Henceforth of God or Angel, erst with joy

And rapture so oft beheld? Those heavenly shapes

Will dazzle now this earthly with their blaze

Insufferably bright. O! might I here

In solitude live savage; in some glade

Obscured, where highest woods, impenetrable

To star or sun-light, spread their umbrage broad

And brown as evening: Cover me, ye Pines!

Ye Cedars, with innumerable boughs

Hide me, where I may never see them more!—

But let us now, as in bad plight, devise

What best may for the present serve to hide

The parts of each from other, that seem most

To shame obnoxious, and unseemliest seen;

Some tree, whose broad smooth leaves together sewed,

And girded on our loins, may cover round

Those middle parts; that this new comer, Shame,

There sit not, and reproach us as unclean.”

So counselled he, and both together went

Into the thickest wood; there soon they chose

The fig-tree; not that kind for fruit renowned,

But such as at this day, to Indians known,

In Malabar or Decan spreads her arms

Branching so broad and long, that in the ground

The bended twigs take root, and daughters grow

About the mother tree, a pillared shade

High over-arched, and echoing walks between:

There oft the Indian herdsman, shunning heat,

Shelters in cool, and tends his pasturing herds

At loop-holes cut through thickest shade: Those leaves

They gathered, broad as Amazonian targe;

And, with what skill they had, together sewed,

To gird their waist; vain covering, if to hide

Their guilt and dreaded shame! O, how unlike

To that first naked glory! Such of late

Columbus found the American, so girt

With feathered cincture; naked else, and wild

Among the trees on isles and woody shores.

Thus fenced, and, as they thought, their shame in part

Covered, but not at rest or ease of mind,

They sat them down to weep; nor only tears

Rained at their eyes, but high winds worse within

Began to rise, high passions, anger, hate,

Mistrust, suspicion, discord; and shook sore

Their inward state of mind, calm region once

And full of peace, now tost and turbulent:

For Understanding ruled not, and the Will

Heard not her lore; both in subjection now

To sensual Appetite, who from beneath

Usurping over sovran Reason claimed

Superior sway: From thus distempered breast,

Adam, estranged in look and altered style,

Speech intermitted thus to Eve renewed.

“Would thou hadst hearkened to my words, and staid

With me, as I besought thee, when that strange

Desire of wandering, this unhappy morn,

I know not whence possessed thee; we had then

Remained still happy; not, as now, despoiled

Of all our good; shamed, naked, miserable!

Let none henceforth seek needless cause to approve

The faith they owe; when earnestly they seek

Such proof, conclude, they then begin to fail.”

To whom, soon moved with touch of blame, thus Eve.

“What words have passed thy lips, Adam severe!

Imputest thou that to my default, or will