering, and his scattered spirits returned,

To Michael thus his humble words addressed.

Celestial, whether among the Thrones, or named

Of them the highest; for such of shape may seem

Prince above princes! gently hast thou told

Thy message, which might else in telling wound,

And in performing end us; what besides

Of sorrow, and dejection, and despair,

Our frailty can sustain, thy tidings bring,

Departure from this happy place, our sweet

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Recess, and only consolation left

Familiar to our eyes! all places else

Inhospitable appear, and desolate;

Nor knowing us, nor known: And, if by prayer

Incessant I could hope to change the will

Of Him who all things can, I would not cease

To weary him with my assiduous cries:

But prayer against his absolute decree

No more avails than breath against the wind,

Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth:

Therefore to his great bidding I submit.

This most afflicts me, that, departing hence,

As from his face I shall be hid, deprived

His blessed countenance: Here I could frequent

With worship place by place where he vouchsafed

Presence Divine; and to my sons relate,

‘On this mount he appeared; under this tree

‘Stood visible; among these pines his voice

‘I heard; here with him at this fountain talked:

So many grateful altars I would rear

Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone

Of lustre from the brook, in memory,

Or monument to ages; and theron

Offer sweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers:

In yonder nether world where shall I seek

His bright appearances, or foot-step trace?

For though I fled him angry, yet recalled

To life prolonged and promised race, I now

Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts

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Of glory; and far off his steps adore.

To whom thus Michael with regard benign.

Adam, thou knowest Heaven his, and all the Earth;

Not this rock only; his Omnipresence fills

Land, sea, and air, and every kind that lives,

Fomented by his virtual power and warmed:

All the earth he gave thee to possess and rule,

No despicable gift; surmise not then

His presence to these narrow bounds confined

Of Paradise, or Eden: this had been

Perhaps thy capital seat, from whence had spread

All generations; and had hither come

From all the ends of the earth, to celebrate

And reverence thee, their great progenitor.

But this pre-eminence thou hast lost, brought down

To dwell on even ground now with thy sons:

Yet doubt not but in valley, and in plain,

God is, as here; and will be found alike

Present; and of his presence many a sign

Still following thee, still compassing thee round

With goodness and paternal love, his face

Express, and of his steps the track divine.

Which that thou mayest believe, and be confirmed

Ere thou from hence depart; know, I am sent

To show thee what shall come in future days

To thee, and to thy offspring: good with bad

Expect to hear; supernal grace contending

With sinfulness of men; thereby to learn

True patience, and to temper joy with fear

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And pious sorrow; equally inured

By moderation either state to bear,

Prosperous or adverse: so shalt thou lead

Safest thy life, and best prepared endure

Thy mortal passage when it comes.—Ascend

This hill; let Eve (for I have drenched her eyes)

Here sleep below; while thou to foresight wakest;

As once thou sleptst, while she to life was formed.

To whom thus Adam gratefully replied.

Ascend, I follow thee, safe Guide, the path

Thou leadest me; and to the hand of Heaven submit,

However chastening; to the evil turn

My obvious breast; arming to overcome

By suffering, and earn rest from labour won,

If so I may attain. — So both ascend

In the visions of God. It was a hill,

Of Paradise the highest; from whose top

The hemisphere of earth, in clearest ken,

Stretched out to the amplest reach of prospect lay.

Not higher that hill, nor wider looking round,

Whereon, for different cause, the Tempter set

Our second Adam, in the wilderness;

To show him all Earth’s kingdoms, and their glory.

His eye might there command wherever stood

City of old or modern fame, the seat

Of mightiest empire, from the destined walls

Of Cambalu, seat of Cathaian Can,

And Samarchand by Oxus, Temir’s throne,

To Paquin of Sinaean kings; and thence

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To Agra and Lahor of great Mogul,

Down to the golden Chersonese; or where

The Persian in Ecbatan sat, or since

In Hispahan; or where the Russian Ksar

In Mosco; or the Sultan in Bizance,

Turchestan-born; nor could his eye not ken

The empire of Negus to his utmost port

Ercoco, and the less maritim kings

Mombaza, and Quiloa, and Melind,

And Sofala, thought Ophir, to the realm

Of Congo, and Angola farthest south;

Or thence from Niger flood to Atlas mount

The kingdoms of Almansor, Fez and Sus,

Morocco, and Algiers, and Tremisen;

On Europe thence, and where Rome was to sway

The world: in spirit perhaps he also saw

Rich Mexico, the seat of Montezume,

And Cusco in Peru, the richer seat

Of Atabalipa; and yet unspoiled

Guiana, whose great city Geryon’s sons

Call El Dorado. But to nobler sights

Michael from Adam’s eyes the film removed,

Which that false fruit that promised clearer sight

Had bred; then purged with euphrasy and rue

The visual nerve, for he had much to see;

And from the well of life three drops instilled.

So deep the power of these ingredients pierced,

Even to the inmost seat of mental sight,

That Adam, now enforced to close his eyes,

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Sunk down, and all his spirits became entranced;

But him the gentle Angel by the hand

Soon raised, and his attention thus recalled.

Adam, now ope thine eyes; and first behold

The effects, which thy original crime hath wrought

In some to spring from thee; who never touched

The excepted tree; nor with the snake conspired;

Nor sinned thy sin; yet from that sin derive

Corruption, to bring forth more violent deeds.

His eyes he opened, and beheld a field,

Part arable and tilth, whereon were sheaves

New reaped; the other part sheep-walks and folds;

I’ the midst an altar as the land-mark stood,

Rustick, of grassy sord; thither anon

A sweaty reaper from his tillage brought

First fruits, the green ear, and the yellow sheaf,

Unculled, as came to hand; a shepherd next,

More meek, came with the firstlings of his flock,

Choicest and best; then, sacrificing, laid

The inwards and their fat, with incense strowed,

On the cleft wood, and all due rights performed:

His offering soon propitious fire from Heaven

Consumed with nimble glance, and grateful steam;

The other’s not, for his was not sincere;

Whereat he inly raged, and, as they talked,

Smote him into the midriff with a stone

That beat out life; he fell;and, deadly pale,

Groaned out his soul with gushing blood effused.

Much at that sight was Adam in his heart

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Dismayed, and thus in haste to the Angel cried.

O Teacher, some great mischief hath befallen

To that meek man, who well had sacrificed;

Is piety thus and pure devotion paid?

To whom Michael thus, he also moved, replied.

These two are brethren, Adam, and to come

Out of thy loins; the unjust the just hath slain,

For envy that his brother’s offering found

From Heaven acceptance; but the bloody fact

Will be avenged; and the other’s faith, approved,

Lose no reward; though here thou see him die,

Rolling in dust and gore. To which our sire.

Alas! both for the deed, and for the cause!

But have I now seen Death? Is this the way

I must return to native dust? O sight

Of terrour, foul and ugly to behold,

Horrid to think, how horrible to feel!

To whom thus Michael. Death thou hast seen

In his first shape on Man; but many shapes

Of Death, and many are the ways that lead

To his grim cave, all dismal; yet to sense

More terrible at the entrance, than within.

Some, as thou sawest, by violent stroke shall die;

By fire, flood, famine, by intemperance more

In meats and drinks, which on the earth shall bring

Diseases dire, of which a monstrous crew

Before thee shall appear; that thou mayest know

What misery the inabstinence of Eve

Shall bring on Men. Immediately a place

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Before his eyes appeared, sad, noisome, dark;

A lazar-house it seemed; wherein were laid

Numbers of all diseased; all maladies

Of ghastly spasm, or racking torture, qualms

Of heart-sick agony, all feverous kinds,

Convulsions, epilepsies, fierce catarrhs,

Intestine stone and ulcer, colick-pangs,

Demoniack phrenzy, moaping melancholy,

And moon-struck madness, pining atrophy,

Marasmus, and wide-wasting pestilence,

Dropsies, and asthmas, and joint-racking rheums.

Dire was the tossing, deep the groans; Despair

Tended the sick busiest from couch to couch;

And over them triumphant Death his dart

Shook, but delayed to strike, though oft invoked

With vows, as their chief good, and final hope.

Sight so deform what heart of rock could long

Dry-eyed behold? Adam could not, but wept,

Though not of woman born; compassion quelled

His best of man, and gave him up to tears

A space, till firmer thoughts restrained excess;

And, scarce recovering words, his plaint renewed.

O miserable mankind, to what fall

Degraded, to what wretched state reserved!

Better end here unborn. Why is life given

To be thus wrested from us? rather, why

Obtruded on us thus? who, if we knew

What we receive, would either no accept

Life offered, or soon beg to lay it down;

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Glad to be so dismissed in peace. Can thus

The image of God in Man, created once

So goodly and erect, though faulty since,

To such unsightly sufferings be debased

Under inhuman pains? Why should not Man,

Retaining still divine similitude

In part, from such deformities be free,

And, for his Maker’s image sake, exempt?

Their Maker’s image, answered Michael, then

Forsook them, when themselves they vilified

To serve ungoverned Appetite; and took

His image whom they served, a brutish vice,

Inductive mainly to the sin of Eve.

Therefore so abject is their punishment,

Disfiguring not God’s likeness, but their own;

Or if his likeness, by themselves defaced;

While they pervert pure Nature’s healthful rules

To loathsome sickness; worthily, since they

God’s image did not reverence in themselves.

I yield it just, said Adam, and submit.

But is there yet no other way, besides

These painful passages, how we may come

To death, and mix with our connatural dust?

There is, said Michael, if thou well observe

The rule of Not too much; by temperance taught,

In what thou eatest and drinkest; seeking from thence

Due nourishment, not gluttonous delight,

Till many years over thy head return:

So mayest thou live; till, like ripe fruit, thou drop

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Into thy mother’s lap; or be with ease

Gathered, nor harshly plucked; for death mature:

This is Old Age; but then, thou must outlive

Thy youth, thy strength, thy beauty; which will change

To withered, weak, and gray; thy senses then,

Obtuse, all taste of pleasure must forego,

To what thou hast; and, for the air of youth,

Hopeful and cheerful, in thy blood will reign

A melancholy damp of cold and dry

To weigh thy spirits down, and last consume

The balm of life. To whom our ancestor.

Henceforth I fly not death, nor would prolong

Life much; bent rather, how I may be quit,

Fairest and easiest, of this cumbrous charge;

Which I must keep till my appointed day

Of rendering up, and patiently attend

My dissolution. Michael replied.

Nor love thy life, nor hate; but what thou livest

Live well; how long, or short, permit to Heaven: