May join us, equal joy, as equal love;

Lest, thou not tasting, different degree

Disjoin us, and I then too late renounce

Deity for thee, when Fate will not permit.”

Thus Eve with countenance blithe her story told;

But in her cheek distemper flushing glowed.

On the other side Adam, soon as he heard

The fatal trespass done by Eve, amazed,

Astonied stood and blank, while horror chill

Ran through his veins, and all his joints relaxed;

From his slack hand the garland wreathed for Eve

Down dropt, and all the faded roses shed:

Speechless he stood and pale, till thus at length

First to himself he inward silence broke.

“O fairest of Creation, last and best

Of all God’s works, Creature in whom excelled

Whatever can to sight or thought be formed,

Holy, divine, good, amiable, or sweet!

How art thou lost! how on a sudden lost,

Defaced, deflowered, 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 ruined; for with thee

Certain my resolution is to die:

How can I live without thee! how forego

Thy sweet converse, and love so dearly joined,

To live again in these wild woods forlorn!

Should God create another Eve, and I

Another rib afford, yet loss of thee

Would never from my heart: no, no! I feel

The link of Nature draw me: flesh of flesh,

Bone of my bone thou art, and from thy state

Mine never shall be parted, bliss or woe.”

So having said, as one from sad dismay

Recomforted, and after thoughts disturbed

Submitting to what seemed remediless,

Thus in calm mood his words to Eve he turned.

“Bold deed thou hast presumed, adventurous Eve,

And peril great provoked, who thus hast dared,

Had it been only coveting to eye

That sacred fruit, sacred to abstinence,

Much more to taste it under ban to touch.

But past who can recall, or done undo?

Not God Omnipotent, nor Fate; yet so

Perhaps thou shalt not die, perhaps the fact

Is not so heinous now, foretasted fruit,

Profaned first by the serpent, by him first

Made common, and unhallowed, ere our taste;

Nor yet on him found deadly; yet he lives;

Lives, as thou saidst, and gains to live, as Man,

Higher degree of life; inducement strong

To us, as likely tasting to attain

Proportional ascent; which cannot be

But to be Gods, or Angels, demi-Gods.

Nor can I think that God, Creator wise,

Though threatening, will in earnest so destroy

Us his prime creatures, dignified so high,

Set over all his works; which in our fall,

For us created, needs with us must fail,

Dependant made; so God shall uncreate,

Be frustrate, do, undo, and labour lose;

Not well conceived of God, who, though his power

Creation could repeat, yet would be loth

Us to abolish, lest the Adversary