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thirst and appetite

      More grateful, to their supper-fruits they fell,

      Nectarine fruits which the compliant boughs

      Yielded them, side-long as they sat recline

      On the soft downy bank damasked with flowers:

      The savoury pulp they chew, and in the rind,

      Still as they thirsted, scoop the brimming stream;

      Nor gentle purpose, nor endearing smiles

      Wanted, nor youthful dalliance, as beseems

      Fair couple, linked in happy nuptial league,

      Alone as they. About them frisking played

      All beasts of the earth, since wild, and of all chase

      In wood or wilderness, forest or den;

      Sporting the lion ramped, and in his paw

      Dandled the kid; bears, tigers, ounces, pards,

      Gambolled before them; the unwieldy elephant,

      To make them mirth, used all his might, and wreathed

      His lithe proboscis; close the serpent sly,

      Insinuating, wove with Gordian twine

      His braided train, and of his fatal guile

      Gave proof unheeded; others on the grass

      Couched, and now filled with pasture gazing sat,

      Or bedward ruminating; for the sun,

      Declined, was hasting now with prone career

      To the ocean isles, and in the ascending scale

      Of Heaven the stars that usher evening rose:

      When Satan still in gaze, as first he stood,

      Scarce thus at length failed speech recovered sad.

      “O Hell! what do mine eyes with grief behold!

      Into our room of bliss thus high advanced

      Creatures of other mould, earth-born perhaps,

      Not Spirits, yet to heavenly Spirits bright

      Little inferior; whom my thoughts pursue

      With wonder, and could love, so lively shines

      In them divine resemblance, and such grace

      The hand that formed them on their shape hath poured.

      Ah! gentle pair, ye little think how nigh

      Your change approaches, when all these delights

      Will vanish, and deliver ye to woe;

      More woe, the more your taste is now of joy;

      Happy, but for so happy ill secured

      Long to continue, and this high seat your Heaven

      Ill fenced for Heaven to keep out such a foe

      As now is entered; yet no purposed foe

      To you, whom I could pity thus forlorn,

      Though I unpitied: League with you I seek,

      And mutual amity, so strait, so close,

      That I with you must dwell, or you with me

      Henceforth; my dwelling haply may not please,

      Like this fair Paradise, your sense; yet such

      Accept your Maker’s work; he gave it me,

      Which I as freely give: Hell shall unfold,

      To entertain you two, her widest gates,

      And send forth all her kings; there will be room,

      Not like these narrow limits, to receive

      Your numerous offspring; if no better place,

      Thank him who puts me loth to this revenge

      On you who wrong me not for him who wronged.

      And should I at your harmless innocence

      Melt, as I do, yet public reason just,

      Honour and empire with revenge enlarged,

      By conquering this new world, compels me now

      To do what else, though damned, I should abhor.”

      So spake the Fiend, and with necessity,

      The tyrant’s plea, excused his devilish deeds.

      Then from his lofty stand on that high tree

      Down he alights among the sportful herd

      Of those four-footed kinds, himself now one,

      Now other, as their shape served best his end

      Nearer to view his prey, and, unespied,

      To mark what of their state he more might learn,

      By word or action marked. About them round

      A lion now he stalks with fiery glare;

      Then as a tiger, who by chance hath spied

      In some purlieu two gentle fawns at play,

      Straight couches close, then, rising, changes oft

      His couchant watch, as one who chose his ground,

      Whence rushing, he might surest seize them both,

      Gripped in each paw: when, Adam first of men

      To first of women Eve thus moving speech,

      Turned him, all ear to hear new utterance flow.

      “Sole partner, and sole part, of all these joys,

      Dearer thyself than all; needs must the Power

      That made us, and for us this ample world,

      Be infinitely good, and of his good

      As liberal and free as infinite;

      That raised us from the dust, and placed us here

      In all this happiness, who at his hand

      Have nothing merited, nor can perform

      Aught whereof he hath need; he who requires

      From us no other service than to keep

      This one, this easy charge, of all the trees

      In Paradise that bear delicious fruit

      So various, not to taste that only tree

      Of knowledge, planted by the tree of life;

      So near grows death to life, whate’er death is,

      Some dreadful thing no doubt; for well thou knowest

      God hath pronounced it death to taste that tree,

      The only sign of our obedience left,

      Among so many signs of power and rule

      Conferred upon us, and dominion given

      Over all other creatures that possess

      Earth, air, and sea. Then let us not think hard

      One easy prohibition, who enjoy

      Free leave so large to all things else, and choice

      Unlimited of manifold delights:

      But let us ever praise him, and extol

      His bounty, following our delightful task,

      To prune these growing plants, and tend these flowers,

      Which were it toilsome, yet with thee were sweet.”

      To whom thus Eve

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