Their tendance, or plantation for delight;
By fountain or by shady rivulet

He sought them both, but wish'd his hap might find

Eve separate; he wish'd, but not with hope
Of what so seldom chanced; when to his wish,
Beyond his hope, Eve separate he spies,
Veil'd in a cloud of fragrance, where she stood,
Half spied, so thick the roses blushing round
About her glow'd, oft stooping to support
Each flower of slender stalk, whose head, though

gay

Carnation, purple, azure, or speck'd with gold,
Hung drooping unsustain'd; them she upstays
Gently with myrtle band, mindless the while
Herself, though fairest unsupported flower,
From her best prop so far, and storm so nigh.
Nearer he drew and many a walk traversed
Of stateliest covert, cedar, pine, or palm;
Then voluble and bold, now hid, now seen,
Among thick-woven arborets, and flowers
Embroider'd on each bank, the hand of Eve:
Spot more delicious than those gardens feign'd
Or of revived Adonis, or renown'd

Alcinous, host of old Laertes' son;

Or that, not mystic, where the sapient king
Held dalliance with his fair Egyptian spouse.
Much he the place admired, the persons more.
As one who long in populous city spent,
Where houses thick and sewers annoy the air,
Forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe
Among the pleasant villages and farms

Adjoin'd, from each thing met conceives delight;
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine,
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound;
If chance, with nymphlike step, fair virgin pass,
What pleasing seem'd, for her now pleases more;
She most, and in her look sums all delight:
Such pleasure took the serpent to behold
This flowery plat, the sweet recess of Eve,
Thus early, thus alone: her heavenly form
Angelic, but more soft and feminine,
Her graceful innocence, her every air
Of gesture, or at least action, overawed
His malice, and with rapine sweet bereaved
His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought :
That space the evil one abstracted stood
From his own evil, and for the time remain'd
Stupidly good; of enmity disarm'd,

Of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge :
But the hot hell that always in him burns,
Though in mid heaven, soon ended his delight,
And tortures him now more, the more he sees
Of pleasure, not for him ordain'd: then soon
Fierce hate he recollects, and all his thoughts
Of mischief, gratulating, thus excites.

Thoughts, whither have ye led me! with what
sweet

Compulsion thus transported, to forget

What hither brought us! hate, not love; nor hope
Of Paradise for hell, hope here to taste

Of pleasure, but all pleasure to destroy,
Save what is in destroying; other joy
To me is lost. Then, let me not lest pass

Occasion which now smiles; behold alone
The woman, opportune to all attempts,

Her husband, for I view far round, not nigh,
Whose higher intellectual more I shun,

And strength, of courage haughty, and of limb
Heroic built, though of terrestrial mould;
Foe not informidable! exempt from wound,
I not; so much hath hell debased, and pain
Enfeebled me, to what I was in heaven.
She fair, divinely fair, fit love for gods!
Not terrible, though ter or be in love
And beauty, not approach'd by stronger hate,
Hate stronger, under show of love well teign'd;
The way which to her ruin now I tend.

So spake the enemy of mankind, enclosed In serpent inmate bad! and toward Eve Address'd his way; not with indented w ve, Prone on the ground, as since; but on his rear, Circular base of rising tolds, that tower'd Fold above fold, a surging maze! his head Crested aloft, and carbuncle his eyes; With burnish'd neck of verdent gold, erect Amidst his circling spires, that on the grass Floated redundant: pleasing was his shape And lovely; never since of serpent kind Lovelier, not those that in Illyria changed, Hermione and Cadmus, or the god In Epidaurus; nor to which transform'd Ammonian Jove, or Capitoline, was seen; He with Olympias; this with her who bore Scipio, the height of Rome. With tract oblique first, as one who sought access, but fear'd

To interrupt, sidelong he'works his way,
As when a ship by skilful steersmen wrought
Nigh river's mouth or foreland, where the wind
Veers oft, as oft so steers, and shifts her sail :
So varied he, and of his torturous train
Curl'd many a wanton wreath in sight of Eve,
To lure her eye; she, busied heard the sound
Of rustling leaves, but minded not, as used
To such disport before her through the field,
Erom every beast; more duteous at her call
Than at Circean call the herd disguised.
He, bolder now, uncall'd before her stood,
But as in gaze admiring: oft he bow'd
His turret crest, and sleek enamel neck,
Fawning; and lick'd the ground whereon she
trod.

His gentle dumb expression turn'd at length
The eye of Eve to mark his play: he, glad
Of her attention gain'd, with serpent tongue
Organic, or impulse of vocal air,

His fraudulent temptation thus began:

Wonder not, sov'reign mistress, if perhaps Thou canst, who art sole wonder! much less arm Thy looks, the heaven of mildness, with disdain, Displeased that I approach thee thus, and gaze Insatiate; I thus single; nor have fear'd Thy awful brow, more awful thus retired. Fairest resemblance of thy Maker fair. Thee all things living gaze on, all things thine By gift, and thy celestial beauty adore With ravishment beheld! there best beheld, Where universally admired; but here

In this enclosure wild, these beasts among,
Beholders rude, and shallow to discern

Half what in thee is fair, one man except,

Who sees thee? (and what is one?) who should be

seen

A goddess among gods, adored and served
By angels numberless, thy daily train.

So glozed the tempter, and his proem tuned :
Into the heart of Eve his words made way,
Though at the voice much marveling; at length
Not unamazed, she thus in answer spake :

What may this mean? language of man pronounced

By tongue of brute, and human sense express'd?
The first, at least, of these I thought denied
To beasts; whom God, on their creation-day,
Created mute to all articulate sound

The latter 1 demur; for in their looks
Much reason, and in their actions, oft appears.
The serpent, subtlest beast of all the field
I knew, but not with human voice endued;
Redouble then this miracle, and say,

How camest thou speakable of mute, and how
To me so friendly grown above the rest
Of brutal kind, that daily are in sight?
Say, for such wonder claims attention due.
To whom the guileful tempter thus replied:
Empress of this fair world, resplendent Eve!
Easy it is to me to tell thee all

What thou command'st; and right thou shouldst be obey'd:

I was at first as other beasts that graze