She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased: now glow'd the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length,
Apparent queen, unveil'd her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.

605

611

When Adam thus to Eve: Fair consort, the hour Of night, and all things now retired to rest, Mind us of like repose; since God hath set Labour and rest, as day and night, to men Successive; and the timely dew of sleep,

620

Now falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines 615
Our eyelids; other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemploy'd, and less need rest;
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity,
And the regard of heaven on all his ways;
While other animals unactive range,
And of their doings God takes no account.
To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be risen,
And at our pleasant labour to reform

' where the love-lorn nightingale

Nightly to thee her sad song mourneth well.'

625

See Professor Anstice's Selections from the Choric Poetry of the Greek Dramatic Writers, p. 89.

603. descant: a song with various modulations. So Hom. Odyss. Τ. 521. ήτε θαμὰ τρωπῶσα χέει πολυηχέα φωνήν.

605. living sapphires: lighted up, as we say a live coal when the fire is in it.' RICHARDSON.

Hesperus-rode brightest: Ovid Fast. ii. 314.

Hesperus et fusco roscidus ibat equo.'

630

Yon flowery arbours, yonder alleys green,
Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,
That mock our scant manuring, and require
More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth:
Those blossoms also, and those dropping gums,
That lie bestrewn, unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance, if we mean to tread with ease;
Mean while, as nature wills, night bids us rest.'
To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorn'd:

My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st

Unargued I obey: so God ordains;

God is thy law, thou mine to know no more

635

Is woman's happiest knowledge, and her praise.
With thee conversing I forget all time;

All seasons, and their change, all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the sun,
When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flower,
Glistering with dew: fragrant the fertile earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on

640

645

628. manuring: manual labour, working with hands; the French manouvrer; an unusual sense.

635. My author and disposer: as in v. 440. for whom and from whom I was formed;' my author, the author of my being, out of whom I was made.' HUME.

640. seasons: of the day, not of the year. So in viii. 69. we read 'His seasons, hours, or days, or months or years:' and in ix. 200. he says Adam and Eve partake the season prime for sweetest scents, i. e. the morning. It was now an eternal spring, 1. 268. and we read in x. 677. of the changes made after the fall. We may farther observe that Eve in the following lines mentions morning, evening, night, the times of the day, not the seasons of the year.'

N.

650

Of grateful evening mild; then silent night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heaven, her starry train :
But neither breath of morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds; nor rising sun
On this delightful land; nor herb, fruit, flower,
Glistering with dew; nor fragrance after showers;
Nor grateful evening mild; nor silent night,
With this her solemn bird; nor walk by moon,
Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet.
But wherefore all night long shine these? for whom
This glorious sight, when sleep hath shut all eyes?'
To whom our general ancestor replied:

655

Daughter of God and man, accomplish'd Eve! 660
These have their course to finish round the earth
By morrow evening, and from land to land
In order, though to nations yet unborn,
Ministering light prepared, they set and rise;
Lest total darkness should by night regain
Her old possession, and extinguish life

In nature and all things; which these soft fires
Not only enlighten, but with kindly heat

Of various influence foment and warm,

665

648. solemn bird: the nightingale: see the note on l. 602. So in Il Penseroso Milton terms her most musical, most melancholy.' 664. ministering to nations yet unborn the light prepared for them.'

666. Bp. Pearce proposes to read life and nature in all things; which he explains by: life in things that have life and Nature in all other things: otherwise if we admit his conjecture, we may explain life and nature to mean natural life, as in x. 345. with joy and tidings, for joyful tidings, the figure hendiadys, such as occurs in Virgil, pateris libamus et uuro for pateris aureis.

Temper or nourish, or in part shed down
Their stellar virtue on all kinds that grow
On earth, made hereby apter to receive
Perfection from the sun's more potent ray.

670

674

These, then, though unbeheld in deep of night,
Shine not in vain. Nor think, though men were none,
That heaven would want spectators, God want praise:
Millions of spiritual creatures walk the earth
Unseen, both when we wake and when we sleep:
All these with ceaseless praise his works behold
Both day and night. How often from the steep 680
Of echoing hill or thicket have we heard
Celestial voices to the midnight air,
Sole, or responsive each to other's note,

Singing their great Creator! oft in bands

While they keep watch, or nightly rounding walk, 685
With heavenly touch of instrumental sounds

In full harmonic number join'd, their songs
Divide the night, and lift our thoughts to heaven.'
Thus talking, hand in hand alone they pass'd
On to their blissful bower: it was a place
Chosen by the sovran Planter, when he framed
All things to man's delightful use; the roof
Of thickest covert was inwoven shade

690

682. ' singing to the midnight air: so in Virg. Ecl. i. 57. 'canet frondator ad auras.'' N.

685. rounding: going their round, as guards.

688. divide the night: into watches, as the trumpet did among the ancients, sounding as the watch was relieved; Sil. Ital. vii. 154. cum buccina noctem divideret.'' RICHARDSON.

693. inwoven shade (of) laurel and myrtle: as 698. Iris (of) all hues: Virg. Ecl. ii. 54.

Et vos, o lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte,
Sic positæ quoniam suaves miscetis odores.'

Laurel and myrtle, and what higher grew
Of firm and fragrant leaf; on either side
Acanthus, and each odorous bushy shrub,
Fenced up

695

the verdant wall; each beauteous flower,

Iris all hues, roses, and jessamin,

Rear'd high their flourish'd heads between, and wrought

Mosaic; under foot the violet,

Crocus, and hyacinth, with rich inlay

700

Broider'd the ground, more colour'd than with stone Of costliest emblem: other creatures here,

Bird, beast, insect, or worm,

durst enter none,

Such was their awe of man.

In shadier bower

705

More sacred and sequester'd, though but feign'd,

696. acanthus: 'a spicy tree or shrub; it has thorns and a long, large, winding leaf; those in the capitals of pillars are in imitation of them.' RICHARDSON.

698. Iris: the flower-de-luce or fleur-de-lis, which resembles the colours of the Iris or rainbow.

699. flourish'd: richly ornamented, variegated.

700. Mosaic Mosaic work is an assemblage of little pieces of glass, marble, precious stones, &c. of various colors, cut square and cemented on a ground of stucco, in such a manner as to imitate the colors and gradations of painting.' WEBSTER's Dict. From the Fr. mosaique; opus museum or musivum, Mosaic work, probably because first used in caves or grottos consecrated to the Muses (musea), Plin. xxxvi. 21. s. 42.' ADAM'S Rom. Antiq. p. 465.

ib. Homer, Il. xiv. 347. makes the same flowers to spring up under Jupiter and Juno on Mount Ida:

τοῖσι δ' ὑπὸ Χθὼν δια φύεν νεοθήλεα ποίην

λωτόν θ' ἑρσήεντα, ἰδὲ κρόκον, ἠδ ̓ ὑάκινθον
πυκνὸν καὶ μαλακόν. Ν.

702. color'd: diversified, variegated with colors.

703. emblem is here in the Greek and Latin sense for inlaid floors of stone or wood, to make figures mathematical or pictural: Lucilius: Arte pavimenti atque emblemate vermiculato." BENTLEY.