Attractive, human, rational, love still;

In loving thou dost well, in passion not,

Wherein true love consists not; love refines

The thoughts, and heart enlarges, hath his seat 590
In reason, and is judicious, is the scale

By which to heavenly love thou may'st ascend;
Not sunk in carnal pleasure, for which cause
Among the beasts no mate for thee was found.'

To whom thus half-abash'd, Adam replied: "Neither her outside form'd so fair, nor ought In procreation common to all kinds,

Though higher of the genial bed by far
And with mysterious reverence I deem,)
So much delights me, as those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies that daily flow
From all her words and actions, mix'd with love
And sweet compliance, which declare unfeign'd
Union of mind, or in us both one soul;
Harmony to behold in wedded pair

More grateful than harmonious sound to th' ear.
Yet these subject not; I to thee disclose
What inward thence I feel, not therefore foil'd,
Who meet with various objects, from the sense
Variously representing; yet still free,
Approve the best, and follow what I approve.
To love thou blam'st me not, for love thou say'st
Leads up to heaven, is both the way and guide;
Bear with me then, if lawful what I ask;
Love not the heavenly spirits, and how their love
Express they, by looks only, or do they mix
Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch?"

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600

605

610

616

To whom the angel, with a smile that glow'd Celestial rosy red, love's proper hue,

Us happy, and without love no happiness.

Answer'd: "Let it suffice thee that thou know'st

Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy'st
(And pure thou wert created) we enjoy
In eminence, and obstacle find none
Of inembrane, joint or limb, exclusive bars;
Easier than air with air, if spirits embrace,
Total they mix, union of pure with pure
Desiring; nor restrain'd conveyance need,
As flesh to mix with flesh, or soul with soul.

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625

But I can now no more; the parting sun
Beyond the earth's green Cape and verdant Isles
Hesperian sets, my signal to depart.

Be strong, live happy, and love; but first of all,
Him whom love is to obey, and keep

630

His great command; take heed lest passion sway Thy judgment to do ought, which else free will 636 Would not admit: thine and of all thy sons

The weal or wo in thee is plac'd;

in thy persevering shall rejoice,

beware!

And all the bless'd: stand fast; to stand or fall 640
Free in thine own arbitrament it lies.
Perfect within no outward aid require;
And all temptation to transgress repel."

So saying, he arose; whom Adam thus
Follow'd with benediction: "Since to part,
Go, heavenly guest, ethereal messenger,
Sent from whose sov'reign goodness I adore.
Gentle to me and affable hath been

Thy condescension, and shall be honour'd ever
With grateful memory: thou to mankind
Be good and friendly still, and oft return."

So parted they; the angel up to heaven

From the thick shade, and Adam to his bower.

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650

END OF BOOK EIGHTE.

PARADISE LOST.

BOOK IX.

THE ARGUMENT.

Satan having compassed the earth, witn me ktated guile returns as a mist by night into Paradise, and enters into the serpent sleeping. Adam and Eve in the morning go forth to their labours, which Eve proposes to divide in several places, each labouring apart. Adam consents not, alleging the danger, lest that enemy, of whom they were forewarned, should attempt her found alone. Eve, loth to be thought not circumspect or firm enough, urges her going apart, the rather testous to make trial of her strength: Adam at last yields. The serpent finds her alone; his subtle approach, first gazing, then speaking, with much Aattery extolling Eve above all other creatures. Eve, wondering to hear the serpent speak, asks how he attained to human speech and such understanding not till now; the Serpent answers, that by tasting of a certain tree in the garden he attained both to speech and reason, till then void of both. Eve requires him to bring her to that tree, and finds it to be the tree of knowledge forbidden. The Serpent, now grown boider, with many wiles and arguments induces her at length to eat: she, pleased with the taste, deliberates awhile whether to impart thereof to Adam or not; at last brings him of the fruit, relates what persuaded her to eat thereof. Adam, at first amazed, but perceiving her lost, resolves, through vehemence of love, to perish with her; and, extenuating the trespass, eats also of the fruit. The effects thereof in them both; they seek to cover their nakedness; then fall to variance and accusation of one another

16

No more of talk, where God or angel guest
With man, as with his friend familliar us'd
To sit indulgent, and with him partake
Rural repast, permitting him the while

Venial discourse unblam'd: I now mus, change
Those notes to tragic; foul distrust, and beach
Disloyal on the part of mar, 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 wo,
Sin, and her shadow Death, and Misery
Death's harbinger. Sad task! yet argument
Not less, but more heroic than the wrath
Of stern Achilles on his foe pursu❜d,
Thrice fugitive, about Troy wall; or rage
Of Turnus for Lavinia disespous'd:
Or Neptune's ire, or Juno's that so long
Perplex'd the Greek and Cytherea's son
If answerable style I can obtain

เจ

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20

Of my celestial patroness, who deigns
Her nightly visitation unimplor'd,.

And dictates to me slumb'ring, or inspires

Easy my unpremeditated verse:

Since first this subject for heroic song

Pleas'd me, long choosing, and beginning late;
Not sedulous by nature to indite

Wa.s, hitherto the only argument

Heroic deem'd, chief mast'ry to dissect
With long and tedious havoc, fabled knights
In battles feign'd; the better fortitude
Of patience and heroic martyrdom
Unsung; or to describe races and games,

Or tilting furniture, emblazon'd shields,

Impresses quaint, caparisons, and steeds;

Bases and tinsel trappings, gorgeous knights

At joust and tournament; then marshall'd feast
Serv'd up in hall with sewers, and seneschals;
The skill of artifice or office mean,

Not that which justly gives heroic name
To person or to poem. Me, of tnese
Nor skill'd nor studious, higner argument
Remains, sufficient of itself to raise

That name, unless an age too late, or cold
Climate, or years, damp my intended wing

Depress'd, and much they may, if all be mine,
Not hers who brings it nightly to my ear.

The sun was sunk, and after him the star
Of Hesperus, whose office is to bring
Twilight upon the earth, short arbiter

"Twixt day and night; and now from end to end
Night's hemisphere had veil'd th' horizon round:
When Satan, who late fled before the threats
Of Gabriel out of Eden, now improv'd
In meditated fraud and malice, bent

50

55

60

:

On man's destruction, maugre what might hap
Of heavier on himself, fearless return'd.
By night he fled, and at midnight return'd
From compassing the earth, cautious of day,
Since Uriel, regent of the sun, descried
His entrance, and forewarn'd the cherubim
That kept their watch; thence, full of anguish driven,
The space of seven continued nights he rode
With darkness, thrice the equinoctial line
He circled, four times cross'd the car of night
From pole to pole, traversing each colure;
On th' eighth return'd, and on the coast, averse
From entrance or cherubic watch, by stealth
Found unsuspected way. There was a place,
Now not, though sin, not time, first wrought the

change,

Where Tigris at the foot of Paradise

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70

Into a gulf shot under ground, till part

Rose up a fountain by the tree of life:

In with the river sunk, and with it rose

Satan involv'd in rising mist, then sought

75

Where to lie hid; sea he had search'd, and land

From Eden over Pontus, and the pool

Mæotis, up beyond the river Ob;'

Downward as far antarctic; and in length

West from Orontes to the ocean barr'd

80

At Darien, thence to the land where flows

Ganges and Indus. Thus the orb he rcam'd

With narrow search, and with inspection deep

Consider'd every creature which of all

Most opportune might serve his wiles, and found 85 The serpent subtlest beast of all the field.

Him, after long debate, irresolute

Of thoughts revolv'd, his final sentence chose