GREAT are thy virtues, doubtless, best of fruits,

Though kept from Man, and worthy to be

admired,

Whose taste, too long forborne, at first assay
Gave elocution to the mute, and taught

The tongue not made for speech to speak thy praise.
Thy praise he also who forbids thy use

Conceals not from us, naming thee the Tree
Of Knowledge, knowledge both of good and evil;
Forbids us then to taste; but his forbidding
Commends thee more, while it infers the good
By thee communicated, and our want;
For good unknown sure is not had, or had,
And yet unknown, is as had not at all.
In plain then, what forbids he but to know?
Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise!
Such prohibitions bind not.

Eve, PARADISE Lost, Book IX.

N the day we eat

Of this fair fruit, our doom is, we shall die.

How dies the Serpent?

He hath eaten and lives,

And knows, and speaks, and reasons, and discerns, Irrational till then. For us alone

Was death invented? or to us denied

This intellectual food, for beasts reserved?
For beasts it seems; yet that one beast which first
Hath tasted envies not, but brings with joy
That good befall'n him, author unsuspect,
Friendly to Man, far from deceit or guile.
What fear I then? rather, what know to fear
Under this ignorance of good and evil,
Of God or death, of law or penalty?
Here grows the cure of all, this fruit divine,
Fair to the eye, inviting to the taste,

Of virtue to make wise: what hinders then

To reach, and feed at once both body and mind?

Eve, PARADISE LOST, Book IX.

N evil hour

IN

Forth reaching to the fruit, she pluck'd, she eat. Earth felt the wound, and Nature from her seat, Sighing through all her works, gave signs of woe That all was lost. Back to the thicket slunk The guilty Serpent, and well might, for Eve, Intent now only on her taste, nought else Regarded; such delight till then, as seem'd, In fruit she never tasted, whether true Or fancied so through expectation high

Of knowledge; nor was Godhead from her thought. Greedily she ingorged without restraint,

And knew not eating death.

Paradise Lost, Book IX.

OUL distrust and breach

FOUL

Disloyal on the part of man, revolt

And disobedience; on the part of Heaven,
Now alienated, distance and distaste,
Anger and just rebuke, and judgment given,
That brought into this World a world of woe,
Sin and her shadow Death, and Misery,

Death's harbinger.

PARADISE LOST, Book IX.

A DAM

Waiting desirous her return, had wove
Of choicest flowers a garland, to adorn
Her tresses, and her rural labours crown,
As reapers oft are wont their harvest queen.
Great joy he promised to his thoughts, and new
Solace in her return, so long delay'd;

Yet oft his heart, divine of something ill,
Misgave him; he the faltering measure felt,
And forth to meet her went, the way she took
That morn when first they parted. By the Tree
Of Knowledge he must pass; there he her met,
Scarce from the tree returning; in her hand
A bough of fairest fruit, that downy smiled,
New gathered, and ambrosial smell diffused.

PARADISE LOST, BOOK IX.

O

FAIREST of creation, last and best

Of all God's works, creature in whom excell'd

Whatever can to sight or thought be form'd,
Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!
How art thou lost, how on a sudden lost,
Defaced, deflower'd, and now to death devote !
Rather, how hast thou yielded to transgress
The strict forbiddance, how to violate

The sacred fruit forbidden! Some cursed fraud
Of enemy hath beguiled thee, yet unknown,
And me with thee hath ruin'd; for with thee
Certain my resolution is to die:

How can I live without thee, how forgo
Thy sweet converse and love so dearly join'd,
To live again in these wild woods forlorn?

flesh of flesh,

Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state
Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.

Adam, PARADISE LOST, BOOK IX.