Of malice be forgot. In Eden's bound

Hath God two trees, of Life and Knowledge, placed. The first, of faith symbolic, he permits

Adam to eat; the other he denies,

Lest eating, he grow wise in that sad lore,
Knowledge of good and ill, and good by ill,
Which we have proved full bitter, for with this
Is death inseparably linked. E'en here
The broad Euphrates flows, and on his banks
This fair and notable tree, with leafy hair
Splintering the purple day-beam. On each branch
The odorous and spirit-tempting fruit

Hangs lusciously: the colour, burnished gold,
Raptures the eye, and wakes refined desire
To taste the inviting store voluptuously.
But God forbids to touch, much more to pluck,
The delicate banquet; and his fixed command
Hath ratified by penalties of death.

As yet this man is innocent, unshamed
By aught of vice; he walks the middle track
Of virtue: yet in vain self-confidence,
Whene'er he lists, may turn to each extreme.
When Satan blows the wind, shall it not bend
This strained freewill, so boasted, yet so frail?
On this I build my hope; for on this warped,
This weak, this blind, this hoodwinked side of man,
Will I begin the assault. Here I obtest
Thee, my presiding genius. All thy powers
Of infinite invention, and each art,
Graceful to cheat, and flattering to destroy ;-
If man's temptation-proof, not so his spouse.
Him I'll befool by her; for lighter far
Her soul, and more fantastic, sound command
Prone to forget, and mischief apt to learn,
And variable as fancy. Much she longs
Herself to indulge, and in o'erweening hope,
Preoccupies high things; and most she loves
All gifts denied her: all habitual goods
With her grow stale, and pall upon her sense;
While with preposterous curiosity

She probes the unknown, and doats upon the strange.
Already sick of permanent bliss, and tired

Of blest repose, her rash inconstancy,
Her hot ambition, and the unmatchable hue
Of these mysterious and most magical fruits-
All, all are in my favour: and without
These friendly adjuncts, could I else but win
The Devil 'gainst the Woman, shrewd enough
Without my aid to cull the flowers of sin.
But will she hear me, one whom she esteems

So ugly, spiteful, horrible, and black;
Or lend the amicable womanly ear

To her foul foe? Nay, in my righteous soul
I must dissimulate hatred, I must cloak
The goblin to the heel; for he who cheats
Too openly, doth aid the antagonist most,
And wrong himself much more. He ne'er can give
Malice fair play, who doth not malice hide.
'Tis easy love to feign; and she who takes
Feigned love for true, doth lie to her own soul.
Too credulous hope is but self-mockery;
But if quite firm in goodness, if self-will
For once befriends her, and her placable ear
Is obstinately denied me, in new forms,
New shows of blandishment, will I succeed.
No
eye of mortal can the subtle fiend

So finely masked discern, no hand detect
The inscrutable demon. Such a form I'll try,
Form without substance, a pure phantasm only
Of plausible beauty; for if ghostly thing
Doth dress itself in body, and assume
Aught of material lineament, at once
The imposture shall be proved. I will avoid
This marplot of ambition, and connect
My diabolical mind with that lapsed soul
Of undiscoverable craft which fills

Sweet words

The serpent and his sons. And thus unknown,
My lubricating snakeship will I wind
Cunningly onward, and, observing all,
Traverse this haunted garden, self-involved,
In mazy complications. I can coil,
And turn, and turn, and go straight on.
Must hang upon my triple-forked tongue,
From which the honied prodigality
Of guile, into her ear distilling, shall
So metamorphose her, she shall become
All appetite to taste, all hand to pluck
The golden ruin. Wherefore more delay ?
This very day, this hated man shall like
A god o'errule me, or a beast subserve.

Chorus of Angels.

They who from the etherial height
Of heaven, audaciously despise
Those beings of a lowlier flight,
Who dwell beneath more dusky skies,
Beware; beware, ye proud ones, lest
Like one our pure lips never name;
Ye learn how sweet the immortal rest
Only by contrast with the pain

Happy they

Who like the unfallen angels dwell,
And celebrate their Deity,

With voice of music's choral swell,
From Heaven's empyreal citadel

Where God is light. Whose truth and love
Are sun and moon; whose genial rays
Send rapture thro' all hearts above,-
The voiceless joy,-the sweet amaze.
But he, alas! how sad the dream
Of our fallen brother, outcast, lost;
Who glides on the portentous gleam
Of bursting meteors, shattered, crost;
Whose wild, oblique, and quivering course
Rocks the firm poles, and hurrying by,
With passion-winged remorseless force
Scares the bright armies of the sky,
Dancing perpetual jubilee.

And now he goes, in all his power
Of blasted treachery, to abuse
That human race, which to this hour
Is holy, just. Will these refuse
The fair seduction? Will they stand?
Or, like our lapsed and exiled foes,
Sink from the glory and command
Of virtue, to the accursed woes

Which crush the apostate and the damned?

ACT II.

Adam. The day arises, and the trooping shades
Of night are scattered. Lo, the orient sun,
With golden frontlet, glitters o'er the hills,
And all the stars hide their diminished heads.
O how immense is He, who steadfast, fixed
With his unseen and thunder-grasping hand,
Rolls the celestial axle, and its poles,
Whereon the multitudinous universe
Of gorgeous constellations still revolves,
Most musically eloquent! They praise
The law of Him the omnipotent, and weave
Eternal harmonies of mind and thought,
Nature, and time, and season.
Like a hymn
Of visible worship, doth their choral pomp
Spell-bind the soul. It is the heart's own voice,
Heard by the heart alone, while in the ear
Silence is tranced with mystery. Still, methinks,
The immeasurable armament of stars,

This host of heaven, with wordless melodies sweet,
Solicit man's devotion, and awake

Ambition more divine-the emulous thirst

Of fame, like theirs the immortals, which indeed
Might have been ours, or yet perchance may be.

Angel. O happy those, in whom the image of God
Ingrafted in the heart, daily expands
Its boundless aspirations; on whom faith
And holiest veneration, and no less
The metaphysical intellect and discourse
Of reason have been lavished!

Dost thou see,

Father of men, how vastly thou excellest

All thy terrestrial subjects? Thou hast mind,
The imperishable luxury of gods,

Thou immortality of hope. Behold

Thy gifts of conscience, reason, active power

Of self-producing, self-combining all

Innate ideas of intellectual truth,

Intelligible abstract principles,

Illimitably applicable. These,

With minds in matter more involved, show forth
Much less of moral instinct; oft the sport

Of passive and particular phantasies,
Which to combine they know not, nor apply
To more than small experience doth enforce,
Or smaller wants solicit. So much they
Beneath thy scope have lapsed, and been ordained
Thy servants, their free service usefully

To employ, tho' of abuse responsible.

Adam. Blessed be God! the eternal God and Sire
Of gods and men. His omnipresence fills
All minds, all bodies; no beginning, he
No end doth know; no equal, in all else
The self-omniscient. Unto him no form
But light, and but infinitude no place;
God's life, it is eternity; his end
His proper possibility. All hail!
Paternal and imperishable God!

One, only One, thou dwellest, yet dost contain
In unity, triplicity of minds,

Powers, and relations. O majestic Fount
Of Goodness! Origin of vital Truth!
Thy divine Son and Wisdom, unto whom
Wishes are works. He, whatsoever ill
With wings of gloom o'ercasts the unwary soul,
Dispels; and with the ever genial spirit of love,
Doth soothe all sorrows, and all sins forgive.

Angel. Well hast thou spoken, O Adam! God in thee
His image hath infused, and therewithal
Divinest truths which teach thee what he is;
Him know we but in part-Himself alone
Himself throughout discerns-the which he views,
And viewing doth admire; enjoys all good
Which creatures share in fragments of delight.
Yes, God is supreme Mind, the Spirit that fills
The universe, impregnates and informs;

He is the Truth; all truth he therefore knows.
All good is He; He is the cause of good,
Which like an emanation doth proceed
From its unfathomable source. We stand
Nearest to Him, his chosen ministers,
Cherub and seraph, archangelic powers,
Who work His will; but in His holy sight
Heaven is not pure, and we with folly charged,

Blush, and with veiling wings our brows o'ershade;
O how remorsefully; and far removed

From that most incommunicable fire,

Which, Iris-like, involves the unconquered throne.
Such are his ministers, and such are yours,

For he doth send us to you, to protect

Your worship and your innocence; and thus

We pass 'twixt heaven and earth, 'twixt earth and heaven,
Viewless and momently. Yet not the less

Pure indivisible minds, which though indeed

Not gifted with ubiquity, are here

And there, as instantaneously as light.

Adam, how boundless our felicity,

Thou may'st conceive, may'st feel. Still be it ours
To will even as God wills, and urgently

N. S.-VOL II.

3 D