Served by more noble than herself, attains

Her end without least motion, and receives,

As tribute, such a sumless journey brought

Of incorporeal speed, her warmth and light;

Speed, to describe whose swiftness number fails.”

So spake our sire, and by his countenance seemed

Entering on studious thoughts abstruse; which Eve

Perceiving, where she sat retired in sight,

With lowliness majestick from her seat,

And grace that won who saw to wish her stay,

Rose, and went forth among her fruits and flowers,

To visit how they prospered, bud and bloom,

Her nursery; they at her coming sprung,

And, touched by her fair tendance, gladlier grew.

Yet went she not, as not with such discourse

Delighted, or not capable her ear

Of what was high: such pleasure she reserved,

Adam relating, she sole auditress;

Her husband the relater she preferred

Before the Angel, and of him to ask

Chose rather; he, she knew, would intermix

Grateful digressions, and solve high dispute

With conjugal caresses: from his lip

Not words alone pleased her. O! when meet now

Such pairs, in love and mutual honour joined?

With Goddess-like demeanour forth she went,

Not unattended; for on her, as Queen,

A pomp of winning Graces waited still,

And from about her shot darts of desire

Into all eyes, to wish her still in sight.

And Raphael now, to Adam’s doubt proposed,

Benevolent and facile thus replied.

“To ask or search, I blame thee not; for Heaven

Is as the book of God before thee set,

Wherein to read his wonderous works, and learn

His seasons, hours, or days, or months, or years:

This to attain, whether Heaven move or Earth,

Imports not, if thou reckon right; the rest

From Man or Angel the great Architect

Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge

Rather admire; or, if they list to try

Conjecture, he his fabric of the Heavens

Hath left to their disputes, perhaps to move

His laughter at their quaint opinions wide

Hereafter; when they come to model Heaven

And calculate the stars, how they will wield

The mighty frame; how build, unbuild, contrive

To save appearances; how gird the sphere

With centric and eccentric scribbled o’er,

Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb:

Already by thy reasoning this I guess,

Who art to lead thy offspring, and supposest

That bodies bright and greater should not serve

The less not bright, nor Heaven such journeys run,

Earth sitting still, when she alone receives

The benefit: Consider first, that great

Or bright infers not excellence: the Earth

Though, in comparison of Heaven, so small,

Nor glistering, may of solid good contain

More plenty than the sun that barren shines;

Whose virtue on itself works no effect,

But in the fruitful Earth; there first received,

His beams, unactive else, their vigour find.

Yet not to Earth are those bright luminaries

Officious; but to thee, Earth’s habitant.

And for the Heaven’s wide circuit, let it speak

The Maker’s high magnificence, who built