Among thick-woven arborets, and flowers
Embroider'd on each bank, the hand of Eve:
Spot more delicious than those gardens feign'd
Or of revived Adonis, or renown'd

Alcinous, host of old Laertes' Son;

Or that, not mystic, where the sapient King
Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse.
Much he the place admired, the person more.
As one who long in populous city spent,
Were houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms
Adjoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight;
The smell of grain, or tedded grass or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound;
If chance, with nymph-like step, fair virgin pass,
What pleasing seem'd, for her now pleases more;
She most, and in her look sums all delight;
Such pleasure took the Serpent to behold
This flowery plat, the sweet recess of ve,.
Thus early, thus alone: her Heavenly form
Angelic, but more soft and feminine,
Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture, or least action, overawed
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought :
That space the evil one abstracted stood
From his own evil; and for the time remain'd
Stupidly good: of enmity disarm'd,

Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge :
But the hot Hell that always in him burns,

Though in mid Heaven, soon ended his delight,
And tortures him now more the more he sees
Of pleasure, not for him ordain'd: then soon
Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts
Of mischief, gratulating, thus excites.

"Thoughts, whither have yeled me! with what sweet

Compulsion thus transported, to forget

What hither brought us! hate, not love; nor hope
Of Paradise for Hell, hope here to taste
Of pleasure; but all pleasure to destroy,
Save what is in destroying; other joy
To me is lost. Then, let me not let pass
Occasion which now smiles; behold alonc
The woman, opportune to all attemps,
Her husband, for I view far round, not nigh,
Whose higher intellectual more I shun,
And strength of courage haughty, and of limb
Heroic built, though of terrestrial mould :
Foe not in midable! exempt from wound,
I not; so much hath Hell debased, and pain
Enfeebled me, to what I was in Heaven
She fair, divinely fair, fit love for Gods!
Not terrible, though terror be in love
And beauty, nor approach'd by stronger hate,
Hate stronger, under show of love well feign'd:
The
way which to her ruin now I tend.

So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed
In serpent inmate bad! and toward Eve
Addressd his way; not with indented wave,
Prone on the ground, as since, but on his rear,
Circular base of rising folds, that tower'd
Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head
Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;
With burnish'd neck of verdent gold, erect
Amidst his circling spiers, that on the grass
Floated redundant : pleasing was his shape
And lovely, never since of serpent kind
Loveler not those that in Illyria changed,
Hermione and Cadmus, or the God
In Epidarus; nor to which transform'd
Ammonian Jove, or Capitoline, was seen;
He with Olympias; this with her who bore
Scipio the heighth of Rome. With tract oblque

At first the one who sought access, but fear'd
To interrupt sidelong he works his way

As when a ship by skilful steersmen wrought
Nigh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind
Veers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail :
So varied he, and of his torturous train
Curl'd many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve,
To lure her eye: she, busied heard the sound
Of rustling leaves, but minded not, as used
To such disport before her through the field,
From every beast; more duteous at her call
Than at Circean call the herd disguised.
He, bolder now, uncall'd before her stood,
But as in gaze admiring: oft he bow'd
His turret crest, and sleek enamel neck,
Fawning; and lick'd the ground whereon she trod.
His gentle dumb expression turn'd at length
The eye of Eve to mark his play: he, glad
Of her attention gain'd, with serpent tongue
Organic, or impulse of vocal air,

His fraudulent temptation thus began:

"Wonder not, sov'reign mistress, if perhaps
Thou canst, who art sole wonder! much less arm
Thy looks, the Heaven of mildness, with disdain,
Displeased that I approach thee thus, and gaze
Insatiate; Ithus single; nor have fear'd
Thy awful brow, more awful thus retired.
Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair.
Thee all things living gaze on, all things thine
By gift, and thy celestial beauty adore
With ravishment beheld there best beheld,
Where universally admired; but here
In this enclosure wild, these beasts among,
Beholders rude, and shallow to discern
Half what in thee is fair, one man except,

Who sees thee? (and what is one?) who should be seen

*U

A goddess among gods, adored and served
By Angels numberless, thy daily train."

So glozed the tempter, and his proem tuned : Into the heart of Eve his words made way. Though at the voice much marveling; at length Not unamazed, she thus in answer spake:

"What may this mean? language of man pronounc
By tougue of brute, and human sense express'd?
The first, at least, of these I thought denied
To beasts; whom God, on their creation-day,
Created mute to all articulate sound:

The latter I demur; for in their looks
Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears.
The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field
I knew, but not with human voice endued;
Redouble then this miracle, and say,
How camest thou speakable of mute, and how
To me so friendly grown above the rest
Of brutal kind, that daily are in sight?
Say, for such wonder claims attention due."
To whom the guileful tempter thus replied;
Empress of this fair world, resplendent Eve!
Easy it is to me to tell thee all

What thou command'st; and right thou shouldest bɛ obey'd:

I was at first as other beasts that graze

The trodden herb, of abject thoughts and low
As was my food nor aught but food discern'd
Or sex, and apprehended nothing high :
Till on a day roving the field, I chanced
A goodly tree far distant to behold
Loaded with fruit of fairest colors mix'd,
Ruddy and gold; I nearer drew to gaze;
When from the boughs a savory odor blown,
Grateful to appetite, more pleased my sense
Than smell of sweetest fennel, or the feasts
Of ewe or goat dropping with milk at even,
Unsuck'd of lamb or kid, that tend their play.

To satisfy the sharp desire I had

Of tasting those fair apples, I resolved
Not to defer; hunger and thirst at once,
Powerful persuaders, quicken'd at the scent
Of that alluring fruit, urged me so keen.
About the mossy trunk I wound me soon;
For, high from ground the branches would require
Thy utmost reach or Adam's: round the tree
All other beasts that saw, with like desire
Longing and envying stood, but could not reach.
Amid the tree now got, where plenty hung
Tempting so nigh, to pluck and eat my fill,
I spared not; for, such pleasure till that hour,
At feed or fountain, never had I found.
Sated at length, ere long I might perceive
Strange alteration in me, to degree

Of reason in my inward powers; and speech
Wanted not long; though to his shape retain'd.
Thenceforth to speculations high or deep

I turn'd my thoughts, and with capacious mind
Consider'd all things visible in Heaven,

Or Earth, or middle; all things fair and good:
But all that fair and good in thy divine
Semblance, and in thy beauty's Heavenly ray,
United I beheld; no fair to thine

Equivolent or second! which compell'd
Me thus, though importune perhaps, to come
And gaze, and worship thee of right declared.
Sov'reign of creatures, universal dame."

So talk'd the spirited sly snake, and Eve,
Yet more amazed, unwary thus replied;
"Serpent, thy overpraising leaves in doubt
The virtue of that fruit, in thee first proved:
But say, where grows the tree? from hence how far?
For many are the trees of God that grow
In Paradise, and various. yet unknown
To us; in such abundance lies our choice,