To whom thus Eve with sad demeanour meek.

“Ill-worthy I such title should belong

To me transgressour; who, for thee ordained

A help, became thy snare; to me reproach

Rather belongs, distrust, and all dispraise:

But infinite in pardon was my Judge,

That I, who first brought death on all, am graced

The source of life; next favourable thou,

Who highly thus to entitle me vouchsaf’st,

Far other name deserving. But the field

To labour calls us, now with sweat imposed,

Though after sleepless night; for see! the morn,

All unconcerned with our unrest, begins

Her rosy progress smiling: let us forth;

I never from thy side henceforth to stray,

Where’er our day’s work lies, though now enjoined

Laborious, till day droop; while here we dwell,

What can be toilsome in these pleasant walks?

Here let us live, though in fallen state, content.”

So spake, so wished much humbled Eve; but Fate

Subscribed not: Nature first gave signs, impressed

On bird, beast, air; air suddenly eclipsed,

After short blush of morn; nigh in her sight

The bird of Jove, stooped from his aery tour,

Two birds of gayest plume before him drove;

Down from a hill the beast that reigns in woods,

First hunter then, pursued a gentle brace,

Goodliest of all the forest, hart and hind;

Direct to the eastern gate was bent their flight.

Adam observed, and with his eye the chase

Pursuing, not unmoved, to Eve thus spake.

“O Eve, some further change awaits us nigh,

Which Heaven, by these mute signs in Nature, shows

Forerunners of his purpose; or to warn

Us, haply too secure, of our discharge

From penalty, because from death released

Some days: how long, and what till then our life,

Who knows? or more than this, that we are dust,

And thither must return, and be no more?

Why else this double object in our sight

Of flight pursued in the air, and o’er the ground,

One way the self-same hour? why in the east

Darkness ere day’s mid-course, and morning-light

More orient in yon western cloud, that draws

O’er the blue firmament a radiant white,

And slow descends with something heavenly fraught?”

He erred not; for by this the heavenly bands

Down from a sky of jasper lighted now

In Paradise, and on a hill made halt;

A glorious apparition, had not doubt

And carnal fear that day dimmed Adam’s eye.

Not that more glorious, when the Angels met

Jacob in Mahanaim, where he saw

The field pavilioned with his guardians bright;

Nor that, which on the flaming mount appeared

In Dothan, covered with a camp of fire,

Against the Syrian king, who to surprise

One man, assassin-like, had levied war,

War unproclaimed. The princely Hierarch

In their bright stand there left his Powers, to seise

Possession of the garden; he alone,

To find where Adam sheltered, took his way,

Not unperceived of Adam; who to Eve,

While the great visitant approached, thus spake.