The sequel each of parting and of fight:

The latter quick up flew, and kicked the beam,

Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the Fiend.

“Satan, I know thy strength, and thou knowest mine;

Neither our own, but given: What folly then

To boast what arms can do? since thine no more

Than Heaven permits, nor mine, though doubled now

To trample thee as mire: For proof look up,

And read thy lot in yon celestial sign;

Where thou art weighed, and shown how light, how weak,

If thou resist.” The Fiend looked up, and knew

His mounted scale aloft: Nor more; but fled

Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night.

BOOK V

Now Morn, her rosy steps in the eastern clime

Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl,

When Adam waked, so customed; for his sleep

Was aery-light, from pure digestion bred,

And temperate vapours bland, which the only sound

Of leaves and fuming rills, Aurora’s fan,

Lightly dispersed, and the shrill matin song

Of birds on every bough; so much the more

His wonder was to find unwakened Eve

With tresses discomposed, and glowing cheek,

As through unquiet rest: He, on his side

Leaning half raised, with looks of cordial love

Hung over her enamoured, and beheld

Beauty, which, whether waking or asleep,

Shot forth peculiar graces; then with voice

Mild, as when Zephyrus on Flora breathes,

Her hand soft touching, whispered thus. Awake,

My fairest, my espoused, my latest found,

Heaven’s last best gift, my ever new delight!

Awake: The morning shines, and the fresh field

Calls us; we lose the prime, to mark how spring

Our tender plants, how blows the citron grove,

What drops the myrrh, and what the balmy reed,

How nature paints her colours, how the bee

Sits on the bloom extracting liquid sweet.

Such whispering waked her, but with startled eye

On Adam, whom embracing, thus she spake.

“O sole in whom my thoughts find all repose,

My glory, my perfection! glad I see

Thy face, and morn returned; for I this night

(Such night till this I never passed) have dreamed,

If dreamed, not, as I oft am wont, of thee,

Works of day past, or morrow’s next design,

But of offence and trouble, which my mind

Knew never till this irksome night: Methought,

Close at mine ear one called me forth to walk

With gentle voice; I thought it thine: It said,

‘Why sleepest thou, Eve? now is the pleasant time,

The cool, the silent, save where silence yields

To the night-warbling bird, that now awake

Tunes sweetest his love-laboured song; now reigns

Full-orbed the moon, and with more pleasing light

Shadowy sets off the face of things; in vain,

If none regard; Heaven wakes with all his eyes,

Whom to behold but thee, Nature’s desire?

In whose sight all things joy, with ravishment

Attracted by thy beauty still to gaze.’

I rose as at thy call, but found thee not;

To find thee I directed then my walk;