| |
SO on he fares, and to the border comes | |
| Of Eden, where delicious Paradise, | |
| Now nearer, crowns with her enclosure green, | |
| As with a rural mound, the champaign head | |
| Of a steep wilderness, whose hairy sides | 5 |
| With thicket overgrown, grotesque and wild, | |
| Access denied; and overhead up grew | |
| Insuperable height of loftiest shade, | |
| Cedar and pine and fir and branching palm, | |
| A sylvan scene; and, as the ranks ascend | 10 |
| Shade above shade, a woody theatre | |
| Of stateliest view. Yet higher than their tops | |
| The verdurous wall of Paradise up sprung; | |
| Which to our general sire gave prospect large | |
| Into his nether empire neighboring round. | 15 |
| And higher than that wall a circling row | |
| Of goodliest trees loaden with fairest fruit, | |
| Blossoms and fruits at once of golden hue, | |
| Appeared, with gay enamelled colors mixed; | |
| On which the sun more glad impressed his beams, | 20 |
| Than in fair evening cloud or humid bow, | |
| When God hath showered the earth; so lovely seemed | |
| That landskip; and of pure now purer air | |
| Meets his approach, and to the heart inspires | |
| Vernal delight and joy, able to drive | 25 |
| All sadness but despair: now gentle gales, | |
| Fanning their odoriferous wings, dispense | |
| Native perfumes, and whisper whence they stole | |
| Those balmy spoils. As when to them who sail | |
| Beyond the Cape of Hope, and now are passed | 30 |
| Mozambic, off at sea northeast-winds blow | |
| Sabæan odors from the spicy shore | |
| Of Araby the blessed; with such delay | |
| Well pleased they slack their course, and many a league | |
| Cheered with the grateful smell old Ocean smiles. * * * * * | 35 |
| One gate there only was, and that looked east | |
| On the other side: which when the arch-felon saw, | |
| Due entrance he disdained; and in contempt, | |
| At one slight bound high overleaped all bound | |
| Of hill or highest wall, and sheer within | 40 |
| Lights on his feet. As when a prowling wolf, | |
| Whom hunger drives to seek new haunt for prey, | |
| Watching where shepherds pen their flocks at eve | |
| In hurdled cotes amid the field secure, | |
| Leaps o’er the fence with ease into the fold: | 45 |
| Or as a thief, bent to unhoard the cash | |
| Of some rich burgher, whose substantial doors, | |
| Cross-barred and bolted fast, fear no assault, | |
| In at the window climbs, or o’er the tiles: | |
| So clomb this first grand thief into God’s fold; | 50 |
| So since into his church lewd hirelings climb. | |
| Thence up he flew; and on the Tree of Life, | |
| The middle tree and highest there that grew, | |
| Sat like a cormorant; yet not true life | |
| Thereby regained, but sat devising death | 55 |
| To them who lived; nor on the virtue thought | |
| Of that life-giving plant, but only used | |
| For prospect, what well used had been the pledge | |
| Of immortality. So little knows | |
| Any, but God alone, to value right | 60 |
| The good before him; but perverts best things | |
| To worst abuse, or to their meanest use. | |
| Beneath him with new wonder now he views, | |
| To all delight of human sense exposed, | |
| In narrow room, Nature’s whole wealth, yea, more, | 65 |
| A heaven on earth: for blissful Paradise | |
| Of God the garden was, by him in the east | |
| Of Eden planted: Eden stretched her line | |
| From Auran eastward to the royal towers | |
| Of great Seleucia, built by Grecian kings; | 70 |
| Or where the sons of Eden long before | |
| Dwelt in Telassar. In this pleasant soil | |
| His far more pleasant garden God ordained: | |
| Out of the fertile ground he caused to grow | |
| All trees of noblest kind for sight, smell, taste; | 75 |
| And all amid them stood the Tree of Life, | |
| High eminent, blooming ambrosial fruit | |
| Of vegetable gold; and next to Life, | |
| Our death, the Tree of Knowledge, grew fast by, | |
| Knowledge of good bought dear by knowing ill. | 80 |
| Southward through Eden went a river large, | |
| Nor changed his course, but through the shaggy hill | |
| Passed underneath ingulfed; for God had thrown | |
| That mountain as his garden-mould, high raised | |
| Upon the rapid current, which through veins | 85 |
| Of porous earth with kindly thirst updrawn, | |
| Rose a fresh fountain, and with many a rill | |
| Watered the garden, thence united fell | |
| Down the steep glade, and met the nether flood, | |
| Which from his darksome passage now appears; | 90 |
| And now, divided into four main streams, | |
| Runs diverse, wandering many a famous realm | |
| And country, whereof here needs no account; | |
| But rather to tell how, if art could tell, | |
| How from that sapphire fount the crispéd brooks, | 95 |
| Rolling on orient pearl and sands of gold, | |
| With mazy error under pendent shades | |
| Ran nectar, visiting each plant, and fed | |
| Flowers worthy of Paradise; which not nice art | |
| In beds and curious knots, but nature boon | 100 |
| Poured forth profuse on hill and dale and plain; | |
| Both where the morning sun first warmly smote | |
| The open field, and where the unpierced shade | |
| Imbrowned the noontide bowers. Thus was this place | |
| A happy rural seat of various view: | 105 |
| Groves whose rich trees wept odorous gums and balm; | |
| Others, whose fruit, burnished with golden rind, | |
| Hung amiable, Hesperian fables true, | |
| If true, here only, and of delicious taste. | |
| Betwixt them lawns, or level downs, and flocks | 110 |
| Grazing the tender herb, were interposed; | |
| Or palmy hillock, or the flowery lap | |
| Of some irriguous valley spread her store; | |
| Flowers of all hue, and without thorn the rose. | |
| Another side, umbrageous grots and caves | 115 |
| Of cool recess, o’er which the mantling vine | |
| Lays forth her purple grape, and gently creeps | |
| Luxuriant; meanwhile murmuring waters fall | |
| Down the slope hills, dispersed, or in a lake, | |
| That to the fringéd bank with myrtle crowned | 120 |
| Her crystal mirror holds, unite their streams. | |
| The birds their quire apply; airs, vernal airs, | |
| Breathing the smell of field and grove, attune | |
| The trembling leaves; while universal Pan, | |
| Knit with the Graces and the Hours in dance, | 125 |
| Led on the eternal spring. Not that fair field | |
| Of Enna, where Proserpine gathering flowers, | |
| Herself a fairer flower, by gloomy Dis | |
| Was gathered, which cost Ceres all that pain | |
| To seek her through the world; nor that sweet grove | 130 |
| Of Daphne by Orontes, and the inspired | |
| Castalian spring, might with this Paradise | |
| Of Eden strive; nor that Nyseian isle | |
| Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham, | |
| Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove, | 135 |
| Hid Amalthea, and her florid son, | |
| Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea’s eye; | |
| Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard, | |
| Mount Amara, though this by some supposed | |
| True Paradise, under the Ethiop line | 140 |
| By Nilus’ head, enclosed with shining rock, | |
| A whole day’s journey high, but wide remote | |
| From this Assyrian garden, where the fiend | |
| Saw, undelighted, all delight, all kind | |
| Of living creatures, new to sight and strange. | 145 |
| Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall, | |
| Godlike erect, with native honor clad | |
| In naked majesty, seemed lords of all; | |
| And worthy seemed: for in their looks divine | |
| The image of their glorious Maker shone, | 150 |
| Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure, | |
| Severe, but in true filial freedom placed; | |
| Whence true authority in men: though both | |
| Not equal, as their sex not equal, seemed; | |
| For contemplation he and valor formed, | 155 |
| For softness she and sweet attractive grace; | |
| He for God only, she for God in him. | |
| His fair large front and eye sublime declared | |
| Absolute rule; and hyacinthine locks | |
| Round from his parted forelock manly hung | 160 |
| Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad: | |
| She, as a veil, down to the slender waist | |
| Her unadornéd golden tresses wore | |
| Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved | |
| As the vine curls her tendrils; which implied | 165 |
| Subjection, but required with gentle sway, | |
| And by her yielded, by him best received, | |
| Yielded with coy submission, modest pride, | |
| And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay. | |
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