Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head

Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes;

With burnished neck of verdant gold, erect

Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass

Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape

And lovely; never since of serpent-kind

Lovelier, not those that in Illyria changed,

Hermione and Cadmus, or the god

In Epidaurus; nor to which transformed

Ammonian Jove, or Capitoline, was seen;

He with Olympias; this with her who bore

Scipio, the hight of Rome. With tract oblique

At first, as one who sought access, but feared

To interrupt, side-long 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 tortuous train

Curled many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve,

To lure her eye; she, busied, heard the sound

Of rusling 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, uncalled before her stood,

But as in gaze admiring: oft he bowed

His turret crest, and sleek enamelled neck,

Fawning; and licked the ground whereon she trod.

His gentle dumb expression turned at length

The eye of Eve to mark his play; he, glad

Of her attention gained, with serpent-tongue

Organick, or impulse of vocal air,

His fraudulent temptation thus began.

“Wonder not, sovran 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; I thus single; nor have feared

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

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 marvelling; at length,

Not unamazed, she thus in answer spake.

“What may this mean? language of man pronounced

By tongue of brute, and human sense expressed?

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.

Thee, 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