Girt with the river Triton, where old Cham,
Whom Gentiles Ammon call and Libyan Jove,
Hid Amalthea and her florid son,

Young Bacchus, from his stepdame Rhea's eye;
Nor where Abassin kings their issue guard,
Mount Amara (though this by some supposed
True Paradise), under the Ethiop line

By Nilus' head, enclosed with shining rock,
A whole day's journey high, but wide remote
From this Assyrian garden, where the Fiend
Saw, undelighted, all delight, all kind

Of living creatures, new to sight and strange.
Two of far nobler shape, erect and tall,
Godlike erect, with native honour clad,
In naked majesty seemed lords of all,

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And worthy seemed; for in their looks divine
The image of their glorious Maker shone—
Truth, wisdom, sanctitude severe and pure
(Severe, but in true filial freedom plac't),
Whence true autoritie in men; though both
Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed:
For contemplation he and valour formed;
For softness she and sweet attractive grace;
He for God only; she for God in him;
His fair large front and eye sublime declared
Absolute rule, and hyacinthine locks

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Round from his parted forelock manly hung

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Clust'ring but not beneath his shoulders broad;

She, as a veil, down to the slender waist

Her unadorned golden tresses wore
Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved,

As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied
Subjection, but required with gentle sway,
And by her yielded, by him best received
Yielded, with coy submission, modest pride,
And sweet, reluctant, amorous delay.

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Now came still Ev'ning on, and Twilight gray

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Had in her sober livery all things clad.

Silence accompanied; for beast and bird,

They to their grassy couch, these to their nests,

Were slunk: all but the wakeful nightingale;
She all night long her amorous descant sung;
Silence was pleased. Now glowed the firmament
With living sapphires: Hesperus, that led
The starry host, rode brightest, till the Moon,
Rising in clouded majesty, at length

Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light,
And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw.
When Adam thus to Eve: "Fair consort, th' hour
Of night, and all things now retired to rest,
Mind us of like repose; since God hath set
Labour and rest, as day and night, to men
Successive, and the timely dew of sleep,

Now falling with soft slumbrous weight, inclines
Our eyelids. Other creatures all day long
Rove idle, unemployed, and less need rest:
Man hath his daily work of body or mind
Appointed, which declares his dignity
And the regard of Heav'n on all his ways,
While other animals unactive range
And of their doings God takes no account.
To-morrow, ere fresh morning streak the east
With first approach of light, we must be ris'n
And at our pleasant labour, to reform

Yon flow'ry arbours, yonder alleys green,

Our walk at noon, with branches overgrown,

That mock our scant manuring and require

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More hands than ours to lop their wanton growth.
Those blossoms also and those dropping gums,
That lie bestrewn unsightly and unsmooth,
Ask riddance if we mean to tread with ease.
Meanwhile, as nature wills, night bids us rest."
To whom thus Eve, with perfect beauty adorned:
"My author and disposer, what thou bidd'st
Unargued I obey: so God ordains.

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God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise.
With thee conversing, I forget all time,

All seasons and their change; all please alike.
Sweet is the breath of Morn, her rising sweet,
With charm of earliest birds; pleasant the Sun

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When first on this delightful land he spreads
His orient beams, on herb, tree, fruit, and flow'r,
Glist'ring with dew; fragrant the fertile Earth
After soft showers; and sweet the coming on
Of grateful Ev'ning mild; then silent Night,
With this her solemn bird, and this fair moon,
And these the gems of heav'n, her starry train.
But neither breath of Morn, when she ascends
With charm of earliest birds, nor rising Sun
On this delightful land, nor herb, fruit, flow'r,
Glist'ring with dew, nor fragrance after showers,
Nor grateful Evening mild, nor silent Night,
With this her solemn bird, nor walk by moon
Or glittering star-light, without thee is sweet."
1658-65.

1667.

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FROM

PARADISE REGAINED

To whom the Fiend, with fear abasht, replied:
"Be not so sore offended, Son of God-
Though Sons of God both angels are and men,-
If I, to try whether in higher sort

Than these thou bear'st that title, have proposed
What both from men and angels I receive,
Tetrarchs of fire, air, flood, and on the earth,
Nations besides from all the quartered winds-
God of this world invok't, and world beneath.
Who, then, thou art, whose coming is foretold
To me most fatal, me it most concerns.
The trial hath indamaged thee no way,
Rather more honour left and more esteem;
Me naught advantaged, missing what I aimed.
Therefore let pass, as they are transitory,
The kingdoms of this world: I shall no more
Advise thee; gain them as thou canst, or not.
And thou thyself seem'st otherwise inclined

5

ΙΟ

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Than to a worldly crown, addicted more

To contemplation and profound dispute;
As by that early action may be judged,

When, slipping from thy mother's eye, thou went'st

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Alone into the Temple, there wast found
Among the gravest Rabbies, disputant

On points and questions fitting Moses' chair,
Teaching, not taught. The childhood shows the man,

As morning shows the day. Be famous, then,
By wisdom: as thy empire must extend,
So let extend thy mind o'er all the world
In knowledge; all things in it comprehend.
All knowledge is not coucht in Moses' law,
The Pentateuch, or what the Prophets wrote:
The Gentiles also know, and write, and teach,
To admiration, led by Nature's light;
And with the Gentiles much thou must converse,
Ruling them by persuasion, as thon mean'st.
Without their learning, how wilt thou with them,
Or they with thee, hold conversation meet?
How wilt thou reason with them, how refute
Their idolisms, traditions, paradoxes?

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Error by his own arms is best evinc't.

Look once more, ere we leave this specular mount,

Westward, much nearer by south-west; behold

Where on the Ægæan shore a city stands,

Built nobly, pure the air and light the soil—

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Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts

And eloquence, native to famous wits

Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,

City or suburban, studious walks and shades.
See there the olive-grove of Academe,

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Plato's retirement, where the Attic bird

Trills her thick-warbled notes the summer long;

There, flow'ry hill, Hymettus, with the sound

By voice or hand, and various-measured verse,
Eolian charms and Dorian lyric odes;

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330

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And his who gave them breath but higher sung,
Blind Melesigenes, thence Homer called,
Whose poem Phoebus challenged for his own.
Thence what the lofty grave tragedians taught
In chorus or iambic, teachers best

Of moral prudence, with delight received
In brief sententious precepts, while they treat
Of fate and chance and change in human life,
High actions and high passions best describing.
Thence to the famous orators repair,
Those ancient whose resistless eloquence
Wielded at will that fierce democraty,

Shook the Arsenal, and fulmined over Greece

To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne.
To sage Philosophy next lend thine ear,

From heaven descended to the low-rooft house
Of Socrates-see there his tenement-
Whom, well inspired, the oracle pronounced
Wisest of men; from whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams, that watered all the schools
Of Academics old and new, with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe.

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These here revolve, or, as thou likest, at home,
Till time mature thee to a kingdom's weight;
These rules will render thee a king complete
Within thyself, much more with empire joined."

To whom our Saviour sagely thus replied:
"Think not but that I know these things; or, think
I know them not, not therefore am I short
Of knowing what I ought: he who receives
Light from above, from the Fountain of Light,
No other doctrine needs, though granted true.
But these are false, or little else but dreams,
Conjectures, fancies, built on nothing firm.
The first and wisest of them all professed
To know this only, that he nothing knew:

The next to fabling fell, and smooth conceits:

A third sort doubted all things, though plain sense.
Others in virtue placed felicity,

But virtue joined with riches and long life:

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